Hoarder can keep his clutter – as council can’t make him tidy up
A MAN has been allowed to keep his garden filled with old doors and window frames – precisely because he is a hoarder, and cannot be made to comply with an order to clear it.
A planning inspector said he “reluctantly” had to refuse a council notice to enforce Michael Legg to tidy his property as he was a hoarder rather than a scrap dealer and therefore not subject to his authority.
Mr Legg’s neighbours are angry that he has been given dispensation to carry on filling his front and back gardens with the surplus domestic fittings.
He was previously granted planning permission to use his bungalow for retail purposes. But since the permission expired in 2007, he has failed to revert the property in Stoke-sub-Hamdon, Somerset, to solely domestic use and the garden is overflowing.
South Somerset council imposed an enforcement notice on the property to comply with the conditions, but Mr Legg appealed last October.
The planning inspector, Graham Self, has now quashed the council’s notice, describing it as “flawed”.
Mr Self said: “Mr Legg has obviously become a hoarder, and storage is the predominant component in the cur- rent use. The extent of storage is such that parts of the site are inaccessible, and it is difficult to move around inside the bungalow. I have decided that the enforcement notice is flawed beyond correction. I shall therefore quash it.
“I reach this conclusion reluctantly, because all those involved, including neighbouring residents, have waited a long time for the issues involved in this site to be resolved, and if matters cannot be resolved by other means, the next step may well be a further enforcement notice.”
Mr Self added: “I am also concerned from a humanitarian, welfare and medical viewpoint about the poor and possibly unsafe living conditions which Mr Legg has created for himself, but I can only deal with planning matters.”
Residents of Stoke-sub-Hamdon have expressed health and safety concerns about Mr Legg’s property. One neighbour, who did not wish to be named, said: “It’s been going on an awfully long time now. It’s such a mess, something needs to be done about it, it’s not pleasant to look at. It used to be so bad you couldn’t see the front door. He won’t clear it up and it’s not fair on the rest of us. If one of us wants to sell our house it’s going to make it so difficult.
“There’s been petition after petition but he still seems to be getting away with it. Mr Legg is a character, and obviously we want to keep characters in the village, but you have to draw the line somewhere.”
A council spokesman said: “We are aware of the concerns of local residents and the parish council, and we will continue to pursue this matter.”
Mr Legg declined to comment.