Housing association fined for polluting river (From Witney Gazette)

Housing association fined for polluting river

2:35pm Monday 29th January 2007 in Witney By Rosalind Miles

COTTSWAY Housing Association was fined £14,000 for polluting a river and discharging unlawful levels of sewage effluent.

The housing association, the largest local registered social landlord in West Oxfordshire, admitted polluting the River Dorn, in Middle Barton, with heating oil on a day between September 5 and 15, 2005.

Cottsway, of Witney, also pleaded guilty at Bicester magistrates court to five offences of breaching its consent to discharge treated sewage effluent into the Langford Brook between September 28, 2005, and April 28, 2006.

Magistrates fined the company £2,000 for each of the five offences of breaching its consent to discharge, and a further £4,000 for the oil pollution, amounting to £14,000, and ordered it to pay costs of £3,087.

The court heard that the Environment Agency received several telephone calls from concerned members of the public on September 25, 2005, reporting a strong smell of fuel and a large film of oil on the surface of the River Dorn, at Mill Lane, Middle Barton.

A thick film of oil was found to be floating on the river near Mill Lane and noted a strong smell of fuel in the air.

Environment Agency officers traced the leak to an oil tank in the back garden of a house in Jervis Close, Middle Barton, which was owned and managed by Cottsway Housing Association.

The company was also fined for breaching its consent to discharge treated sewage effluent into Langford Brook in Langford, Oxfordshire, between September 28, 2005, and April 28, 2006.