Load was contaminated
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• Overloading a vehicle with contaminated soil, and allowing it to be driven by an unlicensed driver, cost Edwards Excavations of Elland £500.
Traffic examiner Duncan Pimblott told Rochdale magistrates that when the 30-tonne tipper was stopped in a check at the Thornham Island dynamic axle weighbridge it was found to be overloaded by 1,820kg (5.9%).
Enquiries revealed that the driver, Christopher James Lumb, did not hold an LGV driving licence. The load was unsheeted and Pimblott only discovered that soil was contam was contam
inated when The driver did not hold the company an LGV driving licence
was advised that the vehicle had been prohibited. He was then told that the vehicle was carrying anthrax and contacted the police, the Health and Safety Executive and the Waste Regulation Authority. There had been an investigation hut he did not know the outcome.
Director Martin Ashworth said the soil was contaminated with heavy metals, including arsenic and lead. It was on a prescribed route known to the police and should have remained on that route.
Questioned by John Heaton, prosecuting for the Department of Transport, Ashworth did not dispute the weights found at Thornham Island but could not understand how they had come about. All the vehicles leaving the site where the soil was loaded were weighed and checked by Alfred McAlpine Budge. He had unsuccessfully tried to obtain records of the weighing of the vehicle from McAlpine.
The vehicles were loaded out of cofferdams and, because the soil was contaminated, the drivers had to stay in their cabs; the vehicle should have been sheeted up.
Asked about the licence allegation, Ashworth said Lumb had told the company that he had just passed his LGV driving test and that his licence had been sent to Swansea. Ashworth was sure that the manager who had dealt with those matters must have been shown a pass certificate: he could not understand how the company had been tricked.
The magistrates fined the company £250 for the overload and £100 for employing an unlicensed driver, with £150 costs.