If only he was a 'Traveller'!

Peter Howell fought a bitter 5-year long battle with Hambleton District Council over the 5-bedroomed 'Dream House' that he had built in Ingleby Arncliffe, North Yorkshire. His problem was not that he hadn't got any planning permission in place for he'd applied for, and been granted, outline planning consent in 2004. Rather foolishly, although perhaps understandable, expecting the application to be 'rubber-stamped' through the final stages, he started to build his dream house immediately. After all, when Peter Howell submitted plans for the property he intended to build there were no major objections made by anyone. Then the Parish Council decided to weigh in with their 'two penn'orth' and sent a letter to every villager claiming that the building had been begun without proper planning consent, the response to which was a veritable deluge of objections from the hitherto unaggrieved villagers.

Now the council have sent in the bulldozers and torn the £400,000 house down. Mr Howell has been well and truly taught the lesson that you cannot do what you feel like in this country when it comes to building your home. At least, that's the lesson if you try to go down the correct routes, even if you flaunt them a little by presupposing, as he had done.

What a pity he wasn't able to claim that he belonged to that diversely ethnic group of Travellers who build complete settlements on Green Belt land, laying tarmacadam drives and roads, putting in septic tanks, and building a range of homes, the occupation of which goes to prove that they are not Travellers but Settlers. If only Peter and his wife Kay had been able to claim that they were Travellers then there would have been no problem. Not only that, but if during the course of building either of them had suffered in any manner which caused them to go to hospital or to visit a GP, then they would have been fast-tracked ahead of the villagers who raised objections to their dream home --- and that includes being fast-tracked ahead of members of the Parish council as well.

Of course he should have done everything by the book and not started to build until the ink was dry on the final stages of the Planning Permission. But is tearing down his home really the right answer?

One consolation exists at least for this couple who have lost everything that they had worked so hard for in this land where they had paid the taxes which helped to line the pockets of the very people who had trodden them into the dust of their dream home. Peter and Kay Howell, their business in liquidation, can buy a luxury caravan or whatever, and 'hit the road'. That way they will become bona fide Travellers and can find a great piece of Green Belt land somewhere and build on it without fear of it being demolished, knowing that as a member of an ethnic community they are protected by the full weight of the law, for anyone daring to raise the slightest objection will be branded a racist immediately.