Chicken plant fined over water incident in Yorkshire
A CHICKEN processing plant has been fined £2,700 and required to pay £10,000 in costs after pleading guilty to five charges which followed an investigation into a major water contamination incident in South Yorkshire.
Chesterfield Poultry Ltd agreed to the guilty pleas at Doncaster magistrates court to forestall a three-day trial which was due to start yesterday.
Yorkshire Water had brought the prosecution in the wake of the contamination scare in July last year which prompted the supplier to warn thousands of residents in Thorne, near Doncaster, not to drink their household water. E.coli and related bacteria were found in the water supply.
Company spokesman Paul Carter said: “We saw from the incident in Thorne the massive disruption that contamination of a water supply can cause for people. We hope that this prosecution will act as a warning and ensure that all businesses take the steps required by law to notify Yorkshire Water of any proposed alterations of their water systems and to prevent the risk of contamination when installing new plumbing systems in future.”
Chesterfield Poultry Ltd, of Coulman Street, Thorne, declined to comment after the hearing.
Yorkshire Water had initially charged the company with failing to get the proper authorisation to carry out modifications to pipework and a further 37 offences related to failings connected with the work subsequently carried out which caused, or were likely to cause, contamination of the water supply.
The number of charges, all brought under the Water Supply Regulations 1999, had been reduced to 12 ahead of the trial before the company agreed to five guilty pleas, which included failing to get proper authorisation to carry out modifications.