Harrogate Borough Council have completed an 8-month investigation into a case of fly-tipping.
On December 2013 a large quantity of domestic building rubble and waste was left in a public car park on Bilton Lane.
A builder from Leeds has been issued with a Caution for committing an offence under section 34 of the Environmental Protection Act 1990.
The Act places a duty of care on anyone who produces or deals with waste stating that reasonable measures should be taken to ensure that waste is being dealt with by someone who is legally authorised to do so.
In this instance, the builder did not check that the waste carrier he employed to remove and dispose of his waste was licensed to do so.
After being notified by the council that his waste had been dumped illegally, the builder arranged for the fly tipped waste to be removed and disposed of by a licensed contractor.
Councillor Margaret Atkinson, Harrogate Borough Council’s Cabinet Member for Safer Communities said: Whilst this looked like a straight forward case of a person dumping their waste on public land it turned out to be quite a detailed investigation which required a lot of officer time in trying to find the person who actually dumped the waste. Unfortunately we could not trace this irresponsible person.
We should all learn from this case that we all have a duty of care under the Environmental Protection Act to check that anyone employed to remove waste is licensed by the Environment Agency to do so. This duty applies to householders as well as traders and businesses.
If any member of the public does witness any fly-tipping they should contact the council giving as much detail as possible, such as a vehicle registration number and description of those who are seen fly tipping.
Surely incidents like this will only increase now the council plan to charge for brick rubble etc at their recycling sites. Any monies raised from these fees will be off set by even more lengthy and costly investigations into fly tipping