A homeowner was busted after boasting about his luxury “holiday home” that he built without permission.
Jack Lindsay was rumbled by Cornwall Council after he tried to get retrospective planning permission for a property in Cornwall.
Mr Lindsay had built the cabin during lockdown in 2020, calling it a “new mini holiday home” in a Facebook post, and moved it to land at Willow Lake, Besore, Threemilestone.
On his Facebook, he said: “It took five months of blood sweat and tears. With a couple of years worth of landscaping still to do, it will do us proud in the long run."
Mr Lindsay intended to start a vineyard on the site and fish alongside making "artisan cider".
But when Mr Lindsay, founder of ETSO Fabrications, from Oxfordshire, applied for retrospective planning permission, he claimed that he needed the accommodation as “a traveller and rural worker”.
However, one local councillor outed Mr Lindsay in a brutal response and branded him a “doofus”.
Dulcie Tudor, Cornwall councillor for Chacewater and Threemilestone, dug out Mr Lindsay’s old post calling the cabin a “holiday home”.
She posted this week: "If you’re applying for retrospective planning permission for an existing cabin/home in my patch on the grounds you’re a traveller and rural worker and need somewhere to live, it’s not a good idea to boast from Oxfordshire about your new ‘holiday home’ near Truro on Facebook. REFUSED ... Doofus!"
Mr Lindsay had also posted an image of the cabin on his business page, ETSO Fabrications, in September 2020 stating: "Our new summerhouse #offgridliving #shippingcontainerhouse"
Retrospective permission was refused by the council last month and he now faces the chance of having it torn down.
Cllr Tudor told CornwallLive: "The refusal is thanks to a planning officer who visited the site and smelt a rat. She did her homework. Very thorough."
Mr Lindsay's planning agent, Smart Bluefrog Ltd, had said in its design statement: "This application seeks retrospective permission for a modest timber cabin to accommodate a traveller and rural worker (Jack Lindsay) at Willow Lake, Besore, Threemilestone.
“Permission is sought in order to support the applicant in living full-time on site whilst working the holding. Essentially, the applicant (a traveller of no fixed address) intends to manage a specialist horticultural holding with vineyard on site, together with leisure activities associated with the trout fishing lake established on the site.
"The holding, comprising approximately 4.5 acres, includes amenity/leisure fishing lake and horticultural land/buildings. Since the holding was purchased in 2015, the applicant and Charlotte Lindsay have planted some 70 apple trees with a view to making artisan cider, established a vineyard (currently 150 vines), planted broadleaved native trees, native hedging, and flowers, as well as grown vegetables and kitchen garden herbs."
The statement added that the cabin "is of simple design, benefits from vertical larch cladding externally in a natural oiled finish under a mono pitch roof". The building is still on the site.
In its refusal document, Cornwall Council's planning department said: "The council are not assured that the applicant meets the definition of a traveller... and the isolated dwelling sited within the countryside fails to conserve or enhance the intrinsic landscape character and scenic beauty of the rural landscape.
"The proposed dwelling that does not have a site specific justification to be located on agricultural greenfield would fail to maintain the outstanding universal value of the prevailing Cornwall and West Devon Mining Landscape World Heritage Site (WHS), with no sufficient substantial public benefits provided to outweigh the harm of the cabin which conflicts with the surrounding a pastoral landscape."
The WHS objected to the application, saying that the introduction of the cabin did "not conserve or enhance the landscape character of this section of the WHS landscape". Kenwyn Parish Council had supported the application.
Mr Lindsay said: "I haven't had a fixed abode for 15 or so years. I've lived on boats and caravans - as the council knows, whilst I've plied my trade as a welder wherever I can get the work. so in planning terms I am a traveller.
"I can't understand the animosity - calling me a 'doofus' is highly prejudicial. It feels like a vendetta as the same council used to persecute my family when my parents raised us in a caravan on a small-holding a few miles away in Chacewater.
"The cabin I've built replaces a dilapidated caravan which the council gave me permission to stay in for as long as I needed to work the land. I urge Michael Gove to intervene so common-sense prevails. It's a cabin for goodness sake. It has minimal impact on the landscape.
"I have no intention but to settle where I grow up and in the same way I grew up whist looking after the environment and enhancing the site."
