Firm linked to Crooked House owner was taken to court

Adam and Carly Taylor have links to The Crooked House and Himley Environmental landfill site

A company linked to the owner of the destroyed Crooked House pub was taken to court over a failure to comply with Environment Agency (EA) orders.

The notice was issued to Himley Environmental Limited in 2021, which operates a landfill site and was at the time run by Adam Taylor, the husband of the wonky pub's owner Carly Taylor.

A fire at the pub on 5 August is being investigated as arson. It was demolished less than 48 hours later.

Both have been approached by the BBC.

At the time the notice was issued Mr Taylor was described by Companies House as a person with "significant control" of the company. He is no longer a director of the firm.

The notice related to a failure to comply with permit requirements to install appropriate infrastructure to collect and treat landfill gas.

It was not complied with, said the EA, leading to it instigating proceedings against the company in the High Court.

An agreement was eventually reached with necessary works completed in the summer of 2022, it said.

The landfill lies next to the site where the 18th Century pub, famed for its sloping walls and floor, stood in Himley, near Dudley.

The pub was bought from Marstons in July by ATE Farms Limited, of which Carly Taylor is a director.

Phil Longhurst, professor of Environment and Energy Technology at Cranfield University, said gasses at landfill sites need to be carefully managed.

He explained gas could build up and pose "an explosion of flammability risk" to a local area.

Himley Environmental did not immediately take the action required when the problem was identified in April 2021.

Nor did it act when the enforcement notice was served two months later. It only complied after being threatened with court action.

Adam Taylor is no longer the director of the company but remains a shareholder.

The building was reduced to rubble on 7 August

One of Adam Taylor's other companies - AT Contracting and Plant Hire - owns a different landfill site in Finmere, on the borders of Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire.

In 2018, 400 tonnes of waste caught fire, sending choking fumes into the atmosphere

The cause was never identified.

• Mystery and anger surround Crooked House destruction

• Crooked House owners' links to previous major fire

• Two released on bail in pub arson probe

Safety consultant Andy Grannell is working alongside a demolition team drafted in by the Health and Safety Executive to make the Crooked House site safe and secure.

These are not the people responsible for the original demolition of the charred remains of the pub.

'Whack to the floor'

About 25,000 bricks have been salvaged and are being stored on site in case of an eventual rebuild, which thousands of people are calling for.

"Since Monday, we have been securing the sites and making the site safe, and that's as a result of a health and safety executive prohibition notice that was issued on the land," he explained.

"Our brief is to ensure that children don't go playing on the rubble heap, this is because we suspect there's asbestos, cement debris in there that's come from the roof slates, so there's a risk to public health."

He described the initial demolition of the pub building as a "shambles".

"Whoever did it, they weren't compliant with any safety system of work or any decent methodology. It was just whack to the floor and left us a big pile of rubble and an unsafe structure."

Two men were arrested and released on police bail in relation to the fire.

A 66-year-old man from Dudley and a 33-year-old man from Milton Keynes were detained on suspicion of arson with intent to endanger life.

This story by File on Four will be broadcast on BBC Radio Four at 20:00 BST on Tuesday and available on BBC Sounds afterwards.