Magistrates have ordered the company to pay £34,000 in the case brought by the Environment Agency.

Velcourt pleaded guilty at North Somerset Magistrates Court on Monday, 4th April to polluting a tributary of the Hardington Brook, Hardington, on or before 1st August 2018.

The company, whose head office is in Ross-on-Wye, was ordered to pay the Environment Agency costs of £14,000, a total fine of £20,000 and a victim surcharge of £170.

On 1st August 2018, the Environment Agency received reports of dead fish in the Hardington Brook and Buckland Brook – tributaries of the River Frome. Officers attended and found dead fish – including brown trout and bullhead in the Hardington Brook.

The next day they traced the discoloured water to a side stream flowing from the direction of Manor Farm, where they found a non-permitted discharge from the farm’s surface water drainage system. The discharge was heavily discoloured, and samples confirmed it would prove fatal to fish because of its concentration of ammonia and very high biological oxygen demand which limited the oxygen supply to the fish in Hardington Brook.

Manor Farm is owned by the Radstock Cooperative Society, but operated on their behalf by Velcourt Ltd.

The farm manager stopped the discharge and emptied the ditch. But a follow up inspection by an Environment Officer on 14th September 2018 found polluting matter in the ditch. The inspection concluded the farm’s dirty drainage system still posed a ‘high potential pollution risk’ due to insufficient storage capacity and appropriate engineering.

Since the incident there has been considerable investment in the farm’s infrastructure and Velcourt has also reviewed arrangements at the other farms it manages.