TWO Cotswold properties including one in Compton Abdale are set to be demolished after Cotswold District Council discovered they were erected without planning permission.

The owners of an illegally built home and annex in Holly Hill, Puesdown were ordered by CDC to demolish their property.

Despite this, owners took the decision to appeal but a planning inspector acting for the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government upheld the council’s decision, meaning that the buildings must now be demolished by May 2016.

The council have also ordered another illegally constructed home on land at Orchard Rise, Charingworth, Chipping Campden to be destroyed.

CDC’s Planning Committee members voted to refuse retrospective planning permission for the retention of the illegal building last month, which was a much larger property than the council had given permission for.

And at the same meeting councillors ordered for the building to be destroyed.

The house approved by CDC had two floors and three bedrooms but the owners constructed a house with four floors and six bedrooms.

Sue Jepson, CDC cabinet member for planning and housing, said: “There are strict regulations regarding development in the district and developers always run the risk of demolition notices being served if they do not have regard to them. This sounds rather drastic, but we need to preserve the integrity of the planning system, which enables professionals to consider the merits of applications across a wide range of criteria, and also gives the public the right to make their views known. In these two cases, the property owners have paid the price for choosing to ignore the rules, and the fact that the Planning Inspectorate upheld the council’s decision when we were taken to appeal shows that our hardline stance is supported at the highest level.”