A homeowner has been told to stop using their garden to store stock cars and two steam traction engines.

Neil Bowers lost an appeal to overturn an enforcement notice requiring him to remove the vehicles from his land.

A planning inspector said storing stacks of stock cars in the garden was harming the character of the area.

Fenland District Council issued an enforcement notice in January last year alleging that, without planning permission the garden of 6 Bridge Lane, Wimblington, was being used to store vehicles.

The district council also said a new building had also been put up to store vehicles.

The notice ordered the homeowner to stop using the land to store vehicles and to break up any areas of hardstanding and to dismantle the building put up without consent.

Mr Bowers appealed against this enforcement notice.

He told a planning inspector that one of his hobbies was stock car racing and explained that he keeps some stock cars on his land during the season, which are then taken away to be raced as the season progresses.

Mr Bowers asked for permission to be able to keep the stock cars within his garden, stacked no higher than the boundary walls.

The inspector said that correspondence shortly after the enforcement notice was issued said there were 20 stock cars being kept at the home.

The planning inspector said keeping a small number of stock cars for Mr Bowers own use would not necessarily constitute a change of use of the land.

However, they said the large number of “partially dismantled vehicles stacked on the land” could not be considered “reasonably and ordinarily ancillary to the enjoyment” of the home.

The inspector also highlighted that the size of the building put up to store two steam traction engines was “significantly greater” than what would be allowed through permitted development.

The planning inspector said: “Even those not exceeding the boundary wall may well be seen from the upper floors of adjacent buildings, and the storage of stock cars in these numbers, and stacking of any vehicles in this area is harmful to its character.

“Use for the storage of steam traction engines may not in itself harm the character of the area, but the building of industrial scale and design required to store them, and the extensive hardstanding area facilitating their transport, is harmful particularly considering the residential and small-scale agricultural character of the area.”

The inspector upheld the enforcement notice and refused to give planning permission for the vehicles to be stored on the land.