Haulier fights council
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by Lee 'Umber • Bedfordshire haulier Graham Smith is suing Mid-Bedfordshire District Council for £3,000 after the council gave up a twoyear battle to close down his vehicle repair shop.
He summonsed the council two weeks ago after its environmental officers admitted that he had every right to continue his 24year-old business from his five-acre site in Gravenhurst.
Since July 1994 the council has been trying to close the business, claiming he had no planning permission or the right to trade following complaints from a new neighbour.
"The council has done everything it can to nail me to the wall," Smith says.
"I want my costs back and they won't even give me an apology."
Two years ago it ordered him to close the business and claimed he had no planning permission. Smith almost agreed before his solicitor told him he had the right to trade there as an "established use" because he had already operated the business for over 12 years without planning consent.
When council officers tried to make him agree not to expand the business before they would give him a certificate of lawfulness, he refused, prompting a stream of threatening letters from the council.
"Then the director of environmental services visited me in July and told me it was lawful," he says. "But they just expect me to forget about it."
Mid-Bedfordshire council says it cannot comment on the case this week because it intends to fight it. Last week Smith received a letter acknowledging his summons, saying that the council had passed it on to its insurer. No date for the court case has been set.