Hermit told to get out

12:27pm Wednesday 23rd April 2008

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HERMIT Stephen Grendon has today been told he must leave his shack home.

After the Standard went to press today Cotswold District Councils' planning regulatory committee made the decision to evict him from the one-room hut he has lived in for the past 12 years.

Planning officers said the site failed to meet sufficient living standards and that the planning and environmental harm outweighed the human rights circumstances of Mr Grendon.

He has been given nine months to leave and says he will now have to apply for a council house.

If that is unsuccessful, he said he will be forced to live in his car on the Brimpsfield site.

The upset hermit told the Standard: "I'm distraught as to how it's going to change my life."

He has vowed to battle on, with one chance to appeal to the planning inspector.

Mr Grendon also intends to take his case to the European Court of Human Rights.

Mr Grendon, 43, bought the land and shack in 1994 and says he has lived in the building for the past 12 years, a claim disputed by CDC which says he lived in an old truck on the site for part of that time.

In April 2005 CDC decided the shack did not constitute a single dwelling house. An appeal against the decision by Mr Grendon was dismissed by CDC in January 2006.