UK - Bali Mann falls out with Karl Lenz?

[grixit]

Come, Mister Bali Mann
Outlaw me cabana

[wanglepin]

I wonder if we will see a Fiddler on the roof?

[Jeffrey]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4eqfu3-bKRQ

Bali has posted this clusterfuck of a video.

[Bones]

Watching my local news this evening (BBC South East), the farmer went back to Court today. Turns out he has sold the building to an "indian gentleman) - wonder who that could be

It will be on BBC iplayer shortly if any is interested

[FatGambit]

Yeah probably for a quid or something too.

[FatGambit]

To give you some idea why there is such a fight over this, although this article is a couple of years old, the fight is ongoing, this is what the council themselves have planned for a site not a mile or so as the crow flies from Fiddlers farm:

http://www.surreymirror.co.uk/Anger-pla ... story.html

To give you some more background, the site in the article is a flood plane (hence why it was green belt in the first place, I have some lovely photos of it under water a couple of years ago), and sits directly behind a school that was redeveloped 5 years ago and doubled in size, when consulting for the school expansion, 97% of views expressed were those against it, but the council ignored them objections and gave permission anyway (there was actually a funny situation where construction had to stop half way through because the permission hadn't actually been given by the Secretary of State, delaying the project by 6 months).

Anyway, I digress sorry, but I present to you the Council who say Fidler's castle can't be allowed to stand because it's built on green belt land, while in the next breath, backing plans to build 700 houses on a spot of green belt land that floods more often than I have hot dinners....

So it should be easy to understand why Fidler has a lot of local support, laughably ironic that the Council expect Fidler to follow their rules, when they don't follow them, themselves.

[Jeffrey]

plans to build 700 houses on a spot of green belt land that floods more often than I have hot dinners....

The way they handle that here is they raise the land level slightly so it doesn't flood but the neighboring area floods.

[FatGambit]

Yeah they did that in Crawley (Gatwick side) a few years ago, didn't work out too well. If they do that here, it'll likely result in the rest of the area being flooded, including two schools and hundreds of houses, as the Southern side of the proposal is about 5 meters higher than the town (which is a good few meters above the devolpment site itself).

My dad has lived here all his life and when the subject comes up, perhaps by a campaigner, all he says is, there's a reason nobody built there in the last 4 and a half billion years, so what makes you think you know better than history?

[Jeffrey]

Just to clarify I'm not defending that practice, I probably should have made it clearer that I was making fun of that practice. It's particularly popular with certain large retail stores which raise the land level then you end up with residential areas that previously didn't flood getting flooding.

[Pox]

My dad has lived here all his life and when the subject comes up, perhaps by a campaigner, all he says is, there's a reason nobody built there in the last 4 and a half billion years, so what makes you think you know better than history?

There are ways and means and the technology (floating rafts, for example) to build on a flood plain - but expensive and the average developer won't consider the options.

Sounds like your dad talks a lot of sense.

There must be plenty of brown field sites in the general area that are more suitable, if more housing is required.

Anyway, back on topic, I can understand the local support but at the end of the day, if this were to be allowed, it would set a precedent for others and could potentially open the floodgates (no pun intended) for a lot of prime green belt land being developed.

The 'castle man' tried to buck the system (in much the same way that the FMOFL lot try to do) and I can understand the view that such a ruse cannot be allowed to succeed. ( Plus, I think that the design of the property stinks, but that's a personal and subjective opinion).

[FatGambit]

Yes I think he'd have been a lot more successful if the design had been less like a castle and more like a farmhouse.

There's a lot of land around here but most of it's not suitable, it's either floodplane, farmland, woodland or surrounded by multimillion pound properties whose owners would object to a flag pole let alone a new town, it's also clay which means the water doesn't drain well anyway, back two Christmas's ago we were quiet literally an island for about a week and the Morrison's carpark in the middle of town turned into a lake.

Fun fact: Fidler has the old Dome from the West Pier at Brighton on the castle roof.

[longdog]

Just to clarify I'm not defending that practice, I probably should have made it clearer that I was making fun of that practice. It's particularly popular with certain large retail stores which raise the land level then you end up with residential areas that previously didn't flood getting flooding.

I've never heard of anybody raising the level of land to build on it, although it wouldn't surprise me, but the problem with large retail developments is that they physically cover large areas of land with buildings and car-park which would otherwise soak up rainfall and that water has to go somewhere... The somewhere being somewhere else which is why surrounding areas flood.

Under best practice rules large developments have to be build with sufficient soakaways and or flood pools to prevent flooding but the soakaways inevitable become blocked within the first few years rendering them useless and the flood pools are never built to withstand anything beyond 'normal' rainfall. It only takes a mildly abnormal amount of rainfall and the whole thing overflows.

[grixit]

Here in the US there's been a movement since the 90s to stop fighting the Mississippi River the way we used to. Instead of trying to keep adjacent private lands from drowning in flood years, the government just offers to buy out the owners. The land can still be leased by the year for farming, but the lessee takes all the risk. Otherwise the land is allowed to revert to wilderness. It's an unusually sensible approach and so unlikely to spread.

[eric]

Just to clarify I'm not defending that practice, I probably should have made it clearer that I was making fun of that practice. It's particularly popular with certain large retail stores which raise the land level then you end up with residential areas that previously didn't flood getting flooding.

I understand the point that you are trying to make. Around here the land is not technically a flood plain, (no rivers or creeks of any consequence) it's just so flat (natural elevation drop is 6 inches per mile) that human development such as building a road or parking lot creates dams that disturb the natural water flow. A single thunderstorm can cause the water to build up behind one of these dams to ridiculous extents or all flow down a single street flooding everything out on its way.
As a personal example, the street 250 feet behind mine is paved, while my house faces a street that is not. In the spring a lake forms stretching from that street, all the way past my house and then flows down my street. BTW, like many of the older homes in the village, I don't have a basement so I don't care if the crawlspace under the house floods out, the water just soaks into the ground and is gone in a few days.

[Jeffrey]

Reminds me of the worst example of city planning I can remember locally. They built a water treatment plant at the top of a hill then built houses going down the ramp of the hill with one house at the end of that street, cul de sac. So the street forms kind of a water slide with the house at the end.

Eventually the water treatment plant burst a pipe, the water which feeds the city, flows down the road gaining speed and slamming the house, which functioned sort of as a dam until the walls gave in.

[FatGambit]

Funny you should mention that, where we stayed a few weeks ago had houses on the side of a very steep hill with high banks either side of the road, it rained quiet heavily while we were there and the night before it did the guy at the bottom of the hill was building a dam out of sandbags to redirect the water away from his house, which was a good five feet lower than the road on the outside of a corner.

So when it rained the water ran down the hill into his front porch, I was tempted to ask him what idiot planned the build but didn't just in case.

Sorry OT I know

[PeanutGallery]

Well it appears we have another sterling success:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-surrey-34768403

A High Court judge agreed and ordered the house to be demolished by 6 June 2016. [...] Mr Justice Dove said that Mr Fidler would be jailed for three months for his "intentional defiance" unless he complied with the order by 6 June.

[FatGambit]

I bet he does the time then says 'we'll I've done the time instead of levelling it, so it's a done deal now, piss off'.

If you saw the helicopter view of the farm you'll under and why there is so much head slapping in disbelief going local about it, the castle itself is a tiny building in comparison to the farm building and overall farm plot size, but alas as the council finally admitted today, it's a principle thing, with all the green belt land round here they simply cannot allow him to get away with this, regardless of whether he found a loophole in the law or not.

Of course they'll apply the same policy to all the other green belt devolpment proposals around here, I'm sure, of course, as they are such upstanding public officials.

[Bones]

Well it appears we have another sterling success:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-surrey-34768403

A High Court judge agreed and ordered the house to be demolished by 6 June 2016. [...] Mr Justice Dove said that Mr Fidler would be jailed for three months for his "intentional defiance" unless he complied with the order by 6 June.

I am sure that the Farmer would not have been so successful if it wasn't for the help of Bali Mann and his legal dictionary

[Bones]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... newts.html

He made it clear that if the property was still standing in seven months' time, he would not only jail Mr Fidler for three months but also consider a further sentence for his further contempt.

He also ordered the farmer to pay the council's legal costs, estimated in the region of £50,000.

Mr Fidler claimed to the court he had now sold the property to an Indian man, who let him stay remain in the house temporarily but faces eviction.

I wonder why Bali Mann has not posted this success over on GOODF