Able boss hits out at comments
by Evening Gazette
19 December 2003 – Battling Able UK today hit out at the Environment Agency over comments made after a High Court hearing into the "ghost ships" controversy. Mr Justice Sullivan said the time had come for an investigation into the way regulators handled the affair.
"I conclude by expressing the hope that the regulatory agencies, including the council and the Environment Agency, will urgently conduct a thorough investigation into the decision-making processes that have conspicuously failed to stop this most unsatisfactory situation from arising - and, more important, take the necessary steps to decide what they now propose to do in order that the fate of these ships may be determined in a manner that is both lawful and seen to be environmentally acceptable," he said.
Three Hartlepool residents had taken Hartlepool Council to court over disputed planning permission to dismantle "marine structures" at its Graythorp yard.
On Monday the judge ruled that a ship is not a "marine structure", meaning Able UK will have to apply for planning permission to dismantle the 13 US mothballed ships.
The company was refused permission to appeal but said today it would apply to the Appeal Court to challenge the judge's ruling.
Comments made by the EA after yesterday's hearing have angered Able UK.
Another court ruling made last week to quash Able UK's waste management licence came into force yesterday..
Craig McGarvey, the EA's area manager, said the Agency had put tight controls on the way Able handles the ships and that the firm could not get a new waste licence until it had planning permissions to do the work in place.
"We will keep this situation under detailed and regular review and are not ruling out enforcement action ever," he said. It would be "inappropriate at this time" to take any criminal proceedings in respect of the receipt of the ships, he added.
Able UK boss Peter Stephenson insisted today that the waste licence granted by the EA in September had to be revoked by the courts because "as the EA admitted in court" it had not followed proper procedures.
"The suggestion that it was necessary for the imposition of controls by
the Agency to ensure work is carried out in a 'legally and environmentally sound manner' gives an impression that we might have other intentions in mind.
"This is not true and is misleading. The controls set out by the Agency virtually copy Able's working plan conditions which we provided and which we are already working to."
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