A COMPANY has been fined after illegally storing waste on Teesside and in North Yorkshire.

Roadstone Solutions Limited, of Gatherley Road Industrial Estate, Brompton-on-Swale, near Richmond, admitted five charges against environmental planning regulations and the Environment Protection Act.

The firm was fined £10,000 and ordered to pay £16,578 costs plus a £120 victim surcharge.

Roadstone Solutions Ltd was found to have stored waste without proper permits – and even when a permit was granted to run one of the sites legally, it broke the law again by accepting hazardous waste and also dumped water on a local farm without proper permission.

Company director Robert Thomas Hext, of Darlington Road, Richmond, North Yorkshire, also pleaded guilty to four charges against environmental permitting regulations and was conditionally discharged for 12 months.

Environment Agency solicitor Chris Bunting told Northallerton Magistrates that Roadstone Solutions were repeatedly warned to stop depositing waste illegally on sites at Haverton Hill, near Billingham and Gatherley Road Industrial Estate, Brompton-on-Swale.

The company was later granted an environmental permit for the Haverton Hill site in July 2013 but this did not allow it to accept hazardous waste.

Checks by Environment Agency officers discovered the site had accepted more than 2,200 tonnes of hazardous material which contained cancer-causing chemicals.

The company claimed their own tests had shown that the waste was not hazardous, but extensive testing by the Environment Agency and by the company who produced it showed otherwise.

The court accepted Mr Hext’s claim that, as an employee of the company at the time, he was unable to stop the offences from being committed.