Shell must clean up site where oil leak occurred

IRISH Shell is facing a multi-million-euro bill after the High Court yesterday ordered it to take immediate steps to clean up the site of Meath County Council’s proposed new civic offices at Trim.

The site, at Watergate Street, Trim, had been heavily polluted by the leakage of petroleum products from a Shell filling station in 2001.

Mr Justice Vivian Lavan directed that Shell must clean up the site to the standard sought by the council, which Shell had agreed to in early 2003 but subsequently argued was “impossible” to achieve.