I’d like to but the details about Adam Taylor’s business that are emerging are “suspiciously” relevant:
Adam Taylor also owns the Sarah Mansfield Country Inn, a pub with a wooden-beamed bar in the tiny Warwickshire village of Willey, five miles from their home in Lutterworth, Leicestershire.
Until lockdown it was said to be a “thriving heart of the community”, the only place for its 100 or so residents to socialise in a village that has no shop or church. Taylor is alleged to have stripped the pub of its interior after buying it from a brewer, defying a campaign by villagers who wanted to preserve it.
In March 2021, Rugby borough council approved residents’ request to have the Sarah Mansfield protected as “an asset of community value”, but the decision was overturned on appeal. The next day, diggers and skip lorries appeared. They gutted the premises. Taylor has since won his application to build two properties in the rear car park and turn the first floor of the pub into “letting bedrooms”.
The Taylors have made several planning applications around the Midlands, with business interests ranging from plant hire and waste management to quarrying and holiday lets. Some have been less successful.
In 2008 Carly Gilbert, as she then was, was ordered by Harborough district council to remove a dwelling she and her partner had built in a barn designated for agricultural use. The council in Leicestershire demanded that they “deconstruct and permanently remove from the barn the structure erected inside the barn for human habitation, together with fixtures and fittings”.
The same council (Harborough) issued a notice to Adam Taylor in 2011 stating that he had failed to seek permission before turning farmland near Lutterworth into a haulage yard. He was instructed to “stop using any part of the land as a road haulage business and remove from the land all vehicles and equipment brought onto the land for the purpose of that use”.
The couple had better luck in other planning decisions. Last month Harborough approved their application to build 21 holiday homes at their farm despite an objection by Lutterworth town council that the development would have a significant impact on traffic. (1)
(1) The Sun is more explicit
The 34-year-old former hairdresser and nail technician and her husband Adam, 44, are current and former directors of 18 companies which are mainly involved in waste management and property development.
A planning application submitted to Harborough District Council sets out how they intend to entirely redevelop part of the land formerly used as the Slip Inn Quarry in Leicester Road, Dunton Bassett.
Their latest project is a bid to transform a former quarry at Dunton Bassett, Leicestershire, into a holiday destination. Plans include building a farm shop and café, 33 holiday lodges and a 35-acre solar farm. Office buildings, conference rooms and industrial floorspace are also included within the application, along with an electric car charging facility for 20 vehicles.
