I’m being made homeless at 88 after taking wall down on my OWN land – ‘heartless’ council fined me
A GRANDDAD claims he is being made homeless after he took a wall down on his own land.
Ron Knight, 88, said his "heartless" council have been fining him for the last six years because of a planning dispute which could now see him lose his home.
The pensioner built the wall, that is at the heart of the legal battle, himself on Cannon Court Farm, Somerset, back in the 1970s.
Ron owned the property and land at the time before he decided to sell up in 1990, alongside his two brothers before relocating to Devon.
But a section of land joining the farm and the street still belongs to the trio and is used as an access point.
In a bid to keep the land tidy for the new farm owners, Ron removed a small section of the wall in 2017 that he initially erected.
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The pensioner was not aware removing part of the wall was something he needed permission for.
He has since been handed multiple fines amounting to more than £2,000 for taking it down.
Ron claims he cannot pay the fees and has been summoned to court on multiple occasions.
His daughter Linda Knight told SomersetLive: "My dad received an enforcement notice from South Somerset District Council in December 2017 to cease work immediately along with a letter to appeal, which he didn’t understand and to which he failed to respond - hence missing the one chance to explain why he’d done what he’d done.
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"My father is living on a pension and caring for his disabled wife - he is her sole carer.
"He could likely be forced to sell his house as he can’t afford to pay the ongoing fines."
Ron's grandson Sam Cabell added: "It's a pretty shocking system to be quite honest, especially as there is others on the same street that have taken down walls to their properties to gain access for car parking spaces.
"My grandfather built the wall himself back in the 1970s and had no hassles from the council then - so why is there now an issue with him taking a piece down, for access to feed animals and keep the place tidy?"
Ron now must attend a final court date in January if he cannot pay the outstanding fines.
A spokesman for the council said: "The retrospective planning application was asking for the same requirements as the enforcement notice.
"We have applied the expediency test and public interest test to each step of this case.
"We consider that the creation of the access, necessitating the demolition or removal of a wide section of the historic stonewall and associated engineering work to the land behind, fails to safeguard the established character of the conservation area and has caused unjustified harm to a designated heritage asset."