Jail Sentence for Fire at Waste Site
The owner of a waste transfer site that caught fire has been jailed for breaching environmental regulations.
Roy Hinchcliffe, who ran Forge Plant Ltd's site in Ravensthorpe, was repeatedly warned about exceeding waste storage levels at the site by officers but continued to hold more than the 700 million tonnes of rubbish he was permitted to. Appearing at Leeds Crown Court, the court heard that a serious fire broke out at the site on February 7th 2010 and burned for over a month – resulting in costs of around £800,000 to the fire service and additional clean-up costs. Roy Hinchcliffe, of Greenside Road, Mirfield, was jailed for two years after he admitted exceeding the storage limit at the Scout Hill site, storing waste at other sites without a permit and failing to comply with a notice to reduce waste. His son, Neil Hinchcliffe, a working director of Forge Plant Ltd, was jailed for 16 months after he admitted two offences of storing waste without a permit and failing to provide transfer notes.
Judge James Spencer QC said: "Fire of course is what happened at Scout Hill, a fire that was burning for over a month, which cost thousands to control and deal with, made worse because of the scale of overtipping within that site," quotes the Yorkshire Post.