EA rejects FOI request for data on farmer’s River Lugg prosecution

The Environment Agency (EA) has declined to give information on how much taxpayers’ money and time its staff have spent prosecuting a Herefordshire farmer who admitted damaging the protected River Lugg.

Farmers Weekly made a request for information under the Freedom of Information Act on 31 March asking the EA to publish details of the total amount of taxpayers’ money it had spent to prosecute potato farmer John Price.

Specifically, the agency was asked to provide a breakdown of the total costs, including legal fees and hours spent internally by agency staff employed in this case.

See also: Farmer pleads guilty to damaging River Lugg

In its written response sent on 13 May, the EA said it had considered the public interest balance between refusal and disclosure and decided to withhold the information.

“We are withholding the above because disclosure of the information would adversely affect the ability of a person to receive a fair trial and thereby prejudicing the course of justice,” said the EA in its written response.

“Disclosing this information into the public domain at this stage of the proceedings could lead to unwarranted public scrutiny that could result in the individual not receiving a fair trial.”

The EA also explained why it was unable to provide figures on the total cost to the taxpayer to date concerning the prosecution of Mr Price.

“We do not hold this information as the Environment Agency does not allocate money and we spend as requested,” it said.

Mr Price, 67, of Day House Farm, Kingsland, appeared at Kidderminster Magistrates Court on Wednesday 18 May.

Guilty pleas

He pleaded guilty to seven charges in relation to carrying out operations on a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) without consent, contravening a stop notice, contravening the Environmental Permitting Regulations and contravening the Reduction and Prevention of Agricultural Diffuse Pollution Regulations.

The charges followed a joint investigation by the EA and Natural England into activities along a 1.5km stretch of the Lugg that Mr Price is alleged to have taken in November 2020 and a year later in December 2021.

Bernard Thorogood, a barrister representing the EA and Natural England, told the court that both would provide a full restoration plan, which Mr Price will be ordered to carry out.

Mr Thorogood said the costs were “substantial already and would grow to a degree”.

He described the prosecution of Mr Price as a “very substantial exercise, which has involved repeated checks by experts on the condition of the river and all its inhabitants”.

Mr Price, who was given unconditional bail, is likely to be sentenced for the offences later this year at the same court.