Farmer loses decade-long legal battle to plough his own fields

A farmer has lost a decade-long legal battle to plough his own fields because they contain ancient archaeological artefacts.

Andrew Cooper received £200,000 over 20 years for leaving his fields uncultivated under an environmental scheme.

But when he wanted to return to planting cereal crops on the land, he was blocked from doing so by the public body responsible for “conserving the landscape”.

Experts found Mesolithic flint arrowheads and D-Day relics on the site, including the pillbox signed by Private Alfred Augustine, the US soldier who was killed on Omaha Beach, Normandy, during the landings.

Mr Cooper defied the stop notices and began ploughing, saying that he would persist even after being slapped with a £7,500 fine and court costs of £24,000 following a conviction.

After criminal prosecution failed to stop him, Natural England applied to the High Court for an order prohibiting the farmer from working the fields.

A judge initially ruled that the public body did not have the jurisdiction to request a permanent injunction.

However, the Court of Appeal has now reversed the ruling and granted the court order in a bid to stop Mr Cooper.

The court heard that before 1992, he farmed the earth on Croyde Hoe, North Devon, as arable land but joined the Countryside Stewardship Scheme (CSS) that year. This meant that his fields were turned into pasture for livestock grazing and he received £200,000 over two decades in return.

He began renting his 67 hectares of land from the National Trust on a yearly basis in 1993.

But when the second agreement under the CSS came to an end in 2012, Mr Cooper decided that he wanted to cultivate the earth and applied to Natural England for a screening decision.

However, it concluded that the fields contained “features of important historic interest” and could not be worked without their consent. Mr Cooper had started ploughing three of the fields covered by the decision in April 2013.

He was issued a remediation notice by Natural England a year later requiring the land to be restored to its previous condition, which Mr Cooper appealed in May 2014.

His appeal was dismissed but he went on to cultivate two more of the fields with cereal crops in March 2016 and September 2017.

In 2018, Natural England began investigating the breaches and eventually brought a prosecution against the farmer to Barnstaple Magistrates’ Court in Devon.

Mr Cooper pleaded guilty at Exeter Crown Court in April 2021 and was handed a £7,500 fine as well as an order to contribute towards the prosecution’s costs of £24,000.

He then applied for leave to appeal after arguing that the judge had erroneously ruled that he was unable to challenge the validity of the stop notice, leaving him with no choice but to plead guilty. Again, this was refused as his application was “misconceived and without merit”.

Mr Cooper went on to plough three more of the fields in 2021 and was served with another remediation notice by Natural England.

The public body began their application for an injunction in April 2023, stating that Mr Cooper had given “no indication” that he would cease work “unless restrained by the court”. An interim injunction was granted.

The case was heard at the High Court in Bristol by Jonathan Russen KC, who was told that the cause of the stalemate was Mr Cooper’s unwillingness to pay around £10,000 for further archaeological surveys.

Mr Cooper claimed that Natural England was concerned with protecting the “natural environment” and not archaeological features.

Mr Justice Russen concluded that the environmental agency’s remit did include the archaeology of the land but refused to grant the injunction because the organisation did not have the power to bring a claim for one.

Natural England then appealed the judgement before Lord Justice David Holgate, Lord Justice Peter Coulson and Lord Justice Stephen Males, who reversed the decision by Mr Justice Russen for being “far too narrow”.

Lord Justice Holgate said: “To say that Natural England’s claim was simply consequential upon a concluded prosecution and therefore was not incidental to a [regulatory] function, involves far too narrow a view of the regulatory scheme.”

He added: “Mr Cooper has not advanced any point which could justify a refusal of an injunction by the court.

“The judge was entitled to find that Mr Cooper has made it plain that – in the absence of that injunction – he would persist in cultivating the land in breach of the 2006 Regulations, notwithstanding the availability of criminal sanctions.”

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