One of the country’s largest landowners has been fined after pollution from his estate killed more than 4,000 fish.

The Cowdray Estate in Mid- hurst was fined £5,000 and ordered to pay £10,596 costs after tree felling released pollutants into three miles of waterways.

The estate is owned by the Cowdray family which as of last year was worth an estimated £500 million and named the country’s 10th largest landowner.

The Environment Agency described the incident as “totally avoidable” and said they were “disappointed” with the Cowdray Estate for carrying out the work in such extreme weather last year.

Worthing Magistrates Court heard managers were carrying out “routine forestry” in Verdley Wood in July 2012.

The combination of trans- porting heavy logs and the recent wet weather caused highly polluting soil sediment to run off into waterways.

On July 10 the owner of Surney Fish Farm near Fernhurst reported 4,000 dead fish to Environment Agency officers who traced sediment in the water back to Verdley Wood where workers were still cutting trees.

The estate was instructed to install siltation traps in the watercourse to minimise any further pollution and ordered to stop all work immediately.

As a result the fish farm had to be cut off from water for a number of days, losing money.

Mat Jackson from the Environment Agency said: “It is very disappointing that such a large estate with a great number of resources at its disposal failed to plan effectively to ensure that the sensitive local environment was not put at risk.

“As a result a large of number of fish needlessly died and a local fishery was devastated by a totally avoidable incident.”

A Cowdray representative apologised for the incident.