BUILD-IT! Magazine December 2000
"Bryan and Wendy Seville don't give up easily. It took them nine years and three attempts to get planning permission to build their own home, but the end result made the effort all worthwhile. They are now the proud owners of a house on the edge of the countryside that is worth almost twice what it cost to build.
They had bought the land, on the edge of Stafford, in the West Midlands, way back in 1979 for what now seems the ridiculously cheap sum of £150, with no thought of building a house on it. Instead the 0.14 hectare (.32 acre) site was used partly as a parking area for vehicles and partly as an allotment, an assortment of sheds and other temporary buildings being erected for use as storage.
"People have always said 'why not build a house on there", Bryan said. "To start with, we dismissed the idea because we were perfectly happy with the place we were living in down the road. But then we started to think 'why not?'"
The local planning department had a very good answer to that question when the Sevilles made their first application for outline planning permission in April 1990. While there was just a cluster of houses within 20 yards of the site, it fell just outside the development boundary and was classed as Green Belt land, even though it looked more like a breaker's yard than a thing of beauty. Bryan and Wendy decided to appeal against the decision, but were turned down... >
