Henry Howe, who first drew attention to the issue in 2007 (see letsrecycle.com story), claims that local government has dodged “billions” of pounds in liability dating back to as early as the 1970s.
The issue centres around Schedule 2 of the Controlled Waste Regulations, which, until April 2012, allowed councils to charge for the collection of certain types of ‘domestic’ waste from premises such as schools and hospitals – but not for the disposal of the waste. However, many local authorities were found to be charging for both collection and disposal.
While the law was changed in 2012 to allow councils to charge disposal costs to a wider range of non-domestic premises, Mr Howe claims that the backdated liabilities, from the 1970s until 2008 when the issue was addressed, are “huge”.
He said that “significant” sums had been wrongly charged and that the issue had been “hidden” by local authorities for two decades.
He commented: “Councils have to pay compensation and they have not and I think it is utterly disgraceful. They have got away with it.”
Holiday Park
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Mr Howe is currently working with companies interested in making a claim for backdated disposal costs. One of these is the Lady’s Mile holiday park in Dawlish, Devon.
The holiday park claims it did not receive free waste disposal from the Teignbridge district council until 2008 and plans to go to court to claim back £500,000 spent on disposal over a 22 year period.
Paul Jeffery, director of the holiday park, said: “I think we will be going to court as Teignbridge have stopped answering my questions. We had heard that some of the big holiday parks were getting free disposal but they insisted we were a commercial business and we had to pay.
He added: “We were told by Teignbridge that we had to apply for schedule 2 but asked why it had never been advertised.”
Mr Jeffery said he was also keen to challenge Defra’s decision to add caravan parks to the list of premises for which a disposal charge could be made in 2012 by taking the issue to the European Court.
Explaining his logic, he said: “It must be illegal because the people who come here are UK residents who have paid for refuse collection back home.”
On the wider issue, he said “This is a massive, massive problem as we are talking about millions and millions of pounds, as it covers all hospitals as well.”
Council
Responding to the claims about Teignbridge, Chris Braines, waste and cleansing manager at Teignbridge district council, told letsrecycle.com that the council believed there was no case to answer.
“Historically they are claiming they could have been benefiting from fee disposal but they never requested for us to do it”, he commented. “The duty does not arise until a request is made. If we had clear evidence we would have held our hands up”.
“We are waiting to see if they launch a legal challenge. Our own position is that there is no case to answer”.
Commenting on the bigger picture, he reaffirmed that the duty for a council to provide free waste disposal did not arise until a request was made, therefore said he would be “surprised” if anyone had a case to answer.
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