Pay up or go to prison, court tells man who dumped 34,000 tonnes of waste at rural Northants spot
A waste operator who deposited a 10-metre high pile of rubble just outside a Northants Village has failed to pay a large fine handed to him by a court.
David Goodjohn, from Grange Road, Geddington, was slapped with a £7,500 penalty after he stored 34,000 tonnes of waste at Mill Farm Industrial Estate in Great Cransley.
His firm Green Infrastructure Limited was also fined the same amount, plus a victim surcharge of £2,000 and prosecution costs of £14,934.
Goodjohn, 64, appeared before the court in February this year after the Environment Agency brought a prosecution against him, for depositing the waste without an Environmental Permit at the small industrial estate off Loddington Road.
Storefield Aggregates, a Kettering-based waste firm, was also hit with a £26,800 fine, and ordered to pay victim surcharges of £2,000 and prosecution costs of £14,934.68.
But last month Goodjohn was ordered back before magistrates because, six months after he was sentenced, he had failed to keep up with payments.
The court heard that there had been a ‘culpable neglect’ to pay the £7,776 that was owed to the court and that an application to the high court had been considered in order to get him to pay the debt.
JPs sitting at Northampton Magistrates’ Court told Goodjohn that he must begin payments immediately, and must then pay £750 per month until the debt was cleared. He was given a six month suspended prison term which he was warned would be activated should he continue to fail to make payments.
From 2019 to 2021, Environment Agency officers investigated the site in Great Cransley and found 34,000 tonnes of waste was stored with large quantities of mixed waste piled over 10 metres high, becoming an eyesore for the local community.
Despite repeated visits, the Environment Agency’s guidance was ignored for more than two years.
The third defendant, Storefield Aggregates, failed to comply with the waste duty of care by sending more than 24,000 tonnes of waste to the site between 2019 and 2021. The Environment Agency sent warning letters to two further companies which also deposited waste at the site – J W Clark Ltd and Drummond Aggregates Ltd.
A director of Storefield Aggregates is former Corby business man Dougie Wright who has plans to develop Corby’s largest remaining piece of contaminated land, at the British Steel Northbank Landfill site.
Anyone who suspects illegal waste activity should report it to the Environment Agency’s 24-hour incident hotline on 0800 807060, or anonymously through CrimeStoppers on 0800 555111.
Mill Farm has no link to David Goodjohn and his company, Green Infrastructure Ltd.