Fighting to stay

A MARCH man living in a mobile home on an industrial estate fears his business will be targeted by vandals and thieves if he is forced to move.

Planners have told Paul Ayres he must move his home from allsorts, Unit Four, on the town's Norwood industrial estate. But he intends to fight for the right to stay.

The angry businessman says he is doing no harm and since he moved there last April there have been fewer break-ins, thefts and acts of vandalism.

He said: "All we want is to be left in peace but the council do not look at it like that. We pay council tax and have a bin collection.

"Until we moved on site we used to have break-ins and it cost the haulage business next to us thousands because they kept having diesel nicked." Haulier John Ford is backing Mr Ayres in his bid to stay on the site.

Mr Ayres intends to appeal against the council's decision forcing him to leave. He says it is not a busy industrial site and there is another mobile home close by.

The Ayres family have traded from the site for about 20 years. Paul's parents, Peter and Janet, rented factory units to sell clothes, electrical goods and furniture. After their retirement, Paul launched 'allsorts', concentrating on making and selling garden sheds.

Last February Mr Ayres and wife Beverly moved their mobile holiday home from Gt Yarmouth to the Norwood Road site and settled in during April. He says he did not realise he needed planning consent.

After being told he needed permission, he put in a retrospective planning application which was turned down by the council. Fenland Council's planners said the mobile home was an incompatible form of development with the existing industrial/commercial environment.

Mr Ayres said: "We are more than happy here. It suits us and we don't want to have to move, this is our home.