Wimblington scrap dealer loses stock car storage battle

A scrap metal dealer has lost his fight with villagers to store 20 stock cars and two traction engines at his large village home.

Neil Bowers, 59, sparked alarm among his neighbours when he first began storing damaged vehicles on his property last year.

He also built a big shed next to his home at Wimblington without planning permission.

An enforcement notice issued in January last year by Fenland District Council alleged that Mr Bowers' two-acre property was being used to store the cars.

The council said that a new building had been put up to store the vehicles and was without planning permission.

Mr Bowers, director of Gold Star Metal Trading, applied for retrospective planning permission for the hangar.

He argued his hobby was stock car racing and some of the cars were kept on his land during the competition season.

Mr Bowers agreed that the outbuilding exceeds the four-metre height of a ‘permitted development' - changes that can be made without a planning application.

Earlier this month a planning inspector refused to give permission for the vehicles to be stored in Mr Bowers' garden and upheld the enforcement notice.

He said there had been no planning permission submitted to change the use of the land for the storage and dismantling of vehicles or the large outbuilding.

Mr Bowers had asked for permission to be able to keep the stock cars in his garden stacked and that they would be no higher than the boundary walls.

However, the inspector said that the number of cars and their storage was "not reasonably and ordinarily ancillary to the enjoyment of the dwelling house".

The planning inspector added: "The substantial concrete hardstanding is also of a scale and character more akin to that of an industrial estate or a modern working farmyard."

Mr Bowers has six months to dismantle the large outbuilding and cease the use of the land for storing the cars. He has been contacted for comment.