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Shocking pictures show the huge scale of a dump in the middle of stunning countryside – as the local council has spent 10 years and more than £40,000 trying to get the landowner to clean up his act.
Maidstone borough council in Kent has spent a decade and £43,000 so far going through the courts to try and make Langley Beck clear his land.
Enforcement action started back in 2014 after the council found the land – located in the Kent Downs Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB) – was littered with broken down cars, piles of waste, and what appears to be shipping containers and other makeshift shelters.
The 14-hectare plot, surrounded by thick woodland, is a blot on what would otherwise be a stunning landscape.
Beck was described as having a ‘hoarding disorder’ during a previous court hearing, and he was due to be sentenced last week after being found guilty of breaching planning regulations.
Beck has also been living in a temporary building on the plot without planning permission, the court was told.
It’s a blot on the landscape (Picture: James Linsell Clark/SWNS)
Old tyres are just some of the items dumped onto the land (Picture: James Linsell Clark/SWNS)
Beck has been convicted of breaching planning regulations (Picture: James Linsell Clark/SWNS)
However the hearing on April 5 was postponed at the last minute because he was trying to find a solicitor to represent him.
The sentencing hearing had already been postponed twice – once because of difficulties finding a courtroom, and once because Beck had failed to show up.
Beck faces an unlimited fine at the next hearing in five weeks, whether or not he manages to secure representation.
Mr Recorder Fowler at Maidstone crown court told him: ‘I give you this one opportunity to get representation. But if you come back without representation, the case will proceed anyway.
‘If you do not appear, a warrant will be issued for your arrest.’
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Beck told the judge that he intended to take his case to the Court of Human Rights, saying he has suffered ’21 years of persecution by those dirty, lying, sons of b*****s (the council)’ and describing the hearing as ‘an invitation to a neck-tie party’.
He had previously been convicted of contempt of court for failing to comply with a previous order to clear up the land, and was given a four-month prison sentence suspended for two years.
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