Alfie Best?
He appears to be untouchable – despite his multiple illegal actions.
He’s also the owner of a landfill site – on humberside? – with a contiuously burning underground fire.
Neither the LA nor the local fire service have been able (or willing?) to take robust enforcement action against him or his agents.

A bit like, I dunno, an MP fiddling their expenses?

Fiddling expenses is fraud. It should be prosecuted as fraud.

Countries like the U.K. have centuries of laws, including common law and statutes. Many of them are archaic and are still law just because they haven’t been reviewed and struck off (furious riding, for example is still an offence in many parts of the world.) No human being can possibly know every single law, so you are probably breaking a bunch of laws every time you set foot outside your house. It’s not good prosecutorial practice to decide that someone deserves to go to jail and then set about finding some technical violation to charge them with. That’s exactly why the U.S. has so many problems with their policing – the police do traffic stops as a pretext to harass people who haven’t committed any serious offence.

It’s not good prosecutorial practice to decide that someone deserves to go to jail and then set about finding some technical violation to charge them with.

But it is good practice to ask eg “might this be arson?”
No-> No further action
Yes – > “can we prove it was arson?”
No – >No further action
Yes – > “is a prosecution in the public interest?”
No -> No further action
Yes – > “can we identify a suspect?”
Etc etc

Or in the case of the HSWA
“does it look likely there was a significant contravention?”
“does the very public nature of that pose a continued risk?”
“is pursuit in the public interest”

It doesn’t have to be a fishing expedition or a witch hunt to think the police etc might be interested in this for a multitude of reasons, I don’t suppose the owner will be in court on tax evasion anytime soon though.

Whether any of that actually ends up in a court is a long long way down the list of considerations.

It get’s better:-

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12389385/EXCLUSIVE-Pictured-Glamorous-businesswoman-bought-Britains-wonkiest-pub-just-days-destroyed-fire-demolished-locals-claim-purchase-followed-rows-road-access-neighbouring-land-site-run-husband.html

Must have got Sherlock Holmes on the case to deduce that was arson.

well the owners live up to the name “Crooked” anyway!

It get’s better:-

A daily mail link is never better

Hard pass on clicking on anything Daily Mail here.

There’s enough brownfield sites in each council area to meet the housing targets

That’s demonstrably untrue in large parts of the country

I can’t find the article I was originally remembering, but a quick google throws up this, and there’s more recent reports from people like CPRE, who have a vested interest of course.

https://www.uwe.ac.uk/research/centres-and-groups/spe/projects/availability-of-brownfield-land-for-housing-development-in-england

From the Daily Mail article.

He said officers had ‘spoken to, and continue to engage, with the owners’, adding that its joint investigation with Staffordshire Fire and Rescue Service had so far been unable to determine the cause of the fire.

Given that it was a pub, stocked with bottles of alcohol, plus the site has been bulldozed by earthmoving equipment (which can leak diesel or hydraulic fluid), there’s plausible deniability that the presence of accelerants proves arson, assuming their sniffer dog detects some.

Getting an inconvenient obstacle out of the way of the surrounding landfill.

If the legal penalty is a ‘Fine’,  it just means it costs ‘this much’ to do it. If you can afford it.

Which they can.

And have.

assuming their sniffer dog detects some.

I’d be surprised if they spend that much time on it to be honest. Fairly obvious the fire is suspicious the chances of establishing more than that are at this point exceedingly slim.

Fairly obvious the fire is suspicious the chances of establishing more than that are at this point exceedingly slim.

Yup. Even if shown to be arson then they can still blame the local yoof.
There is a reason mysterious fires destroying inconvenient old buildings which were blocking the preferred redevelopment keep happening.

There is a reason mysterious fires destroying inconvenient old buildings which were blocking the preferred redevelopment keep happening.

Because it’s ridiculously difficult to get rid of them legitimately?

Because it’s ridiculously difficult to get rid of them legitimately?

And sadly the reason its difficult is to stop genuinely interesting/rare buildings being destroyed.

A more pragmatic appproach for many wpuld reduce the risk for the few.

A more pragmatic appproach for many wpuld reduce the risk for the few.

True of so very many things.

Will they have to apply for permission to use the site as landfill?

If so, what is stopping this getting granted?

It’ll need a change of use regardless given it was a pub. Change to a landfill will have a *lot* of approvals, environmental impact assessments etc to go through.

You can’t just bury rubbish anywhere and it sounds as though they may have pissed off the council in the process of flattening the building at least which I can’t see helping any application.
The publicity about the case won’t help either.

Of course they might just do it anyway.

They gutted another local pub apparently and are willing to fight in court to remove protected status. I would like to think change of use would be rejected, but they will just chuck lawyers at it and win.

Keep an eye out for this or the next months Private Eye, they’ll be all over this no doubt, they have a section devoted to listed buildings and development etc.

where were the YouTube auditors when you needed them?

where were the YouTube auditors when you needed them?

Maybe this is what they’re auditing and it was a success? No one prevented them from exercising their right to enter, set fire to and then demolish the pub.

That or maybe the lack of minimum wage security guards to harass with invented legalese meant it was pointless.

where were the YouTube auditors when you needed them?

The point of being an auditor is that you yourself are the most important thing in the whole transaction – if something of actual importance is actually happening then it reduces your auditing to merely ‘filming is a documentary’. How is anyone going to know how important you think you are if you do that? There mustn’t be any actual content!

So its vital that whatever you are auditing is as far away as possible from any actual event of interest that might be occurring.

With the benefit of hindsight, some of the previous reporting on the BBC of the sale of the pub makes for interesting reading–from July 28th:

“A pub believed to be the wonkiest in Britain has been sold but is unlikely to “open its doors again”, the venue says.

A post on the Facebook page of The Crooked House near Dudley stated Marston’s had sold the site to a private buyer “for alternative use”.”

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-birmingham-66337783

and from back in March, if only we knew then what was ultimately going to happen to the building…

“This week, Marston’s announced it had instructed a business property adviser to sell the Crooked House along with seven other of its freehold pubs across the West Midlands.

Nik Antona, chairman of the Campaign for Real Ale, told BBC Radio WM he hoped they do not disappear completely.

“What we’re concerned about, is for the properties to remain as pubs,” he said.”

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-birmingham-64912966

It’s a sad end to a piece of our history.

Shame on those who destroyed it.

See also, the Robin Hood pub in Knaphill, Woking. Very similar, developers bought it, it burned down, demolished within a week despite arson suspected, so evidence lost. Former council leader and chief exec directors of development company. The same two behind the corruption of skyscraper investments and other developments that put Woking into £2.6bn debt.

Shame on those who destroyed it.

Yeah, I don’t really think these people do shame.

Plus any bad feelings, however unlikely, are easily assuaged by those millions in the bank.

Yeah, I don’t really think these people do shame.

Plus any bad feelings, however unlikely, are easily assuaged by those millions in the bank.

This is the problem. You have some land that is worth much more without the building on it than with the building on it. People who don’t own the land want the landowner to keep the building as a public good, but the landowner doesn’t want to subsidize the public good. If the building is neglected and has to be demolished, then the land becomes much more valuable. Same if it just happens to catch fire. If you want to preserve historic buildings, you need to make it economically worthwhile for the owners to preserve it. If you see it as a public good, then you need to spend public money to preserve it instead of hoping that private owners will do it out of the goodness of their hearts.

Also, just because something’s old doesn’t mean it deserves to be preserved. Some old buildings are historic and deserve preservation. Most are just old buildings and should be demolished and replaced with something useful.

I do find it a bit galling though that the building was referred for assessment for a preservation order but there appears to be no way for this to be immediately implemented.

A tpo on the one right beside my house? yeah, slapped on in half an hour.

Also, just because something’s old doesn’t mean it deserves to be preserved. Some old buildings are historic and deserve preservation. Most are just old buildings and should be demolished and replaced with something useful.

Very much this.

I think our homes would be much better if we had a much faster rebuilding rate in the UK.

https://theconversation.com/five-numbers-that-lay-bare-the-mammoth-effort-needed-to-insulate-britains-homes-162540

I do find it a bit galling though that the building was referred for assessment for a preservation order but there appears to be no way for this to be immediately implemented.

Ok, but even if it has a preservation order, what happens if it burns down and nobody can prove that it was arson? What if the owner just forgot to pay the insurance bill and it turns out to be uninsured? Or, if there the insurance company refuses to pay because it was a suspicious fire and access to the site was blocked by earthmoving equipment, but there isn’t enough evidence to get a conviction on a criminal charge? Relying on private owners to preserve historic buildings is always going to end in situations like this. If you want to preserve historic buildings as a public good, you’re going to need to spend public money. If it’s not worth spending public money to preserve a building, is the building really worth saving?

Interesting update on the BBC:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-birmingham-66459842

TLDR:

The owner of a hire firm that supplied the excavator used to demolish the pub said he had done nothing wrong.
Speaking to Construction News Lyndon Thomas said the firm had delivered the self-drive machinery a week and a half ago.
“We just hire a digger to a customer. I can’t be responsible for what they do with the machinery,” he said.
Mr Thomas also said employees had been sent “horrific” emails.
“If I knew this was going to happen I probably would have done something different, but I’m not Mystic Meg,” he added.

Hmmmmm……..

Most are just old buildings and should be demolished and replaced with something useful.

Like landfill, or warehouses…

Like landfill, or warehouses…

Landfill and warehouses have to go somewhere. If it’s more profitable to use a piece of land for a landfill than a pub, why would you want to put a pub there, it must be a really shitty pub.

Landfill and warehouses have to go somewhere. If it’s more profitable to use a piece of land for a landfill than a pub, why would you want to put a pub there, it must be a really shitty pub.

It’s more profitable to use a piece of land for housing than playing fields, so presumably you don’t mind those being paved over?

I can’t believe I live in a society where people think that the most appropriate use of land is that which makes them the most money, and damn everyone else.

Ok, but even if it has a preservation order, what happens if it burns down and nobody can prove that it was arson?

Oh absolutely, though “allowing harm to come to” a preserved building or tree is a breach of the order so there would potentially be some disincentive to it miraculously being destroyed by fire there.

It’s more that at the point of purchase by the new owners, had they been making the same noise about a tree, the preservation order would have been in place and binding pretty much instantly, with a building they get (effectively) served written notice that we’re looking at putting a BPO in place so now is the time to get rid of it.

(i.e. had they not had to give notice, I wonder if the fire wouldn’t have happened until the order was put in place)

In the case here I think it’s rather an irrelevance – I don’t like the how*, but I broadly agree with the what and why in this case.
(FWIW, I’m very much in favour of [sites of] things like pubs, churches and schools being kept as such as they do serve a community good, the buildings themselves I’ve little interest in unless they’re valuable enough to need to be handed over to EH or the like)

*as I mentioned re the demolition I think there’s some questions to be asked about the precise how, not because old falling over building but because it’s not acceptable to put staff at risk to do it. Outside appearance I would expect some big flags under HSWA, at least enough to ask some pointed questions.

Landfill and warehouses have to go somewhere. If it’s more profitable to use a piece of land for a landfill than a pub, why would you want to put a pub there, it must be a really shitty pub.

It was, but it was unique and I’m sad to see it go. Mind you, I haven’t been for about 2 years so…

As for the area, it’s a strange one. Anyone that knows the place will know that the immediate vicinity is a total shithole. There is a landfill, a travellers site (no judgement here, but I contact the council regularly about the fly tipping that blocks off the disused railway walk immediately adjacent to them), there is also a scrapyard just down the way, an old quarry etc.

Go 5 mins over the road and you have the Earl of Dudley’s old gaf at Himley Hall, a beautiful open space that is a real asset to the community. This links to Baggeridge which is woodland and a nice cafe etc.

5 mins down the road is the village of Himley where I live, a few listed buildings and a really nice feel…right on the edge of the conurbation so nice and green.

5 mins up the Himley Road are some enormous houses, nice neighbourhood.

Yet the Crooked House sits in an unloved shithole, which was always part of the problem.

What SC said, also most of the area directly around the crooked house used to be a huge landfill site.
Another property with even more historic significance  a few hundred metres away from the crooked house, holbeach house (was a nursing home) is also empty and boarded up, awaiting to see when that goes up in flames

A tpo on the one right beside my house? yeah, slapped on in half an hour.

The planning system in the UK is corrupt at all levels.

Around our way if a run of the mill householder wants to do something relatively minor and unobtrusive the planning can take agess. When the local matey boy who buys up houses cheap, screws plasterboard over the damp, fits a new bathroom and puts in all manner of horrors like huge dormer windows that overlook other houses/gardens pitches up… planning granted in a matter of hours. He probably knows how to present his stuff better than the average Joe, but approval for major works within hours vs weeks/months if Joe Bloggs wants to extend his porch etc?

just spotted this on Fb

PRESS RELEASE

10/08/2023

CAMRA pub closure figures expose ‘nationwide scandal’ in wake of unauthorised demolition of the Crooked House

Campaign group says government at all levels must stop developers flouting planning laws.

The Campaign for Real Ale has declared the unlawful conversion and demolition of pubs in England a ‘nationwide scandal’, following the high-profile case of the Crooked House in South Staffordshire.

Shortly after the pub was sold by Marston’s PLC, a fire destroyed much of the interior of the building on the weekend of 5 August. Under 48 hours later, the remaining structure of the building was demolished without planning permission. A public statement from South Staffordshire Council confirmed that the full demolition of the building was not mandated by the safety inspection that took place after the fire.

In 2017 planning law was changed so that pubs in England could not be converted or demolished without planning permission, but shocking figures published by CAMRA last week show that over 30 pubs may have been demolished or converted without planning permission in the last 6 months.

CAMRA’s Pub Campaigns Director, Gary Timmins, has now written to Rachel Maclean MP, Housing and Planning Minister, asking for central government to take action to deter unscrupulous developers and ensure that illegally demolished pubs are rebuilt ‘brick by brick’.

In the letter, Timmins wrote about the Crooked House:

“The complete destruction of this iconic pub has brought the nationwide scandal of the non-enforcement of pub protection legislation to the forefront of people’s minds.”

CAMRA Chairman, Nik Antona, added:

“This damaging practice must stop, and those found to have converted or demolished pubs against planning rules must be required to restore the original building brick by brick. If local authorities won’t provide adequate planning enforcement, then central government needs to step in to make sure that unscrupulous developers know that they will face action if they do the same.

“It is a tragedy that loved community pubs continue to be converted or demolished without planning permission in England, and that weak planning rules in Scotland and Wales allow this to happen legally. Government across the UK and at all levels needs to step up and get serious about protecting the UK’s treasured pub stock.”

Ends

Notes to editors

CAMRA’s Pub Closure Data is compiled from CAMRA’s pub database at  whatpub.com and a full report can be downloaded from the CAMRA website at https://camra.org.uk/campaign_resources/camra-pub-closure-report-january-june-2023/

CAMRA’s Pub Data Team now carry out checks against reported conversions and demolitions to check whether planning permission has been granted. In 31 out of a total 95 cases in the period January to June 2023, we could not find a registered planning application in respect of the pubs, suggesting that the demolition or conversion has taken place without the required planning permission.

The full letter from Gary Timmins to Rachel Maclean, Minister for Housing and Planning reads:

Rachel Maclean MP

Minister of State (Housing and Planning)

Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities

2 Marsham Street

London

SW1P 4DF

10 August 2023

RE: Demolition of the Crooked House, South Staffordshire, and flouting of planning protections for pubs

Dear Rachel Maclean,

I am writing on behalf of CAMRA, the Campaign for Real Ale, about the case of the Crooked House in Himley and the wider scandal of property developers flouting planning rules that protect pubs without serious and consistent consequences across the country.

CAMRA campaigns to support and save pubs (and social clubs) across the UK and we take a keen interest in planning matters, having been a part of the successful campaign to secure the removal of Permitted Development Rights (PDRs) relating to pubs in England in 2017.

Following the recent sale of the Crooked House by Marstons PLC, a fire destroyed much of the interior of the building on the weekend of 5 August. Under 48 hours later, the remaining structure of the building was demolished without planning permission.

From public statements by South Staffordshire Council, we now understand that the full demolition of the building was not required by the safety inspection that took place after the fire.

The complete destruction of this iconic pub has brought the nationwide scandal of the non-enforcement of pub protection legislation to the forefront of people’s minds.

Despite the removal of PDRs relating to pubs in England six years ago, we continue to see developers flouting the rules with pubs routinely converted or demolished without that permission in place. Figures compiled and released by CAMRA just last week showed that up to a third of closures and demolitions may be happening without the required planning permission, denying the local community the opportunity to save their local pub.

In the period January to June 2023, 64 pubs were converted or demolished in England with planning permission, however we are aware of a further 31 conversions or demolitions where we cannot find a planning application registered in respect of the pubs – and therefore may have taken place in contravention of planning laws.

This damaging practice must stop, and those found to have converted or demolished pubs against planning rules must be required to restore the original building brick by brick, as in the case of the Carlton Tavern in Maida Vale and the Punch Bowl in Cockfosters.

This is a widespread failure of local planning authorities to deliver their enforcement duties, partly due to fear of costly appeals or legal action from developers. Central government now needs to step in bolster planning policy if necessary, so that unscrupulous developers know that they will face action if they breach the law.

The decisive and celebrated actions that the Government took to protect pubs – a national cultural treasure – in 2017 will be undermined if this situation is allowed to continue.

We would welcome to chance to meet with you to discuss our data and how planning enforcement can be strengthened to deter developers from flouting legislation and ensure that illegally demolished or converted pubs are restored brick by brick.

Yours sincerely,

Gary Timmins

CAMRA National Director and Chair of Pub Campaigns

Ends

It’s more profitable to use a piece of land for housing than playing fields, so presumably you don’t mind those being paved over?

Do you live in a house or a field? If you live in a house, it was once wilderness that was paved over to build a house.