Wiltshire | Archive | 2007 | February | 3
From the Salisbury Journal, first published Saturday 3rd Feb 2007.
POP icon Sting has found himself embroiled in a legal dispute over a barn built on his £7m, 800-acre estate in Lake in the Woodford Valley.
A tit-for-tat row broke out after Sting complained to Salisbury planning officers about an angler's hut built, he claimed, without planning permission on the neighbouring Great Durnford Manor estate.
But now, someone has tipped off planning officials at Salisbury district council claiming that Sting has a barn on his estate, which is breaking planning regulations.
Planning officers visited his estate and discovered that a barn used by Sting to store hay and as a shelter for pigs and chicken had not been erected according to dimensions approved when it received planning permission.
A district council spokesman said the estate claimed that the barn had been in existence since 1993 and if this is right, it would place it outside the four-year period within which planning enforcement action could be taken.
"In these circumstances the owner is required to apply for a certificate of lawful development by supplying evidence that the building has been in existence in its present form for over four years."
The spokesman said an application for such a certificate had been received and is under consideration.
The owners of the fishing hut had to apply for retrospective planning permission.
Sting is a rare visitor to his estate, preferring to live abroad, but his wife, Trudie Styler, does live there with their two younger children when she is not at the couple's London home.
© Newsquest Media Group 2008