IN A rare North Yorkshire fly-tipping prosecution, a Whitby man has been fined £2,000 for illegally dumping building material on a farm in the North York Moors National Park, the Environment Agency reports.

The defendant, Marcus Richardson, was running a waste skip business in Whitby when his lorries were seen dumping bricks, cement, and used timber and on one occasion dangerous asbestos waste over a three month period last year.

Environment Agency inspectors found a pile of waste some five metres high, eighty metres long and 40 metres wide, the court was told. Richardson said that he had now quit the waste disposal business.

Fly tipping has become a major problem over a wide area of North Yorkshire, including the Yorkshire Dales, since the Government increased fees for legal disposal at official tips.

It could get even worse if proposals to limit domestic refuse collections to two-week intervals are introduced, a matter of growing concern to farmers - whose livestock can be injured by glass and tin waste - and to officials of both the Yorkshire Dales and the North York Moors national parks.

But the Whitby case, tried at Scarborough Magistrates' Court, is a rare example of a successful prosecution.