When it comes to caravan park maintenance, one owner has learnt that grime most certainly does not pay after receiving a hefty fine for polluting a local river with sewage.
According to the Herald Express, Martin Willett was fined £20,000 by magistrates in Torquay this week, after he was found guilty of discharging poor quality sewage effluent from his Paignton caravan park into a tributary of the nearby River Dart.
The Environment Agency opted to prosecute the park owner, after Mr Willett failed to heed a previous warning in 2008 that the area’s sewage plant was not operating correctly.
Four subsequent test samples of sewage from the region came back with negative results and over the next four years the park owner failed to make any of the necessary improvements to the site.
Things came to a head in October 2011, when the Environment Agency found that no improvements had been made and that sewage fungus had begun to develop.
Agency representative Pete Ball told the news provider: “Inaction on the part of the site operator resulted in continued illegal discharges of sewage into a rural stream. In the end we were left with no choice other than to prosecute.”
In addition to the £20,000 fine, Mr Willett was forced to pay £13,089 in costs and ordered to carry out improvement work to the tune of £400,000 before March 31st 2013.
The Environment Agency is committed to ensuring caravan and camping sites adhere to strict rules regarding sewage and waste disposal.
