A company and its director have been ordered to pay more than £17,000 between them over unauthorised work in the open countryside.
N&T Civils Limited of Hartlepool and its director Nicholas Edwin Leat have also been left with criminal convictions having been successfully prosecuted by Durham County Council.
The company and director were taken to court for failing to comply with a February 2025 planning enforcement notice served after significant quantities of materials were brought onto a field beside the A181 at Wheatley Hill.
Both company and director pleaded guilty before Peterlee magistrates. N&T Civils Limited of Coronation Drive was given a fine of £2,112 and Leat, 50, of Low Cross Farm, Pinchinthorpe, Cleveland, was fined £650. The company and director were also ordered to pay combined costs totalling £14,613.72.
Stephen Reed, the council’s planning manager, said: “This was a case in which significant amounts of materials were brought onto a field without planning authorisation having been sought or granted. This had the effect of making what was a naturally sloping field into one that was level.
“This field is close to a watercourse that is within a Site of Special Scientific Interest and the materials brought onto site had the potential to contaminate it.
“The actions represented an inappropriate and excessive development in open countryside and, to this day, the enforcement notice requiring the site be restored to how it originally was has still not been complied with.
“We hope this case shows that we will take action when laws that are in place to protect our countryside are breached and that the financial penalties and criminal convictions handed out act as a deterrent.”
