A FORMER waste-company boss and his old firm have been fined a total of £22,500 after a plague of flies descended on Oswaldtwistle from an illegal tip.

But a fresh probe has been ordered into the man who offered the former Clarion Chemicals site at Nook Lane, and a smaller plot in Sandy Road, as dumping grounds for potentially carcinogenic materials, Burnley Crown Court heard.

Judge Beverley Lunt said there was evidence, at one time, the Nook Lane land was ready to be sold to Redrow Homes for £4 million and it was important to establish who owns the site.

An expert analysis of the waste left at Sandy Road, on a site beside the main East Lancashire railway line, showed that as well as human waste and nappies being left in bales, there was also evidence of naptholene, a cancer-causing material, the court was told.

Company consultant Arthur Morgan, who was responsible for taking in the Sandy Road waste on land he did not own, was also later paid £135,000 by Wigan-based Blakeleys Waste Management to store baled waste at Nook Lane.

Defence counsel Mark Rhind said the waste company’s owner Stephen Blakeley had been having difficulties with his £10 million-a-year-turnover business and was introduced to Morgan, who arrived off a flight from Monaco with a Louis Vuitton travelling case.

Morgan told him he could take in thousands of tonnes of baled waste, which Blakeley could not process quickly enough at his main Wigan plants, and store them at the “licensed” site in Nook Lane.

Mr Rhind said: “Morgan seemed like the answer to his problems. But when something seems like it is too good to be true, it generally is. He was taken in by a conman.”

Prosecutor Barry Berlin, for the Environment Agency, said an inquiry was launched after repeated complaints from neighbours about terrible smells coming from the sites and a plague of flies. Investigators found baled waste being buried underground, using mechanical diggers, at Nook Lane, the court heard.

Blakeley, of Henfield Road, Higher Ince, Wigan, admitted waste-management offences and was fined £7,500. His ex-firm Blakeleys Waste Management was fined £15,000 with £15,000 costs for related charges. Morgan, formerly of The Foxwood, Chorley, but now of Station Road, Thurston, Wirral, admitted waste-control offences, and was bailed until December 18 for sentence.