Flies and rats led to sickening warehouse discovery

A man from Devon has been sentenced for his role in storing thousands of bales of waste illegally in a warehouse which then caught fire. David Weeks, from Totnes, leased a warehouse in Margate, Kent, where he stored huge amounts of household and construction waste which attracted swarms of flies and rats to the site.

Director of Devon-based DW Land Ltd, Weeks signed a one-year lease with the building’s owners at the start of 2017. By springtime, as the weather warmed up, nearby residents reported swarms of flies close to an anonymous building. Thanet District Council contacted the Environment Agency (EA) which began an investigation.

The EA found huge amounts of refuse being stored inside the building, Unit P, on the Westwood Business Park. Shortly after Weeks signed the lease, lorries from across the region began arriving in Margate. Some 220 vehicles over three months unloaded 6,000 blocks of waste to the building.

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Weeks employed OMC Outdoor Maintenance Company, ran by Lee Brookes who has been jailed alongside Weeks, to secure and manage the Unit P site. Weeks told the Environment Agency he was the agent for two companies wanting the site for an energy-from-waste plant.

Judge Simon Taylor KC heard waste had left legal sites in Hampshire and Hertfordshire bound for the Kent coast - to be stored inside the building, but outside the law. Neither Brookes nor Weeks obtained an environmental permit for the storage of waste.

Over 2017 and 2018, both Weeks and Brookes gave the EA a number of excuses for why they could not clear the illegal waste from the warehouse. On September 18, 2018 the building caught fire. Kent Fire and Rescue Service fought the blaze for 25 days. While no cause for the fire has ever been found, roads and businesses had to close, and the disruption led to operations cancelled at the local hospital.

A year later, near the end of 2019, and nearly three years after the first waste delivery, the remnants of the rubbish was finally removed by the building's new owner. The Environment Agency said both Weeks and Brookes gave little aid to its investigation and even after the fire, the pair kept a low profile.

Matt Higginson, environment manager for the Environment Agency in Kent, said: “Weeks and Brookes profited financially from payments made to the sites where the waste originated and from its storage in Kent.

“Not getting an environmental permit for the building, avoiding the cost and requirements of getting one, Weeks and Brookes gave themselves an unfair advantage over legitimate waste operators. A permit for the site would have required a plan to manage the risk of fire. Risk became reality when the building went up in flames. The disruption for local people went on for almost a month.

“This case proves you must use firms authorised to take away your waste. Check the register of waste carriers’ licences on gov.uk.”

David Weeks, 55, of School Hill, Totnes, Devon, was sentenced to 16 months in prison, suspended for two years. He also to pay £5,000 in costs, and a victim surcharge of £140. Judge Taylor also gave Weeks 150 hours unpaid work and 20 hours of rehabilitation activity aimed at preventing him from reoffending. He’ll have to wear an electronic tag to monitor his daytime movements for the next two months.

Lee Brookes, of Tonacliffe Way, Whitworth, Lancashire, received a sentence of four months in prison, suspended for a year. He was also given 80 hours of unpaid work and the same 20 hours of rehabilitation programme. The court also ordered the 49-year-old to pay costs of £1,000 and a £115 victim surcharge.

At the hearing on January 21, the court was told Weeks was fined almost £10,000 seven years ago for his part in the management of a site in Plymouth where 13,000 tonnes of wood was stored illegally.

The two men pleaded guilty at an earlier hearing to knowing their respective companies, DW Land and OMC Maintenance, ran the waste operation in Margate without an environmental permit between 13 January 2017 and 22 August 2019, against regulation 12 (1)(a) of the Environmental Permitting (England and Wales) Regulations 2016.

DW Land Ltd, of Paignton Road, Stoke Gabriel, Totnes, Devon, and OMC Outdoor Maintenance Company Ltd, also of Tonacliffe Way, Whitworth, Lancashire, are no longer trading.