Greene King fined for Isle of Wight pollution

Greene King has been ordered to pay almost £11,000 after one of its pubs polluted an environmentally sensitive river with dangerous levels of sewage.

The Suffolk-based brewing and pubs giant pleaded guilty to allowing unproperly treated sewage to be discharged into River Medina on the Isle of Wight.

The pub, the waterside Folly Inn at Whippingham, has it own sewage treatment works. Tests carried out by the Environment Agency (EA) revealed that the affected part of the river contained five times the legal Biochemical Oxygen Demand (BOD) level, which registers the amount of oxygen in water.

The pollution was discovered when EA inspectors called at the pub last October. Greene King admitted the offence at a hearing island's magistrates Court on Friday, August 12. Magistrates fined the company £8,000 and ordered them to pay all of the Environment Agency's £2,970 court costs.

Peter Bilbrough, prosecuting, said the point where the river was polluted in the incident was recognised by several groups for its scientific importance and the potential for damage to aquatic life and habitat had been significant, although there was no evidence of harm on this occasion.

"In this day and age all those who handle or use potentially polluting matter are expected to take care that there is no risk the environment will suffer," said Mr Bilbrough.

"In this case the owners were responsible for ensuring their treatment plant worked correctly and unfortunately failed in this task with the consequent serious breach of their consent at a particularly sensitive point," he added.

Stephen Parks, for Greene King, said the company had been unaware of a problem with the pub's treatment works when it bought the business in July 2004 and as a result had not carried out necessary improvements at that stage.

Speaking after the case EA environment officer Vic Jennings said: "They failed in their responsibility to ensure the works were operating correctly. This meant sewage repeatedly left the pub and entered the environmentally sensitive river."