Herefordshire farmer who damaged River Lugg has jail term cut

A Herefordshire farmer who was jailed for damaging the protected River Lugg has had his sentence cut by two months.

John Price, a potato, cereals and beef farmer from Day House Farm, Kingsland, Leominster, was jailed for 12 months after pleading guilty to seven charges of carrying out unconsented works along the river, which is designated a site of special scientific interest.

Mr Price, who has capital assets in excess of £20m, was also ordered to pay more than £1.2m in prosecution and river restoration costs.

See also: Herefordshire farmer jailed for damaging protected River Lugg

The 68-year-old hired an 18t bulldozer and diggers to reprofile riverbanks and remove gravel, silt, trees and vegetation along a 1.5km stretch of the river in November 2020.

He was served a stop notice in December 2020, but carried on with the unconsented works.

Verbal approval

Mr Price, who owns land on both sides of the Lugg, said he carried out the work to cut the risk of nearby properties and land flooding after receiving verbal approval from his local Environment Agency (EA) representative, with support from his local parish council.

But a joint investigation by the EA and Natural England found he did not have the correct paperwork. Both organisations said it was the worst riverside destruction they had seen, and it would take more than a decade for the river to recover.

At Mr Price’s appeal hearing at Worcester Crown Court on Wednesday 17 May, Judge Nicholas Cole reduced his sentence to 10 months, but declined to suspend the sentence.

He told the farmer he would serve at least half of this time in prison (five months), with the time already spent in jail taken into account, before being released on licence.

The judge accepted mitigating factors, including Mr Price’s age and his autism spectrum disorder, but said he had previous convictions relating to “river activities” and his case should act as a deterrent to others.

“You turned a beautiful stretch of river into a canal devoid of wildlife. This was vandalism of the environment on a grand scale,” Judge Cole told the farmer.

Meanwhile, almost 15,000 people have signed an online petition in support of Mr Price in his appeal against the judge’s ruling.