A "doofus" has been denied planning permission for a 'holiday home' he has already built after his boasting on social media exposed a lie. He appliced for retrospective permission, claiming the building was for the use of a "traveller" or rural worker living full-time on the site.
Now he's been outed by a local councillor after a planning officer "smelt a rat" and found his boastful Facebook post about it, reports Cornwall Live.
Three years ago, he posted about how he and his partner in lockdown had "decided to build ourselves a new mini holiday home" through "five months of blood sweat and tears".
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Dulcie Tudor, Cornwall councillor for Chacewater and Threemilestone, posted this week: "If you’re applying for retrospective planning permission for an existing cabin/home in my patch on the grounds you’re a traveller and rural worker and need somewhere to live, it’s not a good idea to boast from Oxfordshire about your new ‘holiday home’ near Truro on Facebook. REFUSED ... Doofus!"
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She said he had applied for retrospective permission for an "existing cabin (traveller and rural worker)" on land at Willow Lake, Besore, Threemilestone. He had constructed the container building in Oxford and brought it to the site in countryside near Truro. The permission was refused by the council last month.
Cllr Tudor shared the Facebook post, he had written in August 2020 stating: "So during lockdown me and [his partner] decided to build ourselves a new mini holiday home, it took 5 months of blood sweat and tears. With a couple of years worth of landscaping still to do, it will do us proud in the long run."
Cllr Tudor told CornwallLive: "The refusal is thanks to a planning officer who visited the site and smelt a rat. She did her homework. Very thorough."
The design statement said: "This application seeks retrospective permission for a modest timber cabin to accommodate a traveller and rural worker (Jack Lindsay) at Willow Lake, Besore, Threemilestone. Permission is sought in order to support the applicant in living full-time on site whilst working the holding. Essentially, the applicant (a traveller of no fixed address) intends to manage a specialist horticultural holding with vineyard on site, together with leisure activities associated with the trout fishing lake established on the site.
"The holding, comprising approximately 4.5 acres, includes amenity/leisure fishing lake and horticultural land/buildings. Since the holding was purchased in 2015, the applicant and Charlotte Lindsay have planted some 70 apple trees with a view to making artisan cider, established a vineyard (currently 150 vines), planted broadleaved native trees, native hedging, and flowers, as well as grown vegetables and kitchen garden herbs."
The statement added that the cabin "is of simple design, benefits from vertical larch cladding externally in a natural oiled finish under a mono pitch roof". The building is still on the site.
In its refusal document, Cornwall Council's planning department says: "The council are not assured that the applicant meets the definition of a traveller... and the isolated dwelling sited within the countryside fails to conserve or enhance the intrinsic landscape character and scenic beauty of the rural landscape.
"The proposed dwelling that does not have a site specific justification to be located on agricultural greenfield would fail to maintain the outstanding universal value of the prevailing Cornwall and West Devon Mining Landscape World Heritage Site (WHS), with no sufficient substantial public benefits provided to outweigh the harm of the cabin which conflicts with the surrounding a pastoral landscape."
The WHS objected to the application, saying that the introduction of the cabin did "not conserve or enhance the landscape character of this section of the WHS landscape". Kenwyn Parish Council had supported the application.
He did not wish to make a comment on the phone or via a written statement, preferring instead to meet on the site on the weekend of May 28/29.
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