I have just seen a fantastically creative scheme to get round the restrictive planning laws that we have in the UK.
Fiddlers castle
On New Homes From Hell (on ITV1) a farmer called Robert Fidler described how he built a house in secret, surround by massive haystacks, and then kept it hidden for four years.
He owned some green belt land, but knowing that he wouldn’t get planning permission to build a house on it, he decided to try to exploit a loop whole in the law which states that if a council doesn’t object to a new build property after four years, then planning is not required.
So all Robert needed to do was hide his house for 4 years.
Then once the time had passed, he pulled down the bales of hay to reveal his very own castle.
Robert has lived there since August 2006, but he is not in the clear yet. The council are trying to have it demolished saying that, since no-one was given a chance to see the house, the 4 year exemption is invalid.