Kent waste operator loses environmental permit

Kent waste operator loses environmental permit
Fire-risk among Environment Agency’s many concerns
A company near Sittingbourne that hired out rubbish skips has lost its permit to operate after a damning report card from the Environment Agency.
Matthew Butler ran BR Skip Hire, but ignored multiple calls to bring it into line with environmental law.
For more than a year, the Environment Agency warned Butler of the many concerns it had with how the premises at Stockbury were being run.
Butler had passed responsibility for the day-to-day running of the waste transfer station to a second company, All Skips Ltd, but he failed to control how they operated the site.
Skips were sent out to customers, who would fill them up with waste and return them.
But whether it was BR Skip Hire or All Skips in charge, that waste was too much to be stored at Rumstead Lane in Stockbury, some of it hazardous white goods that posed a risk of pollution and fire to the business itself and surrounding countryside and community.
Despite frequent inspections of the operation by environment officers and regular correspondence through 2024 and 2025, Butler refused to cooperate.
Matt Higginson, environment manager for the Environment Agency in Kent, said:
“The Environment Agency tries to work with operators to bring them into compliance, but some are just unwilling to accept what they need to do to achieve that.
“Our investigation into BR Skip Hire and All Skips highlighted fundamental errors around proper storage of waste, and a lack of fire-prevention that needed addressing. Revoking the site’s environmental permit was necessary when these and other problems weren’t managed.
“Our decision means waste can no longer be managed by BR Skip Hire or All Skips at Rumstead Lane, in Stockbury.”
Removal of the permit, which BR Skip Hire failed to overturn on appeal, comes after a long history of the site operating outside the rules that had only got worse in recent years.
There was a lack of management oversight, old fridges and TVs containing harmful substances were kept with other waste, inadequate drainage and a plan should the waste have caught fire. Kent Fire and Rescue Service also raised concern at the absence of water to fight a blaze, and that the piles of waste would have hindered efforts to do so.
The BR Skip Hire/All Skips yard was captured by a BBC documentary on the waste industry last year, during the Environment Agency’s investigation.
The removal of BR Skip Hire’s environmental permit follows the revoking or suspending of others in the region.
After concerns about storage of waste, the Environment Agency recently revoked the permits of recycling firm Siteclear Ltd, in Dorking, and John Hughes, who ran Ackworth Recycling, at Hilsea, in Portsmouth, and is also seeking to remove the permit at scrap metal dealer Reclamet Ltd, in Birchington, after complaints about noise.
It has also suspended the permit at Twyford Recycling Ltd, in Chichester. The company has also been told to remove the risk of pollution and fire from its premises alongside a river, a busy A road and railway line.
Contact us:
Journalists only: 0800 141 2743 or communications_se@environment-agency.gov.uk.