City of Westminster (Parliament Politics Magazine) – Westminster City Council faces a legal setback for unlawfully issuing fines and threatening businesses with criminal prosecution, sparking major controversy.
According to the court, Westminster City Council illegally fined businesses hundreds of thousands of pounds and threatened to prosecute thousands of firms for lawfully submitting their rubbish for collection.
Although Westminster City Council acknowledged distributing generic Enforcement Notices to city firms, the judge discovered evidence that the Council had a
“lack of understanding and instruction regarding the application of section 47 of the Environment Protection Act” and “[the Council] lacked the authority to impose any fines or to threaten criminal prosecution because no Enforcement Notice was in effect.”
The Judge slammed the Council, saying
“The existence of what appears to be a policy of non-engagement in any sort of dialogue prior to making a criminal offence seems, in my assessment, wholly unreasonable”.
When it comes to local authority enforcement, the United Resource Operators Consortium (UROC), a trade association that represents independent waste collectors, has been standing by its members in the struggle for justice and proportionality.
All of these measures combined to cause a major legal setback when the court ruled that the council’s enforcement techniques were illegal.
CEO of UROC, Jenny Watts, said
“We have been fighting the corner for our members for the past three years by trying to engage with Westminster City Council to ensure that engagement with businesses and proportionality is at the heart of their enforcement policy”.
In addition, Jenny Watts is a managing director at Watts Legal and a solicitor with a focus on environmental law. Watts Legal successfully contested the illegal Enforcement letters with a damning ruling that found the Council to have been “wholly unreasonable.” Watts Legal defended a number of businesses in appeals against enforcement letters filed at Westminster Magistrates’ Court.
Ms Watts said:
“Whilst the Council admitted that a ‘one size fits all’ is not workable, it had nonetheless issued blanket generic Enforcement Notices to some 48,000 businesses, without any prior engagement.
The Court found that this was wholly unreasonable and that there was a ‘troubling’ lack of understanding of the law at a very high level within the Council.”
Ms Watts continued that this heavy-handed and threatening approach by the Council has been going on for decades.
It is staggering that the law has been misapplied, and that [Council] employees have not received appropriate training.
This has resulted in systemic failures by the Council with well-intended businesses paying fines that they should never have been issued with in the first place and at a time when small businesses are trying to stay afloat in the current economic climate.
The Council had violated the Regulators Code, which requires local authorities to act in a fair, proportionate, and transparent manner while enforcing the law, in addition to improperly applying the Environmental Protection Act.
Andrew Thomas KC, barrister and head of Lincoln House Chambers, advocated for the businesses at Court and said:
“The Council confirmed that it had no written policy or guidance concerning the issue of Section 47 Enforcement Notices.
The Legislation sets out a specific legal test for the issue of a notice relating to the arrangements for presenting waste for collection and requires the application of individual discretion”, he continued
He added that the Council’s failure to conduct a proper investigation or to engage with businesses had resulted in notice(s) being served when it was unnecessary and had the inevitable consequence of imposing unreasonable requirements.
This was not a case of an apparently sound administrative decision.
Ms Watts said,
“The evidence demonstrated a significant additional burden that compliance would have imposed on the businesses had the notices not been successfully challenged the costs would have had a great impact on the businesses, with the ongoing threat of criminal prosecution had the businesses failed to adhere to the conditions stipulated in the notices facing fines of up to £1,000 per day. “
He added that for reasons which became clear these were in reality ‘test cases’ as there are numerous other businesses in the City of Westminster which have received similar notices and are suffering the consequences unlawfully imposed upon them by the Council.
The businesses were also successful in recouping their costs from the Council.
Mr Thomas said:
“The judgement speaks for itself … the businesses successfully appealed on all of the statutory grounds advanced and were awarded costs”.
Ms Watts concluded that they have urged Westminster City Council to review its policies and procedures and to put right their wrong approach to enforcement.
They want to see the Council refund all the illegal fines it has issued over many years and to have constructive dialogue with the business community, including the waste sector, especially as Simpler Recycling for business waste is due to come into force from 31st March 2025.
What specific actions did Westminster city council take that led to the legal setback?
Approximately 48,000 firms received generic Enforcement Notices from the council without any personal interaction. The court determined that these notices were “wholly unreasonable” since they did not adhere to the legal standards for such measures.
The council’s “lack of knowledge and training” in applying Section 47 of the Environment Protection Act was determined by the court. The illegal imposition of fines and threats of punishment resulted from this ignorance.
The Regulators’ Code, which requires local authorities to operate equitably, proportionately, and transparently in enforcement operations, was broken by the council. The court’s decision against the council was further reinforced by this failure.
The council persisted in using a generic approach even after realizing that it was unfeasible, which resulted in systemic failures and the levying of unwarranted fines on companies.