A VILLAGER whose trailers were loaded up with waste tyres before being found dumped across region will have to cough up thousands of pounds in fines and compensation.

Laurence Cawley

A VILLAGER whose trailers were loaded up with waste tyres before being found dumped across region will have to cough up thousands of pounds in fines and compensation.

Matthew Ritchie of Icklingham, near Bury St Edmunds, admitted three counts of transferring waste to an unauthorised person when he appeared before magistrates yesterday.

Magistrates in Bury were told how Ritchie worked as a waste carrier which involved collecting waste tyres and arranging their disposal.

But when Mufitts Industries refused to carry on taking his tyres in 2007 - because his waste carrier registration had expired - Ritchie continued to fill in waste transfer notes claiming he was using the Littleport firm when in fact he was taking them to a business whose representative met him on a road outside Clacton in Essex.

He claimed the company was called Rubber Resources.

In April 2007, an articulated box trailer full of tyres was found dumped at the Chippenham Park Estate in Cambridgeshire. Further trailers were found near Thetford and Babraham.

The court was told how on each occasion there were address labels or names and telephone numbers which Environment Agency officers were able to use to track down where the tyres had come from originally.

Magistrates fined Ritchie �1,050, billed him �1,000 to meet the costs of the case and ordered him to stump up �5,168 in compensation for the proper disposal of the tyres and trailers.

Ritchie said he let his customers continue to think he was taking them to Murfitts because he was worried they would go direct to Rubber Resources instead.

He admitted to Environment Agency staff that representatives of the company had been difficult to get hold of and claimed he had met up with one only twice just outside Clacton by the side of the road to pay the money.

He said he had handed over about 7,500 tyres in total to the company and had assumed they would be dealt with around Colchester. He had paperwork that showed he had filled seven trailers with tyres.

Anne-Lise McDonald, prosecuting for the agency, told the court that although there was no evidence of intent to transfer the waste tyres to an unauthorised person, Ritchie could easily have checked with the Environment Agency whether Rubber Resources or any other company was authorised for the purposes of duty of care.

“It could be considered foreseeable that waste tyres transferred to an illegal carrier may end up being disposed of illegally,” she said.

After the hearing, agency officer Gary Yardley said: “There were seven trailers abandoned across East Anglia over a number of months. Landowners, local authorities and the Environment Agency have had to bear the cost of having the tyres disposed of legally.”