May 04.......... Conveyance and Mr. Canning


In the very short time we had been living here, as opposed to feeling happy with our new home, I was feeling unsettled and troubled over the revelations regarding my neighbours and their operations at Blaenpant.  Evenings and weekends were particularly bad having to listen to power hosing, maintenance, changing wheels and tyres.  Saturdays and Sundays were just another work day as far as our neighbours were concerned.

The noise from quarrying was particularly awful.  It seemed that the quarrying was to make room for the shed the Thomases wanted.   As Ann Gifford had said this site was SSSI, surely this shouldn't have been allowed anyway, without permissions from Countryside Council for Wales. ( then became Natural Resources Wales).   Ceri Davies and my local councillor Rhys Davies were reassuring me that this shed was going to be refused, because it was applied for as an 'agricultural shed' and the Thomases were 'not farming'.

I was also being advised that the equine business, being commercial, required planning permissions and  'change of use' as well as the haulage business, but the horses were no problem at all and were the least of our worries.

With our property being so close to theirs the disturbances from these industrial activities were very distressing, and it was also obvious there was going to be no consideration with regard to our quality of life.  Having already spoken to Mr. Brian Canning Enforcement Manager a couple of times, I was hoping things would have gone a bit quieter, but no such luck.    I rang Mr. Canning again.  He said they were entitled to keep one HGV but no more, but that monitoring hadn't been carried out yet due to lack of manpower. I explained that the numbers of lorries could be viewed evenings and at the weekends, from the road, all one had to do was to drive down the road to see them.  An officer could do that on his way home from work - maybe?  The same would apply with regard to the maintenance and other activities that were taking place evenings and weekends,  as it was all highly visible.  It was clear to see.   Mr. Canning said officers did not work outside normal working hours, therefore that would be difficult.  'How difficult would that have been'?  This didn't make any sense to me as we were clearly suffering, and we desperately needed the council's assistance.  I confessed to him that it was very difficult for me being here on my own for much of the time, and I wanted to stay on friendly terms with my neighbours for obvious reasons, but life was becoming intolerable.  I was feeling a little let down as clearly Mr. Canning was aware of the history here. I confided in him that as well as having to put up with noise during the day, the Thomases dogs (three rotties) barked on and off thru the night, disturbing my sleep, which only added to my unease about them, as it appeared unneighbourly. They might be used as guard dogs, but if they disturbed neighbours this was unacceptable.   Below is our conveyance - the same conveyance for our neighbours property - it reads.....................................'not to use the property hereby conveyed or any part thereof for any purpose which may be or grow to be a nuisance or annoyance or obnoxious to the owners or occupiers of the said adjoining properties'.

Conveyance for both holdings.

It appeared the council had still not investigated nor had they attempted to view the neighbours activities from the road, because had they done so I would not still be listening to lorries going out at six in the morning.  I rang Mr. Canning again.  He reiterated they did not have the resources at the moment to carry out a site visit and also informed me that 'Karen Bowen Haulage Services' had an operating centre at Tumble and this where they were working from. This wasn't true and was some revelation!  I reminded him that I was looking out onto a lorry park every day.  To be questioning my honesty at this stage, when the council were ware of the history here, raised huge question marks.  It sounded as though Mr. Canning was merely making excuses instead of dealing with what appeared to me, to be abuses of the system and indeed us.   I advised him of our conveyance which should have protected us - or so I thought.  I began to believe that Mr. Canning was fobbing me off.

The noise from machinery, cutting up metal, loading materials onto lorries, maintenance being carried out from the shed, carried on and the quarrying was a regular activity.   This was awful.  Noise noise noise every day of the week.  What were we living next door to?  I kept telling myself that the local authority would put a stop to it eventually.  The earth bank that Andrew Thomas was building, right opposite our bedroom window, the subject of the apology at Christmas time, was getting ever higher. I noticed concrete mixing lorries entering this area, presumably to lay areas for the parking of more lorries. 

We were continuing with our plans for a cattery and to have the barn converted into holiday accommodation, altho by now I had serious doubts over the holiday accommodation.  We'd had the plans drawn up for the cattery, and had meetings with the tourist board who were going to allow us a grant toward the conversion of our barn.

The maintenance on vehicles continued over entire weekends.  My concerns that the council did not seem to be investigating didn't go away.  They also did not appear to be taking into account how this business impacted upon us.  I didn't know what to do.  I couldn't understand how the neighbours were being allowed to continue when the council were aware of this business.  A JCB constantly rumbling around within meters of us, actually caused reverberations in our cottage, due to us being at a lower level.   My heart would sink most mornings when I heard the lorries start up, as I knew the noise wouldn't stop until evening.  The pleasure of implementing our plans was replaced by worry about our quality of life here.  If our searches had exposed an industrial business at Blaenpant we would never have bought this property. They were clearly developing Blaenpant, but into what?

Eddie suggested that we might speak to the neighbours as he felt they mightn't understand just how disturbing it was for us.  I reminded him of the conversation we'd had with them and their hatred of Ann Gifford and the family before her.  I reminded him what they had done to them because they had complained.  This was not a good idea.  The message they conveyed to us was perfectly clear. They were not people to cross.

We even began thinking about selling, but how difficult would that be and what excuse would we give to potential buyers as to the reasons we too were selling so soon after having bought this very pretty place.   I didn't know what to do.  We did try to carry on with our plans and had a firm to replace the rotting fencing, and employed a contractor to clear the old fruit garden and to arrange tiered areas in readiness for a vegetable plot.

Potential vegetable garden

 F.O.I.


A friend had been advised that under Freedom of Information, which was a pretty new thing, I would be entitled to view the local authorities file on the neighbouring farm.  Having made my request, and having been given an appointment, we went to the council offices where we were shown into a room and a file was duly produced for our perusal.

We were stunned, as on file were many complaints from various local people including the Community Council about our neighbours and their activities.  There were photographs of lorries.  There were internal emails from one officer to another.  There were logs of lorry movements.  Logs of quarrying and power hosing.  Letters about maintenance on vehicles - in fact all the disturbances I had conveyed to Brian Canning, others had already informed the council of.  There were letters from the family who had lived here for twenty six years, who had sold to Ann Gifford, letters from Mr. B a retired engineer, and from Mrs. R.  and Mr. M/ R  and a local councillor.    The letters from Mr. L were particularly worrying, as he wrote informing the council about some very serious threats made to him.  That he'd been approached very aggressively and  threatened, that the Thomases had also said they would change his right of way to make life very difficult if he didn't stop with his complaints to the council.   This all fitted in with why Ann Gifford was in such a hurry to sell and move.  Why then were the council not addressing my concerns as they clearly already knew the farm was being used for haulage and were aware of threats and intimidation.  What's more, why were they seemingly denying that my concerns were not warranted, nor in fact even true.

An even more disturbing e.mail we discovered was from my neighbour Karen Thomas to one of the enforcement officers.   She was informing him that she had rung Lewes District Council (dept. that licenced taxis) and had told them that Eddie was using his taxi in Carmarthen??  This was dated April 2004, very recent.  A outlandish lie. This was unbelievable and so shocking.  Why would my neighbour who was being so friendly to me lie about Eddie to another authority?  Why? Surely Mr. Canning hadn't told her about my phone calls to him!  This was exceedingly disturbing!

I asked for a copy of this file and the council obliged.  I decided to contact the people who had written these letters.  When I rang Mrs. L she told me they had lived here for twenty six years, happily, but since the hauliers had bought Blaenpant, their lives had been ruined.  They'd had many rows with them over their activities.  She said that they allowed their dogs to bark throughout the night, that the council were being obstructive, and their  lives had been made hell by these people. They sold to Ann Gifford, and had been honest in telling her that the neighbours had a few lorries.  I then rang Mr. B another concerned resident, who lived nearby.  He told me that our neighbours were dreadful people, ( something I was now aware of ) that they were bullies, that they had driven others out, and even more frightening, that he had also been seriously threatened by our neighbours over his complaints, when he was approached by them on a petrol forecourt.  Andrew Thomas had pushed his face up to his and told him to stop making complaints or else......... He told me they would park their vehicle at the top of his drive and stare down at their home to intimidate!  This was horrifying news, especially as I was living here on my own. There was a clear pattern of intimidating behaviour emerging,  and were we to be next?

Threats and intimidation seemed to be the accepted practice of the Thomases when neighbours complained to the council about their activities - the same activities the council were fully aware of.  The same activities that were causing misery and distress to others who were unfortunate to be neighbours. The same activities they clearly shouldn't have been conducting from a 'farm' without planning permissions.

When I had been putting my concerns to Brian Canning about the problems I was facing, little did I know then that I had not been the first, and that he was already aware of the many other complaints from previous owners. 

Why wasn't Mr. Canning taking my concerns seriously - why wasn't he addressing the obvious haulage business and the many other activities associated with it? As we had to apply for planning permission for our cattery, why weren't the council requesting planning permissions for the two businesses at Blaenpant.