20/02/2012 Inside Out South West

Hello and welcome to Inside Out South West. Stories from where you

live. Tonight - the men who battled for six years over a derelict Devon

property. He has houses in London, Sussex and France. He is just a bit

of a millionaire playboy. Yes, I am perceived as the guy wandering in

with his cheque book. Also - a turf war in Somerset as development

threatens this beautiful village. could not believe the scale of it.

Houses everywhere, it's just awful. I'm Sam Smith and this is Inside

Out South West. First, a cautionary tale from the heart of Devon. We

have been following the saga of a wealthy businessman and a tenant

farmer who both lay claim to the same property. A farmhouse that is

falling into ruin. This is the farm at the centre of a six-year legal

battle. Tenant, Brian Potter, faces losing his home and his livelihood.

One thing's for sure. The meek won't inherit the earth. Only the

greedy ones. The owner has a massive legal bill and a

dangerously derelict house. This is medieval. Nobody should live like

this in this situation. At the heart of the two men's dispute, one

seemingly simple question. When is a tenancy not a tenancy? As we've

discovered, there's no simple answer. Little Heath Farm near

Tiverton. Home for 60 years to farmer Brian Potter, whose parents

once owned it. It was a little dairy farm. My mother and father

used to keep cows and I think she had a few chickens as well. The

whole house is reasonably sound still. Nothing much wrong with it.

I did trip over panes of glass but a couple of swallows started

nesting so I took them down again. Little Heath caught the eye of

Stephen Dyer in 2006. The internet entrepreneur and beekeeper from

West Sussex thought it would make a perfect home for his retirement. He

paid �332,000 for the lot, including around 50 acres and two

barns. His ambition was to keep the farm running, so he asked Brian to

consider staying on as his manager. My proposal to him was

fundamentally that I would pay him the money that he makes farming

anyway, which was �5,000 a year. And I said I would convert one of

the barns into a decent modern home for him because you have probably

seen the farmhouse. And I would allow him to keep the profits that

he made from farming. But Brian wasn't impressed by the offer.

don't know. He has houses in London, Sussex and France. He is just a bit

of a millionaire playboy, I should think. I did also offer him

�150,000 if you just wanted to up sticks and go. If he wanted to live

in Devon I'd have thought he could buy lots of properties around Devon

without finding one with a tenant in it. Brian is determined to stay.

Because he's been evicted from the house before, by his brother, who

inherited it when their parents died. He wanted me out and he

managed to evict me. But not from the farm. I eventually sold up to a

lady I used to work for. She bought it for me. And gave me tenancy of

the whole farm. His benefactor was Diny Howe. A wealthy local woman,

once master of the foxhounds, who was fond of Brian. Chloe Deakin,

who was once Mrs Howe's groom, recalls how the elderly widow

wanted Brian to live at Little Heath for the rest of his life.

always bought straw from him. And he was her mechanic. They were very

good friends. She thought it would be really nice if she could be his

landlady and he could have a quiet life and not be hassled by family

and solicitors, lawyers and all this sort of thing. When Diny Howe

was alive, Brian's right to live in the remote and already semi-

derelict farmhouse went unchallenged. But when she died,

the farm went into a secret trust run by her solicitors. And so, for

another decade, Brian stayed on and the house continued to crumble.

When did that side of the house fall down? Oh, about 1994. I was

having my lunch and the wall fell down. But then cob walls do that.

The solicitors sold Little Heath to Stephen. Brian says he was never

told his home was up for sale. I was not told it was going to be

sold. Otherwise I might have tried to buy it myself. It was never

advertised for sale or anything. Stephen first saw the farm on a

visit to Devon, to a friend who lives just across the valley.

probably perceived as the guy wandering in with his cheque book

because I am down from London. DFL. So, when I come there, it is, he is

not from round here and he doesn't understand our community or our

culture and so on. Hello, girls. Are you alright? Farming is hard

work but it's freedom and you don't really want a boss. Not really.

Especially with Brian, who had been there since he was a child, to have

somebody from the city and tell him what to do. It's not very easy, I

don't think. That'll do, that'll do. Sit! It's December 2010. After

years of negotiations, the dispute between Brian and Stephen has

reached stalemate. Stephen is starting eviction proceedings and

discovering the tangled 40-year history of Brian's tenancies.

strange thing is that over the years, Brian has been in conflict

with every single landlord that he has had. Even Diny Howe, who was a

generous and friendly lady. He was in conflict with her and he wanted

to force her to pay him for work he did on the farm. Brian says he was

never in conflict with Mrs Howe. But he did resent spending money on

the house for the benefit of landlords. Why should one be used

as a slave? To do it free of charge? Thousands of pounds of

work? Why? Diny Howe wanted Brian Potter to live in the farm and

continue to live there. But she wanted it to be a formal

arrangement. She spoke to her solicitor and she asked him to make

up the most lenient possible tenancy agreement. She wasn't going

to be responsible for looking after the farm but he would not have to

bring it right up to scratch. That was what it said. Despite that very

lenient tenancy agreement, Brian Potter did not sign it. I signed it

alright, I just did not have a copy. I naturally thought the copy would

have passed on to her. You forget that I had already been through

this rigmarole back in the 1980s. But a county court judge at Exeter

decides Brian had not signed Mrs Howe's agreement. Had Brian signed

it, where would he be now? He would be a full tenant of the whole farm.

And for Brian, there's another problem. A joint tenancy that Brian

had set up with his then girlfriend, Christine, before Mrs Howe's

ownership. Her mother died and her father sold the farm up so she came

to live with me. But she was bothered that she had no security

if anything happened to me. Christine left for New Zealand in

1990 but the joint tenancy was still in place. And when Stephen

Dyer found out about it, he asked Christine to sign a notice to quit.

If either one of you decides that you want to walk, that brings the

whole tenancy to an end. Did she realise that? Yes, she did.

should one partner, who has never been near here for the past 20

years, be allowed to evict another partner when the original

partnership was given to her free and done for her benefit? It seems

entirely wrong that another partner should be allowed to evict the

partner that still remains there. Because it doesn't affect the

partner that has left. But the one that remains there, you lose your

job, your life and your home. Steady, sit! But the law is clear.

If one joint tenant gives a notice to quit, all the other tenants have

to go, too. With no proof of a signed tenancy with Mrs Howe and a

cancelled joint tenancy, Brian's last hold on the farm disappears.

January last year. Brian has been given six weeks to leave. But he

digs his heels in. I just have to carry on fighting. You have the

money to do that? I've had to borrow money and I will just have

to borrow some more. How much has it cost you? About �90,000 so far.

�90,000?! Yes. I don't mean to be rude, but you don't look like

you've got �90,000 to spend on legal action?! No, no! But Brian

has got one more card to play. He's applied for leave to appeal and is

granted a hearing. The delay gives him a few more months on the farm

and gives Stephen another financial headache. He has every right to do

what he's doing. But it's not going to benefit him. If he wins, it

costs me a lot more money. And Brian ends up living in a derelict

farmhouse. October last year at the Royal Courts of Justice. Brian

arrives to fight his final case, insisting he's right. Well, I've

definitely got a tenancy on the farm. I've been there for 40 years.

It's pretty unlikely I haven't got one. We will see. Brian has to

convince three judges that his agreement with Mrs Howe, although

informal, became a legal tenancy because he'd been there so long.

Many farming tenancies are unwritten and yet still perfectly

valid if they meet certain conditions. The question here is,

did the generous old lady's wish that Brian live at Little Heath

amount to a tenancy or was it simply a gift, allowing him a roof

over his head but with no right to remain? After a day in court, the

protagonists leave without an answer. The judges have reserved

their decision. Six weeks later, Stephen gets the result. He has won.

It is January this year, and Brian is beginning to clear at the

farmhouse he has called home for 60 years. I think it is totally

disgusting that you can probably turn someone out on a whim because

a millionaire wants to make himself a little home in Devon. I should

have looked after myself more and I should have made sure that mother

and father had everything sorted for me and I should have made sure

that Mrs How had everything sorted for me. But I just do not push

people like that. He has only used the law that is available to him.

He has done everything he could to Eviction day. Friends are helping

Brian Noble what machinery they can offer of the farm. -- Brian are

moved what machinery they can off offer of the farm. Including the

The court's bailiffs are on site, impatient for Brian to finish. They

have delayed as long as they can. Getting all packed up, are you?

They're. What a mess. Is it all cling? I think so, Mr Potter, yes.

Brian is worried about his sheep. That is the information about what

to do with the sheep. You cannot just move them. You will need about

a day. If you want to come and collect them you must make an

appointment with Mr Dyer. Do not worry about it. They will be dealt

with. One thing for sure, the meek will surely never inherit the earth,

will they? That is how it is and you cannot do much about it.

guess we all have obsessions of one sort or another and maybe Mr Potter

has got one lot and I have got another lot and the two have

collided. Six years and tens of thousands of pounds in legal costs

later, Stephen can finally take Is it your intention to repair the

place or just start again? It is a nice place potentially. It was once.

With something like this you cannot knock it down and rebuild it. It

does not work. We have got to repair it. Where will the live now?

I do not know. I will find a caravan somewhere. How do you feel

about Brian now? As a human being, it is strange, because he and I are

very similar in many ways. Does it feel like a victory? No, there is

no victory in a pointless fight. I am afraid that Brian's intention

was always to get to a point in which he basically had burned all

of his bare its, and when you have burned all other boats, you have

nothing to sail away end. Do you think it is all over now? No, I do

not think so. We are halfway there, I expect. Something else has to

happen. It cannot be right. Stephen Dyer is now beginning the

renovation of his farmhouse which he will one day call home. Brian

Potter says he will not be moving Next tonight, an extraordinary

fight between town planners and people living in one of Somerset's

most picturesque villages. We had been investigating the row they are

calling Cokergate. East Coker in south Somerset. The

residents here are fighting a battle against the district council,

which has plans to extend the town of Yeovil to the very borders of

the village. Nobody wants the growth. They all

know it is necessary but they do not want it anywhere near them.

could not believe the scale of it. The school and the industrial and

this beautiful field. I think any business or community needs an

expansion plan. The moment you stop growing or having aspirations, you

go backwards. A all over the West Country, thanks to government

targets, councils are under pressure to build new homes. More

than 150,000 in the next 20 years. Rick Pallister is the leader of

South Somerset District Council. have to put in place a growth

strategy. The Government changed the rules. They said we had to

produce these local plans and we have a certain amount of time to do

it in. If we do not do it it will get them to last. The developers

will get to decide where they want to build houses and the industry

will decide where it wants to build its factories and we will not get a

say in it. It is vital that every council in the country has one of

these plans. And part of the plan is the so-called Southern Option, a

huge expansion of Yeovil, 2,500 homes, bringing the town to the

borders. In succession, houses rise and fall, crumble, are extended,

are removed, destroyed, and in their place is an open field were a

bypass. Having a Nobel Laureate in the Church has helped to raise the

campaign's profile, but it has not been enough to prevent the plants

from going forward. Sandra Snelling is a leading member

of the East Coker Preservation Trust. The TS Eliot brought in a

lot of people from outside the village who wanted to protect it.

That was very good in the beginning but now we have had to move on to

things which are much more fundamental and more serious. East

Coker would become a part of Yeovil -- Yeovil and there would no longer

be this little village in Somerset with the lovely church. All of the

great one agricultural land and the thatch colleges -- cottages and all

of that, that would all change. change is what most councils want.

They have already voted to investigate the sudden option

further, although no decision will be made until the final but in

April. -- the sudden option. But a secret of map has been found.

Cokergate came about because of a plan that we found in a field.

fruit-picking with her husband, Heather Murphy came across the plan

showing the extent of the proposed development. It has caused such

problems. It was just an innocent walk, a blackberry trip, and I

showed it to my friend at the Poetry Group and I did not do that

to make mischief or anything. I had no idea the impact it would have.

It was quite a shock for a few days. Quite a big shock. It was not a

secret map or a map we did not want anyone to see. It was for internal

use only. I just could not believe it. The scale of it. This beautiful

field... There are houses everywhere. It is just awful. I am

sure there are other places they can go. We have not got anywhere

near a planning application or a master plan. It would be wrong to

put that into the public domain before a decision was in place

because it would just set all the hares are running. Now everybody

uses the word Cokergate. It is wonderful. It says it all, doesn't

it? Furious at what they see as the council's session -- deception,

some of the villagers have bombarded the planning department

with hundreds of a Freedom of Information requests. We'd better

go! Unable to deal with the workload, council planners have

offered a meeting to the group. The villagers want the council to

reconsider a second option, a sight to the north of Yeovil. The whole

idea of the meeting is to lobby the North West option, and then we

might look even wider than that. Are we ready for this? And this is

the more than alternative. The council says this site has been an

option but that developing here is a more costly. As you can see, you

have got a completely empty landscape. It is not connected to

Yeovil in any way and there are significant infrastructure problems

in terms of blinking it. The cost of doing the road linkages here is

about four times the cost of doing it down there. It is a significant

amount. And this laundry company has spent a significant about

investing in Yeovil, more than �5 million so far. It has plans to

trouble the workforce over the next two years. We are concerned that

Yeovil needs to have the right development plans which can satisfy

the needs of us and other industries are. You have to look at

the bigger picture. The villagers are a by-product of the towns and

Yeovil, if it starts -- stops growing, guys. The meeting has been

going on for four long hours, but are at the campaigners making any

How did that go? It went very well. I feel very optimistic about it. It

was very friendly and very professional. Will the fight go

one? Will it? You have got to be kidding! Oh, yes. The reality is

that the council intends to push on with its plans.

Well Rick Pallister appreciates the argument against allowing

development here, he says he really has have no choice. If there was an

easier option, why would I want to create such a fuss? Isn't there a

better way or something else we could do? If I believed that I

probably would not be standing here talking to you now. If we are going

to fight this cause, we have all got to break up to the fact that if

we stand back and do not do anything or push it, it will just

happen, and it will happen around us. That will be it. That is the

end of it. Another day prepares for silence. Out at sea, the dawn

wrinkles and slides. I am here or And that is all from this week's

Inside Out, but we will be back next Monday with more stories from

where you live. Nick Baker will be taking a look at

the wildlife haven in the heart of Plymouth. There is a habitat for