A BRAMSHOTT woman took on East Hampshire District Council this week in a court case that will decide once and for all whether she can keep stables for the horses she loves on her land. Landowner Aneska Williams was at Aldershot County Court in a last-ditch attempt to save her stables from being bulldozed. The council wants an injunction ordering Mrs Williams to demolish the stables and "menage" training school which, it argues, were erected without planning permission. If she loses she could face pulling down her own buildings or paying thousands for someone else to do the job. And Mrs Williams, representing herself at the two-day hearing, told the court she feared she could go to prison if the case didn't go her way. She said: "The consequences of me losing this are possibly going to jail or serious financial loss." The dispute began when Mrs Williams took over the land in 1998 and replaced the existing dilapidated barn stables with new models, including a training area for competition horses. Then in April this year, Mrs Williams secured a certificate of lawful use for the land, which allowed her to keep and train horses. But the council still maintained the developments on her land were unlawful, and stuck to its initial enforcement order for them to be removed. At the time, the council's solicitor, Michael Lawther, explained the reasons for pursuing an injunction. He said: "In planning terms, having horses on land is not considered visually intrusive, but the building of stables and a menage is, and therefore we are continuing to press for the removal of all structures from this land. "The inspector decided that use of the land for horses was acceptable, because horses on the appeal site have been long-established." But in court on Tuesday, Mrs Williams said an officer's report, which had set out the grounds for an enforcement order, did not reflect the high level of support she had received from parishioners. She reaffirmed that in erecting the new stables, she had merely replaced buildings which had become run down. But Mrs Wells maintained that keeping and training horses on agricultural land amounted to a material change of use, which is subject to planning control. She said: "Stabling is operational development. You cannot just demolish buildings and erect new ones on top. There is no 'like for like'." Earlier, Katie Skerrett, representing EHDC, told the court that the case at hand was not to do with planning merits. She said: "The issue is narrower than Mrs Williams would like it to be." The court attended a site visit on Wednesday morning, attended by Mrs Williams, Recorder Tim Lamb and EHDC solicitor Sonia Sharp. As The Herald went to press, Recorder Lamb announced he had decided to issue an injunction in favour of EHDC, but he said he would suspend it for four months in the hope that Mrs Williams and the council could resolve the planning issues at the centre of the dispute.
