A housing construction company and its contracted engineers will
donate a total of £135,000 to the Aire Rivers Trust after
polluting Pitty Beck multiple times while building a new housing
estate near Bradford.
Keepmoat Homes Ltd, a company that specialises in building
residential housing and which owns the site at Heron’s Reach near
Bradford, will donate £100,000, while Applebridge Construction
Limited, which were contracted by Keepmoat Homes for the first
phase of the development, will donate £35,000.
An investigation by the Environment Agency found that Pitty Beck
was polluted a number of times between October 2016 and November
2018 while construction was underway.
The companies submitted Enforcement Undertakings to the
Environment Agency, which have now been accepted.
An Enforcement Undertaking is a voluntary offer made by companies
and individuals to make amends for their offending, and usually
includes a donation to an environmental charity to carry out
improvements in the local area.
On 13 October 2016 Keepmoat Homes reported pollution from its
site, and an Environment Agency officer confirmed that silty
water was running from the site and into the beck. The same
happened on numerous occasions over subsequent months. The
company did not have an environmental permit to allow for treated
water to be discharged into the beck.
The company obtained this permit in October 2017. This allowed
the discharge of water from one outlet at a maximum rate of no
more than 40mg/l of suspended solids. Only days later, a
discharge containing 555 mg/l entered the beck from a different
outlet, followed by the first of several permit breaches from the
permitted outlet containing more than the allowed concentration
of suspended solids.
As part of the requirements of the Enforcement Undertaking,
Keepmoat Homes revised its surface water management plan for the
site, constructed urban drainage ponds, purchased a siltbuster
and gulley bags to remove sediment from the water leaving site
and improved its inspection and monitoring regime.
Applebridge Construction employed a full time health and safety
manager, reviewed and updated its environmental management system
and delivered bespoke training to staff.
Environment Agency Area Environment Manager Ben Hocking said:
Housing construction companies - like all companies carrying out
any major development work - have a responsibility to ensure
their work does not impact on the environment and we will take
action when pollution occurs.
While we will always take forward prosecutions in appropriate
cases, Enforcement Undertakings are an effective enforcement tool
to allow companies to put things right and contribute to
environmental improvements.
They allow polluters to restore the harm caused to the
environment and prevent repeat incidents by improving their
training and procedures.
Water Minister said:
Companies that damage our natural environment must be held to
account and enforcement action like this ensures polluters pay
and help clean up our rivers and waterways.
Our Plan for Water is delivering more investment, stronger
regulation and tougher enforcement right across the water sector.
Aire Rivers Trust will use the donations on the monitoring and
prevention of pollution on Bradford Beck, a ‘pocket park’
proposal at Bradford Beck and restoring habitats in the
catchment, including some wetlands at Pitty Beck.
Bradford-based environmental charity the Aire Rivers Trust will
use the donations on the monitoring and prevention of pollution
on Bradford Beck, and to restore riverside habitats across the
catchment. The charity works to improve the River Aire for both
wildlife and local communities.
Simon Watts, Operations Manager at the Aire Rivers Trust, said:
We’re pleased to see money from polluters being spent on
restoring Bradford’s streams and river. We believe the work it
will fund will create a lasting impact on the health of the beck
that runs through the heart of Bradford.
