The Environment Agency served two notices on Wood Recycling Services Ltd (WRS) to revoke its two environmental permits on February 20 due to excessive volumes of waste and the associated environmental risks at the site.
At the time, Wood Recycling Services said that it fully intended to appeal the notices. This would have stopped the notices coming into force as planned on March 22 until the appeal was determined (see letsrecycle.com story).
However, in a statement issued last week (March 21), the company said that it would not be challenging the decision.
This means that, as of Friday, all commercial wood activity at the site was forced to cease.
‘Tough decision’
Commenting on the company’s decision, Simon Lupson, Director at WRS Ltd said: “This has been a tough decision but one we need to make. There is work to be done to clear the site over the coming months and once that has been completed we will review our position and see where we go from there”.
The company said that the serving of the enforcement notices followed a devastating fire in November 2012 which the company said it was struggling to recover from. The fire destroyed a 10,000 tonne stock of recycled wood which was ready for reprocessing and has had a major impact on the companys commercial trading operations up to the present day.
The company said: Following the fire and the subsequent hiatus in commercial activity, the Environment Agency escalated its enforcement and issued a notice of revocation of WRS licence on 20th February. The move puts 25 local jobs at risk.
WRS has now received guidance from the Environment Agency for its clear-up plans which the company said will be actioned over the next few months, in line with the EAs guidelines, until the site is fully compliant with regulations.
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WRS has operated the wood site since 2008, providing a processing facility for high-grade recycled wood which is turned into biomass woodchip for green energy production facilities in the UK and Europe.
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