'illegal' mock-Tudor castle he tried to hide behind 40ft hay bales

theartfullodger

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/surrey/8495412.stm

Cheers!!

Lodger

planning_officer

Yoshua wrote: »

Yes its still there. Will be forever.

Many will disagree but time will tell.

RDB wrote: »

I agree, one way or another he will always get around whatever they throw at him.

Mr Fidler has made a mockery of the planning officers.

Whoever laughs last laughs longest.

Rubbish. As posted above, he has now lost his High Court battle to keep the 'house' (said in the loosest sense of the word).

Whilst he could still appeal to the European Court of Human Rights, that will be utterly pointless - he is just delaying the inevitable (i.e. demolition!). He simply cannot argue human rights (right to a decent home and all that), as he already has another house on the same site!! So it's a stupid and pointless argument.

sabretoothtigger

He should have built a moat and draw bridge with portcullis

roddydogs

planning_officer wrote: »

Rubbish. As posted above, he has now lost his High Court battle to keep the 'house' (said in the loosest sense of the word).

Whilst he could still appeal to the European Court of Human Rights, that will be utterly pointless - he is just delaying the inevitable (i.e. demolition!). He simply cannot argue human rights (right to a decent home and all that), as he already has another house on the same site!! So it's a stupid and pointless argument.

So could you let us know when the Bulldozers are moving in? no one will believe this until that happens, hes doing another "Appeal"

g_attrill

roddydogs wrote: »

So could you let us know when the Bulldozers are moving in? no one will believe this until that happens, hes doing another "Appeal"

Given how much he must have sunk into it, I expect it won't ever come down until the council move their bulldozers in, which could be a long time coming.

sabretoothtigger

How about putting the hay bales back up and telling them its demolished. Its a win/win

RDB

g_attrill wrote: »

Given how much he must have sunk into it, I expect it won't ever come down until the council move their bulldozers in, which could be a long time coming.

I think it will still be there in years to come,

time will tell

planning_officer

RDB wrote: »

I think it will still be there in years to come,

time will tell

Grrr it's this sort of attitude that annoys me - on what basis do you say this? Just because it's been there a while? That's no argument whatsoever!! Let's look at the facts - Mr Fidler has lost every appeal he has submitted, firstly his planning appeal and now his High Court appeal - he is getting absolutely nowhere in his attempts to keep this house. These appeals take time, hence the delays - but they are just delaying the inevitable, it will be demolished! At the end of the day, once the appeal routes are exhausted, the Council can employ a contractor to demolish it and it may well come to that - it's an offence to obstruct or deny access to an authorised contractor and the Council will then claim the full cost back from Mr Fidler (so no expense to the tax payer). If it's not paid promptly, it's registered as a land charge against the land, so he can never sell or do anything with the land until the Council are paid.

mrcow

planning_officer wrote: »

Grrr it's this sort of attitude that annoys me - on what basis do you say this? Just because it's been there a while? That's no argument whatsoever!! Let's look at the facts - Mr Fidler has lost every appeal he has submitted, firstly his planning appeal and now his High Court appeal - he is getting absolutely nowhere in his attempts to keep this house. These appeals take time, hence the delays - but they are just delaying the inevitable, it will be demolished!

In the meantime, how much public money is the council spending in terms of time, legal fees and meetings etc?

It's true - money is always easy to spend when it belongs to someone else.

planning_officer

Well actually, probably less than you think - yes, they would have had to spend money for the planning appeal (legal fees etc), but nothing for the High Court appeal, as they weren't involved - that was just Mr Fidler arguing pointlessly against the Planning Inspector's reasoning (and wasting his own money).

Besides, any money spent on this case is money well spent in my opinion - why should someone be allowed to ride roughshod over well established Green Belt policies and get away with it? The primary aim of Green Belts is to keep them open (i.e. free of buildings, other than those that are absolutely essential), therefore a whacking great monstrosity masquerading as a castle and devoid of any architectural merit whatsoever should definitely be rigorously enforced against until it is demolished. The blame for any Council expenditure rests firmly at Mr Fidler's door.