Million pound rubble-dump

Brighton and Hove City Council let Jeffrey Blundell and Ron Sweet tip tonnes of rubble at the airport '“ without consulting its elected members.

It has emerged the men went on to pocket at least 1million from a private firm which offloaded waste on two sites.

The city council jointly owns the airport with Worthing Borough Council, although the authorities are in the closing stages of selling it to property group Erinaceous.

Only city council officers, however, looked after the running of the business.

A report by the Audit Commission into the affair said: "While no evidence of deliberate wrongdoing has been identified, officers acted beyond their authority.

"The owning councils gave up a lucrative asset '“ tipping rights '“ for a peppercorn consideration and have forgone income of at least 1million.

"Key decisions were not taken by members, record-keeping was weak, the council's own governance framework was not followed and there was little regard to minimising fraud and corruption."

The commission was asked to investigate by the council's director of strategy and governance in 2004 after councillors Don Turner and Jan Young, who sit on the Shoreham Airport joint committee, which oversaw the running of the airport, had questioned why no income was being received from dumping of rubble which had been taking place since 2001.

In September, 2000, council officers began negotiations with the farmers, trading as S&B, to buy 70 acres of privately held land to the west of the airport, which it needed for runway expansion.

The owners were willing to sell provided they were given tipping rights on an area of airport land to the north-west.

The council wanted the land raised to prepare it for a planned helicopter pad, although this was never built.

The deal was prepared and agreed by the joint committee in April, 2001, but it was never completed, for reasons which have not been revealed. Negotiations ceas-ed in 2002.

In the meantime, the tipping licence, which had been part of the contract, was granted anyway without the agreement of councillors. Tipping started in July, 2001, even though the licence agreement was not signed until March, 2003.

In 2002, when the council wanted another part of the airport land raised to minimise flooding risks, officers rolled out the farmers' existing tipping agreement for this new section, again without charging anything or consulting councillors.

The licence was for only a year but tipping continued until late 2005.

Councillor Turner said: "Serious mistakes were made. It's sad so much money has been wasted, especially when we are having to put up rates."

A city council spokesman said: "We accept the findings of the report and regret correct procedures were not followed.

"The city council has already carried out its own internal audit and we welcome any useful lessons that can be learned from further scrutiny.

"We note the district auditor makes it clear there was no evidence of fraud and has confirmed that, in his judgment, this was very much a one-off exception to the good financial governance of the city council."