A contractor who smashed up bonded asbestos roofing and illegally buried up to 70t of it on the development site has been told by a magistrate that he had been honest and had gained no financial advantage.
Simon Edward Kavanagh received a fine of just £4,000 with £1,500 costs after Ipswich Magistrates heard that he had demolished former piggeries at Nacton, smashed up the corrugated bonded asbestos roofs, spread dust all around and buried the waste in three trenches on the unlicensed site.
Subsequent investigations by Suffolk Coastal District Council, the Environment Agency and the Health & Safety Executive have led to the conclusion the waste is best left in situ as office development plans for the Shepherd and Dog Piggeries site envisage a car park where the trenches are located.
The Council says it has no grounds for determining the site as contaminated but will deal with it through planning conditions on the developer.
Some of the waste has been removed to a licensed site and the rest has been capped with a sand cement mixture, layered with a geotextile warning layer and concrete hard standing on top.
Kavanagh told the Agency he had been told to bury the asbestos by the site manager but this was denied.
District Judge David Cooper, however, told Kavanagh he had been honest and the financial advantage from his actions had been nil, but his actions had showed a total lack of regard for the environment and the safety of others.
Kavanagh and his workers had been seen smashing the roofs rather than taking them down; none was wearing protective equipment and dust from the work covered nearby caravans and cars.
