Neighbours rain on beach hut sun deck

If his home insurance policy covers having to tear down an illegal beach-hut sun deck, Simon Saunders will be in luck.

If it doesn’t, it still won’t be too much of a hardship for the millionaire car designer who has overstepped the bounds of West Dorset neighbourliness.

The fact that his newly-built hut is twice the size of everybody else’s had already put a few backs up at West Bexington, overlooking Chesil Beach, where huts sell for more than £300,000.

But it was the folding sun deck that finally tipped the neighbours over the edge, particularly since he didn’t have planning permission, as complaints to the council were quick to point out.

Which is why an enforcement notice has now been issued on the grounds that "there are four elements of the hut that go beyond the permitted development".

And says Lester Cowling, for the West Bexington Heritage Group: "I’m sure it would be very nice to sit up there of a summer’s evening with a few drinks and look out to sea."

"But that wasn’t in the original plans, and if they had been then everybody would have objected at the time."

Copyright © Press Association 2009

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