Late February 04.  What next..................


I wanted to discuss our plans for the cattery with the council and asked if a planning officer would visit. I also wanted to know if there would be any objections from the council with regard to the barn we intended to convert for two holiday lets.   C. Davies (planning officer) duly visited.  It was an informative meeting, he liked the barn and advised we would be required to re-roof it with slate if we went ahead.  During his visit, he asked us how we got on with our neighbours!  I was a little taken aback as to why he was asking, as I found it rather an odd question.  I said that I hadn't actually met them properly yet, but they seemed friendly and we would wave to each other as we went in and out.  He said "did you know there have been a lot of problems here"?  Of course I didn't as I wouldn't have gone ahead with the purchase had I known.  Clearly this is why he was asking.  I found this to be really worrying, as it served to confirm my creeping suspicions that our neighbours dislike of our seller had led her to move, and she had probably lied to us regarding her reasons for selling.  It also made me aware that the noise and disturbance I was experiencing could be the very reason why there had been problems here.  This was not something one would wish to hear having only recently bought your dream home.
Mr. Davies went on to say that the neighbours were intending to put in permission for an agricultural shed, that it was huge, but that I shouldn't worry about it as they most definitely wouldn't get it.  I asked where it would situated, but Mr. Davies was adamant that they would not get permission as he was the planning officer who would be carrying out the appraisal if they put in for planning and he would not be recommending approval!! He said "we know what they are doing and they are not agricultural".  I agreed there was no farming only horses and lorries and told him about the noise.   He said I might consider contacting Mr. Brian Canning the Enforcement Manager and talk to him about it.

From haylage bales to these containers.  View from my windows.

A friend of mine and her daughter had been staying with me for a couple of weeks.  Upon arriving home from a shopping spree, Minnie (my mare) was very fretful.   Naturally I went to her to calm her down and to find out what was wrong.  It was then I noticed hoof prints everywhere and the land had been churned up from what was most certainly, more than one pony.  There clearly had been an incident with ponies on my land but what had happened was a mystery.  I fully expected a phone message or note explaining something, but there was nothing.   Someone must have collected them and taken them away but left no indication of what had taken place.   This concerned me hugely, as it left me with a worry as to who owned these ponies and what kind of person would walk onto someone elses property and leave no apology or explanation as to what had taken place.   My friend said she was concerned too about this incident and also about the industrial noises coming from the farm next door, and that it really shouldn't be happening.  In fact, most people visiting would now pass comment about the industrial noises, the constant clearing of rock from the old, supposed disused quarry, and why it was happening from what was allegedly a 'farm'. 
In view of the ongoing noise from lorries and maintenance of them, friends were saying I should ring the local authority.  This was not something I wanted to do, and I tried to remain optimistic that all would improve over time.

Trying to stay positive.

In the far corner of one of our fields there was a very small area designated and labelled a SSSI site.  My curiosity led me to ring Countryside Council for Wales who designate such areas, to enquire about it.   I spoke to Mr. Nigel Stringer who said when he was passing he would call in and see me, which he did a couple of weeks later.  I was even more perturbed about my neighbours after his visit,  as whilst he was here, he too made a point in asking me how I got on with my neighbours.  I told him the same as I told C. Davies.  Nigel Stringer went further in what he was prepared to say.   He said there had been much bad feeling between these two holdings.  He was aware the last owner who sold to us had only been here a very short while, (a few months in fact) and that the owners before her, who had lived here for twenty six years had had many rows with the new owners of the neighbouring holding over their activities.   He said they were conservationists, and that this too, conflicted with the owners of the neighbouring Blaenpant, who were not.  This was really disturbing and alarm bells were now going off.   It would seem that in the two and a half years these people had owned Blaenpant,  two families from this property had sold up and left following some nasty confrontations.  Are we going to be third time lucky.....?

Calm before the storm

How distressing to find out in these few weeks I had been living here, from both Ceri Davies and Nigel Stringer that the owners of Blaenpant had been in conflict with my two predecessors who had both sold up.  That my neighbour disliked my seller to such a degree he had tied scrap metal into trees to intimidate her - unexplained horses have run amok on my land and my fencing had been trampled from mystery invaders!  How are we going to fare with our neighbours?

 January 04..............Oh so noisy

I had only been living here for a few weeks and the noise from the neighbouring holding didn't appear to be abating. I was also being woken up at 6.00 a.m. every morning by the sound of cars arriving, voices, doors slamming, engines being started, brake reversing noises, and the reverberations within our cottage of heavy duty lorries leaving the area directly opposite our bedroom was unpleasant.

They rattled out each and every morning disturbing their dogs (three rotties) who were situated within a few meters from us in some kind of caged area, who would then obviously bark.  

Maybe it was just going to be temporary - let's hope so.    I did find this quite troubling, as we had been informed by the seller of this property and the local authority  (Carmarthen Council)  that Blaenpant was a farm where they bred horses, but so far the only sounds I was experiencing were from industrial machinery and HGVs.   If the farm was being used for breeding of horses, I was puzzled to understand why there was always such a noisy disturbance from what appeared to be generators and plant machinery.  It would seem that the council were quite wrong that Blaenpant was a farm, as there were no signs of any farming activity. The only activities I was aware of were the large numbers of horses in the fields and an obvious lorry business.   Friends were telling me this wasn't right, as surely a farm cannot be used for industrial operations, and where was the consideration for neighbours. When A. Thomas one of the partners of the haulage business, returned home in the afternoons from driving his truck, the industrial machines, (JCBs) which were kept at this farm, along with several other items of plant, came into operation.  The noise from these machines was painful to hear.  The earth shook as they moved around as they were so huge.  I couldn't see what was going on as the 'earth bank' was high and getting higher.  The sounds suggested that materials were being being cleared from the site.  The constant daily sound of rock being dragged down from the quarry and loaded onto backs of lorries was unmistakable.

The weekends were intolerable.  The JCB would start up at around 7.00.a.m. but I was awake anyway as the trucks that went out at 6.00a.m. had become my alarm clock..  This machine was in constant use the entire weekend.  When the other lorry drivers came back around lunchtime on Saturdays,  they would set about power hosing their lorries.  This would go on for the entire Saturday afternoon and into Sunday,  also very noisy and extremely upsetting to listen to.   It was no pleasure being outside.  I would try to ignore the disturbances but it was impossible. 

The  old dutch barn on their yard,  was also in constant use, from either maintenance being carried out on lorries, or being used by welders both Saturdays and Sundays from as early as 7.00a.m thru to early evening.  I kept telling myself that this couldn't go on indefinitely as it was a farm and one shouldn't be carrying out these types industrial activities without permissions on a farm!   I believed that our conveyance, which clearly stated that neither of these two properties could cause obnoxious nuisance to the other, would have protected us from such activities.

As the weeks passed I was beginning to feel very uncomfortable and worried about the goings on on the property adjacent, as this was to be our retirement home, with income and interests. This noise, if it were to continue would blight our property, its value, and it would destroy the peace we believed we were buying into.  Eddie said to give it time, it's probably only temporary, after all we've only been here for a few weeks and too early to get overly concerned.  I also wanted to remain on good terms with our neighbours.

It was now very cold and as the old Rayburn wasn't working at all it meant we had no heating.  We employed an engineer to convert the old Rayburn from solid fuel into oil.  He also installed more radiators which were essential to keep this stone cottage warm.  Now we had heat.  Fantastic!  However, we had another problem.  The septic tank didn't appear to be operating now even though on the conveyancing papers Mrs. Gifford had ticked that it was.  Looking on the positive side, spring was around the corner and things could only improve.  I had to keep telling myself that the disturbance from the neighbouring property would be resolved.


Eddie came up at the weekends, and I was desperate to remove the eyesore which was the rusty old garage doors that our seller, Anne Gifford,  had tied into the trees, supposedly put there to prevent her dogs from running onto the neighbours land.  It was difficult to say the least, as the bank was very steep and they were huge.  They were also very difficult to manoeuvre.  It took us a fair while to cut them down.  We had all but finished when our neighbour Andrew Thomas appeared and said, "so you've taken down my garage doors then".  I was surprised at his comments and explained to  him that Ann Gifford had advised us they were hers and she had put them there to safeguard her dogs.   When I asked him if he wanted them he just laughed and said 'no'.  He then enlightened us to the fact that he had put them there because he 'couldn't stand her'.  He delighted in letting us know that he wanted to punish her for complaining about him and his partner.  I really didn't want to hear that and so didn't venture into any further conversation on the subject.  We had only just moved in and in effect we were being told that not only had Ann Gifford lied to us about this eyesore, but clearly there was bad blood between her and the neighbours.

Time to ask the Planning Officer to visit to discuss our plans for the cattery and our barn conversion.....

Moving in.............

15th. December 2003.............moving in

 Neighbouring land - taken in 2001 - SSSI - Special Area of Conservation

The day we moved into Pantycastell Fach.    Chaos.  We had hired a removal company, thank goodness and my family were very much on hand too.   By the end of the day, the rooms downstairs were full to brimming with boxes, and we were all exhausted.   I felt so happy.  At last we had a home that was everything we had always wanted.   We also had exciting plans.   We wanted to have a small cattery in order that we could maintain our connection with animals and people. Our love of animals was in part the motivation to have a cattery, to have an income, to keep us active and motivated for as many years as we wished.  

First of many bonfires

Eddie was to continue working in Sussex in order that we would have the funds to not only set up the cattery business but also to convert the very sturdy and attractive barn as it would lend itself perfectly into two small holiday lets.  It would also help repay the relatively small loan we had taken out, as we wanted to use our own funds to get things going.  He was going to come up every weekend and I would have friends come to stay during the other times.  I would also be kept busy getting advice, obtaining drawings, planning permissions and sorting out grants and so on.  Certainly enough to keep me very busy.

The cottage was situated at the extreme lower end of the neighbours paddock within a couple of meters from it's boundary. The neighbours paddock was quite narrow being approximately forty meters wide,  the opposite of the paddock to our cottage opened out onto a small disused quarry.  At the top end of the paddock was a house an old disused cowshed, a farm building now used as stables and a dutch barn. The quarry, along with the entire neighbouring holding was located on a Special Area of Conservation, for which any owner of said holding had to gain permission from what used to be the Countryside Council for Wales, but is now Natural Resources Wales.  This means special permissions have to be given for any developments or operations as these sites are highly protected under European Law.  Alongside the rear of our cottage there was an unusually high, close board fence, (the type you'd see in gardens), which only ran the length of our dwelling. I had presumed either the person we had bought from or the previous owner had erected it for privacy.  It had the effect of separating our cottage from the paddock.  (I was later to discover why this fence had been erected and by whom).  I had a few small reservations regarding the cottage being so close to the boundary, having viewed another property with Leylandii growing exceedingly close to the windows.  But minus the Leylandii and not being able to fathom any other negative reasons why this would ever be an issue, dismissed them especially as the neighbours house was quite some distance away from us and I certainly wasn't contemplating there would be any problems.

Sally

Our cottage was in a relatively remote setting with our neighbour's house being some 100 meters away.    As our cottage was surrounded by fields and could be easily accessed from many directions, I felt a little vulnerable living here on my own, as in the past I had always been used to having neighbours close by.   A friend agreed to stay with me for a while until I became more comfortable about being on my own, especially at night.  The heating was not working as the pretty ancient Rayburn was completely clogged with soot, and clearly hadn't been used for a long time.  We did have a multi fuel burner situated in the sitting room, which was our only means of keeping warm.  We bought coal and kept it burning  day and night. The cottage gardens had not been tended to for a long while and had been left to become very overgrown.  There was a lot of work to be done.   It was the week before Christmas and Lorraine and I decided to spend time outside to get on with doing some tidying up.  As the days went by it was impossible to ignore the obvious continuous noise coming from the area which was directly opposite our cottage where the old quarry was situated.  Having bought a smallholding, in the countryside, it came as a bit of a shock to find ourselves listening to what appeared to us to be industrial noises coming from, what we believed to be a 'farm'. Having kept my horse at livery and having spent a lot of years in the countryside I was aware of the types of noise one would expect from farming practices.  These noises were very loud intrusive noises from plant machinery, generators, and what appeared to be breaking of rock and then being loaded onto lorries. The noise was disturbing enough not want to be outside for very long.   My friend Lorraine commented to me how very noisy it was here, and I commented back that 'hopefully it wasn't going to be the norm, and that hopefully it would stop soon'.

Millie the dog and Hilly the lamb

 
Christmas Eve, (two weeks after moving in) the phone rang. It was my neighbour. He was ringing to explain that the noise we were suffering was due to the work he was carrying out in having to create a very high earth bank, using a JCB.    It was necessary he said, in order that his horses could not escape into the field??  As I felt relatively relieved that he had at least acknowledged that the noise was interfering with our peace and quality of life, I didn't not question him on the validity of his strange explanation, but I was rather bemused as to his reasoning, given that he had a block of stables, a fully fenced paddock, and the other horses of which there were many, were across the way on the other land he owned.   Their horses that were living out were for breeding and selling on, with a very comprehensive website giving bloodlines also showing photos of youngsters coming up for sale.  They also had a few stabled horses in the yard adjacent to their house.  The earth bank he was referring to was to the rear of their property in the vicinity of the old quarry, approximately 40 meters away, directly opposite us!
I couldn't help but wonder what would horses be doing in this area?  Although his reasoning for creating this 'earth bank' did not make any sense at all, it was not for me to question. I just hoped that the noise would stop as soon as he had finished creating his bank!      It didnt!!

Start of a nightmare.............thirteen years ago!

Planning

I along with most members of the public who have never had any involvement with the planning system as such,  always believed that  planning regulations and policies in this country were fair, impartial open and honest, being in place for members of the public who wish to develop their properties with justification and also to protect those whose lives and homes might be blighted by unauthorised developments by those who wish to abuse the planning system, it's regulations and so on..........My story has everything to do with planning.  It is a story that needs to be told hence I am starting my own blog at 73 years of age having suffered thirteen years of utter misery.  Carmarthenshire County Council forced me into a battle I did not foresee nor wanted. I was 60 years old when we embarked upon this horrendous journey.

August 2003

We had sold our property, and I now had to find another.   I looked on several websites that sold rural properties with land.  I  came across a cottage with six acres.  The photo of the cottage on the estate agents website didn't look too impressive, as the photos had been taken on a rainy day making the property look drab, but it was around the right price for our intended use, and so I made an appointment to view it.

Upon arriving at the wooden five bar gate to the property, I was struck by how much the entrance to the property resembled the nursery school my mother took me to when I would have been around three years old.  My mother had to ring an enormous bell, well it looked enormous to a three year old. We entered through a wrought iron gate and walked down a long but pretty drive bordered with grass trees and bushes.  The drive from the five bar gate down to the cottage we were now viewing was approx 50meters long, had centre grass and verges. At intervals in the verges there were a number of differing shrubs and trees.  The bottom of the driveway opened up into a much wider area for parking.  Beyond this area you could see the six acres of pasture divided into three separate fields.  This would be perfect for Minnie (my beautiful mare) our four pet woollies and the hens I intended to get. It was quite amazing.  It gave me a feeling of belonging.  It felt right.  We hadn't even seen inside the cottage itself yet, but I was already in love with it.  I remember thinking to myself, this was too good to be true.   Everything seemed to be perfect.  There had to be a blip.   No there was not. Ms. Anne Gifford. the then owner, was waiting to show us around. The cottage was not disappointing, it was everything I had longed it to be.   Pretty, homely, interesting, a cottage that most people would love to have.  It was as pretty inside as it was out. Lots of character, and a warm feeling. I knew that the property had not been on the market for long, with a potential buyer recently dropping out of their purchase. We never did find out the reason for this.  I recall asking Ms. Gifford what type of farming was carried out on on the neighbouring holding - and was advised they didn't farm, but they did breed horses.  I felt may be the reason for the other potential purchaser dropping out might have had something to do with farming activities, but clearly this was not so.   I felt totally comfortable with horses being around as we loved horses and one of the reasons for moving to Wales was to be able to keep my lovely horse with me. Smallholdings in Sussex were way out of our financial reach and we had friends here in Wales.
During our conversations with the seller it transpired that she had not long purchased this cottage herself.  In fact she had owned the property for less than a year.   I asked her why she was selling so soon after moving in.  She informed us that she had moved in with her partner and having split up she could not afford the upkeep on her own.  She told us how extremely upset she was at having to give up this cottage as she loved it here.  Not surprising as it was so pretty.   She showed us the barn which she had utilised and arranged in such a way for it to be used for her two horses and her dogs.   Within a meter of the far end of the barn there was the boundary sitting between this land and the neighbours paddock.  There was quite a steep bank, where one or two neglected trees were still struggling to grow but tied into the trees with baling twine, (commonly used for tying together hay bales), were two white rusting, old, battered and dented, double garage doors.  A massive eyesore!.  I remember thinking if we have this property, these will be the first things to go.  I remember asking her why they were there.  She told us that she had put them there to prevent her dogs from running up the bank and onto the neighbours land.  I'm not sure that I believed her explanation as it seemed extreme but who was I to question the behaviour of another, albeit these rusting heaps of metal would certainly not have stopped two excitable dogs from finding a way around them if they had wanted to wander onto to unknown and exciting new pastures.   I remember feeling that this lady was edgy and nervous, not at all relaxed.  I put it down to the fact that she really did not want to sell, but was being forced into it owing to her circumstances. Having viewed the cottage and garden, I realised there was a lot of work to be done outside, as the land and surrounding areas had been very neglected.  It would be an absolute pleasure to improve the garden areas during the spring and summer months, with the remainder of the winter (supposing the purchase went through smoothly) taken up with huge bonfires when clearing the mountains of rotting wooden fence posts and the like, clearly visible..   Everything we had dreamt of.  Great.
We spoke to the agent, and told him to go ahead.  We wanted it.

I was so excited.  We were about to move into our new home - a pretty smallholding in Carmarthenshire South Wales.  My beautiful horse being one of the main reasons we wanted a home with land.  We have a love of animals, and as well as my horse and her four woolly friends Sally, Coco, Twinks and Hilly the sheep, along with three gorgeous dogs and two adorable cats.  Our plans were to apply to Carmarthen Council to build a cattery and as we'd inherited a solid barn as well, we wanted to make enquiries about turning that into a couple of holiday lets. We moved in lock stock and barrel just before Christmas 2003.  As our smallholding is in a particularly rural area with the smallholding adjacent to us being a 'farm' as indicated on our searches, we were expecting a relatively quiet and peaceful Christmas.  But all was not so.  Living in a town over the Christmas period would have been quieter than living in this very pretty location.

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