Persimmon Homes has been fined more than £400,000 for seven separate pollution instances in one Welsh river. The national housebuilder pleaded guilty to breaching environmental permitting regulations at one of its development sites in Abergavenny. The seven separate breaches over a nine-month period resulted in illegal discharges into the River Gavenny in 2019, Newport Magistrates Court heard on April 5.
Persimmon also pleaded guilty to an additional pollution offence that happened on February 2, 2021. Inspections of the Persimmon Willow Court development by Natural Resources Wales (NRW) revealed that the house building company had allowed contaminated water run-off from the site into the River Gavenny.
The silt contamination could have had a negative impact on fish and other invertebrates, clogging their gills and reducing light penetration in the water, NRW said. Although there was no evidence of fish kill recorded in the Gavenny, the impact of silt would have had a detrimental effect on aquatic life in the water.
