Annex C
Jump to
The responses of the Environment Agency, Rossendale Borough Council and Lancashire County Council to the provisional report
The Environment Agency
The Chief Executive of the Environment Agency said that the Agency accepted that, regardless of the classification of any specific individual incidents concerning Mr R’s premises, the persistent and prolonged nature of the activities complained about should have resulted in the Agency, in consultation with Lancashire County Council and Rossendale Borough Council, identifying the need for prompt action to carry out a focused, robust and comprehensive investigation. With regret, they also accepted that with hindsight the investigations which the Agency had carried out, and the enforcement action taken in relation to Mr R’s activities, had been inadequate in the circumstances.
The Agency had been aware that Mr R’s activities would have a significant impact on Mrs D and her son. They had also been aware that Mr R’s activities had the potential to have a detrimental impact on the local environment. They accepted that they had failed to give sufficient weight to those considerations when determining the appropriate, proportionate action to take and the degree of urgency required to stop Mr R’s illegal tipping and burning activities.
The Agency went on to say that the joint protocol referred to in the report did provide a framework within which appropriate co-ordinated action could, depending on the circumstances, be agreed and taken by the relevant public bodies. Again, with hindsight, they acknowledged that they could have taken the lead in any investigation or any enforcement action required.
The Chief Executive went on to say that the Agency had considerable sympathy for the distress which Mrs D and her son had suffered as a result of Mr R’s activities and his behaviour towards them. They regretted and accepted that that distress had been compounded by the failure to take the necessary, proportionate action. They also accepted that Mrs D and her son had suffered injustice as a result of the failings referred to in the report. The Agency accordingly accepted the report’s recommendations. They would therefore write to Mrs D and her son to apologise to them for the Agency’s failings identified in this report once the joint report had been issued, and would pay the recommended financial compensation. They would also be in contact with the County Council and the Borough Council to discuss a tripartite approach to tackling illegal waste in the area.
As for what other action might be required to prevent a recurrence of such events, the Chief Executive said that the Agency generally and increasingly had a good record of working with local authorities, the police and HM Revenue & Customs in tackling illegal waste activity but they acknowledged that there were lessons to be learnt from this case. He said that as an organisation the Agency recognised that tackling serious, organised, illegal activity required specialist skills and they had therefore established dedicated Area and National Environmental Crime teams since 2006. Those teams now used an intelligence and a risk-based approach to waste crime, and routinely shared information with other regulatory bodies to maximise their effectiveness in dealing with illegal sites.
In addition, the Agency had established Area Enforcement Panels in all their Areas, which brought together local management teams, enforcement officers and legal advisers to review ongoing cases on a monthly basis. They were developing and sharing good practice in how to close illegal waste sites more quickly, recognising the impact that these could have on people and the environment. However, the Chief Executive went on to say that, even with the establishment of dedicated teams and improved partnership working, illegal waste sites remained very difficult to resolve. Operators were often highly organised, aggressive, mixed legal and illegal activities on the same site, and deliberately made evidence difficult to obtain.
The Agency were continuing to see where they could learn from other regulators in dealing with this organised crime. They were further developing effective working relationships and joint operations with the police, local authorities, HM Revenue & Customs and the Department for Work and Pensions; and dealing effectively with high-risk illegal waste sites was now a key performance indicator for the Agency. Since April 2008 they had closed down 995 sites in England and Wales. However, due to the complexity and volume of the crime, an additional 981 illegal waste sites had come to their attention over the same period.
The Agency’s Chief Executive concluded that the Agency would also be considering carefully what further improvements could be made to reduce the likelihood of such an event occurring elsewhere, and to strengthen their working arrangements with local authorities and other agencies.
Rossendale Borough Council
The Borough Council suggested some corrections to the text, but otherwise confirmed that it accepted the findings and recommendations as set out in the draft report, and had no further comments.
The Borough Council also said that it has made great strides in improving provision of all its services since the matters referred to in this report occurred. It is now confident that the errors it made in the past are unlikely to reoccur. The Borough Council has since met with the Agency and the County Council to discuss the detail of a proposed joint agreement on working together.
Lancashire County Council
The County Council accepted that it failed to adequately address the problems experienced by Mrs D and her son in that there were further actions that could and probably should have been taken to prevent illegal activities carried out by Mr R. The County Council accepts that, while it can only speculate whether any such action would have been successful, there is clearly no excuse for not having used the full range of statutory powers at its disposal.
The County Council accepted that its record keeping at the time was inadequate, so that it is now not possible to see the full picture and in particular the interaction between the agencies involved. However, the County Council argued that what may now seem to be perceived as a failure to act might well have resulted from a conscious decision not to do so.
The County Council questions the extent of the scale of the illegal activities on the site, both in terms of the time it occurred and the evidence of what occurred. The County Council said that the number of complaints it had received and that it still has copies of having received after the initial two years do not evidence activity that would be permitted development.
The County Council went on to say that it did not dispute the need for an apology to Mrs D and her son and that it was willing to work with the Agency to put in place a local joint agreement on how that should be done in future. This joint agreement would then be spread out across the area to be adopted by other Councils.
Finally, the County Council said that the substantive matters referred to in the report occurred eight to nine years ago, since when there have been significant improvements in practice and changes in staff.
