Businessman’s fine for breaching planning regulations is slashed

Businessman’s fine for breaching planning regulations is slashed

9 January 2013

A DOWNPATRICK man has had a £30,000 fine for breaching planning regulations significantly reduced on appeal.

Alan Telford, of St. Dillon’s Avenue, was originally fined after failing to clear a field adjacent to ASDA on the Ballydugan Road in the town.

Mr. Telford had originally operated a car wash from the site which also contained several lorry trailers and other items.

Monday’s sitting of the County Court in Downpatrick heard Telford was originally fined a total of £3,000 after breaching two enforcement notices issued in May 2007, which increased to £30,000 last year.

Hearing the appeal, Judge Denise Kennedy decided the total fine should be reduced to £6,000.

A lawyer for the Planning Service said over 60 per cent of the work needed at the site, which included removing material such as lorry trailers and pigeon lofts and filling in the land, had been completed.

“He has gone quite some way,” the lawyer said.

A defence barrister said Telford had wanted to use the small area of land for a car wash. He pointed out that the retailers adjacent to him had won their planning appeal to build and alleged some of the material left on Mr. Telford’s site had been from that building work.

“It has cost him an extreme amount of money,” he said. “Some of the machinery did not belong to him.”

Making her ruling Judge Kennedy said the original fines were “possibly somewhat high”.