A MAN is claiming that changes to Monmouth Town Plan have left a site he was planning to build on useless by deeming it a "special landscape area" without notification or a chance to object.
John Bratton says this is the latest position in a long saga which has been preventing him from using the site which his father, who died 11 years ago, bought in 1965.
"The whole process has been carried out without going through proper procedures.
"When it was purchased the land was designated as residential. But when we applied for permission to build originally it was said there was going to be road-widening in the area – which has never happened.
"Yet people just down the road have built houses, and across the road, in spite of what they are now calling a special landscape area. My land is like an island among them.
"My father fought in the war for his country and bought the land for residential purposes – and this is how we are treated. Even the maps and pieces of paper they are using to show we are outside the residential zone are wrong – I have the originals from when the land was bought and lots of other evidence.
"I have spent hundreds of pounds on advice and I'm told that I could be due for heavy compensation if I took them to court – but this would obviously cost me thousands of pounds.
"But I am going to fight and fight. I am writing to my MP and taking proper advice on what to do next about my case."
The land, amounting to about three quarters of an acre, is beside the main Monmouth-Chepstow A466 road. It has recently been occupied by a group of New Age Travellers who Mr Bratton hopes are soon moving on.
A spokesperson for Monmouthshire County Council said: "Planning applications for a new house on Mr Bratton's land have been refused on two occasions in the past, the most recent having been dismissed on appeal to the Welsh Office in 1994.
"The site lies outside the boundary, shown in both the Monmouth Borough Adopted Local Plan and the new Draft Unitary Development Plan (UDP), within which residential development is permitted, and therefore the council's policy is to still resist housing development on the land.
"Comments on the Draft UDP are currently being invited and if he has not already done so, Mr Bratton has until April 30 1999 to make representations in writing.
"In addition to the housing issue the council has received a number of complaints about the untidy state of the land and has resolved to issue a notice in respect of its poor state of amenity."