THE owner of a Devon waste company has been ordered to pay £21,000 in fines and costs for storing illegal amounts of food waste at three farms, causing odour problems.

The case was brought by the Environment Agency (EA) against Oakland Waste Management, which is run by Andrew Bull and based at Little Pulworthy Farm in Highampton. The company collects liquid food wastes and stores them in lagoons prior to spreading them on farmland as a soil improver.

Mr Bull, who admitted five offences at Exeter Magistrates Court, originally operated under an EA?exemption as the liquid wastes were being put to agricultural use. But the court heard that more recently the storage and spreading of these wastes came under the Environmental Permitting Regulations.

In 2009 the Environment Agency warned Mr Bull that he was exceeding storage limits at the sites where he was operating lagoons. These sites included Little Pulworthy Farm, Stockleigh Farm and Great Rutleigh Ball Farm.

Levels of waste in the Stockleigh Farm lagoon continued to rise, despite repeated warnings from the EA for the defendant to reduce the amounts being stored. By January 2011 all three storage lagoons were close to overflowing.

Matt O'Brien, of the EA, said the operator 'failed to act on the advice and repeated warnings' and the agency was left with 'no alternative other than to prosecute'.

Mr Bull was fined a total of £19,000 and ordered to pay £2,000 costs.