Farmer fined a second time for polluting River Frome

A farmer has been fined for the second time for polluting the River Frome.

Michael Aylesbury, a director of Cross Keys Farms Ltd, has been ordered to pay more than £25,000 for polluting the Somerset river.

Cross Keys Farms Ltd pleaded guilty to causing an unpermitted discharge of slurry in August 2020.

This polluted the river, killing more than 120 adult fish, including many large pike, roach and chub.

In 2017 Aylesbury was found guilty of polluting this same stretch of the River Frome in 2016, killing more than 1,700 fish.

Members of the public alerted the Environment Agency to the pollution on August 20, 2020 and local residents carrying out ‘citizen science’ river monitoring provided helpful evidence for the investigation.