A Herefordshire soft fruit grower has hit back in his bid to keep his extensive polytunnels after Herefordshire Council said they had to go.

The council issued an enforcement notice in the summer requiring their removal from part of Pennoxstone Court Farm near Kings Caple which supplies strawberries and raspberries.

The farm’s owner Neil Cockburn called the council’s move “astounding” given that the structures have been in place for around three decades, having weathered previous planning challenges.

Permission for 25 hectares of tunnels was confirmed by a Government planning inspector in 2014 after the council had refused a part-retrospective application to permit them, and had taken enforcement action against them.

In its latest enforcement bid the council said that despite the inspector’s ruling, the permission it granted only lasted ten years which has now elapsed. It gave Mr Cockburn until the end of this month to remove the tunnels.

They “appear as visually intrusive and incongruous features within the landscape and cause demonstrable harm to the character, appearance and scenic beauty of the countryside”, the notice said.

But Mr Cockburn and his wife Izabella have now hit back, claiming that ten years is also the period after which such planning conditions become unenforceable – and want a certificate of lawfulness from the council to this effect.

“Once a breach of condition has continued for ten years, immunity from enforcement accrues and the condition can no longer be enforced,” it points out.

The application also claims that the actual layout and surface area of the polytunnels differ from those set out in the planning permission, while agreed undertakings on landscape, transport, drainage and site management had not been carried out.

A rule limiting the heights of the tunnels to four metres had also been breached over the period, it says.

As a point of planning law, “the council is expected to grant a certificate unless it has evidence of its own, or can point to inconsistencies in the applicant’s evidence”, the application adds.

Herefordshire Council has given itself until November 20 to decide the case.