A PROPERTY owner has been ordered to demolish an extension after failing to get planning permission before carrying out major renovations. He bought an old pub in London’s East End and started renovations to convert it into flats

By Mike Brooke

A PROPERTY owner has been ordered to demolish an extension after failing to get planning permission before carrying out major renovations.

Nehar Choudhury bought an old pub in London's East End from Tower Hamlets Council and started renovations within weeks to convert it into flats.

But he didn't apply to the Town Hall for planning approval. Council officials even visited the disused pub several times and made numerous phone calls warning him the building work was unauthorised.

Yet he continued the renovations, Thames magistrates were told.

The council then issued a summons against Choudhury and his company, Nabiganj Investment, for failing to comply with a Temporary Stop notice.

The court fined him a total of �14,000 plus the council's �500 court costs, the largest fine to date for a first time planning offence in Tower Hamlets.

The council served Choudhury notice last Friday that all works done on site in Sutton Street, off the Commercial Road in Stepney, must now be demolished.