Black Country waste firm facing £100k fines for operating sites after ordered to stop

AB Waste Management Limited has admitted five counts of breaching an enforcement notice issued by Walsall Council on land off Cemetery Road, Darlaston.

The company was first served with notices in 2012 for using sites without correct planning permission.

It was required to cease activity at the old Railway Tavern and Junction Works – both on Cemetery Road – by either September or November last year.

But the storage of skips and vehicle movements continued into this year leading to the company being hauled before Walsall Magistrates Court this week.

Mr Timothy Talbot-Webb, defending on behalf of the firm, entered guilty pleas to a breach of an enforcement notice under the Town and Country Planning Act.

The case was adjourned until next year for sentencing. Each charge carries a maximum penalty of £20,000 but with early guilty pleas the level of fine will be lower.

The firm which is based in High Street, Amblecote, Stourbridge, had previously appealed against the issuing of enforcement notices but these were upheld by a planning inspectorate.

It since lodged an application to set up a tip in Willenhall Lane, Bloxwich. But it emerged last month that the proposal had been rejected.

The firm wanted to operate on land situated between the Wyrley and Essington Canal and the main entrance to Willenhall Industrial Estate.

It prompted angry campaigners to collect more than 1,100 signatures in opposition and armed themselves with protest banners and posters in a site protest to vent their feelings.

If given the go-ahead the proposed 24-hour waste recycling facility in Bloxwich would have handled up to 175,000 tons a year of waste.

But council planners refused the move on grounds including that its location, use of outside areas, and design would result in a loss of amenity to nearby homes, by 'virtue of 'noise and disturbance, dust and odour'.

The decision notice stated: "With respect to operations to be carried out in the open, excessive intermittent noise arising from the operation of the storage bays and tipping and loading operations in the yard, is likely to be audible at residential premises and within their amenity areas."