A SMALLHOLDER is refusing to take down chicken sheds, which he built on wheels in a bid to avoid planning restrictions.

Robert Power is being prosecuted by West Oxfordshire District Council, which has ordered him to remove his nine chicken sheds.

The 74-year-old from Finstock, near Charlbury, added the wheels when he built the sheds three years ago, believing that would avoid him needing planning permission.

But he has since been locked in a dispute with the authority after it told him permission would be needed. Officers issued an enforcement notice last August.

Planners ordered him to take down the nine sheds as well as an extension to an agricultural building.

Mr Power appealed, but the order was upheld by a Government inspector in February.

However, Mr Power, who has owned the land since 1989, has refused to remove the chicken sheds and has argued the order is invalid.

He accepts the building extension should come down.

He has denied two counts of failing to comply with an enforcement order and will appear at Banbury Magistrates’ Court on Friday, January 20.

He said: “I put wheels on the sheds so they could be moved. I believed they didn’t need planning permission because they are mobile.

“At the time, I though it was like getting planning permission for a car.”

But planning officers took a different stance, deciding the sheds, which can hold up to 500 chickens in total, were buildings.

Planning inspector Phil Grainger said: “The sheds are not designed to be moved by road on their own wheels.”

Mr Power’s attempts to keep chicken sheds have long been of concern to the district council’s lowlands area planning subcommittee.

Committee chairman Warwick Robinson said: “We have a file on Robert Power which must be 6ft thick.

“He obviously has a very strong imagination with some of the justifications he uses.

“This has been a problem for about five years and I think the council has dealt with this with incredible patience.”

A Finstock resident, who asked not to be named, said: “It is a bit of a mess over there.

“They have been trying to get him to remove the sheds for years. I don’t think he will ever give up.”

Mr Power claims the enforcement order is invalid because he had an ongoing application for a certificate of lawfulness for the chicken sheds at the time it was issued.

But Mr Grainger dismissed that, saying Mr Power’s application was submitted only three hours before the meeting at which the enforcement order was approved.

The district council said one of the reasons behind the enforcement order was concerns over the effect of the sheds on a nearby population of protected great crested newts.

Concerns were also raised about the impact on the Cotswolds Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty and on Mr Power’s neighbours.