A DIESEL spillage into Mellor Brook cost haulage company boss Stuart Taylor nearly £3,000 in fines and costs.

Blackburn magistrates heard the incident had already cost thousands pounds for Taylor, who runs a fleet of 40 lorries carrying out international transport work.

Taylor, whose company is based at New Trees Garage, Myerscough Smithy Lane, Mellor Brook, Blackburn, pleaded guilty to causing polluting matter to enter controlled waters and was fined £2,000 and ordered to pay Environment Agency costs of £974.

The court heard that a lorry had collided with a diesel pump in the yard, fracturing pipes and causing the spillage.

Abigale Holt, defending, said Taylor believed the drainage system ran through a sceptic tank which would have contained the spillage.

"Unfortunately that was not the case and my client has to plead guilty because it has been established that diesel did escape," said Miss Holt.

"Since this incident my client has co-operated fully with the Environment Agency and has taken extensive steps to ensure this can not happen again. "Mr Taylor is a local man, a farmer's son, and he appreciates the importance of keeping the environment clean and pure.

"He was able to work with the Agency which advised him on how the clean-up operation should be carried out."

Miss Holt said Taylor was a self made man who had started with one lorry and had built up a company with a turnover of £2.5 million.

Taylor had paid £3,851 to a company to clean out the drainage system at the Mellor Brook depot, £8,000 for a new diesel pump, between £4,500 and £5,000 in time and costs to reorganise the drainage system and lost about £500 worth of diesel.

She said the company was not profitable at the moment partly due to the strength of the pound against the peseta.

In addition he had two trucks stolen the week before, one of them in Germany, and there was a £5,000 excess on each lorry on his insurance policy.

Referring to the pollution, Miss Holt said Taylor had been extremely unlucky.

"This was the kind of accident that could not be anticipated and it has already cost him dear," she added.

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