Environment Agency thwarted
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• Magistrates have thrown out an attempt by the Environment Agency to convict an operator that lost its waste transfer notes.
Chorley-based Steve Power Haulage & Plant Hire was cleared after Wigan magistrates accepted that it had to be shown that the company had been carrying controlled waste before it could be convicted.
In a prosecution brought under the Environmental Protection Act, Power was accused of failing to produce waste transfer notes for the five months after February 1997 and of failing to provide information required by the Environment Agency.
The court was told that operators were required to keep waste transfer notes for two years. When the company was asked in February 1997 to produce waste transfer notes for the preceding two years, the agency was told that they had been lost. Further requests also proved unfruitful.
Ian Whalley, for Power, said the prosecution had to show that the company had been carrying controlled waste on the particular days. There was no such evidence before the court.