A council has threatened an 80-year-old man with a £1,000 fine for storing surplus cars being donated to Ukraine.
William Lewis was sent a legal notice by his local council after letting a Transport for London (TfL)-backed scheme for sending scrap cars to Ukraine use a field that he owns.
Mole Valley council, in Surrey, claimed he was breaking planning permission laws by allowing his land to be used for temporarily storing donated vehicles.
Mr Lewis branded the council “ludicrous” while TfL hailed his “incredible contribution”.
It comes a week after Gen Valerii Zaluzhny, Ukraine’s ambassador to the UK, called for the Ulez scrappage donation scheme to be extended across the country.
Older vehicles that do not meet London’s Ulez emissions rules can be scrapped in return for a £2,000 grant from TfL.
Owners of these cars and vans can tick a box on the scrappage scheme form giving permission for their vehicles to be donated to Ukraine. This does not reduce how much owners receive from the grant.
Battlefield medics and humanitarian groups in Ukraine are in desperate need of vehicles to transport the wounded to hospitals and medical aid posts.
Mr Lewis is letting the charity that runs the scheme, British Ukrainian Aid, use his field, near Dorking in the Surrey Hills, to store donated vehicles that are collected from Londoners and awaiting drivers to take them to Ukraine.
He was sent a letter on July 3 threatening him with a £1,000 fine unless he formally notified the council how he was using his field to store cars for the officially-endorsed donation scheme.
Officials then demanded he make a full planning application for a change of use of the land, repeating their threat of a £1,000 fine unless the field was cleared by the end of August.
Mr Lewis told The Telegraph: “I’m not going to go through the process of making a full-blown planning application. It’s ludicrous.
“I certainly don’t guarantee the vehicles will be removed by Aug 31. And I never said they would be.
“We’ve been trying to make Londoners more aware of the fact that we are taking [old cars] into Ukraine and they need to donate them rather than [let them] go for scrappage,” he added.
Cllr Margaret Cooksey, Mole Valley’s cabinet member for planning, claimed that “several complaints” had been received from residents “about an excessive number of cars being stored in a field in Coldharbour”.
She said: “Given that the land is designated for agricultural use and lies within an Area of Great Landscape Value, an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, and the Metropolitan Green Belt, this storage represents a material change in land use.
“As such, planning permission is required. Failure to provide the requested notice may result in a £1,000 fine.”
Section 171C of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 gives councils powers to demand information for enforcement purposes about how land is being used.
Sadiq Khan, approached via his office, failed to respond to a request for comment.
Seb Dance, Mr Khan’s deputy mayor for transport, gave a speech at the Ukrainian embassy last week praising the Ulez scrappage donations scheme.
‘Really proud’
Afterwards he said: “I’m really proud of the work that everybody has put in to get this to happen. It’s not easy. And there are many, many different barriers that have been faced by British Ukrainian Aid and others in getting the scheme to work.”
The Telegraph previously revealed how in September last year Mr Khan declined a suggestion by Vitali Klitschko, the mayor of Kyiv, to send some of the non-Ulez compliant vehicles to Ukraine rather than the scrap heap.
It took the personal intervention of Mark Harper, then the Conservative government’s transport secretary, to force Mr Khan into giving the scheme the green light in February.
A TfL spokesman said: “We value the incredible contribution Mr Lewis has made and will be in touch with him about this situation.
“Vehicles donated to Ukraine as part of the scrappage scheme are stored at a number of locations before being driven to Ukraine to help with the humanitarian effort.
“We will continue to work with British-Ukrainian Aid to support the ongoing operation of the scheme.”
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