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Video: Pigeon enthusiast asks for costs from city council
A PIGEON fancier's battle to keep his birds a-loft has left him with a legal bill of £20,000. By ALISON BELLAMY
A PIGEON fancier's battle to keep his birds a-loft has left him with a legal bill of 20,000.
Now skip hire boss Terry Sandham is hoping to claim his legal costs back from Leeds City Council after a two-year fight for retrospctive planning permission.
Neighbours said the fancy bird house – complete with roof tiles, windows and patio doors – was a "blot on the landscape."
Mr Sandham built the palatial pigeon loft without planning permission on green belt land off The Poplars, in Guiseley.
Following a planning appeal hearing at Leeds Civic Hall on Tuesday the loft is finally legal, but Mr Sandham, 68, must now plant trees around the perimeter of his field, to screen it from public view.
Saga
The Yorkshireman, who runs Aireborough Waste Traders, bought the field in 1970.
He said: "This whole saga has gone on too long. I have lost more than four stone in a few years with the stress.
"There is nothing wrong with the loft. It is made of wood and looks fine. Hardly any of the neighbours can see it anyway.
"I own the field, it's in a quiet location and pigeons have always been kept there."
He built his first pigeon loft in 1975 before planning permission was needed, and it stood for 30 years, before it was demolished in 2006 and re-built a year later.
He was told at the time that he didn't need permission to built a pigeon loft on green belt land, provided the hut was for leisure only.
Solicitor Martin Walker, of Hammonds, asked the inspector to order the council to pay Mr Sandham's costs.
He said: "The council accepted that they acted unreasonably in failing to deal with Mr Sandham's application and have told the inspector that they now agreed the tree planting proposals should be passed.
"Mr Sandham now estimates it has cost him some 20,000 to fight the council planners."
A decision by the planning inspectporoate on costs is expected within four weeks.
Mr Sandham, of Guiseley, has bred pigeons since he was eight, and like his father, has also kept whippets, turkeys, pigs and goats.
The award-winning member of flying clubs in Horsforth and Yeadon, and member of the Royal Pigeon Racing Association said: "All I want to do is tend to the pigeons. My loft is my own little garden of Eden."
alison.bellamy@ypn.co.uk
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Saturday 11 February 2012
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