Farmer jailed for bulldozing a riverbank has been hailed as a hero

A farmer who was jailed alongside drug dealers and rapists for bulldozing a riverbank has been hailed as a hero by villagers who insist his actions prevented flooding. 

John Price, 69, hired diggers and builders to chop down trees and dredge a mile-long stretch of the River Lugg near Leominster, Herefordshire in 2020.

He claimed he had done so to help protect locals in the nearby hamlet whose homes were devastated by flooding and to help fix riverbed erosion.

But he was told by a judge he had committed ‘ecological vandalism on an industrial scale’ along a section of one of Britain’s most important salmon rivers.

The multimillionaire farmer was jailed for ten months, reduced from 12 months after an appeal, in April last year and served less than three months behind bars.

Mr Price, of Kingsland, Herefordshire, was also ordered pay £1.2million in restoration costs after admitting seven charges of environmental damage.

More than 12 months on, residents have now revealed how Mr Price is hailed by many as a local hero whose actions have been effective in safeguarding homes.

Villagers say he has succeeded in preventing flooding where the authorities failed and believe he was unfairly mistreated.

They said that by realigning the river, Mr Price has overcome much of the local flooding issues that have been damaging Kingsland for decades.

Simon Powney, a retained firefighter, said: ‘It appears to have been an improvement. 

‘The river has settled down and looks back to normal.

‘We’re not getting the flooding problems there that we were. I’ve seen how it does flood there, but in the last lot of rain we didn’t have any problems.

‘If the work wasn’t done, we would have had what happened last time with the water going into the houses by the bridge.

‘I will say that the general opinion around here is that Johnny [Mr Price] has done a good job.’

Another Kingsland villager, Maurice Evans, said: ‘Beforehand, it would have been in the houses. I know what John Price did… but it has helped.

‘Since he’s done it these houses have not flooded. But everyone has their own opinions.’

Local resident Richard Collishaw added: ‘There is a lot of difference down at the bottom of the river by the bridge.

‘It looks very tidy now and I’m sure the trees are going to grow back.

‘I think it’s stopped the river cottages being flooded. There was a lot of noise about it, but I think he did a good job.’

Even his local parish council came out in support in 2021, with Councillor Sebastian Bowen saying: ‘The reality is it [the flooding] is much improved.

‘People have been quite impressed with what has been done. People have stopped and said it was a good job.’

The Environment Agency previously said the damage was one of the worst cases of riverside destruction it had ever seen, which had a ‘devastating’ effect on wildlife.

But when asked recently whether Mr Price had alleviated flooding and what the long term impact to the river had been, they refused to address the question.

Instead, they said in a statement: ‘Following a prosecution by Natural England and the Environment Agency, Mr Price was found guilty of destruction of part of the river Lugg and sentenced to 12 months in prison.

‘He was also ordered to pay prosecution costs of £600,000 and ordered to carry out a number of actions to restore the river he damaged.

‘Natural England and the Environment Agency welcomed the seriousness with which the court treated the severe and lasting damage to the river Lugg, which destroyed habitats and wildlife on a stretch of one of the country’s most unspoiled rivers.’

Experts previously said Mr Price’s claims he was saving nearby homes from flooding was without foundation.

Helen Stace, former chief executive of Herefordshire Wildlife Trust, said Price had destroyed a site of special scientific interest – an ‘enchanting treelined reach’ with ‘immense’ value for wildlife.

Later, Andrew Nixon, conservation senior manager of trust, said in December 2020: ‘Removing all bankside vegetation and scraping out the riverbed and banks will cause a huge increase in the speed the water moves through the river and increases the flood risk downstream.’

The Environment Agency, whose duties include managing the risks from flooding, also insisted his actions had done nothing to prevent flooding.

Martin Quine, the agency’s place manager for Herefordshire, said in April last year: ‘While Mr Price’s justification for the works was to help prevent flooding to local properties, his actions did not have any flood prevention benefit.

‘The destruction of riverbanks is not appropriate flood management.

‘It is important that the judge recognised that the works significantly weakened flood prevention measures rather than improved them.’

The Herefordshire Wildlife Trust, which also predicted at the time the scouring of the riverbank would not alleviate flooding, also declined to comment about ‘what the Environment Agency may or may not have said or done’.

But a spokesman said: ‘Herefordshire Wildlife Trust advocates for natural flood management across our landscapes which means allowing, or restoring, rivers or landscapes to function more naturally with the result that the flow of water into rivers is slowed, the flow within rivers is slowed, and the landscape generally holds more water.

‘The objective is to limit the amount, and speed, of water within river channels which minimises flooding overall.

‘Natural Flood Management techniques include leaky dams, cross-slope hedgerows, riverside woodland and attenuation ponds and scrapes.’

As a result it remains unclear if there has been any official study into the impact of the work to see whether Mr Price’s actions have alleviated, worsened or had no effect on flooding.