Couple who disguised house as a garage told to tear it down
A couple who disguised a house as a garage and lived in it for four years have been ordered to tear it down.
Jackie Shearsby, 55, and partner Peter Hickinbotham, 68, built the two-bed residence in their garden in Long Itchington, Warks. after buying a crumbling house fit only for demolition.
Mr Hickinbothom said he hoped to take advantage of rules whereby planning permission can be obtained retrospectively after the structure has been in place for four years. But the local council said the home had been deliberately concealed.
The couple lived in the building for more than four years from April 2012 until they were caught out when they contacted planners themselves last December to apply for retrospective permission to turn the garage into a "habitable residential dwelling."
The couple admitted they converted the property in June 2011 and moved in full-time in April 2012. The court ruled that the couple had breached planning laws, adding that there had been a "deliberate concealment".
Speaking after the court hearing, Mr Hickinbotham said from the two-bedroom bungalow: "They looked outside saying the conifers are hiding it, the gates and fence are hiding it but they'd been there for 30 years.
"Obviously trees grow, they were planted in 2009."
He added: "They said how could you live like this in dark rooms - there are a couple of windows, okay.
"But that doesn't bother us, in the summer you open the doors to let the light in but I wanted to get the four-year period out of the way before I applied.
"If you get it - which I thought I would - you can put whatever windows you want in.
"They said I don't pay council tax. I knew I'd always got to pay that, that was in back of my mind. "I've abided by the rules as far as the time period and not surrounded it by veils."
Cllr Simon Lawton, Chairman of Regulatory Committee says: "Planning regulations are there to protect against unauthorised development.
"The council will consider this Court process to prevent breaches becoming immune from enforcement action where a breach has been deliberately concealed to avoid enforcement action."