Laundry fined for licence breach

A laundry firm has been fined £18,000 for taking too much water out of a Norfolk river threatening wildlife.

The Sunlight Group has a licence to extract water from boreholes fed by the River Wensum for its works at Fakenham.

It admitted at King's Lynn Magistrates' Court exceeding the limit set by the Environment Agency almost daily from January to October 2007.

The company said the person responsible for checking the level of extraction had been on long term sick leave.

The Sunlight Group was also ordered to pay £2,500 in costs in the prosecution for breaching their licence requirements and contraventions of water resources legislation.

Inaccurate meter

The level of water extraction is strictly controlled so it does not damage the quality and quantity of flow in the River Wensum which is a site of special scientific interferes, the court was told.

"As a result of poor management and infrequent meter reading too much water had been taken and the river flow was affected," Miriam Tordoff, prosecuting, said.

The company admitted five offences and said the employee responsible for meter reading had been on long term sickness but steps had been taken to ensure the situation did not occur again.

The Environment Agency who brought the case said they had a duty to protect wildlife and the river where rare barbel fish had recently been introduced.

It was later confirmed by an engineer that the company's water meter was 25% inaccurate but discounting those times, there were still many occasions when they were 10% over the daily limit.

Four of those occasions were the subject of the charges to which the company pleaded guilty.