The owner of a motocross track on a Herefordshire farm is fighting attempts to make him get rid of it.

An enforcement notice was served by Herefordshire Council on Richard Hyett of Riley Hill Farm, Cradley near Malvern on July 14, coming into force a month later.

This claimed his motocross track, “with jumps”, was built less than four years previously without planning permission, “and is not therefore immune from enforcement action”.

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It described the track as having “a negative visual effect on the enjoyment of the rural landscape character”, and ordered Mr Hyett to level it within six months, and replant it with grass within nine months.

Before the month was up, My Hyett appealed against the enforcement to the Planning Inspectorate, which has now written to the council saying the appeal should proceed.

The appointed planning inspector, Paul Eland, has said the enquiry will be by written correspondence, to be received by September 28, rather than a hearing. No date has yet been set for the outcome.

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But even if Mr Hyett succeeds in retaining the track, it is unclear whether he would then be able to restart race meetings on it.

He applied last October for a CLEUD (certificate of lawfulness) “for the existing use of the land for the racing and practising of off-road motorcycles”, on the basis that it had already been used for this purpose for over ten continuous years, rendering further use immune from prosecution.

Despite this receiving 229 messages of support, along with 39 of objection, council officer Mark Tansley concluded in April that the submitted evidence did not substantiate the claim and indeed was contradictory, and refused the bid.

Mr Tansley’s subsequent report backing the enforcement action said that according to the CLEUD evidence, the current track was created “around September 2019”, and the aerial images showed “significant change to the track layout” between 2018 and 2020.

“If an appeal proceeds to inquiry, the costs could be significant,” his report added.

Mr Hyett was contacted for comment.