Owner of illegal Bradford waste site jailed four years after huge fire
The "reckless" owner of an an illegal waste site has been jailed – four years after a fire huge fire forced nearby schools to close.
Nearly 100 firefighters were called to a fire in Bradford in 2020, when a blaze spread through the site on Spring Mill Street where over 600,000 tyres were being stored.
More than 14,300 children were impacted by school closures and the nearby railway line was disrupted for several days.
People living in the East Bowling area were instructed to keep their doors and windows shut.
The Environment Agency had served an enforcement notice ordering the owners to clear the tyres a month earlier.
Stuart Bedford, 62, formerly of Harrogate, pleaded guilty to operating waste sites in Bradford and Doncaster without the required environmental permits.
He was sentenced to a year in prison.
His wife, Vicky Bedford, 51, was sentenced to 12-month community order and 15 days rehabilitation activity requirement for her involvement at the sites.
The Bedfords were arrested in Spain after international arrest warrants were issued.
The Environment Agency said both operations caused "unacceptable disruption" to local people and risk to the environment.
His Honour Judge Gibson told Stuart Bedford: "You know from an early stage that the number of tyres you stored on the site was vastly more than you would have been legitimately able to store under an exemption issued for that site.
“As far as the fire itself is concerned, you were reckless in the standard meaning of that word.
"You went ahead and stored the tyres anyway regardless of the risk. You were being paid to take these tyres and valued the tyres at the Bradford site at £1 million.”
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