FINES amounting to £2,000 have been imposed on a Cricklade man found guilty of keeping and burning waste without a licence.

The case was brought against Robert Cooper by the Environment Agency who had suspected him of polluting land at Hicksleaze in Cricklade.

They made a video of the site to trap the 62-year-old who appeared before Chippenham Magistrates Court.

He was charged with keeping controlled household and industrial waste and disposing of controlled household waste by burning it without a waste management licence, contrary to the Environmental Protection Act of 1990.

The charges arose out of a visit to Cooper's site on March 21 by two agency officers following complaints from a member of the public.

They found piles of waste including an old mattress, timber, plastic and a large amount of excavation and demolition waste and there was also clear evidence that large amounts of waste had been burned.

Agency officers took a video of the site and this was shown to the court. Cooper, who lives in High Street in Cricklade, pleaded not guilty to the charges. He called two witnesses as well as giving evidence himself.

Malcolm Curtis and Wayne Clark told the court they brought aggregate onto the site for road building and lopped tree branches to be sold as logs.

But under cross-examination, they admitted much of the so-called aggregate was still heaped up around the site long after it had been taken there and much of the green waste had been brought there to be burned.

Cooper said he had very little income and his business account was £15,000 overdrawn. But he produced no bank accounts to support this.

He was fined £1,000 for each charge and ordered to pay prosecution costs of £1,877. If he wishes to continue in business, Cooper will have to pay for a waste management licence which could cost as much as £10,000.

After the case Environmental Protection officer David Rounding said: "This site threatened pollution of the air, land and water environments.

"The Environment Agency always aims to prosecute unlawful waste management activities where there is risk of significant pollution of the environment or of harm to human health."