'Shanty town'

Planners who viewed the site from a nearby house after a complaint from a tenant found accommodation packed into a rear garden covered in sheets of corrugated plastic.

The makeshift apartments - in the garden of a listed building in Heworth Green - are arranged around a covered fish pond area under flimsy roofing.

And councillors from a City of York Council planning committee who visited the site were unanimous in demanding its immediate demolition after discovering it had never been given planning permission.

Chairman of the committee and deputy leader of the council Dave Merrett declared: "It is like a shanty town. It is the most incredible piece of development in a back garden."

The aerial view shows a huge patchwork of plastic, roofing felt and brick.

Coun David Wilde said: "It is in a big, long, walled garden and it is the most amazing sight you could possibly imagine. The whole of it is filled with an uneven roofscape, at different angles, that just goes on and on. When we saw it our jaws dropped open. We decided to condemn it."

But landlord George Douglas claimed the council had not been inside the flats and was making a mistake.

The construction includes three one-bedroomed self-contained flats, all fitted with running water, electricity and central heating. Tenants are charged about £55 a week.

Fire safety officers confirmed they had inspected the construction last year and found it did not breach safety laws.

Mr Douglas said: "The council's decision is absolutely terrible. There are people here living in good conditions, and the council are ordering that their homes be demolished without even seeing them.

"They have known for years that people have been living here, but the first I hear of this decision is from the Evening Press telling me that it's going to be pulled down. I didn't even know the meeting was taking place. Why didn't the council just contact me?"

City of York council first contacted the landlord in July last year after being told by a tenant that the garden had been covered and was being lived in.

The council said Mr Douglas had given assurances that he would submit a planning application for it, but none was received.

A neighbour, who asked not to be named, said: "I would have been horrified if the council had said it could stay. To call it a shanty town seems quite reasonable.''

But a tenant who has lived in one of the flats for nearly a year said: "I feel very angry about being told I need to find somewhere else to live. This is the best flat I've lived in - it is lovely - and I don't see any sense in it."

Trevor Phillips, the council's assistant director of environment and development services, said: "They are not unfit dwellings but they are unsatisfactory. As they do not have planning permission we passed it on to our planning department to take enforcement action."

Ian Thomson, assistant planning and environment director a City of York Council said: "Mr Douglas was told about a year ago that he needed to put in a planning application. We then reminded him in September and January.

The council will now serve an enforcement notice.

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