A CARAVAN owner has been fined for failing to remove mobile homes from land in Almondsbury.

Colin Williams, of Over Lane, was fined £500 and ordered to pay costs of a further £500 when he appeared before Bristol Crown Court on Friday, March 21.

He had failed to comply with an enforcement notice from South Gloucestershire Council.

Mr Williams changed his original not guilty plea to guilty when the matter went to trial at crown court.

He pleaded guilty to occupying a mobile home for residential purposes and failing to remove the mobile home from the land in breach of an enforcement notice served last July 6.

Cllr Claire Young, chairman of South Gloucestershire Council’s communities committee, said the council took such planning breaches seriously.

The site is green belt agricultural land and the council felt caravans in this location were an eyesore which failed to respect the character of the area.

A planning application was submitted this January by Mr Williams, in which he applied for one mobile home to be kept as an agricultural worker’s dwelling for the purposes of breeding Alpacas.

This was the second Almondsbury site which reached the courts last week.

Gayla Symon was convicted on Wednesday, March 19 of unauthorised works to an eighteenth century Grade II listed building also off Over Lane.

She pleaded guilty at Yate Magistrates’ Court to removing windows, re-pointing and re-plastering walls with inappropriate materials, as well as removing a historic ceiling and claygate fireplace.

Mrs Symon said she’d received poor advice and the council acknowledged that she had cooperated fully with their investigation.

She was convicted but given an absolute discharge with the court recognising the substantial costs that will be required to remedy the harm.