Tonnes of soil must now be removed from the fields at the estate.

It should not be easier to ask for forgiveness than permission.

In short, the transport giant SCT must now remove a significant portion of the 350,000 tons of soil that the company has spread across fields near the estate of Vesterbygaard on West Zealand.

This was decided by a unanimous Technical and Environmental Committee in Kalundborg Municipality, as told by the committee’s chairman Jakob Beck Jensen from the Venstre party.

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**Who is SCT?**

SCT is one of Denmark’s largest transport companies in the construction industry and employs around 500 people, according to environmental director Kristian Lund Johansen.

The company was founded in 1930 and is family-owned.

In 2024, the company’s turnover exceeded 800 million Danish kroner.

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**Three meters of soil**

Originally, SCT and the owner of the estate had been granted permission to spread half a meter of soil across the fields to improve their cultivation. However, in April last year, DR revealed how the fields in some places had grown up to three meters in height.

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**How we did it**

DR compared a map showing the height of the fields above sea level in 2019—before soil was spread—and a drone survey of the field’s height from October 2024—after the soil was spread.

This way, it is possible to see how much the fields have risen in height. The drone survey was conducted by a company specializing in measuring fields, among other things.

The elected officials in Kalundborg Municipality have now demanded that the soil lying higher than half a meter above the original field level be removed.

Officially, the municipality’s administration had recommended that politicians grant permission for the soil to remain. However, the committee unanimously rejected this.

“Why should ordinary citizens comply with their building permits and the law in general when one can simply get permission retroactively? That’s not something we want to encourage,” says Jakob Beck Jensen.

This is how it looked while SCT spread soil across Vesterbygaard’s fields. (Photo: © Private)

“If it were minor violations, we might have considered it, but this is hundreds of percent over the limit. One thing is running a yellow light, but if you run a red light, we don’t see any reason to grant permission for that,” he adds.

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**Citizen: ‘The only right thing to do’**

The soil comes from construction sites where it has been left over. DR has previously described how there can be significant financial benefits to transporting excess soil from construction sites onto fields instead of taking it to designated soil disposal facilities.

The municipality’s decision pleases Casper Sørensen, who has persistently tried to get the municipality to intervene. He lives near Vesterbygaard and was greatly disturbed by the heavy traffic in the small area where the soil was spread onto the fields. During that time, around 10,000 trucks passed by Casper Sørensen’s home on a narrow and otherwise quiet country road.

“It’s the only right thing to do. Especially when we consider what has happened in other cases—also involving SCT,” he says.

Casper Sørensen hopes that the trucks will take a different route when the soil is removed from the fields again. Otherwise, he has considered standing in the middle of the road in protest. (Archive photo) (Photo: © Paw Lindegaard Nielsen, DR)

DR has previously reported on another field in North Zealand where SCT dumped so much soil that the field rose over five meters in some places. TV2 has also covered several cases involving the transport giant.

Warning: This article was translated by a Large Language Model, in case of doubt, you can always visit the original source.