Officials in farm gate stand-off (From Gazette & Herald)

Officials in farm gate stand-off

A ROW between a Ryedale farmer and Government officials led to a stand-off at his farm gate.

Geoff Bean, who claims "petty bureaucracy" has made him a "common criminal", refused to be interviewed by environment watchdog officials investigating claims of illegal dumping at his farm when they arrived there.

Mr Bean, 59, of Salton Lodge Farm, at Salton, is at loggerheads with the Environment Agency (EA) over a heap of hardcore he has bought to resurface tracks and roads on his land.

Officials claim he has broken the law as he does not have a Waste Management Licence to dispose of the reclaimed building site materials and requested to interview him under caution.

But Mr Bean protests he has done nothing illegal and said that the enforcement officers were not welcome, had arrived uninvited and were trespassing on his property.

"It doesn't contain the ashes of Adolf Hitler or Saddam Hussein or anyone else. It's building demolition waste which is being put to very good use," he said.

The row began after Mr Bean paid £100 for more than 200 tonnes of waste rubble from a development at the former Hodgsons Garage site in Kirkbymoorside, in February.

The tarmac and broken concrete now lies in a number of heaps in the courtyard of Mr Bean's farm, which houses 160 dairy cows. EA enforcement officer Steve Williamson said he was investigating the unlicensed deposit of waste at the dairy farm and wished to interview Mr Bean under caution.

After taking photographs of the piles of rubble, he said: "This investigation is still going on so any comment I wish to make is sub judice."

In an earlier letter to Mr Bean, he said that the purpose of the visit was to "assess the suitability or otherwise" of the material.

A contract manager from Sphinx Commercial Ltd, who delivered the rubble, observed the visit but said he had no comment to make.

Mr Bean blames the EA action on "regulation mania". He said: "This is a typical example of the red tape that is strangling us all."

He said: "It's totally ridiculous. But these people have got to justify their own useless and non-productive existence."

Updated: 12:48 Wednesday, May 21, 2003