A HIGH Court Judge accused a businessman of deliberately breaching planning regulations in order to make money before fining him a total of £125,000.

Mr Steve Badcock, owner of Steve Badcock Ltd, pleaded guilty to 16 counts of illegally processing waste at the former Bovingdon Airfield, off Chesham Road, Bovingdon between September 2001 and January this year.

In court, he apologised for flouting the regulations, but has shown less humility in the past.

In November last year he appealed against a Hertfordshire County Council enforcement notice to as he put it, "have a game with the council," before withdrawing it days before he was due to produce a statement outlining his case.

And in his summing up at the High Court on Friday, May 10, Mr Justice Turner said for the better part of two years Mr Badcock had been operating without planning permission and in defiance of council notices and had acted "in an open and defiant manner in breach of the orders of this court".

He said: "The court would be entitled to regard with utter scepticism your tendered apology in the light of the facts.

"There was a suggestion in the course of the evidence that you regarded successive challenges to the planning and enforcement teams as a mere game.

"I am satisfied that is not wide of the mark. Be under no illusion that the enforcement of planning matters is anything but a game."

Justice Turner said a "deliberate and commercial decision" had been taken to breach planning regulations.

He said: "The persistent flouting of orders of this court, at last belatedly acknowledged means I am constrained to impose a significant punishment on you and your company."

The county council was awarded £35,000 costs. The judgement and level of the fines sent a clear message to people seeking to manipulate the planning system, said Councillor Bryan Hammond, chairman of development control committee.

He said: "It shows we will not tolerate abuse of the system and will pursue people to the highest court in the land if necessary."

Contrary to concern raised at numerous parish council meetings Mr Badcock has said residents did not have objections to his activities on the airfield.

He has said: "The only people that complain in Bovingdon are half a dozen regulars [at parish council meetings] that are no credit to the village."

Of the parish council he said: "The thing with the parish council is if they were any good they would be in proper jobs."

Parish council chairman Mrs Sylvia McClelland said: "It has put a terrible strain on people locally. The concrete crushing was as really bad thing for people living nearby, who were complaining about breathing problems."