Latest news with #logcabin
Daily Mail
13-07-2025
- Daily Mail
EXCLUSIVE Couple who claimed they 'didn't know' their log cabin was illegal hastily complete demolition after being threatened with PRISON
A couple who claimed they 'didn't know' their log cabin was illegal have demolished it after being threatened with prison. Andrew and Debbie Melbourne spent £45,000 building their off-grid wood cabin near the town of Waterlooville, Hampshire, in the South Downs National Park. But their dreams were scuppered when planners stepped in and ordered them to pull down the 1,200 sq ft fully insulated spruce cabin. The couple were slapped with a £3,500 fine by East Hampshire District Council and told the structure must be gone in 56 days or face a custodial sentence. They were also ordered remove foundations, a road and to restore the land - in one of Britain's most protected national parks - back to its former condition. And now neighbours who overlook the development have spoken of their 'joy and 'relief' after the couple began taking down the structure. One said: 'I'm overjoyed. It's a relief the local authority acted so promptly to stop this as it was being built in a area of outstanding natural beauty. 'It has already done considerable damage. 'The development was absolutely huge and now the main body of the cabin is down you can see how large the excavation around it is. 'It's really big and Andrew Melbourne, who is working on it, is dwarfed by it. 'What I will say at the outset is no one bears them ill-will or wishes them to suffer unduly because of this but we all want ensure the national park is protected from unregulated building. 'I, along with other residents, watched on in horror as this large cabin began to go up last year and then the couple gouged an unpaved road to the cabin. 'It was a real scar across the South Downs. 'Now, I think we're all relieved that they appear to be complying with the order to remove it and have done a considerable amount of work already.' But he added: 'I think it is going to take years for the land to truly return to its former glory as a lot of work had already been carried out.' The couple purchased their half-acre plot last year on land off Lovedean Lane, near the village of Catherington, for around £20,000. They then bought a German-made prefabricated log cabin online for £25,000. The site is one of more than 80 individual plots on a controversial land banking scheme owned by estate agents Gladwish Land Sales. The concept sees developers buy a field before dividing it into smaller parcels and selling those off to buyers. The buyers are often told they will get planning in the future - which may not actually ever be granted. Mr Melbourne, a dad-of-two and former music teacher who plays the trombone in local aka and jazz bands, insists there were no disclosures on the plot being inside a national park or it being subject to an Article 4. An Article 4 is a planning regulation which removes permitted development rights for a specific property or area, meaning planning permission is needed for that kind of work when it would not normally. He said he and his wife put their hearts into the project and aimed to turn the spruce cabin and land into a community garden. After starting work in April last year, the cabin was up in five months. The couple say it would have been totally off-grid, featuring a kitchen, office, shower rooms, living quarters and a compostable toilet with its own on-site water supply. Mr Melbourne previously told MailOnline: 'We were led in blind basically. It's absolutely devastating, we spent two years researching what we could and couldn't put on the land. 'There were no disclosures that we were on the South Downs National Park. If we'd known, we wouldn't have bought it. 'Absolutely, I regret it, I wouldn't have done it, I've lost all my inheritance through this. 'We've had loads of grief from the council, lies from the council. Half a dozen people up on the other side don't like what we're doing. 'I was a teacher in the area and they just want to discredit my name.' Despite the cabin having facilities to make it habitable, the couple, who have lived in the area for 35 years, claim they had no intention of living in it. As the project progressed, trees were cut down and a garden which slopes down the hill towards a bridleway was created. Trees, shrubs and bushes were planted with the intention of creating a Japanese 'miyawaki forest' that would grow quickly into a miniature dense woodland. A road leading from an entrance gate up the side of the hill and to the cabin was also carved into the hillside without planning permission. It did not take long before planners from East Hampshire District Council and the South Downs National Park Authority began issuing warnings and notices. Between September 2024 and February 2025, officers served a Planning Contravention Notice, two Enforcement Notices and a Stop Notice to the Melbournes. Despite multiple warnings, one exasperated neighbour, whose home overlooks the 'eyesore', said they 'carried on regardless'. Another neighbour said: 'The thing that galled us was that they were constantly ignoring the law, advice and notices they were issued. 'They could have gone to any one of the authorities for proper advice and they chose not to. 'Every time somebody spoke to them and tried to get to the bottom of what they were doing, they seemed to change their story.' Soon, enquiries into what the couple was doing became hostile and they were sworn at and threatened by builders on the site. One neighbour said: 'I was told to "f***off" when I asked what they planned to do. It got quite aggressive and I was told, "Get off my land!"' The cabin was 80 per cent finished in May when the Melbournes, threatened with a High Court hearing in June, signed a legally binding contract agreeing to remove the building. The couple reckon they have lost well over £50,000 on the project and get emotional when asked about their next move. 'It was something for our boys and a legacy, it would've been great for our grandson,' said Mrs Melbourne. 'We have got no savings left now, we invested in something we thought would be good for the community. 'It's been a complete nightmare. The plot is going on the market this week. 'We will recoup some money and maybe find another piece of land that's not in a national park.' Mr Melbourne added: 'We were going to retire but it's all gone sour.' A neighbour said: 'It is a common view it was going to be an Airbnb and they were going to move in but they should have known anything like that contravened planning laws. 'The Melbournes had ample opportunity to see the error of their ways and stop. 'They were first told they were in contravention of planning laws last September. 'They could have halted the development, sought advice and saved themselves a lot of money and heartache. 'Most people would have stopped at that point but they just carried on regardless. I really don't understand it. Maybe they thought they had discovered a loophole. 'They say they did their research but even a cursory look online shows there are clear restrictions on development in national parks and explains how Article 4 trumps all loopholes. 'It's a shame for them. I really don't know why they continued. I'm happy the development is coming down but I'm also worried about the impact it has had on the land. 'There is so much work to do on the restoration. The couple say they removed tonnes to earth and chalk to level the plot which now has to be put back along with the grassland. 'There is also the unpaved road which has been gouged across the landscape. That is a scar which will take many years to be covered over.' Councillor Angela Glass, the district council's Portfolio Holder for Planning and Enforcement, said: 'We are delighted this legal agreement has been signed and we now expect the development to be cleared over the next couple of months. 'This is the culmination of many months of complex legal and enforcement work by our determined team of officers to reach this position. 'I want residents to understand that if people breach planning rules, then we have the means to take action against them.' Councillor Sara Schillemore, ward councillor for Catherington, said: 'Residents were appalled to see this unsightly structure being erected in one of the most picturesque and valuable viewpoints in East Hampshire. 'It's vitally important that we protect our precious landscape and residents will be thrilled to see the development removed. 'East Hampshire Enforcement Officers worked hard for many months to achieve this result, and I sincerely thank them.' Tim Slaney, Director of Planning at the South Downs National Park Authority, said: 'I'm delighted we've reached a resolution to this breach of planning that was harming this wonderful nationally-designated landscape. 'I would like to thank East Hampshire District Council which pursued this enforcement case with determination, making it clear we will not tolerate blatant breaches of planning.' The agreement sets out a 56-day deadline to carry out the demolition work. Failure to comply with this type of legal agreement can lead to enforcement proceedings in the High Court which can lead to costly legal fees and even a custodial sentence.
Irish Times
05-07-2025
- General
- Irish Times
Symbolic Lincoln cabin logs beginning of American presidential story
It is the most famous log cabin in American history, and it doesn't really matter that it floats in the strange region between solid history and make believe. The visitors' car park to the Abraham Lincoln Birthplace, near Hodgenville, in Kentucky, was quiet on Wednesday afternoon. A few camper vans and retiree couples strolled through the immaculately kept gardens. A young family stood in the cool shade of the Sinking Spring, a sheltered hollow with running water which was refrigerated even in the blazing July sunshine. 'This is the place to be,' the Dad said. Inside the visitors' centre, the staff were winding down for the day. There was still time to see the cabin, which is stored within a stately stone memorial that sits above the spring where, the woman behind the counter said, 'Lincoln probably had his first ever drink of water.' Who knows what it was like in the winter of Lincoln's birth year, 1809, but on this sublime afternoon, the little corner where he spent his first few years seemed Elysian. To colleagues and future biographers, Lincoln allowed he had absolutely no memory of Sinking Spring farm: he was just two when the family moved about 10 miles away to Knob Creek. It too, contains a simple, one-room log cabin where Lincoln purportedly spent his boyhood days. READ MORE Lincoln's presidential years have been so minutely chronicled and dramatised on screen and stage that it is difficult to separate him from the gigantic figure sitting close to the White House on his Memorial chair. It's easy to forget that he was a child – and that there was nothing inevitable about his rise to achieve what has become, through circumstance as well as the force of his personality, the most famous American presidency. Few nations chronicle and safeguard their national story through parks and museums and cultivated sites with the religious devotion of the Americans. The information stands outside the Lincoln cabins trace the centuries of tough existence of the great man's forefathers. Many of Trump's most devout followers see him as the Lincoln of their day: a once-in-a-century saviour guided by providence After Samuel Lincoln landed in Hingham, Massachusetts, from England in 1637, successive generations tumbled further south through the centuries, restlessly moving through New Jersey and Pennsylvania and into the Shenandoah Valley, where Lincoln's grandfather, also Abraham, sold his farm and took his wife, Bersheba, and five children deeper into unexplored country through the Cumberland Gap and the Kentucky frontier. In 1786, Abraham was killed in an Indian raid while working the fields from which that tribe had been dispossessed. Family lore maintains that his son Thomas – President Lincoln's father – was seconds away from death when an older brother intervened with a shotgun. History – and commerce – moves quickly. By 1894, the Lincoln farm at Sinking Spring had been bought by a New York businessman, AW Bennett. The cabin was dismantled and began its tours of many cities, in the curious company of the childhood log cabin of Jeff Davis, former president of the Confederacy. One of the quirks of the Bluegrass state is that it was the birthplace of the presidents of both the Union and the Confederacy. After the tour finished and money counted, both cabins were dismantled and the logs chucked away in storage. The 20th century loomed. In the early 1900s, an interested group, including Mark Twain, managed to buy the cabins and raised enough money to build the stately memorial in which the Lincoln cabin was reassembled and preserved. For decades, visitors could walk around the cabin and believe that they could reach out and touch the source of Lincoln's earliest years – if they were willing to disobey the warning signs. There was always something preposterous about the notion that a cabin the Lincolns abandoned in the early 1800s could survive everything, including the tumult of the Civil War. Photograph: Keith Duggan Science ended that. There was always something preposterous about the notion that a cabin the Lincolns abandoned in the early 1800s could survive everything, including the tumult of the Civil War. Samples and forensic studies of the ring lines of the logs in both cabins concluded that they had been cut after Lincoln had supposedly lived there. They stand now as symbolic cabins. But it doesn't really matter. It's still a spiritual jolt, driving along 31E, past the high pole signs for your Hardees and your McDonald's and Motel 6s, to see the simple, brown historical markers pointing motorists to where Lincoln took his first steps, cabin or not. And what of #47? Has President Donald Trump visited this corner of Kentucky to consider where it all started for Lincoln? Even Trump's most scathing critics will concede that, for better or worse, he has established himself as one of the most consequential political figures in living memory. He shares with Lincoln the mantle of Republicanism. A Marquette poll for June showed that his approval rating among Republicans remains sky high at 90 per cent. Many of his most devout followers see him as the Lincoln of their day: a once-in-a-century saviour guided by providence. And what of 100 years' time? Will the historical markers point towards the Queens childhood home of Donald Trump? Will tourists wander through the gold-tipped rooms of Mar-a-Lago and line up in the foyer of Trump Towers to stand for photographs beside a symbolic reconstruction of the golden escalator?
Daily Mail
02-07-2025
- General
- Daily Mail
Couple are ordered to tear down 'unsightly' log cabin illegally built in national park after uproar by 'appalled' locals
A couple have been told to tear down their 'unsightly' log cabin in a national park after locals complained it was a blight on the 'picturesque' landscape. Andrew and Deborah Melbourne built the fully insulated home on their land west of Lovedean Lane in Waterlooville, a viewpoint across the South Downs National Park. However, after an investigation by East Hampshire District Council on behalf of the South Downs National Park Authority, it was found that the cabin breached planning rules. The couple agreed last month that they would knock down the wooden building. It is a move that would leave residents 'thrilled', councillor Sara Schillemore said. 'Residents were appalled to see this unsightly structure being erected in one of the most picturesque and valuable viewpoints in East Hampshire,' the ward councillor for the area of Catherington said. She added that it is 'vitally important that we protect our precious landscape'. Between September 2024 and February 2025 officers served a planning contravention notice, two enforcement notices and a stop notice to the couple. In May, ahead of a scheduled High Court hearing in June, the Melbournes signed a legally binding contract agreeing to remove the building, take away the log cabin and return the landscape to its original condition. Councillor Angela Glass, portfolio holder for planning and enforcement, said: 'We are delighted this legal agreement has been signed and we now expect the development to be cleared over the next couple of months. 'This is the culmination of many months of complex legal and enforcement work by our determined team of officers to reach this position. 'I want residents to understand that if people breach planning rules, then we have the means to take action against them.' Tim Slaney, Director of Planning at the South Downs National Park Authority, said: 'I'm delighted we've reached a resolution to this breach of planning that was harming this wonderful nationally designated landscape. 'I would like to thank East Hampshire District Council which pursued this enforcement case with determination, making it clear we will not tolerate blatant breaches of planning.' The agreement sets out a 56-day deadline to carry out the work. Failure to comply with this type of legal agreement can lead to enforcement proceedings in the High Court which can lead to costly legal fees and even a custodial sentence.
BBC News
02-07-2025
- General
- BBC News
Couple to tear down log cabin in Waterlooville after local uproar
A couple have been forced to tear down a log cabin after local residents were "appalled" by the impact it had on the national park's owners, Andrew and Deborah Melbourne, built the fully insulated structure on their land west of Lovedean Lane in Hampshire District Council investigated the build on behalf of the South Downs National Park Authority and found it had broken planning month, the Melbourne's agreed to remove the building and Councillor Sara Schillemore, said residents would be "thrilled". The ward councillor for the area of Catherington, reiterated that "residents were appalled to see this unsightly structure being erected in one of the most picturesque and valuable viewpoints in East Hampshire".She said it is "vitally important that we protect our precious landscape". 'Means to take action' The portfolio holder for planning and enforcement Councillor Angela Glass, echoed these thoughts and added: "This is the culmination of many months of complex legal and enforcement work by our determined team of officers to reach this position."I want residents to understand that if people breach planning rules, then we have the means to take action against them."The couple has a 56-day deadline to carry out the work. Failure to comply with this type of legal agreement can lead to enforcement proceedings in the High Court which can lead to costly legal fees and even a custodial sentence. You can follow BBC Hampshire & Isle of Wight on Facebook, X (Twitter), or Instagram.
The Sun
03-06-2025
- Business
- The Sun
You can now buy a log cabin tiny home for £10k on Wayfair – with an upstairs bedroom and floor-to-ceiling windows
HAVE you ever wanted to own your own cosy log cabin? Wayfair is selling one for just £10,000. If you are struggling to buy a home or want some extra living space, the tiny home could be for you. 4 4 4 Wayfair's Lasita Murano 3 house is 19 x 13 feet and comes with a loft-style bedroom. On the ground floor, the cabin has two rooms which can be configured to suit your exact needs. The listing states this could include a main living room and then a kitchen or a bathroom in the smaller section. Alternatively it could be used as an office or a gym if you need extra space on your property. The tiny home comes with windows, the floor and foundation, and has contemporary aluminium large sliding doors: two double and one single to the additional room. The large glass doors offer the perfect chance for enjoying nature or working from home with natural light. According to the listing: 'With connecting solid door to the side room, it offers a wonderful bright and airy space, and a vaulted ceiling, giving the cabin a lovely bright interior, allowing the sun to flood in, or to give those all-important views of your garden. 'A place to relax, enjoy the scenery, or use as maybe a studio for perfect lighting for your artwork, or overflow for those guests. 'The cabin set includes wall details, roof beams, roof boards, and mouldings but also opening fittings and hardware (screws/nails).' It is important to note that it's not easy to move, weighing 1,373kg. Inside Britain's most luxury tiny homes that are covered in marble, offer a 'mansion' feel for £169k & are completely portable Thankfully it comes with a 30-day return policy if you change your mind. While £10,000 certainly isn't cheap, given the national average house price in the UK was reported at £264,500 in 2024, it could be an affordable alternative. Of course, you could use the home to earn some extra cash, if you rent it out, or it could be an extra bedroom for friends and family. 4 Tiny homes in the UK have boomed in popularity in recent years and typically range from 100 to 400 square feet in size. Prices vary, but a basic tiny home can cost between £5,000 and £80,000, depending on size, materials, and whether it's custom-built. If a tiny home is on wheels, it may be classified as a caravan under UK law, meaning it might not require traditional planning permission. Are tiny homes legal in the UK? TINY houses can be in the UK regardless of whether they are on a trailer base or not. The legality of tiny houses is all to do with where it is and what you use it for. According to Planning Geek, constructing a granny annexe in your garden usually means you'll need planning permission, especially if it has a bedroom, bathroom, and kitchen. This is because it's seen as a separate living space rather than just an extension of your main home. However, if you're thinking about converting an existing outbuilding, like a garage, into a granny annexe or a tiny home, you might not need planning permission. That said, it's important to make sure the space doesn't end up being a fully self-contained unit – for instance, if the converted area doesn't include cooking facilities, it might not be classified as a separate dwelling. It's also worth noting that, while certain small outbuildings can be constructed under permitted development rights, the NAPC points out that this usually applies to structures like sheds or garages, rather than self-contained annexes. According to The Tiny Housing, a tiny home on wheels must not exceed 2.55 meters in width to be road-legal in the UK. Also, with a standard car licence, the length cannot be more than seven meters. While tiny homes offer an alternative living solution, they must comply with local planning and building regulations. Always check with your local council to ensure compliance with all regulations.
