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| Industrial business - no planning. |
Living adjacent to a haulage business was not a choice of our making. Had we known through our searches this business had been approved by the Council and licensed to operate from an agricultural unit, we would not have purchased this smallholding. This wasn't the case though. This industrial business was not operating within the planning laws and the Head of Planning had no intention of following correct procedures. Two families who had previously owned our property had complained to the Council about this industrial business operating without planning consents, and due to suffering extremely serious intimidation from the hauliers, had beeen forced into moving away. Astoundingly, Carmarthen Council had not heeded the evidence nor did they monitor this unit. They refused to accept from anyone that this industrial business was operating. The hauliers had moved into Blaenpant in mid 2001 and within two and a half years had forced two families out of the property we had just moved into. We were now facing the same bullying and intimidation that others had found too much to bear, but had been able to escape from. We weren't so lucky. The person that sold to us should have informed us, but due to the intimidation, she was desperate to escape from here.
(The Chief Executive Mark James told me at a meeting recently (2016) that my seller should have told us that this haulage business was operating from Blaenpant. He blames her! The Council are totally responsible for failing in their statutory duty to apply proper procedures within the planning regulations).
Carmarthen Council were undeniably responsible for the shameful situation that had befallen three families due to their deliberate negligence in not inviting planning consents and changes of use for two businesses that required both. The utter disgraceful conduct of the hauliers towards those that dared complain to the council was also the responsibility of the council as the council compounded an already bad situation into one that was far worse. To lie to all and sundry about the very existence of this business gave the hauliers the belief that they had the right to threaten and abuse all those who were opposing their use of the holding.
Every complaint made about the neighbours activities, whether it was quarrying - vehicle maintenance - power hosing of HGVs - cutting of scrap - welding etc., was denied by E. Bowen Head of Planning, and this fed into their conviction that they had the right to abuse those who opposed what they were doing.
It is the sole responsibility of Councils to ensure panning regulations are abided by, and had they followed procedure, no-one would have suffered at the hands of these people.
We were advised by Mr. Canning (Enforcement Manager) that Councils rely on members of the public alerting them to planning abuses, but in the case of Blaenpant, officers who should have been taking action, refused to be honest about the very existence of such businesses. As the Public Service Ombudsman Peter Tyndal said, "Anybody seeing that evidence would have realised that there was a strong case for action. The difficulty with these things is that if you don't tackle them early they have a tendency not to go away but to get worse. If enforcement had happened then the subject matter of much of the dispute wouldn't have existed and the likelihood is that the extremely vitriolic nature of the neighbour dispute wouldn't have been as it was". He was absolutely right!
Carmarthen Council are solely to blame for the abuse we were now being exposed to.
The two piglets who were now living within a couple of meters of our bedroom had been given names - our names. At 6 a.m. each and every morning Karen Thomas would encourage excited squeels and grunts from them by shaking a bucket of breakfast feed as she walked down to the bottom of the paddock to their pen, which was directly outside our bedroom window. If we weren't awoken by their drivers arriving to begin their day, Karen Thomas would make sure her pigs would wake us.
As always Karen Thomas would verbalise her views on both Eddie and Trisha exceedingly loudly with the two pigs. Apart from the usual derogatory comments being aimed at 'Trisha' every morning about her eating habits, her grunts, her needing beauty sleep, and much more, on this particular day (following Karen Thomas's assault upon me), the piglet was spoken to in a more sinister tone. This is part of the dialogue Karen Thomas imparted to me via her piglet........."you are a very naughty girl trish - I'm going to teach you a little lesson - you're going to have such a shock - silly little pigs - Eddie, trish has had such a bang on her nose - that's what happens to silly pigs trish, when they go poking their nose where it's not supposed to be poked - play with fire you'll get burned- just don't go poking your nose into business that doesn't concern you trish - if you keep out of our business you won't get hurt - that's what happens to naughty girls when they poke their noses into where it's not supposed to be poked, they get hurt silly little pig........and on it went. The police showed no concern, and I was still left facing a charge of assault.
August 05
The abuse of us continued on a regular basis and changed the course of our lives. With no support from the police, nor the Council's anti social behaviour department, we installed a small CCTV camera at the top of our driveway as protection and we carried our camcorder with us at all times. This is all we had.
Drainage pipes came next. These were laid across the neighbours paddock and of course directed onto the rear of our property instead of onto our fields, causing flooding to the area at the back of our cottage.
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| Drainage pipes to flood our garden area |
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| Eifion Bowen - Head of Planning chatting to Andrew Thomas at the top of our right of way. |
September 05
The pigs were very lively and made a lot of noise especially at 6. a.m. in the mornings at feed time when Karen would deliberately cause a frenzy. The pigs weren't punishment enough though.
The Thomases erected a board on top of the fence in front of our bedroom window blocking out our view completely. We couldn't see the piglets any more, but we could still hear them. I did complain to E. Bowen (Head of Planning) who decided the Thomases needed privacy when visiting their two pigs. He did admit it required planning permission as it exceeded the height of six foot, but said that it was a privacy board and was not in the public interest to enforce against it. So it stayed for years along with the large blue removal lorry.
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| Eifion Bowen decided this monstrosity could remain without planning permission. |
Eifion Bowen (Head of Planning) was to decide an awful lot of developments and activities at Blaenpant wouldn't require planning permissions, which included of course no planning permissions nor change of use for an industrial business along with an equine business.
Another gate was installed on the right of way and both gates were now heavily boarded over, having the effect of blocking our exit and totally obscuring us from view of the main road. The psychological impact was very damaging to us. These gates signalled the end of our freedom to come and go untroubled. Every day we endured stress from the visual aspect of all around us to the feeling of complete hopelessness at being imprisoned, unable to escape from it. The gates were shut at all times. When we drove out we would not close the gates as they served no purpose other than to cause us severe anxiety, but they would be shut immediately. The gates and the right of way became the Thomases playground.
More scrap was eventually parked next to our gate and more mind games were played out on us. Carmarthen Council's Head of Planning continued to deny there was any evidence of a haulage business nor indeed an equine business. We along with others who had supplied evidence were clearly living in the land of fantasy.
At my meeting with the chief Executive Mark James in 2016, he conceded without prompting, that my neighbours were vile despicable people. Strange he should be saying this now, when for all previous years he informed all and sundry that this was 'a neighbour dispute'.
