Milton Keynes District Council v Fuller & Anor

Whether waste has been “deposited” under section 33 of the Environmental Protection Act 1990 depends on the statutory context and the ordinary meaning of the word. Where the statutory term is an ordinary English word, the tribunal of fact must decide whether the proved conduct falls within that ordinary meaning in all the circumstances. An appellate court must not substitute its own definition or linguistic analysis. Its intervention is limited to cases where no tribunal acquainted with ordinary language could reasonably have reached the decision. A further movement of controlled waste may amount to a deposit, but the question is fact-sensitive.

Milton Keynes District Council appealed by way of Case Stated from the decision of three justices, who dismissed informations alleging that Darren Fuller and Christopher McVeigh had deposited controlled waste without the necessary authorisation. The respondents had moved waste blocking access to a field on to the adjoining public verge. The justices found that the waste had already been deposited by someone else and that the respondents’ movement of it to clear access was not itself a deposit. The central question was whether that factual conclusion was legally available under section 33(1)(a) of the Environmental Protection Act 1990.

1. Appeal dismissed. On the facts found, the justices were entitled to conclude that moving controlled waste from the access track to the public verge to clear access to the respondents’ property was not a deposit for the purposes of section 33(1)(a) of the Environmental Protection Act 1990.
2. The word “deposit” was undefined in the Act. Its meaning therefore took its colour from the statutory context. The court endorsed the contextual approach stated in Leigh Land Reclamation Ltd v Walsall Metropolitan BC [1990] 1 Env LR 16 and the ordinary-language approach in Scott and another v Westminster City Council [1995] RTR 327.
3. Following Cozens v Brutus [1973] AC 853, the application of an ordinary statutory word to proved facts is ordinarily a question for the tribunal of fact, not a question of law requiring the appellate court to formulate its own definition. Appellate intervention is limited to a conclusion that no tribunal acquainted with ordinary language could reasonably have reached.
4. Thames Waste Management Ltd v Surrey County Council [1997] Env LR 148 concerned materially different facts and did not require the same conclusion. “Deposit” may in an appropriate case embrace a continuing state of affairs, but each case must be determined on its particular facts.
5. The respondents’ abuse of process argument was left undecided because it was unnecessary to determine it. Costs in the appeal were summarily assessed.

• High Court (Administrative Court): the appeal by Case Stated from the justices’ decision of 25 August 2010 was dismissed.