04 December 2005 Blog Home : December 2005 : Permalink
A woman faces a fine of £20,000 after coating her Grade II listed house with organic yoghurt on the orders of the local planning authority
Julie Waters, 41, stripped ivy from the house at Downton, Wiltshire, because it had damaged the pointing and was causing damp problems. She followed the local authority’s advice and had the building repointed with traditional lime mortar.
Shortly afterwards she received an enforcement notice that the work had been carried out without listed building consent. She was instructed to treat the new mortar to make it look weathered and was given the choice of soot, horse manure or plain — not fruit — yoghurt.
Glad to see that the jobsworths down in Wiltshire have lots to do. It gets worse though:Mrs Waters says she bought ten one-litre pots and paid her window cleaner to apply it to the house. But instead of encouraging lichen growth, it flaked off within days. She has now been summoned to appear before Salisbury magistrates on December 16 for “failing to comply” with an enforcement notice.
So given a choice of soot (tricky to get hold of in quantity I imagine), shit (a trifle smelly?) or yoghurt (readily available from all good supermarkets) she chose option C. Obviously she should have used the Bifidus Bulgarian culture yoghurt...