03/04/06 - Blunsdon Abbey Caravan Park, Sewage Fine

Swindon Advertiser, 03/04/06

A Swindon caravan park has been ordered to pay more than £9,000 after repeatedly polluting a nearby lake.

Pine View Parks, which runs the Abbey Mobile Home Park, in Blunsdon St Andrew, pleaded guilty to allowing sewage effluent to pollute Abbey Lake twice, on February 1 and April 4 last year, contrary to Sections 85 and 86 of the Water Resources Act 1991.

A further breach of the act, on August 18 last year was also taken into account.

Swindon Magistrates Court fined the company £7,500 and ordered it to pay costs of £1,900.

The Environment Agency prosecution followed repeated failures by the company to meet the controls applied to ensure effective treatment of the sewage generated on the site, which serves 112 caravan units.

A sample taken on February 1 showed that the concentration of pollutants in the sewage discharge was over legal standards.

The company was asked to explain the breach and show what measures it was taking to ensure the discharge met the limits in the future.

The company said it was dosing with an alkali solution to correct an acidity problem and a considerable improvement was expected by the beginning of April.

But a further sample taken by the Environment Agency on April 4 also failed to meet the limits and was slightly worse than the sample taken in February.

Magistrates accepted the Environment Agency's argument that the discharge from the sewage treatment works was causing a chronic degradation to the environmental quality of Abbey Lake.

The court heard that the company had not done enough to remedy the poor performance of the treatment works or prevent the discharge from entering the lake, despite it having spent considerable amounts of money in investigating and trying to improve the performance of the plant.

Pine View Parks was unavailable for comment but Steve Cave, the environmental crime officer for the Environment Agency, said: "Pine View Parks has repeatedly failed to meet the criteria we have laid out for acceptable levels of effluent to be discharged into the Abbey Lake.

"We are delighted that the court has taken the previous breaches into consideration and hope this serves as a warning to other repeat offenders that blatant disregard for the environment will not be tolerated."

Members of the public should report environmental incidents to the Environment Agency by calling 0800 80 70 60.