:00:03. > :00:08.Hello and welcome to Inside Out South West. Stories from where you
:00:08. > :00:16.live. Tonight - the men who battled for six years over a derelict Devon
:00:16. > :00:21.property. He has houses in London, Sussex and France. He is just a bit
:00:21. > :00:26.of a millionaire playboy. Yes, I am perceived as the guy wandering in
:00:26. > :00:32.with his cheque book. Also - a turf war in Somerset as development
:00:32. > :00:37.threatens this beautiful village. could not believe the scale of it.
:00:37. > :00:47.Houses everywhere, it's just awful. I'm Sam Smith and this is Inside
:00:47. > :00:58.
:00:58. > :01:01.Out South West. First, a cautionary tale from the heart of Devon. We
:01:01. > :01:08.have been following the saga of a wealthy businessman and a tenant
:01:08. > :01:16.farmer who both lay claim to the same property. A farmhouse that is
:01:16. > :01:26.falling into ruin. This is the farm at the centre of a six-year legal
:01:26. > :01:35.
:01:35. > :01:40.battle. Tenant, Brian Potter, faces losing his home and his livelihood.
:01:40. > :01:47.One thing's for sure. The meek won't inherit the earth. Only the
:01:47. > :01:57.greedy ones. The owner has a massive legal bill and a
:01:57. > :01:59.
:01:59. > :02:07.dangerously derelict house. This is medieval. Nobody should live like
:02:07. > :02:14.this in this situation. At the heart of the two men's dispute, one
:02:14. > :02:23.seemingly simple question. When is a tenancy not a tenancy? As we've
:02:23. > :02:29.discovered, there's no simple answer. Little Heath Farm near
:02:29. > :02:35.Tiverton. Home for 60 years to farmer Brian Potter, whose parents
:02:35. > :02:41.once owned it. It was a little dairy farm. My mother and father
:02:41. > :02:49.used to keep cows and I think she had a few chickens as well. The
:02:49. > :02:52.whole house is reasonably sound still. Nothing much wrong with it.
:02:52. > :03:02.I did trip over panes of glass but a couple of swallows started
:03:02. > :03:08.nesting so I took them down again. Little Heath caught the eye of
:03:08. > :03:16.Stephen Dyer in 2006. The internet entrepreneur and beekeeper from
:03:16. > :03:18.West Sussex thought it would make a perfect home for his retirement. He
:03:18. > :03:27.paid �332,000 for the lot, including around 50 acres and two
:03:27. > :03:33.barns. His ambition was to keep the farm running, so he asked Brian to
:03:33. > :03:36.consider staying on as his manager. My proposal to him was
:03:36. > :03:42.fundamentally that I would pay him the money that he makes farming
:03:42. > :03:45.anyway, which was �5,000 a year. And I said I would convert one of
:03:45. > :03:50.the barns into a decent modern home for him because you have probably
:03:50. > :04:00.seen the farmhouse. And I would allow him to keep the profits that
:04:00. > :04:00.
:04:00. > :04:06.he made from farming. But Brian wasn't impressed by the offer.
:04:06. > :04:11.don't know. He has houses in London, Sussex and France. He is just a bit
:04:12. > :04:17.of a millionaire playboy, I should think. I did also offer him
:04:17. > :04:20.�150,000 if you just wanted to up sticks and go. If he wanted to live
:04:20. > :04:26.in Devon I'd have thought he could buy lots of properties around Devon
:04:26. > :04:29.without finding one with a tenant in it. Brian is determined to stay.
:04:30. > :04:35.Because he's been evicted from the house before, by his brother, who
:04:35. > :04:42.inherited it when their parents died. He wanted me out and he
:04:42. > :04:50.managed to evict me. But not from the farm. I eventually sold up to a
:04:50. > :04:58.lady I used to work for. She bought it for me. And gave me tenancy of
:04:58. > :05:07.the whole farm. His benefactor was Diny Howe. A wealthy local woman,
:05:07. > :05:09.once master of the foxhounds, who was fond of Brian. Chloe Deakin,
:05:09. > :05:18.who was once Mrs Howe's groom, recalls how the elderly widow
:05:18. > :05:26.wanted Brian to live at Little Heath for the rest of his life.
:05:26. > :05:32.always bought straw from him. And he was her mechanic. They were very
:05:32. > :05:35.good friends. She thought it would be really nice if she could be his
:05:35. > :05:45.landlady and he could have a quiet life and not be hassled by family
:05:45. > :05:48.
:05:48. > :05:51.and solicitors, lawyers and all this sort of thing. When Diny Howe
:05:51. > :05:57.was alive, Brian's right to live in the remote and already semi-
:05:57. > :06:03.derelict farmhouse went unchallenged. But when she died,
:06:03. > :06:09.the farm went into a secret trust run by her solicitors. And so, for
:06:09. > :06:18.another decade, Brian stayed on and the house continued to crumble.
:06:18. > :06:28.When did that side of the house fall down? Oh, about 1994. I was
:06:28. > :06:32.having my lunch and the wall fell down. But then cob walls do that.
:06:32. > :06:38.The solicitors sold Little Heath to Stephen. Brian says he was never
:06:38. > :06:43.told his home was up for sale. I was not told it was going to be
:06:43. > :06:50.sold. Otherwise I might have tried to buy it myself. It was never
:06:51. > :06:56.advertised for sale or anything. Stephen first saw the farm on a
:06:56. > :06:58.visit to Devon, to a friend who lives just across the valley.
:06:58. > :07:05.probably perceived as the guy wandering in with his cheque book
:07:05. > :07:08.because I am down from London. DFL. So, when I come there, it is, he is
:07:08. > :07:18.not from round here and he doesn't understand our community or our
:07:18. > :07:19.
:07:19. > :07:23.culture and so on. Hello, girls. Are you alright? Farming is hard
:07:23. > :07:27.work but it's freedom and you don't really want a boss. Not really.
:07:27. > :07:36.Especially with Brian, who had been there since he was a child, to have
:07:36. > :07:43.somebody from the city and tell him what to do. It's not very easy, I
:07:43. > :07:45.don't think. That'll do, that'll do. Sit! It's December 2010. After
:07:45. > :07:51.years of negotiations, the dispute between Brian and Stephen has
:07:51. > :07:59.reached stalemate. Stephen is starting eviction proceedings and
:07:59. > :08:02.discovering the tangled 40-year history of Brian's tenancies.
:08:02. > :08:07.strange thing is that over the years, Brian has been in conflict
:08:07. > :08:12.with every single landlord that he has had. Even Diny Howe, who was a
:08:12. > :08:20.generous and friendly lady. He was in conflict with her and he wanted
:08:20. > :08:24.to force her to pay him for work he did on the farm. Brian says he was
:08:24. > :08:29.never in conflict with Mrs Howe. But he did resent spending money on
:08:29. > :08:38.the house for the benefit of landlords. Why should one be used
:08:38. > :08:44.as a slave? To do it free of charge? Thousands of pounds of
:08:44. > :08:49.work? Why? Diny Howe wanted Brian Potter to live in the farm and
:08:49. > :08:53.continue to live there. But she wanted it to be a formal
:08:53. > :08:59.arrangement. She spoke to her solicitor and she asked him to make
:08:59. > :09:02.up the most lenient possible tenancy agreement. She wasn't going
:09:02. > :09:10.to be responsible for looking after the farm but he would not have to
:09:10. > :09:19.bring it right up to scratch. That was what it said. Despite that very
:09:19. > :09:22.lenient tenancy agreement, Brian Potter did not sign it. I signed it
:09:22. > :09:26.alright, I just did not have a copy. I naturally thought the copy would
:09:26. > :09:34.have passed on to her. You forget that I had already been through
:09:34. > :09:39.this rigmarole back in the 1980s. But a county court judge at Exeter
:09:39. > :09:49.decides Brian had not signed Mrs Howe's agreement. Had Brian signed
:09:49. > :09:51.
:09:51. > :09:54.it, where would he be now? He would be a full tenant of the whole farm.
:09:54. > :09:57.And for Brian, there's another problem. A joint tenancy that Brian
:09:57. > :10:04.had set up with his then girlfriend, Christine, before Mrs Howe's
:10:04. > :10:08.ownership. Her mother died and her father sold the farm up so she came
:10:08. > :10:18.to live with me. But she was bothered that she had no security
:10:18. > :10:18.
:10:18. > :10:22.if anything happened to me. Christine left for New Zealand in
:10:22. > :10:31.1990 but the joint tenancy was still in place. And when Stephen
:10:31. > :10:34.Dyer found out about it, he asked Christine to sign a notice to quit.
:10:34. > :10:41.If either one of you decides that you want to walk, that brings the
:10:42. > :10:45.whole tenancy to an end. Did she realise that? Yes, she did.
:10:45. > :10:47.should one partner, who has never been near here for the past 20
:10:47. > :10:57.years, be allowed to evict another partner when the original
:10:57. > :10:58.
:10:58. > :11:00.partnership was given to her free and done for her benefit? It seems
:11:00. > :11:05.entirely wrong that another partner should be allowed to evict the
:11:05. > :11:09.partner that still remains there. Because it doesn't affect the
:11:09. > :11:19.partner that has left. But the one that remains there, you lose your
:11:19. > :11:19.
:11:19. > :11:23.job, your life and your home. Steady, sit! But the law is clear.
:11:23. > :11:27.If one joint tenant gives a notice to quit, all the other tenants have
:11:27. > :11:36.to go, too. With no proof of a signed tenancy with Mrs Howe and a
:11:36. > :11:43.cancelled joint tenancy, Brian's last hold on the farm disappears.
:11:43. > :11:48.January last year. Brian has been given six weeks to leave. But he
:11:48. > :11:55.digs his heels in. I just have to carry on fighting. You have the
:11:55. > :12:01.money to do that? I've had to borrow money and I will just have
:12:01. > :12:08.to borrow some more. How much has it cost you? About �90,000 so far.
:12:08. > :12:15.�90,000?! Yes. I don't mean to be rude, but you don't look like
:12:15. > :12:21.you've got �90,000 to spend on legal action?! No, no! But Brian
:12:21. > :12:25.has got one more card to play. He's applied for leave to appeal and is
:12:25. > :12:32.granted a hearing. The delay gives him a few more months on the farm
:12:32. > :12:41.and gives Stephen another financial headache. He has every right to do
:12:41. > :12:47.what he's doing. But it's not going to benefit him. If he wins, it
:12:47. > :12:57.costs me a lot more money. And Brian ends up living in a derelict
:12:57. > :12:59.
:12:59. > :13:05.farmhouse. October last year at the Royal Courts of Justice. Brian
:13:05. > :13:10.arrives to fight his final case, insisting he's right. Well, I've
:13:10. > :13:20.definitely got a tenancy on the farm. I've been there for 40 years.
:13:20. > :13:24.
:13:24. > :13:27.It's pretty unlikely I haven't got one. We will see. Brian has to
:13:27. > :13:32.convince three judges that his agreement with Mrs Howe, although
:13:32. > :13:35.informal, became a legal tenancy because he'd been there so long.
:13:35. > :13:40.Many farming tenancies are unwritten and yet still perfectly
:13:40. > :13:43.valid if they meet certain conditions. The question here is,
:13:43. > :13:47.did the generous old lady's wish that Brian live at Little Heath
:13:47. > :13:57.amount to a tenancy or was it simply a gift, allowing him a roof
:13:57. > :13:59.
:13:59. > :14:04.over his head but with no right to remain? After a day in court, the
:14:04. > :14:14.protagonists leave without an answer. The judges have reserved
:14:14. > :14:18.
:14:18. > :14:28.their decision. Six weeks later, Stephen gets the result. He has won.
:14:28. > :14:31.
:14:31. > :14:38.It is January this year, and Brian is beginning to clear at the
:14:38. > :14:44.farmhouse he has called home for 60 years. I think it is totally
:14:44. > :14:51.disgusting that you can probably turn someone out on a whim because
:14:51. > :14:57.a millionaire wants to make himself a little home in Devon. I should
:14:57. > :15:02.have looked after myself more and I should have made sure that mother
:15:02. > :15:08.and father had everything sorted for me and I should have made sure
:15:08. > :15:16.that Mrs How had everything sorted for me. But I just do not push
:15:16. > :15:26.people like that. He has only used the law that is available to him.
:15:26. > :15:45.
:15:45. > :15:52.He has done everything he could to Eviction day. Friends are helping
:15:52. > :15:57.Brian Noble what machinery they can offer of the farm. -- Brian are
:15:57. > :16:07.moved what machinery they can off offer of the farm. Including the
:16:07. > :16:18.
:16:18. > :16:26.The court's bailiffs are on site, impatient for Brian to finish. They
:16:26. > :16:36.have delayed as long as they can. Getting all packed up, are you?
:16:36. > :16:57.
:16:57. > :17:05.They're. What a mess. Is it all cling? I think so, Mr Potter, yes.
:17:05. > :17:09.Brian is worried about his sheep. That is the information about what
:17:09. > :17:14.to do with the sheep. You cannot just move them. You will need about
:17:14. > :17:23.a day. If you want to come and collect them you must make an
:17:23. > :17:30.appointment with Mr Dyer. Do not worry about it. They will be dealt
:17:30. > :17:38.with. One thing for sure, the meek will surely never inherit the earth,
:17:38. > :17:43.will they? That is how it is and you cannot do much about it.
:17:43. > :17:47.guess we all have obsessions of one sort or another and maybe Mr Potter
:17:47. > :17:52.has got one lot and I have got another lot and the two have
:17:52. > :18:02.collided. Six years and tens of thousands of pounds in legal costs
:18:02. > :18:05.
:18:05. > :18:14.later, Stephen can finally take Is it your intention to repair the
:18:14. > :18:17.place or just start again? It is a nice place potentially. It was once.
:18:17. > :18:23.With something like this you cannot knock it down and rebuild it. It
:18:23. > :18:33.does not work. We have got to repair it. Where will the live now?
:18:33. > :18:38.
:18:38. > :18:43.I do not know. I will find a caravan somewhere. How do you feel
:18:43. > :18:50.about Brian now? As a human being, it is strange, because he and I are
:18:50. > :18:56.very similar in many ways. Does it feel like a victory? No, there is
:18:56. > :19:01.no victory in a pointless fight. I am afraid that Brian's intention
:19:01. > :19:05.was always to get to a point in which he basically had burned all
:19:05. > :19:13.of his bare its, and when you have burned all other boats, you have
:19:14. > :19:19.nothing to sail away end. Do you think it is all over now? No, I do
:19:19. > :19:28.not think so. We are halfway there, I expect. Something else has to
:19:28. > :19:32.happen. It cannot be right. Stephen Dyer is now beginning the
:19:32. > :19:42.renovation of his farmhouse which he will one day call home. Brian
:19:42. > :19:44.
:19:45. > :19:50.Potter says he will not be moving Next tonight, an extraordinary
:19:50. > :19:54.fight between town planners and people living in one of Somerset's
:19:54. > :20:00.most picturesque villages. We had been investigating the row they are
:20:00. > :20:04.calling Cokergate. East Coker in south Somerset. The
:20:04. > :20:08.residents here are fighting a battle against the district council,
:20:08. > :20:15.which has plans to extend the town of Yeovil to the very borders of
:20:15. > :20:19.the village. Nobody wants the growth. They all
:20:19. > :20:23.know it is necessary but they do not want it anywhere near them.
:20:23. > :20:30.could not believe the scale of it. The school and the industrial and
:20:30. > :20:34.this beautiful field. I think any business or community needs an
:20:34. > :20:38.expansion plan. The moment you stop growing or having aspirations, you
:20:38. > :20:43.go backwards. A all over the West Country, thanks to government
:20:43. > :20:49.targets, councils are under pressure to build new homes. More
:20:49. > :20:55.than 150,000 in the next 20 years. Rick Pallister is the leader of
:20:55. > :20:59.South Somerset District Council. have to put in place a growth
:20:59. > :21:03.strategy. The Government changed the rules. They said we had to
:21:03. > :21:08.produce these local plans and we have a certain amount of time to do
:21:08. > :21:12.it in. If we do not do it it will get them to last. The developers
:21:12. > :21:17.will get to decide where they want to build houses and the industry
:21:17. > :21:21.will decide where it wants to build its factories and we will not get a
:21:21. > :21:26.say in it. It is vital that every council in the country has one of
:21:26. > :21:36.these plans. And part of the plan is the so-called Southern Option, a
:21:36. > :21:37.
:21:37. > :21:47.huge expansion of Yeovil, 2,500 homes, bringing the town to the
:21:47. > :21:47.
:21:47. > :21:53.borders. In succession, houses rise and fall, crumble, are extended,
:21:53. > :22:00.are removed, destroyed, and in their place is an open field were a
:22:00. > :22:04.bypass. Having a Nobel Laureate in the Church has helped to raise the
:22:04. > :22:11.campaign's profile, but it has not been enough to prevent the plants
:22:11. > :22:16.from going forward. Sandra Snelling is a leading member
:22:16. > :22:21.of the East Coker Preservation Trust. The TS Eliot brought in a
:22:21. > :22:25.lot of people from outside the village who wanted to protect it.
:22:25. > :22:31.That was very good in the beginning but now we have had to move on to
:22:31. > :22:35.things which are much more fundamental and more serious. East
:22:35. > :22:45.Coker would become a part of Yeovil -- Yeovil and there would no longer
:22:45. > :22:49.be this little village in Somerset with the lovely church. All of the
:22:49. > :22:55.great one agricultural land and the thatch colleges -- cottages and all
:22:55. > :22:58.of that, that would all change. change is what most councils want.
:22:58. > :23:03.They have already voted to investigate the sudden option
:23:03. > :23:12.further, although no decision will be made until the final but in
:23:12. > :23:17.April. -- the sudden option. But a secret of map has been found.
:23:17. > :23:21.Cokergate came about because of a plan that we found in a field.
:23:21. > :23:29.fruit-picking with her husband, Heather Murphy came across the plan
:23:29. > :23:39.showing the extent of the proposed development. It has caused such
:23:39. > :23:43.problems. It was just an innocent walk, a blackberry trip, and I
:23:43. > :23:49.showed it to my friend at the Poetry Group and I did not do that
:23:49. > :23:54.to make mischief or anything. I had no idea the impact it would have.
:23:54. > :23:59.It was quite a shock for a few days. Quite a big shock. It was not a
:23:59. > :24:05.secret map or a map we did not want anyone to see. It was for internal
:24:06. > :24:11.use only. I just could not believe it. The scale of it. This beautiful
:24:11. > :24:16.field... There are houses everywhere. It is just awful. I am
:24:16. > :24:20.sure there are other places they can go. We have not got anywhere
:24:20. > :24:25.near a planning application or a master plan. It would be wrong to
:24:25. > :24:29.put that into the public domain before a decision was in place
:24:29. > :24:34.because it would just set all the hares are running. Now everybody
:24:34. > :24:42.uses the word Cokergate. It is wonderful. It says it all, doesn't
:24:42. > :24:46.it? Furious at what they see as the council's session -- deception,
:24:46. > :24:55.some of the villagers have bombarded the planning department
:24:55. > :25:00.with hundreds of a Freedom of Information requests. We'd better
:25:00. > :25:04.go! Unable to deal with the workload, council planners have
:25:04. > :25:11.offered a meeting to the group. The villagers want the council to
:25:11. > :25:16.reconsider a second option, a sight to the north of Yeovil. The whole
:25:16. > :25:26.idea of the meeting is to lobby the North West option, and then we
:25:26. > :25:26.
:25:26. > :25:30.might look even wider than that. Are we ready for this? And this is
:25:30. > :25:34.the more than alternative. The council says this site has been an
:25:35. > :25:39.option but that developing here is a more costly. As you can see, you
:25:39. > :25:43.have got a completely empty landscape. It is not connected to
:25:43. > :25:48.Yeovil in any way and there are significant infrastructure problems
:25:48. > :25:52.in terms of blinking it. The cost of doing the road linkages here is
:25:52. > :25:57.about four times the cost of doing it down there. It is a significant
:25:57. > :26:04.amount. And this laundry company has spent a significant about
:26:04. > :26:09.investing in Yeovil, more than �5 million so far. It has plans to
:26:09. > :26:12.trouble the workforce over the next two years. We are concerned that
:26:12. > :26:18.Yeovil needs to have the right development plans which can satisfy
:26:18. > :26:24.the needs of us and other industries are. You have to look at
:26:24. > :26:30.the bigger picture. The villagers are a by-product of the towns and
:26:30. > :26:35.Yeovil, if it starts -- stops growing, guys. The meeting has been
:26:35. > :26:45.going on for four long hours, but are at the campaigners making any
:26:45. > :26:52.
:26:52. > :26:56.How did that go? It went very well. I feel very optimistic about it. It
:26:56. > :27:04.was very friendly and very professional. Will the fight go
:27:04. > :27:12.one? Will it? You have got to be kidding! Oh, yes. The reality is
:27:12. > :27:16.that the council intends to push on with its plans.
:27:16. > :27:21.Well Rick Pallister appreciates the argument against allowing
:27:21. > :27:26.development here, he says he really has have no choice. If there was an
:27:26. > :27:32.easier option, why would I want to create such a fuss? Isn't there a
:27:32. > :27:39.better way or something else we could do? If I believed that I
:27:39. > :27:43.probably would not be standing here talking to you now. If we are going
:27:43. > :27:47.to fight this cause, we have all got to break up to the fact that if
:27:47. > :27:54.we stand back and do not do anything or push it, it will just
:27:54. > :28:04.happen, and it will happen around us. That will be it. That is the
:28:04. > :28:04.
:28:04. > :28:14.end of it. Another day prepares for silence. Out at sea, the dawn
:28:14. > :28:20.
:28:20. > :28:24.wrinkles and slides. I am here or And that is all from this week's
:28:24. > :28:28.Inside Out, but we will be back next Monday with more stories from
:28:28. > :28:33.where you live. Nick Baker will be taking a look at
:28:33. > :28:36.the wildlife haven in the heart of Plymouth. There is a habitat for