We converted a derelict pumping station into a tiny house for £95k – the council tried to force us out but we refused
A COUPLE who converted a derelict pumping station into a new home are celebrating victory over council chiefs who tried to kick them out.
Nicholas and Lesley Diss paid £95,000 for the brick building where they now live in green belt land in Essex.
But they have been fighting a four-year battle with Rochford District Council who ordered them out – only for a government planning inspector to now finally say they can stay.
The pair told of their relief at the outcome – as well as their dismay at being threatened for so long by officials.
Lesley told The Sun: “We put our life savings into it – if we’d lost, we didn’t have anywhere else to go.
“No one living nearby had any objections – we’ve only had support from people.”
Yet council officers had issued an enforcement notice urging them to leave the former water pumping station near South Fambridge village.
They had converted the small building into a home and built a cylindrical metal secondary building – referred to as a butler bin – alongside it, containing a shower and toilet.
They also managed to connect water and electricity supplies, though the floorspace has been described in a new planning report as “certainly modest”.
Small windows were installed in the butler bin, as well as the brick-built former pumping station.
The council wanted them to stop using the former pumping station as a home and also demolish the butler bin and its foundations.
But government planning inspector Timothy King has now approved the couple’s appeal against the council actions.
He rejected the council’s claim that their residence was posing “serious harm” to the green belt.
The inspector said: “I consider that the displacement of Mr and Mrs Diss, who are of elderly age, from the modest development which is their sole residence would result in them experiencing a significant degree of hardship.
“Given the rather low key nature of their occupation, the fact that the development partly involves the re-use of a small derelict building, and that the development can be conditioned personally, I afford the appellants’ personal circumstances as carrying significant weight.
“In this particular instance, returning the former pumping building to a beneficial re-use satisfies the framework’s criteria and is not inappropriate development within the green belt.”
The council was contacted for comment.