An Essex landowner has been given an eight-month jail term (suspended for two years), ordered to pay £35,000 and will be required to carry out 180 hours unpaid work after being found guilty of running an illegal waste site.

The Environment Agency (EA) yesterday (30 January) announced that Roger Frederick Phipps of Michelins Farm, Rayleigh, was found in breach of two planning enforcement notices issued in 2002, and has been fined £15,000 accordingly.

Chelmsford Crown Court heard that the site in question, Michelins Farm, located on green belt land within a Landscape Improvement Area, was operational between April 2008 and 2011 and ‘did not have a waste permit nor planning permission’.

The court heard that during this time, Phipps was handed two separate enforcement notices requiring the removal of tyres, vehicles, waste and caravans and a lorry back and three mobile buildings. To date only the buildings have been removed.

Phipps has now been ordered to clear the site in four stages by 30 January 2014 and pay prosecution costs totalling £20,000.

Burning Issue

According to Mark Watson, prosecuting for the Environment Agency and Rochford District Council, Essex County Fire Service attended 35 fires at Michelins Farm between December 2009 and June 2010.

The fires, fuelled by plastics, tyres, building materials and cylinders, were reported to have taken place ‘mostly at night’ and produced thick black smoke which raised concerns within the fire service for the wellbeing of ‘adjoining highways, railways and power supplies’.

‘Covert surveillance’ carried out by EA officers in May 2010 found that lorries had been delivering waste to the site for burning and in June 2010, EA officers accompanied the police to the farm following reports that a ‘large fire with a plume of black smoke’ was visible from the A127.

Watson said: “There was evidence that scrap metal had been removed from the fires and that other waste had been burned in breach of both environmental and planning rules.”

According to Watson, Phipps was arrested and questioned on 3 June 2010 and further interviewed on 19 July 2010 but ‘offered no comment to questions’. Despite this and ‘several letters from the council’, the court heard, the site was still operational ‘six months later’.

Following the hearing, EA officer, Kelly Short, said: “Significant amounts of waste were taken onto site, stored, sorted and burned. The smoke caused a nuisance and in some cases could have harmed people’s health.

“Phipps knew he needed a permit to run the site but ignored our advice for years.

“We continue to work closely with Rochford District Council to stop this site operating illegally.”

Passing Sentence

Describing Phipps as ‘a cantankerous individual’ with ‘an entrenched position’, Judge David Turner QC said he has failed to accept the situation and in doing so had ‘flouted environmental and planning law to a significant degree and for a considerable time’.

Though Turner accepted that Phipps is an old age pensioner with a meagre income, he said that the site had a ‘reasonably significant value’ and that he could raise the money to pay the fine and costs by selling it.

Portfolio Holder for Planning and Transportation for Rochford District Council, Councillor Keith Hudson, added: “Whilst the council sees legal action as a last resort it will not stand for any breaches of planning regulations.

“Mr Phipps continued to ignore the planning enforcement notices issued which led to the joint prosecution between Rochford District Council and the Environment Agency.

“We have demonstrated by the action that we have taken that Rochford District Council will defend the rights of all our residents to be able to enjoy their homes and the district in which they live.

“I believe that the result of this prosecution sends a clear and concise message that this Council will do all that is necessary to ensure the continuing peace and happiness of our residents by putting a stop to the inappropriate actions of a small minority of people who ignore the laws the land.”

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