A Newquay farmer has been ordered to pay nearly £350,000 after damaging a wildlife haven and badger sett in an old quarry when he dumped waste and excavation waste on the site.

William Salmon, known as John, aged 62, of Trevemper Farm, Trevemper, appeared before Truro Crown Court on Friday for sentence after pleading guilty at an earlier hearing to two charges involving depositing waste on the land he owned in Trerice.

He was fined a total of £4,000 with £17,500 costs and ordered to pay £72,200.95 in a Proceeds of Crime Act confiscation, all to be paid within three months. 

Salmon is also required to pay approximately £250,000 to HMRC for landfill tax costs he should have paid earlier for the waste, as well as paying his own legal costs.

The court heard in the case, which was brought by the Environment Agency, that Salmon had created a track across farmland to gain access to a disused quarry.

The quarry had become overgrown over decades and had been reclaimed by wildlife, including badgers that had developed a long-established sett at the site.

Over several months, Salmon was responsible for infilling the quarry with construction waste and destroying the habitat that had developed there.

Salmon had registered a U1 exemption, which allows the use of specific types and quantities of clean waste materials in construction.

Waste transfer notes supplied by Salmon indicated he had imported around 1,200 tonnes of waste brick and concrete from a site in Newquay to construct a track.

He told officers that the waste they had seen tipped into the quarry had come from his own farm and that he thought he did not need any permissions or paperwork for this.

However, Environment Agency investigators identified that= construction and demolition waste had been imported from a housing development site for disposal at the site and that Salmon had been paid to take it away. Some waste had also been burnt there.

Judge Carr told Salmon: “You took a deliberate decision to use a disused quarry to deposit waste in breach of the environmental permitting regime.

“When you were spoken to by the Environment Agency about the waste, you lied. The Environment Agency’s investigation into your finances opened a pandora’s box.

“Once you have misled a government agency, do not be surprised if they look under every rock. You have learned an extremely expensive lesson by breaching the environmental regime.”

Richard Cloke of the Environment Agency said: “The Environment Agency won’t hesitate to go after those who break laws designed to protect the environment. In this case, Mr Salmon not only flouted the rules around disposal of waste, but he also did so with a flagrant disregard for wildlife.”