Record Fine Leaves Sour Taste At Dairy

Residents' complaints cost Nijjar almost £58,000

A dairy has been ordered to pay £57,710 after breaching planning notices relating to noise and disturbance.

For many years residents near to Nijjar Dairies, adjacent to the Southfield Recreation Grounds and Hatfield Road, have complained to Ealing Council about noise and other alleged breaches.

The Council took the company to court where owners Balvinder, Rajinder and Gurbaksh Nijjar, were charged with vehicle movement offences and landscaping offences and order to pay the largest fine ever achieved by the planning enforcement team at Ealing Council amounting to almost £58,000.

Southfield Ward Councillor Harvey Rose said: “This has been a long struggle. The residents have been very patient and helped the Council to supply the necessary evidence which was overwhelming.”

The company who process, package and distribute milk out of the four-acre site have large vehicles moving around the site – at times the number of movements exceeded 1000 per day. In order to minimise noise the company were ordered, as part of their planning conditions, to plant trees to act as a noise barrier and visual screen and were also restricted to times that vehicles could move about to particular parts of the site and have their engines running. They ignored these planning notices and continued to operate outside of the law for a number of years.

Councillor Julian Bell, council leader, said: “This is a substantial fine for a company who repeatedly ignored planning notices over a prolonged period of time. I hope this sends a clear message to other businesses that we will not hesitate to take action on non-compliance of planning conditions. Had Nijjar Dairies taken the simple actions we advised they would have avoided this fine and they would have avoided disturbing their neighbours with this noise nuisance.”

March 17, 2011