£15k fine after mansion makeover

A property developer has been ordered to pay £15,000 in fines and costs after spending £1 million restoring a mansion near Stourbridge – and falling foul of planning red tape.

Russell Stevens told a court he had been involved in a four year "war of attrition" with Wyre Forest District Council about alterations to outbuildings at his 18th-century Park Hall mansion, in Blakedown. He said he felt the council had taken a hard stand, as his wife had been dying of cancer at the time, so he merely told his builder to tidy up the property.

However, Wyre Forest District Council judged that work carried out to convert a dairy and store into a cottage was not appropriate for a listed building and declared the work was unauthorised.

It issued two enforcement notices relating to the former dairy and store and then prosecuted Mr Stevens for failing to comply with them.

Mr Stevens was yesterday ordered to pay fines and costs totalling £15,000 by Judge Richard Rendell at Hereford Crown Court.

"Listed buildings are important to our national heritage and it is important that they are protected and preserved," the judge said.

Mr Stevens told the court: "They decided to throw as much at me as they could. The costs of this case are potentially four times greater than the fine.

"I accept that we did not properly supervise the work of the builders. My late wife was dying of cancer and we were living in Devon. My brief to the builder was to tidy up that part of the family home which they did.

"Now the buildings in and around my home are in a good state and the work has been done to a good standard. We get nothing but praise for the good state it is in."

The orginal £22,000 costs bill from the council was more than halved to £10,000 and Mr Stevens was given three months to pay the £5,000 fines and a further three months to pay the costs. He was warned he would serve a three-month prison sentence if he failed to pay.

He told the court that a "war of attrition" had been going on between him and the council for four years. Judge Rendell conceded that counts one and two involving former dairy and storage buildings were as one since the buildings were joined.