 THIS mass of rubble is not your average crop. Farmer Alexander Cannon decided to run a business clearing waste from demolished houses and dumping it in a makeshift landfill on his land. And it created a mound of 30,000 tonnes of rubbish at his farm near Ponteland, Northumberland. By the time Environment Agency officers visited, Cannon’s personal landfill had raised the surface in certain parts of the field by 4ft. Investigators estimate he dodged about £270,000 in landfill taxes by burying it at his site. The 54-year-old pleaded guilty to four charges of permitting waste to be dumped, in January and February 2007. He was fined a total of £10,800 by magistrates in Bedlington and was ordered to pay £5,474 costs to the Environment Agency, which brought the prosecution. The Agency’s environmental crime officer Roy Howitt, who lead the investigation into Cannon’s illegal activities, said: “His field was an eyesore. Waste which has been deposited like this can smell, it can attract vermin. “This site borders the River Pont and sometimes, as waste degrades, it gives off leachates which can leach into water and damage the river. It can have a serious knock-on effect on water, air and land.” The court was told Cannon ran his business, Alexander Cannon Groundworks taking away rubbish from houses which had been knocked down and earth which had been dug out around the foundations of new homes. He was paid by householders to take the waste away and dispose of it properly, but instead he flouted the rules, burying it in a field. Plastic window and door frames, wood, bricks, rubble, clay and soil were among the rubbish found. According to the law, even when someone dumps rubbish on their own land it counts as fly-tipping, if the land is not registered with the Environment Agency. The point of licensing is to prevent waste dumped in sites which have not been properly prepared from polluting rivers, land and the air. At his home, Cannon said: “I’m not fly-tipping, it’s my own land, I was just making it look better. But they’ve changed the rules and that’s all the Environment Agency sees, rules which you have to stick to.” In court, Cannon asked a further matter, of depositing waste at Barrington Industrial Estate, Bedlington, to be taken into consideration. Mr Howitt said: “If people are involved in the waste business they have to be aware of the environmental legislation. “Ignorance of this law is no excuse.” Alexander Cannon’s father, David, made headlines all over the world when he doused branches of a high-street bank with slurry. Mr Cannon Snr waged a series of “dirty protests” against NatWest, which he accused of taking money from his account without permission. | 
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