\n Mark Pearson was prosecuted for\u00a0not increasing his slurry storage\u00a0to prevent the risk of pollution\u00a0to comply with\u00a0environmental regulations.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n
\n Pearson,\u00a0of\u00a0Hanford Farm, Hanford, near Blandford, pleaded guilty to the offence after a prosecution brought by the Environment Agency (EA).\n<\/p>\n
\n He was fined \u00a31,200 and also ordered to pay a victim surcharge of \u00a3480 and full costs of \u00a34,075.\n<\/p>\n
\n The EA has confirmed that additional\u00a0slurry storage has now been installed.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n
\n Yeovil Magistrates Court heard that\u00a0there had been\u00a0multiple\u00a0pollution incidents involving the farm since 2012\u00a0and\u00a0Pearson had failed to construct adequate slurry storage capacity.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n
\n The farm\u00a0is located in\u00a0a Nitrate Vulnerable Zone,\u00a0an\u00a0area\u00a0designated\u00a0as being at risk from,\u00a0or\u00a0impacted\u00a0by,\u00a0agricultural nitrate pollution. Excess nitrates can harm the environment and humans by leaching into groundwater and polluting waterways.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n
\n Farmers in Nitrate Vulnerable Zones must follow rules\u00a0governing\u00a0slurry storage capacity\u00a0as well as controls over when and how much spreading can take place.\u00a0\u00a0\n<\/p>\n
\n Pearson\u00a0had\u00a0initially\u00a0been given EA advice and guidance\u00a0to increase storage.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n
\n In January 2019, an EA officer was out walking his dog when he noticed\u00a0what appeared to be\u00a0slurry\u00a0in a stream. He traced the runoff to a field at Hanford Farm and\u00a0took photographs as evidence.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n
\n The EA said that during a formal\u00a0interview\u00a0under\u00a0caution, Pearson admitted that slurry spreading at the farm had caused the\u00a0pollution.\n<\/p>\n
\n A spokesperson for the government agency added that Pearson agreed to an enforcement undertaking \u2013 an alternative penalty to formal court proceedings \u2013 and he paid a contribution to the National Trust of \u00a32,000 as a result\u00a0as well as making a commitment to increase slurry storage.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n
\n However, the EA said that Pearson still did not\u00a0complete the slurry lagoon.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n
\n The Agency charged with him with the original polluting offence for which he had offered an Enforcement Undertaking and\u00a0in\u00a0November 2024\u00a0he\u00a0was\u00a0ordered\u00a0to pay\u00a0a \u00a32,500 fine.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n
\n Pearson was\u00a0finally\u00a0given\u00a0an Anti-Pollution Works\u00a0Notice\u00a0setting out what improvement works were\u00a0deemed\u00a0necessary to reduce the risk of pollution,\u00a0but the EA said he\u00a0failed\u00a0to\u00a0comply with\u00a0the deadline of\u00a0October 1, 2024.\u00a0The notice included a right of appeal, which was not exercised.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n
\n The EA said that\u00a0a visit to\u00a0the\u00a0farm on October 16 confirmed no new slurry store had been completed.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n
\n Chris Westcott\u00a0of the Environment Agency said:\u00a0\u201cPearson\u00a0has consistently failed to deliver on his promises to the Environment Agency that slurry storage would be increased. We first\u00a0highlighted this issue in 2015.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u00a0\u201cWe have been more than patient\u00a0with\u00a0the\u00a0farmer,\u00a0but the\u00a0promised\u00a0improvements\u00a0never\u00a0materialised,\u00a0and the offending\u00a0continued which left us with no alternative\u00a0but to pursue enforcement\u00a0actions.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mark Pearson was prosecuted for\u00a0not increasing his slurry storage\u00a0to prevent the risk of pollution\u00a0to comply with\u00a0environmental regulations.\u00a0 Pearson,\u00a0of\u00a0Hanford…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":790001,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3843],"tags":[728,70,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-790000","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-environment","9":"tag-science","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116136330029313153","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/790000","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=790000"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/790000\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/790001"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=790000"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=790000"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=790000"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}