Haulier faces prison for contravening farm ban
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by Ian Wylie • A Leicestershire haulier, who has been in dispute with his local council over planning permission for four years, could go to prison after being found guilty of contravening a ban on operating trucks out of his farm.
Roger Bown was found guilty of contempt at the High Court over an undertaking to stop using his farm premises at Scraptoft near Leicester as a haulage depot. Bown, who is suffering from cancer of the throat, was given a suspended three-month prison sentence last December for failing to comply with the undertaking. The High Court will sentence him in early October.
The wrangle between Bown—who operates 20 bulk tippers and employs 20—and Harborough District Council began in 1994 when Bown bought the 26-acre farm and applied for planning permission to operate a haulage depot and HGV workshop. The council planners refused Bown permission on the grounds that the rural roads around his farm were unsuited to heavy vehicles.
Bown argued that the farm's previous owners had been allowed to operate HGVs from the site, and he won a licence to run a workshop for the maintenance and repair of HGVs. However, after the council won a High Court injunction, Bown was forced to give an undertaking in June 1996 that he would not use the farm as a haulage depot.
At last week's hearing, Bown denied that he was in contempt of that undertaking, claiming he had kept his vehicles at two other sites. Bown's legal team produced sworn affidavits from the site owners and from nine of his drivers to back the claim.
Paul Hunt, principal legal officer at the district council, says planners have received a "wide variety of objections" over the past four years to Bown's application for planning permission. However, he denies Bown's claim that local councillors' patronage of the neighbouring golf club was the main factor.