PICTURES show a farm swamped in diesel after a spillage from an RAF base.
Farmer Rob Rhodes, from Time Out Sanctuary in West Oxfordshire, had to make a desperate dash through his flooded fields in the middle of the night on Saturday to rescue his animals from the oil.
Read more: police tell people to avoid Brize Norton after diesel spillage
He said that with the help of a ‘younger gentleman’ from RAF Brize Norton he moved ’30 or so’ ponies into a spare field where had a ‘whale of a time’ destroying his bales of hay.
He has now made another urgent plea for hay as personnel from the West Oxfordshire RAF base pump away and clear up the spilt diesel on his land.
He said today: “They have been doing the best they can, as we have a lot of water on the ground they have contained it with booms which they have laid out and other sheet material which they keep changing.
“I think it will take some time before the spillage is sorted but they are doing the best they can under the circumstances.”
He told us at the weekend that only a fraction of a field had been ‘contaminated’ and said that no animals had been hurt or injured.
He said: “The only thing that would be useful is if people have some spare hay.
“Where we had to move the ponies, there’s about 30 of them, was where we kept the hay and they’ve had a whale of a time.
“They [RAF officers] don’t know how it happened but they said it wasn’t deliberate.”
Please be aware, there has been a diesel spillage from our Station onto land occupied by the Time Out Animal Sanctuary. Our personnel are deployed and working with external agencies to deal with the spillage. Please do avoid the area. https://t.co/uZMvSCqo9J
— RAF Brize Norton (@RAFBrizeNorton) January 29, 2021
The Ministry of Justice has been contacted for a comment about how the incident happened.
To get in touch with Mr Rhodes contact the Time Out Farm West Oxfordshire Animal Sanctuary on social media or by calling 07850 489 695.
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