Dream £1.5m house ‘feels like a prison’
A FAMILY has said that living in their £1.5 million country pile feels like “being in prison” after a scaffolding firm next door erected a 20ft-high fence around their home.
Mike Tattum and Jane Bell said their historic home at Hadham Park House near Bishop’s Stortford, Herts, has been ruined by Connect Scaffolding which continues to “grab greenbelt land”.
The couple and their four sons, aged between 12 and 21, were drawn by the tranquillity of the countryside when they moved into the property in 2014.
Dating from the 16th century, Hadham Park is made up of five heritage assets, historic farm buildings and was originally the deer lodge for the estate, visited by Queen Elizabeth I and King William II.
When they first arrived their commercial neighbours had set up a “small operation” in the old farmhouses.
But, in 2018, the company began to expand and over the next two years the family watched in horror as they brought in floodlights, CCTV, 11 mobile cabins and erected a black metal fence.
“We arrived back from holiday and whilst we had been gone it was as if the place had gone through a transformation. There was scaffolding stored everywhere, newly erected fencing, lighting, CCTV cameras and more Portacabins than you could count,” said Mr Tattum. “It felt like we were being surrounded by an industrial zone. We went from having this quite quiet commercial neighbour to one who was incredibly aggressive, grabbing bits of greenbelt, grabbing rural land and just literally building things on it.”
The 55-year-old, who works in the financial services sector and had openheart surgery last year, said the impact on his family has been huge.
“We have been through hell health wise. It has impacted Jane who has got an autoimmune condition which is triggered by stress. Our youngest son, who is 12, is autistic and has not opened his bedroom curtains for over two years and they know about my heart condition,” he said.
In February 2019 the family contacted East Herts district council with a report, compiled by property consultants Briggs and Stone, listing the breaches in planning rules. The case resulted in the council settling a High Court judicial review with the family in 2020 after it admitted that it had unlawfully granted planning permission for an office on the development.
The local authority later disputed the damages and returned to court in February, where a judge instructed them to pay £82,962.66 – 70 per cent of the costs the family has paid to fight the expansion.
Oliver Cave, who owns Connect Scaffolding, has since applied for retrospective planning permission for some of the cabins and storage facilities.
Mr Tattum and his family have now launched the Action on Planning campaign to urge the Government to review the retrospective planning process to prevent others having to go through the same ordeal as them.