THE OWNER of a skip company, who set up an illegal waste transfer station, has been left with a bill of more than £20,000.

Nick Kearns, of Quick Time Skips, continued to process waste at a site in Darby Close, Cheney Manor – despite repeated warnings from the Environment Agency (EA) that he needed a permit.

And yesterday, the 45-year-old was fined a total of £11,400 and left with more than £10,000 in costs and a £15 victim surcharge after pleading guilty to three offences at Swindon Magistrates Court.

Lal Nawbatt, prosecuting for the EA, said Kearns started leasing the site in December 2008 and set up a waste transfer station.

He said that officials visited the site in February 2009 and saw skips filled with waste.

A month later Kearns was advised of the requirements needed before he could operate at the site, including that he needed planning permission and proper infrastructure.

This was followed up by a letter reiterating the advice and telling him to stop what he was doing.

Mr Nawbatt said that Kearns gained planning permission to run a waste transfer business at the site, but he still needed to apply for and receive a permit from the EA to operate legally.

Over several months EA officials visited the site numerous times and sent several letters to Kearns advising him to stop until a permit had been granted.

However, Mr Nawbatt said the activities continued and the amount of controlled waste stored on the site increased. Mr Nawbatt said that last year, the EA served him with an enforcement notice to require him to remove the waste by a set period, but the waste was not removed, or substantially removed.

In an interview in July 2010, Kearns denied to officials that he had received the letters, but accepted personal responsibility for the waste being there, although he declined to give a timescale for him to clear the waste.

Mr Nawbatt said, that for Kearns to have made an application for a permit, he would have had to pay up to £20,000 in subsistence fees alone.

Kearns, of Bathampton Street, Railway Village, pleaded guilty to one count of failing to comply with the enforcement notice and two counts of operating a regulated facility without a permit.

Representing himself, he said the EA never provided notice of their inspections and criticised the authority for commenting to the press on the case, which damaged his trade.

He claimed that the permit originally cost £1,800, with which he did not have a problem, but this increased to more than £20,000 after one of the officials saw a portable building on site.

Kearns said the EA has powers to close sites and asked why the authority did not do so in his case if they thought it was a danger to public health.

He said: “I apologise to the court. I’m very, very embarrassed to be here today.

I feel that I shouldn’t be here, but obviously I am and that’s that.”