"Shanty town" landlord George Douglas has partially pulled down ramshackle flats in the heart of York, nine months after shocked councillors ordered their demolition.

The construction, built in the garden of a listed building in Heworth Green, has been at the centre of a planning wrangle since August last year.

Mr Douglas appealed to City of York Council's planning department three times in an effort to save the properties, which didn't have planning permission.

But councillors gave him a six-month deadline to remove them at a meeting in December.

Mr Douglas said: "The council have not been bad with me and I feel quite happy now that they are down.

"There was never any doubt that they would have to go. There was an enforcement order on them and it wouldn't have done any good complaining about that now."

He said he had re-housed the people who had been living in the flats.

"They had enjoyed the flats that they lived in, but if it wasn't to be it wasn't to be," he said.

"They have all been re-housed by me and nobody has been left in the lurch."

Mr Douglas said that the council's decision had caused him financial loss accrued in the building and destruction of the building, but he would not confirm how much it had cost him.

"The council asked me to take them down and I have done that," he said.

"I am completely baffled by the interest that this episode has created."

The construction was dubbed a "shanty town" by councillors who viewed the site from a nearby house after a complaint from a tenant.

They found accommodation packed into the rear garden covered in sheets of corrugated plastic, roofing felt and brick.

It included three one-bedroomed self-contained flats, all fitted with running water, electricity and central heating. Tenants paid about £55 rent a week.

Coun Dave Merrett, chairman of the council's planning committee, said: "I welcome the bit that he's done, but if he still has other bits to take down, then I'm not entirely happy."

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