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I am fortunate to be the owner of a few acres in the SE, which is comprised of 2 fields. The lower one is extremely boggy in places and had a small, rather overgrown and temporary pond. With the help of a friend and a big digger, we made a much larger pond, not realising that I should have sought planning permission first. After a visit from an enforcement officer, I duly submitted a retrospective planning application which after a bit of to-ing and fro-ing was finally accepted for submission in September with decision due on Christmas Day (because I'm sure they'd be working then!) The council planning officer assigned to the case sent a request for more detailed plans and information on December 21st, having only performed a site visit the week before. Obviously the deadline was missed and she announced yesterday she was going to visit today with a drainage engineer. I would be away at work all day and replied that I'd rather be there when they visited but she retorted that I wasn't needed and it was nothing to do with me anyway. After a threat that the application would just be rejected outright if I didn't allow them to visit the land, I relented, sending her a letter via e-mail to be careful where they step. Today, after her visit with the engineer, I received the following e-mail: To walk back to the road where they parked is about 150 yards and I'm gutted I didn't have the trailcam set up to witness the spectacle! I still think she's going to be difficult over the application but it cheered me up no end!