Jail term for Lancashire man who helped run illegal Kent waste warehouse - which caught fire for 25 days

Lee Brookes, 48, of Tonacliffe Way, Whitworth, was prosecuted by the Environment Agency alongside David Weeks of School Hill, Totnes, Devon, for illegally filling a Margate warehouse with waste. Between them, the pair were handed suspended prison sentences totalling 20 months.

Brookes received a sentence of four months in prison, suspended for a year. He was also given 80 hours of unpaid work and the same 20 hours of rehabilitation programme. The court also ordered him to pay costs of £1,000 and a £115 victim surcharge.

What happened?

At the start of 2017, Weeks, a director of Devon-based DW Land Ltd, signed a one-year lease on unit P in Westwood Business Park, Margate. As soon as the ink was dry on the lease, lorry after lorry began arriving at the unit from from across the home counties – a procession of 220 vehicles over three months, offloading 6,000 blocks of waste and placed in the building.

Weeks employed Brookes’ firm, OMC Outdoor Maintenance Company, of Whitworth, to secure and manage unit P.

No permit

Judge Simon Taylor KC heard the waste had left legal sites in Hampshire and Hertfordshire, bound for the Kent coast, to be stored inside the building, but outside the law. Neither Brookes nor Weeks obtained an environmental permit for the storage of waste.

By spring, frustrated residents rang the local council to report swarms of flies close to the unit. Thanet District Council contacted the Environment Agency, which began an investigation. It discovered the illegal storage of thousands of bales of household and construction waste inside the building, unit P.

Fire lasting 25 days

Throughout 2017 and 2018, Weeks and Brookes gave the Environment Agency several excuses as to why they couldn’t clear the waste from the building. Then, on September 18, 2018, the building caught fire. Kent Fire and Rescue Service fought the blaze for 25 days. At its peak, rubbish burst out of the packaging. Although no cause for the fire has ever been found, roads and businesses had to close, and the disruption led to operations cancelled at the local hospital.

Environment Agency

Matt Higginson, environment manager for the Environment Agency in Kent, said: Weeks and Brookes profited financially from payments made to the sites where the waste originated and from its storage in Kent. Not getting an environmental permit for the building, avoiding the cost and requirements of getting one, Weeks and Brookes gave themselves an unfair advantage over legitimate waste operators.

“A permit for the site would have required a plan to manage the risk of fire. Risk became reality when the building went up in flames. The disruption for local people went on for almost a month.”

It was only a year later, towards the end of 2019, and almost three years after the first delivery of rubbish, what waste survived the fire was finally removed by the battered building’s new owner.

The EA said that Weeks and Brookes “gave scant assistance” to their investigation.

Court hearing

At Canterbury Crown Court, the two men pleaded guilty to knowing their respective companies, DW Land and OMC Maintenance, ran the waste operation in Margate without an environmental permit between January 13, 2017 and August 22, 2019, against regulation 12 (1)(a) of the Environmental Permitting (England and Wales) Regulations 2016.

David Weeks, 55, of School Hill, Totnes, Devon, was sentenced to 16 months in prison, suspended for two years. He also to pay £5,000 in costs, and a victim surcharge of £140. Judge Taylor also gave Weeks 150 hours unpaid work and 20 hours of rehabilitation activity aimed at preventing him from reoffending. He’ll have to wear an electronic tag to monitor his daytime movements for the next two months.

DW Land Ltd, of Paignton Road, Stoke Gabriel, Totnes, Devon, and OMC Outdoor Maintenance Company Ltd, also of Tonacliffe Way, Whitworth, Lancashire, are no longer trading.