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Daily Record
Daily Record
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Jasmine Jackson & Douglas Whitbread & Laura Sharman & Hannah Mackenzie Wood

Five stunning mansions worth £1m each torn down after breaching planning rules

Five massive £1million mansions have been demolished after they were constructed in violation of planning regulations.

Four of the luxury six-bedroom homes located in the stunning West Pennine moors, Lancs, were torn down after being built in the wrong place.

Work continued pulling down the final property this weekend not long after the mansions were almost completed, the Mirror reports.

Bolton Council ordered their demolition after building inspectors discovered that the houses were up to a third larger than agreed and in different locations than was allowed.

They were initially ordered to be razed to the ground in 2018, however a legal battle and pleas from home owners delayed bulldozers moving in until May last year.

And new photos show that the site, once a collection of dream homes, has become little more than rubble - with just one lone luxury mansion left standing.

Cllr Andy Morgan said: “Four of the five houses have now come down. It's the right thing to do.

“There are two applications for individual plots to be built with slight alterations.

Drone images of the homes which are now being demolished. (Tom Maddick / SWNS)

“The intent is to rebuild them and save so much materials, brick by brick.”

Building work began on the homes in 2014, when planning permission was granted for the conversion of a former farmhouse and four new homes around a central courtyard.

The mansions each feature six bedrooms with sprawling countryside views. (Lee McLean / SWNS)

The stone-built exclusive homes were erected on a sprawling plot near Bolton, Greater Mancs.

But finishing works were put on hold after a complaint was filed in October 2016, and Bolton Council found the houses were not being built in accordance with the planning permission.

An inquiry heard how plot one on the site had a 31 per cent bigger footprint than allowed, plot two was 19 percent bigger, plot three 32 percent bigger and plot four 33 percent bigger.

The local authority first issued an enforcement notice to flatten the entire development in 2018, following an impasse with the developers, Sparkle Developments.

The properties were built up to a third bigger and in different locations to what was agreed. (Tom Maddick / SWNS)

But an appeal claimed the enforcement notice issued by the council to demolish the homes was excessive and too harsh to remedy any breach in planning regulations.

One of the previous homeowners, Elan Raja told an earlier hearing that he had paid £1,057,000 for the plot in 2016.

Bolton Council found the houses were not being built in accordance with the planning permission. (Tom Maddick / SWNS)

He also claimed he had since spent more than £215,000 on the rental of an alternative property and other costs.

He said he had suffered from severe stress and anxiety due to coping with the immense demands of the legal case and had suffered cardiac problems as a result of the "nightmare" situation.

But despite this, council inspectors later decided to give a deadline of May 18, 2022, for all the mansions to be demolished.

A spokesperson for Bolton Council said: “We will of course continue to monitor the site in the coming weeks to ensure that the requirements of the enforcement notice are complied with in full.”

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