ACTION is being taken to stop the illegal handling of waste materials in the Green Belt. Herts County Council has served an enforcement notice to prevent waste materials being taken to and processed at a haulage yard in High Street, Graveley. The move fol

ACTION is being taken to stop the illegal handling of waste materials in the Green Belt.

Herts County Council has served an enforcement notice to prevent waste materials being taken to and processed at a haulage yard in High Street, Graveley.

The move follows the refusal of a retrospective planning application to use the site - which is operated by Joe Williams Ground-work and Demolition - as a waste processing yard in November 2006.

Planning permission was refused for reasons including the site's location in the Green Belt, concerns over highway safety and the risk of air, water and noise pollution.

The enforcement notice seeks to end the importation of waste and remove all the existing waste material from the site.

The site would then be returned to its authorised use as a haulage yard which would be regulated by North Herts District Council.

"Refusal of planning permission ought to be the end of the matter in situations like this, but sometimes we are left with little choice but to take appropriate legal action to regulate unauthorised development or activities on a particular site - as we have in this case," said chairman of the county development control committee Nigel Brook.

Both the operator and the landowner, Gerard Mason, have a right of appeal against the notice, which must be lodged by February 18.

If there is an appeal, it will be determined by the Planning Inspectorate and could take up to a year. And during that time the enforcement notice would not be put into effect