A SKIP hire boss who set up an illegal waste site just a few hundred metres from an RSPB reserve has been ordered to pay £7,080 in fines and court costs.
Glen Davis, 46, from Douglas Drive, Wickford, set up a base for firm Sunshine Skips at Marsh Farm off the A13 Vange by-pass, without having an environmental permit from the Environment Agency.
Protected: Black-tailed godwits feed in the area
He pleaded guilty today at Chelmsford Magistrates Court which heard he ran the site illegally from March until June 2013 when he passed control to a friend until November.
Marsh Farm is around 500 metres from the Vange and Fobbing Marsh site of special scientific interest which supports rare wading birds the avocet and black tailed godwit.
Miriam Tordoff, agency prosecutor, said: "The site was not suitable for the type of business run there as any pollutants could be washed into the soil by rainwater.
The site was close to the RSPB reserve at Vange and Fobbing Marsh.
Davis’ barrister accepted the defendant had been negligent, but said he had been naive about the rules and did not deliberately cut corners for financial gain. Some waste at Marsh Farm belonged to other operators, he said.
Davis, who previously ran a building company that went into liquidation, was fined £4,080 and had to pay £3,000 costs.
Marsh Farm suffered from illegal waste operators unconnected to Davis in 2008 when there was a massive blaze at an unofficial car breakers yard.
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