A FARMER who allowed hazardous asbestos waste to be dumped on his land has been warned he will go to jail if there is any more illegal tipping.
Christopher Garrett’s farm near Teignmouth was visited by Environment Agency officers after neighbours complained about a large number of builders’ lorries clogging the country lanes leading to it.
They issued an official warning in June 2014 but Garrett ignored it and allowed even more waste to be dumped over the next 13 months until he was raided for a second time.
Garrett had created a hard standing out of buried waste at the top of the hill and on it carried out illegal burning of building materials including plastics.
Other building waste had cascaded down a hill like an avalanche and engulfed trees in a copse at the bottom.
A path had been built down the hill which was found to include potentially lethal broken asbestos tiles, Exeter Crown Court was told.
Garrett,56, of Little Lindridge Farm, between Teignmouth and Newton Abbot, admitted allowing the disposal of controlled waste without a permit and was jailed for four months, suspended for two years by Recorder Mr Paul Dunkels QC.
He also ordered him to pay £3,221.78 costs to the Environment Agency (EA) and remove all the waste at his own expense within a year.
He told him:"In layman’s terms, this was unlawful dumping of waste on your own land. It was a bad case because you had been warned about your future conduct in June 2014.
"You carried on extending the area over which the dumping and burning took place and some of the tipping went into woodland. The waste included asbestos tiles, thus creating a health hazard.
"This was a deliberate course of conduct. The case is significant. It goes without saying if there was a further offence of unlawful dumping there would be immediate imprisonment. It must stop."
Mrs Judith Constable, prosecuting, said the first visit by EA staff in June 2014 uncovered evidence of burial of waste on a hard standing, burning of building waste including plastics, and tipping of tiles, wood and metal down a hill.
A warning letter was sent but in 2015 the EA received complaints from resident about a stream of lorries going to the farm and they found even more waste had been dumped.
Mrs Constable said there was concern for trees in an area of woodland at the bottom of the hill because they had been partially buried.
Broken up asbestos tiles had been used to make a path down the hill and there was further evidence of burning on the hard standing at the top, which had been completed by this time.
She said Garrett would have needed an EA permit and planning permission to have handled any waste and he had neither.
Mr Kevin Hopper, defending, said Garrett had now applied for a permit to allow some waste disposal at his farm but did not have planning permission.
He said he had no money and his only income was a carer’s allowance for looking after his elderly mother. He did not know how he would be able to pay for the removal of the waste.
Mr Hopper said Garrett believed some of the waste had come from the building of the new Kingskerswell by-pass but accepts general building materials were also dumped at the site.