A farmer has been forced to reopen a former Cold War fuel dump after running out of storage for thousands of gallons of slurry following a record summer rainfall.

Ray Brown's fields have been swamped due to the summer deluge, leaving his two-and-a-half million-gallon storage lagoon and tanks redundant.

And the Environment Agency bans the use of slurry between October 15th and January 31th because of a danger of polluting streams and rivers.

So he has resorted to storing the slurry in one of a series of six million-gallon tanks at the redundant fuel dump he owns at Twemlow Green, Cheshire.

(Photo: SWNS)

The 12-acre site is known locally as Telly Tubby Land because of its similarity to the Teletubbies homes in the children's TV series.

Ray, 63, pictured above, said: "It would have helped farmers if the Environment Agency had relaxed the regulations this year but you can't stop cows mucking.

"We have around 10,000 gallons of slurry a day and it has to go somewhere if not on the fields.

"Our own storage is full and we have no alternative but to use the fuel depot tanks until we are able to begin spreading again next year.

"It it is not just a case of staying compliant with the regulations but making sure we can utilise this valuable organic resource and cut down on chemical fertilizers."

Ray bought the former top-secret dump from the Ministry of Defence after it was mothballed in 2007.

He planned to build a biogas plant at the site to generate green energy to serve 5,000 homes from farm slurry but planning permission was refused after local opposition.

Instead, he's diversified into establishing a shop and cafe as well as offering refuge nearby to a small zoo looking for a new home.

He runs the 400-acre family farm and award-winning Bidlea herd with the help of his wife, Jill, daughter Mel, sons Adam and Ryan, and their wives, both called Becky.

He added: "Obviously there has been a lot of interest locally in what we are doing but I can assure people storing the slurry at the old depot poses no risk to anyone living in the area as the tanks were used to store fuel and are very well sealed.

"All dairy farmers are faced with the same problem and fortunately we have these tanks but I have been told in one area of Cheshire, the Environment Agency has posted notices asking residents to 'grass' on farmers if they see them spreading slurry."

Plans to use the site as an anaerobic digestion and combined heat and power plant were refused by Cheshire East Council in 2015.

The storage tanks consist an inner steel casing surrounded with a concrete outer casing covered in earth and grassed over and fed by a network of underground pipes.

The use of the dump has been inspected and approved for storing the slurry by the Environment Agency.