What’s the truth about the farmer who fell victim to a media hate-fest?

Have you heard about John Price destroying a stretch of the river Lugg? If not, you have led a sheltered existence. 

This month, Mr Price, who lives in the Luggside farm he was born in 66 years ago, in Kingsland, Herefordshire, has been attacked by the BBC (who ran denunciations of him unnamed), the Wildlife Trust (‘extreme vandalism’), Monty Don (‘it breaks my heart’), the Daily Mirror etc. He is said to have destroyed habitats by dredging, and by laying waste the bank on one side. 

Something about the media unanimity aroused my suspicions, so I followed up. Mr Price, clearly a determined man, has spoken out in the Herefordshire Times. He was only doing the job he was asked to do, he says, and is ready to confront his critics from Natural England, the Environment Agency and the Forestry Commission: ‘They don’t know who they’ve taken on here. I’ll pull them apart.’ 

Trying to understand the local facts, I rang Mrs Carol Sawyers, chairman of Kingsland parish council. Mrs Sawyers was diplomatic — the council is publicly taking no view about Mr Price’s work — but helpful. She pointed out that the Lugg floods much too often. It did so in October 2019 and again last February. An old bridge with three arches crosses the Lugg. Over the years, the undredged river silted up. Fallen trees blocked one arch completely. The Lugg duly flooded, damaging six cottages. One was so badly affected that its residents are still not back in. So the parish council badgered the Environment Agency, which was dragging its feet, to clear the river. 

Eventually Mr Price, who is responsible for the area, since he owns it, was commissioned to carry out the work. He added some of his own work as well. He ‘knows what needs to be done’, says Mrs Sawyers. 

As in most such disputes, it is hard to know who is right, but two things can be said with some confidence. The first is that green lobbies love floods because they think them natural, but people who live and work in flooded houses and fields do not. The second is that a national media hate-fest against one experienced farmer trying to solve an urgent environmental problem is a form of bullying.