David Mitchell, a potato farmer from Hillcommon in Taunton, Somerset, has been prosecuted by the Environment Agency for causing silt, soil and potatoes to escape from a field and seriously pollute a tributary of the River Tone on two occasions in 2022.
Mr Mitchell, whose family also run a popular farm shop, appeared before Taunton Magistrates Court on 18 June 2025, where he pleaded guilty to an offence of causing silt laden water from a field under his control at Combe Florey to enter a stream on two occasions in August and again on September 2022.
He was given full credit for his guilty plea by the District Judge and fines and compensation were ordered to be paid within 12 months. He was ordered to pay a total of £9,078 in fines and costs based on his means as disclosed to the court. The court heard that other clean up, equipment purchases and compensation to the landowner, already paid by Mr Mitchell, have totalled over £35,000.
The field in question has been rented by David Mitchell for potato production that year, and thunderstorms and wet weather conditions resulted in the loss of an estimated 50-100 tonnes of soil from the unharvested field. According to the Environment Agency office who first identified the pollution, large numbers of potatoes could be seen in the watercourse and along the edge of the roadside, along with the significant quantities of silt and mud. The busy A358 had to be closed on two occasions for the Highways Agency to clear drains and remove tonnes of soil from the road.
Following the first incident, bales and a soil bund were used to try to prevent further soil losses from the field, but these ultimately proved unsuccessful.
Following the court verdict, David Womack, of the Environment Agency, said, “David Mitchell had control and custody of the land he rented up until the point of harvest and was therefore responsible for the land management practices.
“He chose to grow a high-risk crop on a sloping field with light soils. As an experienced potato farmer, he should have identified the risks of using this field and taken reasonable steps to prevent large scale soil loss. No formal risk assessment and no adequate precautions to prevent soil loss had been taken. This made it highly likely that soil erosion and environmental damage would occur in even moderate rainfall conditions.”
