Man Gets Planning For a Bungalow But Builds a Mansion Instead! | Damned Designs S1 E1 | Abode

paper was light gold in medieval times i want tobacco sugar [Music] that everything we thought we knew about the world might turn out to be completely wrong [Music] the fields and streets of this land are a battleground a strike of a pen they destroy a man's life for a very british conflict how they could tell it wasn't the right shade of pink is beyond me that's an abomination that is on one side maverick individuals have broken the rules to create their dream homes this is an underground aquarium they're hoping to have a couple of sharks in there on the other the planners whose job it is to uphold those rules the committee don't like being made fools off it's completely beyond my comprehension over my dead body that building would be coming down it's an epic struggle pitching david against goliath i was damned if i did and i was damned if i didn't they're trying to destroy my house i don't know what's up with them do i secretly like a battle yes i'm afraid i do win and they get to keep their home all those in favor please show lose and their dreams will be turned quite literally to rubble the house must be demolished [Music] if the council think they're gonna take it down they've got another thing coming these defiant homeowners are locked in conflict with the planning authorities a crucial year lies ahead as they face the councils and even court in the final stages of their appeals if the council was referring to such in such a year i could dig it straight out in surrey farmer robert fiddler built a castle with his own bare hands and hid it behind hay bales it seemed pretty crazy at the time but there was no other alternative norfolk pensioner rodney is nearing the end of a one-man war to keep the bulldozers away from his retirement home i'm not just going to stand here and let them touch my eye and in oxford one man's artistic loft conversion has changed the skyline forever imagine living in a house with a lot of rubbish stuck on your roof first the businessman with a vision so grand it caused uproar in leafy bedfordshire [Music] i'm sayid shah i was born and bred in luton and run a beauty clinic in luton as a full-time owner of a busy bedfordshire beauty establishment part-time dreamer syed shah wanted a house which reflected his success and he found it on the outskirts of the small french-sounding town of barton le clay in 2008 i bought a five-bedroom bungalow with a view to extending it it was rather small it only had one small kitchen and a reception room syed paid 750 000 pounds for the bungalow but the beauty salon owner saw the potential for a huge makeover and after applying to the council he got the go-ahead to extend and his vision for a super-sized executive family home was unleashed the vast property that i have i've made some minor adjustments which were needed to make it aesthetically more pleasing syed set to work converting the five-bedroom bungalow in 2012. after 18 months he created a 6000 square foot seven-bedroomed mansion it was large enough for his wife and four children to move into one wing of the property while work continued on the rest of the home this area was a flat roof as that we were granted permission for a pitch roof which is which is what we've done [Music] the balconies right [Music] this is going to be a underground aquarium we're hoping to have a couple of sharks in there it's something my kids have always wanted sharks compared to what it was and what it is now in my humble opinion i mean i i think i buy i have done a nice job this is the highlight of my life building a home like this for my family and myself and as i say i've been through a lot of hard work to achieve this sadly syed's achievements didn't include close enough attention to the planning permission he'd been granted the extensions he'd built were much bigger than the approved plans and unsurprisingly they hadn't gone unnoticed [Music] yes there have been a couple of objections from other neighbors they say there's 11 complaints don't know where the 11 complaints are we've only got seven houses on the road have they got nothing better to do this is no-nonsense planning official nigel young and this is the green belt he has sworn to protect unfortunately for saeed his house lies slap bang in the middle of it i can't know what was going on in mr shah's mind i mean the facts are what was being built was not what had been granted permission mr shah should revert to the original planning permission the council visited the site and what they found led them to ask themselves a very interesting question when does an extension become a new build meet jason longhurst of central bedfordshire council he knows the answer i think it's when you step away one from your planning permission and what was consented upon and when you look at this site it is drastically different from what was originally there what we've seen on the plans that we did permit the council in fact classed saeed's house as a completely new build claiming it way exceeded the 45 percent increase he was permitted they say by as much as a further 150 percent news of syed's house soon spread creating a media frenzy in the bedfordshire area it even sparked a live local radio debate it's the big phone in on bbc three counties radio talking about a seven bedroom home in barton leclay with an inappropriate extension that house is ugly says sue i see this monstrosity from the a6 every time i drive from bedford i think it looks really quite nice really i've lived in barton clay all my life that's one of the reasons why i'm against this sort of thing happening but um he just seems to have got away with it and i personally think that the local council should stop it and why are planning in the first place keen to put his house back in order saeed contacted the council for advice i mean i put my hands up these are the extra items that i've added on the house what would you like me to do they said to me we sent us retrospective planning permission which is what i did mr shah's retrospective applications were considered and were were declined but councillor nigel wasn't finished an enforcement notice was issued by the council and they have to be as a result of a refusal of planning permission or a breach of planning permission in august 2013 syed was given two months to demolish the house by now worth an estimated two million pounds at a potential further cost of over a hundred thousand pounds no we can't demolish it because we don't have the funds to demolish it to start with second of all we don't have a home to go to this this is a home having it demolished where am i gonna go i know my rights i don't think i've done anything wrong we will be fighting it all the way with a law bearing down on saeed in surrey an ingenious farmer has found a legal loophole which could save his grand creation we discovered that there was no law against hiding it so my mind was going how can i hide a house with such strict planning laws in the uk it's little wonder only 10 percent of land has actually been developed but that also means they'll always be savvy home owners seeking creative ways to take on the system few have ever been quite so creative as one farmer from surrey 66 year old robert fiddler lives with his wife linda and son harry on their farm near red hill 14 years ago robert had a dream of building his own home but his vision wasn't just for any old two up two down it was like a toss-up between whether you just throw something up and just say well we've got a house to live in now or whether you fulfill your dream of trying to build something you can be proud of robert wasn't going to go for any scandinavian minimalist look brooklyn warehouse vibe or even classic country cottage no as a proud englishman robert decided to build a castle we wanted it to be green and recyclable all the oak beams everything is oak from our own trees all the stone is second hand all the tiles are second hand i would find all sorts of materials from demolition yards and we've got 200 brand new window units for 2 pound each this is the dining hall this beautiful dome came from brighton it was on a entrance to the old pier that fell in the sea it was in quite a state so the first thing i had to do was to learn how to repair it so i went and did an evening class this is one impressive achievement robert's remarkable ingenuity and use of reclaimed materials meant that he was now the owner of this magnificent 1700 square foot castle for just 50 000 pounds but despite saving a fortune on building costs there was one thing robert couldn't get for love nor money planning permission and so ever since robert unveiled his masterpiece the local council have been trying to demolish it this particular building is not lawful on that side honeycroke farm is the longest running planning dispute case that this this borough has ever encountered [Music] the story of how robert came to build his bi-turreted castle comprising ornamental dome without planning permission began 15 years ago in much more modest fashion when he tried to convert an existing outbuilding on the farm it was an old victorian building they asked us to put in a planning application which we did and then we just waited and waited and waited while they were waiting for the council linda became pregnant with harry but by the time he was born the council still hadn't managed to reply to the planning application with a young family to house robert took things into his own hands i had nowhere else to live so i inquired of a planning consultant and he explained to me the four-year rule or in planning speak section 171b of the 1990 town and country planning act [Music] the four-year rule was basically that if you've built something unlawful and uh it's not been noticed by the council after a period of four years no enforcement action could be taken we discovered that as long as the place has been there for four years whether it was hidden or not was irrelevant so my mind was going how can i hide a house as robert was no magician his approach was less hay presto and more just hay several tons of hay which robert ingeniously used to hide his castle whilst he built it so when is a stack of straw not a stack of straw when it's a house or spoon it seemed pretty crazy at the time but there was no other alternative robert couldn't risk blowing his cover by hiring in outside help so with no formal training whatsoever he had to design and build the whole thing himself i mean obviously it was just all in my head but as i thought about it i did sketches more than plans this one here was one of the first drawings i did what the place would look like this is from the front and this is from the back to build his fortified family home resourceful robert used two circular corn silos at each end of the building for the turrets then before going any further he constructed a dense wall of hay around them so he could then build the main body of the house away from prying eyes robert had set himself an enormous task but precious little time to do it nobody else could be involved i mean we could hardly get the builders in you know we had to be very careful about who knew about it because it was our little secret you know the castle concealing farmer began his build in the autumn of 2000 and aimed to finish by the end of the following year and to comply with a four-year rule he then had to live in it for four years by which time according to farmer robert's interpretation of the planning law his family home would be safe as well houses or castles [Music] are you clearing up for daddy the underfloor heating's in place as well [Music] robert's ambitious plans were constantly evolving the staircase originally i had this idea of doing triangular piece of wood but when i looked at it i thought it looked so much nicer being solid and full size you know most of this fireplace was built like three o'clock in the morning it used to take me a long time to do all these little fiddly patterns and things that was supposed to be a an eagle type of bird and that was supposed to be a fish that didn't end up looking anything like an eagle and that don't look much like a fish but there's a pattern in here and see how close we are to working in between the bales this is the top of the big window so we're nearly there finally in 2002 the build was completed how's it all looking now the house was finished but the champagne was left on ice because the family's four years in hiding was only just beginning well from the inside it was like any normal house well fancy finding you here but obviously you were always wanting to see what it was going to look like on the outside i mean the only difference i suppose for me would have been like food shopping and bringing stuff in just had to look out to see if anybody was watching us and then just quickly going through the full store and non-corridors the only tricky bit really was when he was at play school the kids were told that they would be drawing a picture of their house and so we were a bit worried that harry would go back and draw a big picture of a stack of straw at last in june 2006 it was time to reveal castle fiddler to the world [Music] you can just see the house the bungalow through the trees there all they'd ever seen was like a big stack of straw and then one day they'd come over and said we just had to come and see you suddenly we looked out the window and there's this castle you have it in your head what you think it's going to look like and you've got the drawings and everything but when you actually see it especially when at night when we we went out on the lawn for the first time with all the lights on in the house it was that was something special but castle building in the greenbelt is never straightforward and it wasn't long before the local planners declared war on robert's family fortress the council immediately put an enforcement order on it for it to be removed and so began a planning battle which would last for the next nine years i don't know what's up with them obviously they don't like me but i've never done anything to hurt them [Music] sometimes even the smallest planning fracker can escalate into a feud of epic proportions often these things do indeed come down to a matter of inches market town west beach on the cambridgeshire norfolk border is the retirement oasis pensioners rodney wilson and pam wan chose when moving from nearby enmith almost a decade ago we lived in the house in amla for 20 years 20 years 20 years and the children were leaving home we decided to downsize so we brought this land and that was going to be our retirement home the couple first met in their twenties having come from totally different backgrounds rodney was brought up as a gypsy whereas pam grew up in a traditional home and she wants to retire in one when you're in a house with double glazing you do not hear anything and that is very hard when you are being a gypsy so to get the balance we decided on half a sales and half as a caravan we had it made exactly how we wanted it and it was made just for us rodney's ingenious hybrid solution was to take two static caravans and fix them together sticking a pitched roof on the top it looked just like a traditional bungalow and within a matter of weeks the couple moved in his very own caravan based mash-up was complete but one thing rodney hadn't bothered with was planning permission because he knew gypsies were allowed special exemptions when stationing caravans in the countryside but down at council hq the powers that be disagreed council said i didn't qualify for being a gypsy they even made the comments that i'm not a gypsy that's so called so called that's what they call me so-called my father was a gypsy my mother was a gypsy my grandparents on both sides my great-grandparents on both sides and i get a family tree after five years and with his gypsy roots finally verified rodney got permission for a static caravan on the land but the party was over before it had even begun norfolk's town planners said you can't have a static caravan with decking and a conservatory and bricks the jury was out on the wheels though all of which begs the question when is a caravan not a caravan a man with the answer is local dealership owner michael mcdonnell michael knows caravans there are variations around the country with local authorities giving different interpretations as to what constitutes a caravan and what does not this is definitely a caravan whether it's in two halves or joined together it's still a caravan it comes with wheels and it can be moved and whether it's got a brick skirt around it or not whether it's got a conservatory attached to it or not it's still a caravan it's blue outside if we paint it pink it's still a caravan but the council were adamant that whatever its color rodney's home was definitely not a caravan and in 2006 issued rodney and pam with a notice to demolish their dream home they've got one vision in their mind either you do what we tell you or you're off [Music] rodney was so convinced they were wrong he decided to challenge the council and appeal to the planning inspectorate the independent government body that oversees all planning and enforcement appeals they pointed to the caravan act of 1968 particularly the bit that says a caravan cannot exceed a specific height length or width the planet inspector came our ear measured the home and said it was 19 inches too wide the legal definition of the caravan is extremely strict and there's no room for any maneuver in that if it's slightly larger you just have to conclude that it's not a caravan the council's enforcement notice to demolish was upheld if i interfere with them i will get locked up but i'm not just going to stand here and let them touch my own i will have to defend my own in any way i can so rodney and pam have a serious planning problem in complete contrast to a long-running case that's as bizarre as it is controversial the tale of a shark in a roof in oxford this is no longer just a house it's a piece of sculpture that's an abomination that is [Music] british planning laws are notoriously strict but this doesn't stop some visionaries taking on the system in oxford one man's eccentric rooftop feature remains controversial 30 years after it first appeared we have millions and millions of visitors come every year to this city we've got one of the great universities of this world thatcher blair educated here the whole basis of government throughout the democratic world is built around the works of hobbs and locke both have educated this university it's the center of the universe [Music] but you've always had in this city headline grabbing fringe minorities they're always up to something rather [Music] meet bill heiner proud owner of oxford shark house since this sculpture was erected in 1986 it has attracted thousands of visitors from around the world the unlikely inspiration was a squadron of american air force jets on route to libya no really when i went to bed 15th of april 1986. i heard planes flying over oxford and then in the morning the news broadcast had the headlines that the americans had bombed tripoli and i thought how terrible this is bill's confusingly fish-based anti-war protest has taken on a life of its own this is no longer just a house and it's not just a shark it's a it's a piece of sculpture i didn't realize the consequences of this it all began back in 1986 when with the help of two 20-ton cranes the dream having a 25-foot 200 kilogram fiberglass shark inserted into bill's home came to fruition yes we did it it's really there it's real let the battle begin john power was part of oxford council's planning committee in 1986 oxford is known as a city the dream inspires and that certainly isn't one of the dream inspires that's an ugly eyesore and it was not given permission by the planet authority of this city and it wasn't long before the battle over whether the shark needed planning approval caught the attention of the media now then city planners in oxford are poised to set their netron what's turned out to be a rather fishy saga one question only comes to the lips why it's come across the great barrier reef of the oxford city council now but i think it's swimming over their heads if we didn't put some kind of check on this we'd have had all kinds of things going on roots all over this city in a bid to stop the rooftops of oxford becoming a magnet for schools of dismembered fish oxford council insisted the shark had to go but bill fought them all the way it was a very complicated battle it went from the council to the courts i only won one time and that was the time that mattered five years after the shark's arrival the mata was eventually passed all the way up to the then home secretary michael hesseltine michael hesseltine gave the statement i cannot believe the purpose of the planning laws is to enforce boring mediocre design and he let the shark live it wasn't this left-leaning liberal city that gave him permission it was right-wing backwoodsman torres who gave him this permission so thanks to an american abroad a 25-foot synthetic shark and michael hesseltine the skyline of oxford was changed forever it's not my shark but i know this is going to sound corny but it's the people shark can you imagine having a house that was just a sightseeing object you're trying to live in you know imagine living in a house with a lot of rubbish stuck on your roof a year in the world of planning today is as rife with conflict as it ever has been beauty salon owner syed shah has now reached a crucial point in a battle with central bedfordshire council over his super-sized bungalow conversion [Music] they served him with a demolition order claiming his extension more than triples the permitted 45 percent increase [Music] yes i've bent the rules you know i would class them as minor adjustments this is the gym there was a flat roof garage here before it wasn't blending in with the house so we actually improvised and built this this is an addition and we have done this without permission these are the dormers we were supposed to have these in the back but we i've put them in the front just to give us a little bit more space why anyone would simply continue to build something and to build and to build and to build and risk having to demolish at what must be an expensive project was completely beyond my comprehension the issue for the council is how much bigger syed's extension is than the original bungalow but he maintains he's only extended the original footprint by the permitted 45 percent in fact saeed is so sure he didn't break any planning rules he's decided to fight the council's order to demolish and appeal to the uk's central planning inspectorate it's quite rare for the inspector to come to a different conclusion to the council i think in most cases we find that the council have usually got it right [Music] if the decision goes against me then obviously there are avenues we other revenues that we need to explore if we have to go to high court if that's an avenue that's there subject legal advice i will be taking that [Music] five weeks later and the crucial planning inspectorate decision arrives to everyone's amazement apart from saeed obviously they find in his favor overruling the local council the demolition order has been quashed and said can start ordering the sharks for his fish tank we're clear you know the inspectors cleared both the enforcement notice and granted us planning permission but the inspector's decision is like a red rag to a town planner it was so unexpected i mean one respects the planning inspectorate but this decision and these are my words was perverse we're going to appeal this fifteen years ago robert fiddler built a majestic family home to be proud of when he constructed this mock tudor castle in the heart of the surrey greenbelt behind a wall of hay i think people assume that what i did must have been wrong what i did was definitely a risk but it wasn't unlawful in fact it was basically a loophole in the law robert thought he could use this loophole known as the four-year rule by building his home in secret and keeping it hidden whilst he and his family lived there for a further four years but when he finally revealed his fortress to the world not everyone was impressed with the visionary farmers achievement a neighbor contacted the council about this building the council responded very very quickly to that and immediately put an enforcement order on it for it to be removed as a building built by deception in the green belt therefore making it unlawful in 2007 the council gave robert just three months to demolish and that was that except it wasn't he appealed the appeal found in favor of the council and that was that but it wasn't robert then appealed to the high court and lost but it still wasn't over mr fiddler then decided to go to the court of appeal again the appeal judge dismissed mr fiddler's appeal and i believe he described it as a paradigm of deception as a result of that and other cases the four-year rule has now been clarified and that any building built under deliberate deception is completely exempt now from the four-year rule with a four-year rule now a dead end robert has one last hope recent legislation allowing certain buildings on greenbelt land if there's an agricultural need i believe that there's nothing wrong i've broken no laws and that's my home after they said they didn't like the idea of us having a house here we said well we have to live here to look after the cattle so we put in an application to retain it they refused it so we've appealed the refusal robert's latest application to try and save his house is based on what he says is his need to be on the land with his animals but because it's on the green belt the council are adamant he should not be given retrospective planning consent i don't know what's up with them obviously they don't like me but i've never done anything to hurt them [Music] an inquiry has been convened to break this later stalemate chaired by a government inspector it will determine whether robert gets to keep his castle or if the council can raise it to the ground the findings of the inquiry won't be known for several weeks we haven't got anything to hide you know all we want to do is get on with our lives look after our animals and have a house where we can see what's going on we're just praying that the inspector makes the right decision [Music] for me it's just a load of stress i mean i'm not a young man and i've been fighting this for well we've been living in the house for 13 years and i i just want to get on with my life this is our this is their family home in barton le clay bedfordshire syed shah's house has been spared after the government's planning inspectorate overturned a demolition notice issued by his local council his story is once again headline news in the area central bedfordshire council says it's not planning to challenge the planning inspector's decision i've always had faith in god and once again justice has prevailed but syed's celebrations are cut short by a dramatic change of heart from the man at the council driving home and just looking up at the skyline i thought well nobody who was in possession of the facts could possibly agree that that was a minor extension to a flat roof bungalow we're going to appeal this appealing a decision by the all-powerful planning inspectorate is a serious business it can cost thousands of pounds of public money to get the case before a high court judge some cases councils will explore a little weakness in a decision so you get this area of uncertainty introduced by the council spotting the weakness and with the inspectorate standing firm by their decision syed is now left to miss spectator in a battle between two administrative heavyweights slugging it out over his bungalow extension you gave a statement to the press to say that we're not we're not challenging the decision yet two days later you challenge the decision as syed's battle rages on things are about to reach a devastating conclusion in rodney and pam's fight to save their norfolk home a strike of a pen they destroy a man's life [Music] each year there are thousands of disputes between individual homeowners and the planning authorities for some the results can be catastrophic in west norfolk the home of pensioners rodney wilson and pam wen has been under threat of demolition since 2006 because according to planning bosses it's 19 inches too wide their plight has become big news in east anglia and local tv reporter matthew hudson has been following their story closely this should be a dream retirement home for 72 year old rodney wilson and his partner instead it's become a waking nightmare at the moment he's waking up every morning wondering if today will be the day when the council comes and quite legally knocks down his property both rodney and papp struck me as people who were dealing with a situation that i don't think they really fully understood we were there for the whole day we spoke to as many people as we could we didn't find a single local person who had any problem with it at all rodney and pam's neighbors lyla and greg molosko have lived next door since 2007. it's an absolute delight and it when you walk past you see beautifully manicured lawns it's like a show home and it looks as if it should just be there but this house is about more than just keeping up appearances as doting grandparents rodney and pam's biggest worry is losing what is a real family home we've got photographs and memories of the years we were here birthday parties it's just nice to have the family around us and have them weekends spend the weekends home and when you get to our age every year every day every day every week it's precious because you don't know whether you're going to be here you don't know whether they're going to be here after almost a decade of applications refusals and appeals there's a massive amount of paperwork for rodney this in itself is a huge obstacle if you can read and write under the brain of britain you've got to put up with over three and a half thousand pieces of paper in nine years but as for me i can't read and write so you can imagine how demoralizing this is all they do is send me paper after paper after paper if my own gets demolished i can then go and get rented accommodation off the council with a taxpayer i've got to pay me to live and at the moment they don't have to pay me anything because i live in my own home i just want to live here two months later after nearly 10 years living on the land rodney and pam lose their battle a nine year round about planning permission was brought to a dramatic conclusion today as the norfolk council sent in a team to demolish a mobile home they never even told us the first i knew i went out the back door of my home and my wife shouted you better get out the front and when i read the front there were vans gave me this piece of paper said this is going to happen today just before nine o'clock this morning the demolition team arrived without warning woken up this morning with all this slot in my drive no notice or nothing nothing at all pat and her partner rodney were told in february that their home in walson near whis beach would have to go because it broke the terms of their planning permission the letter of the law was on the council side i do appreciate that but given the ages of rodney and pam i'm struggling to see how it was necessary to follow through with its threats to destroy the property i think they've actually acted in a draconian barbaric way you know it wasn't as if the slide-over bill was affecting anybody you can't put it into words you really can't you can't put it in the words what they're just destroying your life just for the sake of a brownie point really they got no respect it just as well have been a dog's kennel they weren't people they were animals the council didn't want to be interviewed about rodney's case but in their statement they said it is important people have confidence in the planning system and that it has applied fairly and consistently to all groups in society the council had given mr wilson and mrs wenn every opportunity to remove this dwelling over a nine-year period it seems there was little or no intention of ever removing this structure the council had no choice but to ensure compliance through direct action as a last resort three weeks after the demolition rodney and pam are still living on the site they own but in a borrowed and much smaller mobile home this is the thing what grieves me most my father gave me that there is no price on that and that's broke what remains of rodney and pam's retirement home has been removed from their land and now sits two miles away in storage this is where my concert has been throwed that's my 8 000 pound conservatory this is the heartbreaking thing about it me and my grandchildren spent hours in this room and this is what they've done with it a stroke of a pen they destroy a man's life a stroke of a pen when we wake up every morning we have to look out to see what's left of our home it's devastating absolutely devastating she won't stop nowhere they ruined her life ruined our home for what they're very very happy back in bedfordshire syed shah's local council are due in court to contest the planning inspectorates controversial approval of his bungalow extension but on the day before the hearing the government inspectorate suddenly has a dramatic change of heart we say we don't think we've got a defensible case in court we think the inspector made a mistake we will then appoint a new inspector after that to go off and have another look at the appeal we had decided on a course of action which is always risky and we were right it seems councillor young's determined stance has paid off it was one of those air punching moments [Music] but syed once again faces the very real prospect of seeing his dream home demolished my family are devastated again [Music] that how is this possible syed will now have to go through the whole appeal process with the planning inspectorate again and only then will he know whether he can keep his house hopefully the new inspector will see as the old inspector saw for the property but for what it is it is an extension when the case is heard again if they do not grant permission then mr shah will have to return the building to that which he has planning permission for but if mr shah refuses to to work with us ultimately we will have to order mr shah to demolish the house and that will be at his cost i'm confident the decision will be in my favor again as i said the council have been incompetent all the way through this whole saga [Music] after three years syed is no closer to knowing if he can keep his dream home a new inspector is to be appointed this summer [Music] it's been 10 weeks since the crucial hearing to decide the fate of robert fiddler's castle home in surrey with a family on tenterhooks there's an ominous arrival in the post i've been really keyed up the last week or so thinking that we must be gonna get a decision any day at all and then we get this letter and i really can't quite understand what they're trying to say it's come from the secretary of state somebody called pickles i think eric pickles and what it says is the secretary of state now considers that he should determine the appeal himself to be honest it makes you a little bit dubious as to what's in their mind and i don't think that this would have arisen unless the inspector found in our favor so the fate of the castle now hangs on the decision of the secretary of state two months later and they get the letter they've been waiting for but what at first glance looks to be a victory and a three-year reprieve from the inspectorate has in fact been overruled by mr pickles got this wonderful bit of news that first of all we'd won our appeal followed up by the secretary of state saying that he'd overruled the decision eric pickles rejected the appeal because he said robert's castle would set a dangerous precedent for building within the greenbelt they obviously just don't want us to have the house we're little people and they're big people and they can do what they like we've really come to the conclusion that even if we appealed which we can do legitimately it would be a waste of time you're appealing as linda says against big people who don't have any time for small people after years battling the planners robert has been ordered to tear down his castle now the decision has been posted the injunction comes into force which gives mr fiddler 90 days in which to demolish the property they're telling me now that if i don't remove my lovely house within 90 days that they could put me in prison no i said it despite everything he's been through robert remains philosophical about his experience we've had a wonderful 14 years of living in a wonderful house and we're not done yet building his home and then fighting to save it has cost rodney over 260 thousand pounds the council have now also sent him the bill for the demolition totaling forty thousand pounds their entire life savings may be gone but rodney still isn't giving up hope we're gonna stay in here and i will apply for planning again and hopefully we can go down that road [Music] we're staying on the land because it's all we've got left they've took everything and if we if we move over here then we feel we have literally lost everything we've worked her life on i'm going to die on this land and that will be the end of story whether it's in my caravan whether it's in my mobile or whether it's in my shed other side but i'm going to die on this land one way or the other [Music] next time one man's fight for his home could cost him everything he holds dear i don't know if we split up as a family i don't know a dream home build in a leafy bolton suburb goes out of control there's been a complete dog's dinner just about everything about this building was wrong and an entire community's home from home comes under threat if the council thinks they're going to take it down they've got another thing coming [Music] so you

Channel: Abode

Views: 451,514

Rating: 4.773283 out of 5

Keywords: Abode, Abode channel, home renovation, home and garden channel, home and garden tv shows, I Didn't Get Planning Permission, i didn't get planning permission to build my home, Don't Demolish My Home, Damned Designs, damned designs tv show, building houses without planning, Planning Inspectorate, building an extension on a bungalow, saving properties from demolition, green belt building rules, seven-bedroom mansion, supersized bungalow conversion, bungalow renovation

Id: umqEuc2JRaQ

Length: 47min 39sec (2859 seconds)

Published: Sat Aug 14 2021