A Dartmoor hill farmer, Mrs Mary Alford, who has been widely criticised for closing Vixen Tor at Merrivale, one of Dartmoor's best-loved landmarks, to the public after decades of de facto access, has been fined a total of £1000 with £5000 costs for deliberately breaking Environmental Impact Assessment Regulations.
The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs won its case against Mrs Alford after a two-day trial at Plymouth Magistrates Court. A District Judge concluded that the landowner failed to obtain the proper consent under the Regulations before engaging in scrub clearance and the application of fertiliser on unimproved grassland around Vixen Tor.
Alford, of Moortown Farm, had pleaded not guilty to the charges after DEFRA had carried out an investigation into the claims.
Dartmoor landmark, Vixen Tor
Environmental Impact Assessment Regulations were introduced by DEFRA in 2002, and are designed to protect some of England's rarest and most vulnerable landscapes. The work carried out by Mrs Alford constituted intensive agricultural improvement, which would have required the consent of DEFRA prior to implementation.
Mrs Alford provoked uproar last year amongst the local community and outdoor and environmental groups when she decided to close the Tor to the public, who had been able to freely visit the site under the previous owner who took a more enlightened view of public access.
The prosecution follows two similar prosecutions by DEFRA. In Worcestershire a landowner was given a conditional discharge and ordered to pay £2500 costs after he had unlawfully ploughed 4 hectares of environmentally valuable grassland at Pinvin. He was also ordered to reinstate the land.
In Lodmoor North near Weymouth, Dorset a second landowner sprayed and ploughed seven hectares of environmentally valuable land. DEFRA withdrew criminal proceedings after the defendant agreed to reinstate the land to its former condition and to apply environmentally friendly management to other parts of his land.
