Porthmadog Skip Hire has been ordered to stop accepting waste at its site in north Wales until it can comply with the conditions of its environmental permit.
Natural Resources Wales (NRW) issued the skip hire company with a legal suspension notice last year, requiring it to cease accepting wood or degradable waste at its site on Penamser Industrial Estate, Porthmadog, until it reduced the amount of waste being held there.
Under the terms of the company’s environmental permit, it can hold up to 5,000 tonnes of waste per year on the site, but this must be stored in ‘appropriate areas’. However, NRW estimated that there was approximately 7,800 tonnes of waste at the industrial estate – some of which was being stored inappropriately – which breached the company’s legal allowance and potentially posed a risk to human health and the environment, due to increased fire risk.
The company appealed against the suspension notice last autumn, but the Planning Inspectorate has now upheld NRW’s notice, meaning that the company cannot accept any more wood or degradable waste at the site until it complies with the conditions of its environmental permit.
David Powell, Operations Manager for Natural Resources Wales, commented: “The decision to stop wood and degradable waste being brought on to the site is a last resort, but there is a risk to people in Porthmadog and the surrounding environment.
“Waste sites have a permit setting out rules which they have to follow so they don’t pose a risk to the environment and local people.
“We gave the company every opportunity to comply with the conditions in their permit, but they have not done this.”
Geraint Hughes, County Safety Manager at North Wales Fire and Rescue Service, added: “Situations such as this present a significantly increased risk of fire. It is our duty to protect the public against such risks and work collaboratively to address them.
“A fire at this premises could potentially tie up our resources for a considerable length of time, put the lives of our firefighters and of the public at risk, as well as cause irreversible damage to the environment.
“Of great concern to us in this particular case is the potential for such a fire to spread to neighbouring properties – and this is a risk that we simply cannot ignore.”
Find out more about environmental permitting.
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