DIGGING up a golf course to remove waste used by two pensioners for illicit landscaping will cost the council £3.5m to remove, it has been claimed.

Waste material from the construction of the M40 services was used to extend the Wyatt brothers’ course at Waterstock Golf Club, near Wheatley, in the 1990s.

Oxfordshire County Council has said it is hoping to seize some of the brothers' assets to cover the cost of removing the waste from Waterstock Golf Course.

But the brothers, Mick and Ron, pictured, are resisting and a decision on whether it can go ahead will be made by a judge this summer.

Ron Wyatt has said there is no waste on the site which the two brothers brought on to it.

He said: “Oxfordshire County Council were granted permission to make an application for a writ of sequestration which is out of time. That is my understanding and it would appear to me that the council appears to be jumping the gun. Everything else is speculation right now. Our assets, or what is left of our assets as a result of this witch hunt, are our business.”

Council spokesman Paul Smith said the amount of money the authority would raise through the sequestration of the Wyatts’ assets is uncertain at this stage.

He said: “We’ve applied for sequestration. We’re in the hands of the court in terms of the amount of money that would raise.”

The council says the brothers needed permission from it before carrying out the extension work and this position has been backed by several judges. The £3.5m would be used to undo the Wyatt’s landscaping and get rid of the waste safely.

It added: “The figure is based on digging the waste out of the ground, transporting it away from the site and disposing of it safely and correctly as well as returning the site to the state it was before the waste was dumped there.”

In 1998 the brothers received a first injunction ordering them to clear the waste and after no work was carried out, a High Court order was issued in 2005.

And in December 2012, the two brothers appeared at the Court of Appeal in London in a final attempt to avoid jail.

But the brothers, aged 76 and 72, were sent to HMP Pentonville for two months and three months.

They are expecting to appear in court again in June or July, when a judge will decide if the county council can seize their assets to pay for the work needed.

 

 

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