Fashion brand boss in new bid to save property additions
THE founder of the White Stuff fashion and lifestyle brand has submitted new evidence to support his claim to enable him to keep a building, skate park and tennis court he built without permission in a Devon beauty spot.
Millionaire fashion boss Sean Thomas built a two-storey double garage on farmland behind his house at Gerston Point in the South Hams, a site in the South Devon Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty and alongside the Salcombe to Kingsbridge Estuary Site of Special Scientific Interest.
Mr Thomas and his wife subsequently acquired an adjoining strip of agricultural land and, on that, built a tennis court, skate park and garage without planning permission.
However, after complaints from residents, an initial retrospective planning application for the unauthorised additions to the house was refused in 2019.
In April, 2020, Mr Thomas submitted new plans – this time with the new planting of over 1,000 native trees to ensure there will be a ‘clear net biodiversity’ gain, but in November, 2020, South Hams District Council planners once again refused the scheme.
They passed the application over to the council’s enforcement team to commence formal enforcement action and serve notice with regards to returning the land to its former condition, including the removal of the building and engineering operations undertaken to provide a tennis court and skate ramp facility.
Now, however, Mr Thomas has applied for a certificate of lawfulness for the development on the ground that the time limit for taking enforcement action has passed.
Under the Town and Country Planning Act 1990, the application says that the time limit for taking enforcement action in the case of operational development is four years. A planning statement submitted on behalf of Mr Thomas says that the construction works, including the substantial engineering works to lower the ground levels and construct retaining walls together with building works, including the construction of an outbuilding, tennis court and inground skate bowl, were substantially completed by May, 2016.
The statement adds: “The operational development comprising of the construction of the outbuilding, tennis court and skate bowl together with associated engineering operations are therefore lawful.
“It is therefore concluded that on the balance of probabilities the operational development that has been carried out comprising of the construction of the outbuilding, tennis court and skate bowl are lawful and a certificate should therefore be granted.”
The house was built on the site of a bungalow formerly owned by the environmentalist Tony Soper, the co-founder of the BBC’s Natural History Unit.
‘The construction of the outbuilding, tennis court and skate bowl are lawful’