A NORTH Yorkshire farmer whose land has been hit by flooding faces court costs of almost £6,000 after losing his claim for damages against a company which built a pumping station there.

David Atkinson, of Stillingfleet Farm, Stillingfleet, must pay £5,470 - almost the amount he initially claimed in damages - after a civil action he brought against the Coal Authority failed.

He claimed the company had breached a contract created when he sold a small area of his land in 1990 to it to build a pumping station which the company said would alleviate flooding on his property.

But District Judge Peter Wildsmith disagreed, and said the company had never made any guarantees to totally prevent flooding on the surrounding land.

He said at York County Court that this was a case with "numerous fascinating and quite testing legal complexities."

He said: "I do not consider that anything I have heard today constitutes breach of contract.

"There was no improper representation that the floods would be eradicated - that could never have been made."

The Coal Authority paid Mr Atkinson £1,000 in 1990 for a 0.7 acre area of arable land on which it built a pumping station at Stillingfleet Beck that is now run by the Ouse and Derwent Drainage Board.

He was also paid several thousands pounds in compensation as the Coal Authority expected mining works underneath his property to cause some subsidence.

In court, his solicitor, Chris Thompson-Smith, said the pumping station had not protected his land and he had lost the use of a 2.5 acre "scrap" of land, and several crops as a result.

But Stephen Howard, for the Coal Authority, said: "They were not building it to protect your 2.5 acres, they were building it to protect Escrick village and Stillingfleet."

Updated: 12:37 Saturday, January 04, 2003