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The High Court confirmed a council order that the building built by Robert Fidler at Redhill,
In 2002, Fiddler moved into the four-bedroom property, designed to look like a castle, with his wife and son and lived there for four years.
He had hoped to rely on a legal loophole that grants immunity from eviction to homeowners who have lived in a property for more than four years – even if they failed to obtain the correct planning permission.
However, in May 2006, Fidler removed the straw bales and tarpaulin and, in February 2007, Reigate Council issued him with an enforcement notice demanding the building’s demolition.
The council said that the claim to immunity was invalid because the building and removal of the bales constituted a part of the construction process.
In 2008, a planning inspector rejected Fidler’s claim that the bales had not been part of the building work and confirmed that the building should be demolished.
Rejecting Fidler’s appeal deputy High Court judge Sir Thayne Forbes said: “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 an essential ‘fundamentally related’ – part of the 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.”
Fidler v Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government and another
Stephen Hockman QC (instructed by Wright Hassall LLP, of Leamington Spa) appeared for the claimant; Paul Brown QC (instructed by the Treasury Solicitor) appeared for the first defendant; Rupert Warren (instructed by the legal department of
