Farmer to pay almost £40,000 after slurry pollution

The Environment Agency said it found the water thick with 'dirty floating foam'

A farmer has been ordered to pay nearly £40,000 for polluting a quarry lagoon with dairy slurry, a court heard.

Philip McDowell, 38, of Willoughbridge Lodge Farm, near Market Drayton, admitted allowing it to flow into Lordsley Wood Quarry without an environmental permit at a hearing in July and was sentenced on Wednesday.

The Environment Agency, which brought the prosecution, said it had received a report of the tenant farmer pumping slurry into the quarry in January 2023.

It sent officers to the site, who found the lagoon contained "thick and dirty floating foam which smelled of cattle slurry" and that it had spread across "a significant area".

Lordsley Wood Quarry was part of a regionally significant water source, with a water abstraction permit in place, The Environment Agency said.

"Slurry pollution can have devastating effects on local ecosystems," it added.

McDowell was sentenced at Kidderminster Magistrates Court and was fined £5,300, ordered to pay the quarry £18,236 in compensation and pay prosecution costs of £14,403.

He was also ordered to pay a £2,000 victim surcharge.