Universal Beverages Fined £36,000 For Polluting River
Universal Beverages, a subsidiary of Heineken UK, recently pleaded guilty at Hereford Magistrates’ Court to seven pollution offences. The company, of Little Marcle Road, Ledbury, was fined £36,000 and ordered to pay £20,825 in costs, along with a £15 victim surcharge.
The charges were brought by the Environment Agency under Section 85 of the Water Resources Act 1991 and the Environmental Permitting (EnglandandWales) Regulations 2007. The site was a former jam factory which had been converted to mill fruit.
Speaking after the case, an Environment Agency officer in charge of the investigation said: “It is the company’s responsibility to ensure that they have a full understanding of the operation of their site and have adequate control measures and staff training in place to prevent polluting material from impacting on the quality of the local environment. We take such matters seriously and will prosecute where circumstance justify.”
In mitigation, the company was given credit for its early guilty pleas and the proactive stance taken by the new site management on environmental issues.
