Last July we informed residents that the owner of Michelins Farm had been jailed for not removing waste from the site. We quoted this report from the District Council Website, its worth quoting again now:
Date:Friday, 11 July 2014
Land owner Roger Frederick Phipps, aged 72, has today (Fri 11 Jul) been sent to prison for six months.
Chelmsford Crown Court activated part of a suspended sentence given in January last year for a waste offence after he was convicted of breaching advertisement regulations; alongside his continued breaches of planning and environmental laws.
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Phipps was sentenced in 2013 to eight months imprisonment and ordered to carry out 180 hours unpaid work for allowing an illegal waste site to be run on his farm for years. He was also fined ?15,000 for breaching three planning enforcement notices and the Environment Agency and Council were jointly awarded ?20,000 in costs.The prison sentence was suspended for two years.
Since then, the court heard, he has carried out the unpaid work but has yet to pay the court costs and fines. He has failed to remove the majority of the waste from the farm by 30 June 2014, and has continued to display advertisements without consent on his land.
Michelins Farm, Rayleigh, did not have a waste permit nor planning permission to operate the site for waste purposes and it was run without an environmental permit from April 2008-11. The farm is on green belt land and is within a Landscape Improvement Area.
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Site visits undertaken by the Council and the Environment Agency had observed plastics, tyres, building materials, cylinders, and plastic piping and these were seen in 35 fires that the fire service had to attend in 2010-2011.Environment Agency officers carried out covert surveillance in May 2010 and saw lorries taking waste into the site and at the same time saw smoke regularly coming from the farm. Aerial photos taken by Council officers also demonstrated to the Court the full scale of the damage being caused by Mr Phipps.
Judge David Turner said Phipps had been given by the Court, the Environment Agency and the Council every opportunity to comply with the law and had not done so.
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The Leader of Rochford District Council, Councillor Terry Cutmore said: ?It is clear that Mr Phipps? breach of the advertisement regulations was yet another example of his fragrant and deliberate disregard for the law. Mr Phipps has continued to breach planning regulations despite previously receiving a suspended sentence for similar offences, and it is right that the Court has taken this into account in giving Mr Phipps a 6 month prison sentence. Whilst the council sees legal action as a last resort it will not stand for any inappropriate actions from people who choose to ignore planning laws?.?It is clear that Mr Phipps? breach of the advertisement regulations was yet another example of his fragrant and deliberate disregard for the law. Mr Phipps has continued to breach planning regulations despite previously receiving a suspended sentence for similar offences, and it is right that the Court has taken this into account in giving Mr Phipps a 6 month prison sentence. Whilst the council sees legal action as a last resort it will not stand for any inappropriate actions from people who choose to ignore planning laws?.
After all the strong words from the council last summer, and the previous history of fires, perhaps residents could have expected a bit more action since then…
Shut him down! Sell his land to pay for court costs, waste of firefighters/police/local council time, hazardous waste clearance, site clearance, pollution etc and ensure the land returns to greenbelt. Then put him in prison again….for longer! Until this land is deemed safe, it should not be used for anything but the local wildlife!
FIRE AT MICHELINS FARM – WAS ROCHFORD DISTRICT COUNCIL TO BLAME FOR NOT CLEARING THE SITE?
Some extracts from the Echo today…………….
“A spokesman for the Environment Agency said Phipps had paid its costs,and that now it was no longer responsible for enforcing the site clearance, it was not aware of any activity on site.”
She added:“ The order to clear the site is at the discretion of the court to deal with non-compliance.
“After the court hearing last July, we agreed with Rochford Council that a compulsory purchase of the land by the council was appropriate, rather than further enforcement action.”
A Rochford Council spokesman said it still regarded Phipps as in breach of planning regulations, and was “exploring various options” with its partners.
Asked why no action had been taken to clear the land, she added: “It would require professional expertise because of the contaminated nature of the land. Any such action would have been at a significant cost to the taxpayer, and it is unlikely that this could have been recovered. Therefore, other options have been considered”.
Seems this bit of land is “Toxic” , but RDC will sort it out with a Heavy Ind Estate and Travellers Site they have planned for it – Cllr’s Hudson & Ward on Look East last night.
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A report in the Echo states that Phipps is the previous owner and that it was sold on last year!
John at #2 – I think it is very clear that RDC have manipulated the situation ( ie: continuous bad performance by the owner ) in order to line up this site ( on the
furthest point West of the district) to meet their Core Plan obligations.
And if nothing else the recent Fire disruption to traffic illustrates what a bad location this is for heavy/ busy activity ( Heavy Ind Estate / Travellers Site / Recycling Depot?),
can you imagine the continual access & egress issues created by site traffic!!!!!.
So yes , their scheming has let this to fester for far too long , Cllr Hudson was on the TV boasting that all the costs involved would be covered by selling the site for the Industrial use. According to an interview on BBC Essex Radio today ( with the EA )
a river pollution incident was only narrowly averted in fighting the fire – fire water run off heading for the Crouch apparently, so not as clever as they thought they were.
Water pollution has happened though Jim. When I went for a walk yesterday I stopped for a chat with a lady from the environment agency taking water samples from the brook and she told me there is ammonia pollution from the run off and they will be checking all the brooks and streams downstream from the fire for several days to see how polluted they are and how far it spreads.
Question for Chris black and Ron Oatham
We’re you aware of the agreement between RDC and the EA that RDC would proceed with a CPO on this site, and the subsequent failure to do so
Seems that this was not made known to other councillors
I was quoting what was said on the Radio ( outcome could have been a lot worse type of summary ) , so yes a degree of contamination in the run off , which is being monitored.
But, as tonight’s new heading thread says , it is nothing to do with inaction by RDC????
Richard @ 7 : I was not aware. Perhaps the ward councillors were. (this is in Wheatley Ward)