A company which owns a long-established laundry in Fakenham was this month ordered to pay more than £20,000 in fines and costs after admitting breaking rules on abstracting water.
Sunlight Services Group runs Fakenham Laundry, which employs about 150 people and cleans work clothes for a range of businesses around Norfolk. King’s Lynn magistrates heard that the company has a licence from the Environment Agency to abstract 200,000 cubic metres of water a year from the River Wensum, part of which is a site of special scientific interest (SSSI). However, the court was told that during 2007 the maximum daily limit was exceeded on four occasions which could have had an impact on the important wildlife area. This poor management also meant that on several occasions readings were not taken.
Sunlight Services admitted four offences under the Water Resources Act 1991 of exceeding maximum daily abstraction limits in a period between May and October 2007. They also pleaded guilty of failing to record readings of water abstracted. The company accepted the charges and stated there had been "no intentional or wilful neglect and it was an error on their behalf." Measures are now in place to improve data logging, including hour-by-hour readings.
