Rusper Golf Club, now permanently closed, along with Cook and Son Ltd and Bell and Sons Construction Ltd, were penalized by England’s Environment Agency for running an under the table, yet out in the open, garbage dumping operation.
An anonymous tip-off made investigators aware of the golf club’s waste management activities, which were not approved by the Environment Agency.
Rusper Leisure Ltd, which oversaw the golf club, sought to raise embankments on the course to catch stray balls; but instead of only using clean soil, as required, it accepted loads that contained glass, wood, plastic, tarmac, brick, and concrete.
“We estimated almost 700 lorry-loads of waste were dumped at the golf course, each one worth £100 (US$127), [for] a total fee of £70,000 ($89,000),” an Environment Agency spokesman told OCCRP.
Jamie Hamilton, the senior environmental crime officer who led the investigation, said that the golf club and contractors discarded waste on the course for over five months during the 2018 season.
Representatives from Bell and Sons, Rusper Leisure, and Cook and Son said that they weren’t aware that environmental permits were necessary, believing all that was required was planning permissions from the local district council.
Investigators also discovered that documents detailing the illegal dumping lacked crucial detail.
“Many of the hundreds of waste transfer notes seen by Environment Agency investigators were incomplete, missing details like the type of waste and its source.” Many of the garbage transfer notes did not contain any sort of description of the waste’s contents or whether it was hazardous or not, the Environment Agency told OCCRP.
District judge Tessa Szagun called the behavior “reckless,” and fined Rusper Golf Club and the contractors a combined £38,000 ($48,600).
“Waste dumped illegally can affect human health and spoil how the environment looks. It can also cause damage to land, air and water,” an Environment Agency spokesman told OCCRP.
“By undermining legitimate business investment, it costs our economy an estimated £1 billion ($1.28 billion) every year – money being taken away from other essential services to deal with the damage caused by waste criminals.”
Rusper Golf Club, opened in 1992 by Ryder Cup captain and British Open champion Tony Jacklin, closed in 2020 as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic.