Residents in eviction row turn to watchdog amid ‘vendetta’ claims

For nearly a year residents have been living in fear of being forced to leave their homes at Lakeminster Park, near Beverley.

Many had sold up to move into what they thought were permanent homes and paid full council tax, but East Riding Council says they should only be used for holidays.

Ahead of a planning application which will decide their future, several residents have logged complaints with the Local Government Ombudsman. Among them is Alan Coates who said the council’s actions had caused “immeasurable distress” to more than 100 elderly and vulnerable people and added that failure to negotiate with the owner “highlights an abject failure on the part of your staff”.

He accused officers of pursuing a vendetta against the owner, saying: “Your self-proclamation of East Riding Council as a ‘top- performing council of quality and excellence’ is at least as far as planning is concerned, a myth and an example of self-delusion.

“Witness the fact that in a recent 12-month period no fewer than 23 unresolved planning complaints were received by the Local Government Ombudsman. A hallmark of this dispute has been the obvious vendetta between your senior planners and the developer.”

David and Pamela Foulstone, who have lived on the site since September 2009, have questioned why the council took a “staggering” 26 months to act, and, when it finally did, “rushed” to enforcement action.

The couple also blame the council’s “imprecise” site licence that states homes “shall be used for human habitation all year round and for holiday use only” for creating confusion and setting the scene for more problems.

Mr Foulstone said: “It is imprecise as to its meaning and at odds with planning permission. By creating such ambiguity, only further problems were bound to happen.”

He said it was fair to assume their home was their “sole and main place of residence” as they paid full council tax. “Why do the planning department say it cannot be our “sole and main place of residence” when the council tax department says it is?

“The same council tax department then required us by law to return our details to be entered onto the electoral roll – surely another endorsement of “full residential status?”

However, council leader Steve Parnaby insisted that the authority’s planning permission had been “very clear”, stating that the homes couldn’t be a permanent residence.

He said: “The legal people tell me if someone says this is my main place of residence you have to charge them and that it has absolutely nothing to do with the planning permission that they have got. It is an entirely separate issue. I know it sounds illogical but the two never tie up.”

Director of planning and economic regeneration Alan Menzies said claims of a vendetta were “nonsense”, adding: “We deal with between 3,000 and 4,000 planning applications a year and we deal with every one of them in the most professional manner possible. There will always be disputes where an applicant is dissatisfied because an application is refused, or an objector where an application is approved.

“I can only think of one being upheld in the last 12 months – we made a mistake with the application and we accepted that from the start.”

Mr Menzies said the owner was only applying for residential planning permission because he had not complied with his consent.

He defended the length of time it had taken for the council to investigate, adding: “It is our view we have behaved in the correct manner.” He said the owner could appeal, if the committee refused planning permission, adding: “We would equally have to take a view about further enforcement.”