Holford Contracts boss fined for food waste burial
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roger.brown@rbi.co.uk THE BOSS OF collapsed Staffordshire haulier Holford Contracts has been ordered to pay £32,000, after admitting the irm buried hundreds of tonnes of food waste at its premises.
In a prosecution brought by the Environment Agency (EA) at Stafford Magistrates’ Court, Stuart Holford, CEO of the irm – which entered liquidation in November 2009 – pleaded guilty to two offences of keeping and depositing waste at the company’s premises at Grindley House Farm, in Stowe by Chartley, under the Environmental Protection Act 1990.
He was ined a total of £18,000 and ordered to pay £14,000 in costs. In October 2007 Holford Contracts was paid to dispose of 364 tonnes of food waste by a customer who believed this would be deposited at an authorised landill site. The court was told that in March 2008 witnesses saw Holford workers Graham Robinson and Steven Birch burying the waste foodstuffs in a large pit they had dug at the farm.
In November 2008, EA oficers visited the facility – which had no waste management licence – and told the company they intend ed to excavate the area.
The excavation unearthed large quantities of packaged, tinned and bottled foodstuffs.
Oficers discovered a great deal of putrefying liquid and food waste as substances had leaked from damaged packages and had been underground for approximately eight months by that stage.
During the three-day trial, Robinson and Birch both pleaded not guilty, but each was convicted of one offence of disposing of controlled waste by burying the waste at the Grindley House Farm site.
Birch was ined £600 and ordered to pay £300 in costs, while Robinson was ined £1,200 and ordered to pay £300 in costs.