'Ganged up on' garage owner distraught after being ordered to tear down workshop
A garage owner and his planning advisor claim there has been a "miscarriage of justice" after he lost a planning appeal despite being supported by more than a dozen people who backed his case on oath.
Phil Roberts, of Brickfield Cottage, at Edgebold, near Shrewsbury, appealed to the Planning Inspectorate after Shropshire Council refused planning permission for him to rebuild a garage that he had been using as a business.
"It feels like the state has ganged up against me," said Mr Roberts, aged 56, who has been told to stop using the site for Edgebold Garage.
"The council must have spent a fortune to hammer me into the ground, I have never seen anything like it."
Mr Roberts added: "I could go for a judicial review but I think I will throw in the towel. I have been told that I would have to prove that a planning inspector was biased, but that is never going to happen."
He said that his one-man business involved him working four days a week "tinkering with cars".
But now after the end of his business he plans to take a year out before deciding what to do next.
"We had the support of neighbours and others, including police officers, who spoke under oath that the business had been here for more than 10 years, but they weren't interested," said Mr Roberts.
He had all four of his appeals - against refusal of planning permission, for a lawful development certificate, and against an enforcement notice - thrown out on November 30 by planning inspector Grahame Kean.
"The garage had been a brick drying shed, so was a brownfield site," he added.
"I have felt the full power of the state falling on me and it is so wrong," he added.
