In a judgment handed down on 6 May 2026, the First-tier Tribunal concluded that no taxable “disposal” had occurred when an environmental permit lapsed at businessman Jonathan Nuttall and North Killingholme Storage Limited’s (NKSL) North Lincolnshire site.
The judge said that the appeal would be allowed against the decision.
The case centred on 7,686 tonnes of RDF delivered to a site at North Killingholme between 2011 and 2012 for temporary storage before export to Europe.
The material was owned by SRF Processors (UK) Limited under an agreement with NKSL. However, the proposed export arrangements failed to materialise and the companies behind the RDF operation later became insolvent, with SRF Processors dissolved in 2015.
The environmental permit for the site had been transferred from NKSL to North Killingholme Recycling Limited (NKRL) in July 2012. But when NKRL was dissolved on 28 September 2017, the permit was automatically revoked, leaving the RDF on site without authorisation.
HMRC subsequently issued landfill tax assessments totalling £751,316.17, alongside almost £588,000 in interest, arguing that a taxable disposal occurred the moment the permit ceased to exist.
Dispute over meaning of ‘disposal’
HMRC argued that the RDF was no longer being lawfully stored after the licence revocation and had therefore been “abandoned” on the land.
According to HMRC, a disposal could occur without any physical movement or dumping of waste, with the continued storage of material on land without a permit amounting to “getting rid of” it.
The appellants argued that nothing physically changed on 28 September 2017, because the RDF remained exactly where it had been lawfully placed years earlier.
Evidence before the Tribunal showed that Mr Nuttall repeatedly tried to have the RDF removed from the site after concerns emerged about the growing stockpile.
The Tribunal also heard that NKSL continued to manage the site after the permit lapsed, including re-baling the RDF, carrying out pest control and maintaining containment measures to minimise environmental risks.
By April 2025 the entire stockpile had been cleared from the site.
Judge Blackwell and tribunal member Duncan McBride concluded that the ordinary meaning of disposal involved “getting rid of” material, and found the appellants were not attempting to do that but were instead effectively “stuck” with the RDF.
Allowing the appeal, the Tribunal concluded: “Viewing these facts in the round, we do not consider that the dissolution of NKRL and associated revocation of the Environment Agency licence caused the RDF to be ‘disposed’ on 28 September 2017.”
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