Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs | John Baird, 61, of Dublin Road, Banbridge has been sentenced at Newry Crown Court for breaches of waste legislation.
Mr. Baird was given six months imprisonment, suspended for two years for waste offences. The offences related to the unauthorised keeping of controlled waste at two sites he controlled located in the vicinity of Dublin Road and Bog Road, Banbridge.
On 2 February 2023 the Northern Ireland Environment Agency received a report of a large number of end-of-life vehicles located on lands off the Dublin and Bog Roads, Banbridge.
On 21 February 2023 NIEA conducted a site inspection on both these areas of land. They observed hundreds of end-of-life vehicles and hundreds of tonnes of controlled waste, namely, scrap metals, car parts, mixed plastic waste, used wood, and some used household goods spread across a number of fields, within trailers and surrounding buildings.
NIEA contacted the occupier, John Baird, and issued an Article 27 notice requiring him to remediate the controlled waste.
On the 3 October 2024 NIEA Officers conducted a site inspection and observed that the vast majority of the controlled waste had not been removed. NIEA estimate that only between 20%-to-30% of the controlled waste including only some of the end-of-life vehicles had been removed legally from these sites.
On 28 August 2026, NIEA carried out a full inspection of lands in the vicinity of Dublin Road and Bog Road, Banbridge and deemed that John Baird had remediated the lands as was previously required of him.
Mr. Baird previously pleaded guilty at Banbridge Magistrates’ Court sitting at Newry to two counts of unauthorised keeping of controlled waste contrary to the Waste and Contaminated Land (Northern Ireland) Order 1997.
