Farmer loses High Court fight to save castle
The farmer, who built his home, complete with ramparts and cannon, behind 40ft bales of straw, suffered a crushing defeat in a High Court fight yesterday.
Mr Fidler, 60, lived inside his secret citadel together with wife Linda, 40, and their son Harry, 8, for four years, before pulling down the bales and unveiling it to the world.
Ordered to tear it down by a Government planning inspector in May 2008, Mr Fidler has battled the decision on a point of law.
But one of the country's senior judges backed the order that Mr Fidler, of Honeycrock Farm on Axes Lane in Salfords, should tear down his castle.
He dismissed a challenge brought by him against the demolition order.
Mr Fidler, who was not in court, argued he had moved his wife and son into the castle when it was complete in 2002, and for four years kept it hidden from Reigate and Banstead Borough Council planners. He claimed by the time he finally revealed it to the world in May 2006, it had, under planning law, become immune from planning control.
His lawyers argued when the case was heard in November last year that, under planning rules, as the Fidlers had lived there for four years without being challenged, they were now entitled to legally remain – that they were entitled to a certificate of lawful use. However, the High Court case preceded the Council issuing an enforcement notice in March 2007 demanding demolition of the castle, built on Greenbelt land.
And a Government planning inspector then rejected Mr Fidler's appeal against the council's stance, finding the removal of the straw bale disguise constituted part of the building works.
As a result, the inspector found Mr Fidler could not rely on the four-year immunity period that starts from "substantial completion". Today, backing that decision Mr Justice John Forbes said the approach adopted by the inspector "cannot be faulted".
He said: "The inspector's findings of fact were clearly ones he was entitled to reach."
on the evidence and as it seems to me were findings that fully justified his critical conclusions that the erection and removal of the straw bales formed part of the totality of the building operations that Mr Fidler originally contemplated and intended to carry out.
"The inspector was fully entitled to find that there was such a close and intimate connection between the erection / removal of the straw bales and the construction of the dwelling as to lead to the conclusion that the former was a necessary part of the overall building operations relating to the latter.
"In my view the inspector's findings of fact make it abundantly clear that the erection / removal of the straw bales was an integral, indeed and essential part of building operations that were intended to deceive the local planning authority and to achieve by deception lawful status for a dwelling built in breach of planning control.
"In my view the approach adopted by the inspector in this case cannot be faulted as it seems to me and in all the circumstances of this case the inspector was plainly right to reach the conclusion that he did."
When the case was heard Mr Fidler's counsel, Stephen Hockman QC, argued that the issue was whether the building operations on the site had been substantially completed for more than four years before the Council issued the enforcement notice in March 2007.
He had claimed that removal of the bales to reveal the building was not part of the building operation against which the enforcement notice was directed.
He said that it was a separate operation that did not give rise to a breach of planning control.
He argued that, in the circumstances, the building was substantially complete more than four years earlier, in 2002, and that "no other reasonable conclusion is possible".
"Construction was complete and it was in occupation. The removal of the bales cannot even be classified as part of a building operation. The decision was wrong in law and should be quashed," he had told the court.
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Demolition: Robert and Linda Fidler outside their dream home in Salfords
