On This Day in Wembury
21 August 1951 — Enforcement Orders and a Wembury Hut
Nearly 200 enforcement orders concerning properties in the Wembury area were reported by Devon County Council’s Divisional Planning Officer at a Plympton inquiry. The case in question involved Mr. Bernard Lovett-Flint of Wembury, who appealed against refusal of permission to improve a hut at the rear of his home, Fairfield on Wembury Road. Originally a builder’s shed, the hut had been made habitable during the war and continued in use. Lovett-Flint argued that, since the hut pre-dated planning controls of 1939, improvements should be permitted. The Council countered that it had become, in effect, a new building, and that applications had twice been refused. With work continuing despite refusals, the authority pursued enforcement. The inspector concluded the inquiry on 21 August 1951.
Reflection: This dispute reflects the wider postwar struggle in Wembury between informal, often wartime, adaptations of buildings and the new planning regime aimed at controlling “unfortunate development.” The hut symbolised the tension between family need for housing and official insistence on regulating the landscape.
Source: Western Evening Herald, 22 August 1951 (reporting on inquiry of 21 August 1951).