A father who built four luxury holiday cabins complete with hot tubs in a natural beauty spot has been ordered to demolish them following a planning battle.
Owner John Phillips, 38, who opened his £200-a-night chalets in the Gower Peninsula in Wales over a year ago, built them without proper permissions.
Mr Phillips said he did not believe the buildings needed planning permission because of their size when he initially put them up. But after speaking to council workers, he was advised to apply for ‘change of use’ if he intended to rent them out.
He later applied for retrospective planning permission, which was denied.
Mr Phillips and his partner Kerrie Garrett saw the chalets as a chance to ‘cash in’ on the beauty of the surrounding area and provide for their two-year-old daughter Darcy-Mae.
But furious locals claimed the chalets were a ‘blot on the landscape’ of Britain’s first Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB) and should not have been built.
The cabins in the hamlet of Landimore, about 13 miles east of Swansea, faced objections from neighbours and even the National Trust – before planning officials ruled they detracted from the Landimore Conservation Area and Gower AONB.
Council officers issued enforcement action on eight grounds, including the lack of flood and ecology reports, and potential damage to the roots of trees at the rear of the cabins.
The enforcement notice requires Mr Phillips to remove all traces of the cabins and return the land to its previous condition.
The notice was due to take effect from next week but Mr Phillips has appealed the council decision with the Welsh Government department Planning and Environment Decisions Wales.
He argued the cabins would attract visitors to the area all year round and boost the economy in an area where tourist accommodation was limited.
He built the cabins in the grounds of his home as an investment.
Hellbound and Down 