Decade-long failures at scrapyard at risk of causing pollution
Company was previously prosecuted after employee was trapped and broke an arm
Hello and welcome to the 90th edition of The Southport Lead.
It was recently announced that the Environment Agency had removed a waste permit from Johnson’s Skip Hire and that it is now a criminal offence to send any waste there. The brief press release was reported by various outlets but lacking the important details of what had actually been done wrong.
Unlike others, we decided we would actually find out so today’s issue focusing on the company’s decade-long failure to meet its obligation which left inspectors believing the company was “not competent to operate the regulated facility”.
We also report on the £14,000 the company was ordered to pay out after a worker suffered a broken arm when they were trapped in a mechanism in 2019.
Southport briefing
🙅 Sefton Council has rejected a request to reconsider its plan to purchase the Salfordian Hotel and use it as temporary accommodation for homeless individuals. The Lib Dems had called for a rethink and called in the decision on the basis they felt it would be better suited for homeless families. At a meeting convened to review the decision, the council’s assistant Mel Ormesher said that 70% of the 270 households being supported due to homelessness were single people. She added: “It’s with individual accommodation, single person accommodation, that is really in short supply in Sefton, in both the social and private rented sectors. The purchase of The Salfordian provides the council with an opportunity to increase its supply of temporary accommodation in-house and within the borough.”
📺 The parents of Alice, Bebe and Elsie will tell their stories in a BBC documentary which will be broadcast on December 9. The families have been speaking with a small team from BBC Breakfast over nine months and will discuss their memories of the girls and the legacies they are now building in their memory. Read more here
📞 BT wants to install more electronic advertising screens in Southport town centre. The company has applied for planning permission to replace phone boxes near the roundabout at the northern end of Lord Street and replace them with ‘BT kiosks’ similar to one installed on Chapel Street.
Scrapyard “not competent” to continue operations
By Jamie Lopez
A scrap company which has been ordered to close its operations had breached its legal requirements for a decade and failed to engage with regulators.
In January, Johnson’s Skip Hire - legally known as Johnson’s Scrap Metal Ltd - had its waste permit revoked meaning it was no longer allowed to accept or process waste at its site on Crowland Industrial Estate, close to the grounds where Southport Gas Tower once stood.
However, the company is suspected by the Environment Agency to have continued operating in that time and officers attended the site alongside partners including Merseyside Police, Merseyside Fire & Rescue Service and Sefton Council last week.
That led to the EA issuing a press release about its enforcement action and warning members of the public that it is a criminal offence to send any waste to be handled by the company. The Southport Lead understands that further investigations remain ongoing and could lead to prosecutions being brought against the company directors.
The business has been run by the Johnson family since the 1980s and was originally based on Cemetery Road before moving to its current High Park location. It had been warned of potential enforcement action in summer 2024 but failed to respond and neglected to complete any action plan requested by the agency.
The enforcement notice issued to the company, as seen by The Southport Lead, explains that “the Environment Agency considers that you are not competent to operate the regulated facility in accordance with the environmental permit”.
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