High Court shuts down concrete plant in Chase Village

Justice Nadia Kangaloo. -

A HIGH COURT JUDGE on December 15 quashed decisions by the Environmental Management Authority (EMA) that allowed a concrete batching plant in Chase Village to operate without proper environmental approval, ruling the regulator acted unlawfully and ordering the plant to shut down.

Justice Nadia Kangaloo held that the EMA’s decisions permitting Central Concrete and Pumps Ltd to continue operations, including the grant of a certificate of environmental clearance, were illegal, irrational, and breached procedural fairness.

The ruling came in a judicial review claim brought by Everton Phillip, a Chase Village pensioner who lives near the Derrick Road facility and said he has been affected for years by noise and dust from the plant’s operations.

In her order, Kangaloo declared the EMA’s decisions “null and void and of no effect,” quashing those decisions while compelling the authority to cancel and expunge the CEC, which was issued on April 15, 2024, to Central Concrete and Pumps Ltd.

The court further directed the EMA to take immediate enforcement action to require the company to cease all operations at the concrete batching plant until it properly applies for and obtains a CEC in accordance with Section 35 of the Environmental Management Act.

Phillip was also awarded damages for losses caused by the impugned decisions, including aggravated or exemplary damages. The amount will be assessed by a master in chambers. The EMA was ordered to pay Phillip’s legal costs.

The court granted a stay of its orders until January 26, 2026.

Phillip first received the court’s permission to challenge the EMA’s actions in February 2024. He contested a decision conveyed by letter dated November 30, 2023, in which the EMA allowed the company to continue operating the plant before obtaining a CEC, and the authority’s failure to enforce the law by shutting down the facility.

Phillip said he lived on Derrick Road, Chase Village, close to the plant, and has been affected by its operations since 2003. He said two concrete batching plants were established on the site, one in 2003 and another in 2013, in an area zoned residential and commercial.

According to Phillip, complaints were made over the years to the Town and Country Planning Division, the Chaguanas Borough Corporation, the EMA, and the Ombudsman. An EMA investigating officer in 2014 recommended legal action and issued a notice of violation, but the authority later entered into a consent agreement with the company that did not require it to obtain a CEC or immediately cease operations.

Phillip argued that the EMA had a continuing statutory duty to enforce the law and that the ongoing operations continued to adversely affect him and other residents.

Central Concrete and Pumps Ltd was named as an interested party in the proceedings. Kingsley Walesby and Stephanie Rajkumar represented Phillip. Ian Benjamin, SC, Tekiyah Jorsling and Rachel Ramoodith represented the EMA while Shiv Sharma appeared for Central Concrete and Pumps Ltd.