LEADING councillors have been urged to resign after defeat in a controversial planning dispute which is set to cost £50,000 and led to a couple facing financial ruin.

Philip Garvey said his wife, Janet, was diagnosed with nervous depression and suffered sleepless nights and the couple faced financial ruin after Pendle councillors ordered them to demolish the newly-built detached home in Barley.

Councillors said they were built of the "wrong" stone - after they had spent £150,000 on the scheme.

A planning inspector criticised the authority when he backed the couple's appeal against the council's decision.

The authority was ordered to pay the full costs of the two-day public inquiry into the matter and the bill to council taxpayers is expected to be around £50,000.

Now Coun Azhar Ali, leader of the opposition Labour group on Pendle Council, said Liberal Coun John David, chairman of the area committee, and senior Tory committee member Coun Shelagh Derwent, should resign because of their roles in the matter.

And Mr Garvey's father has reported the matter to the District Auditor and Local Government Ombudsman.

Philip said: "We're relieved it's all over but we're not in the mood to be celebrating. It's been a constant worry for the past nine months and it's blighted our lives. "My wife was on sleeping tablets and she went to the doctor who diagnosed her with nervous depression because of all this. She gave up her job to move here and now she's reluctant to move into the house.

"The bank withdrew its support when the council enforcement notice was issued. If we had lost the appeal we would have been faced with having to pay out £80,000 on top of the £150,000 we had already spent and we would have been bankrupted."

The Garvey's nightmare began last December when councillors voted to take enforcement action against the almost-completed house in Whitehough, Barley, on the grounds that the work had broken a planning condition which said the walls must be built in coursed natural local stone. The couple had used Haslingden stone which can be found and quarried five miles away.

The couple, who have two sons, Joshua, six, and five-year-old Jacob, moved to Pendle from Leigh. They have been forced to live in rented accommodation in Barrowford since work was halted by the council's actions.

Philip's father, Terry Garvey, said councillors on the authority's Barrowford and Western Parishes area committee went ahead with the enforcement action and fought the appeal despite council officers admitting in private that planning approval had not been breached and the council had no chance of winning the case.

Neither Coun David or Coun Derwent were available for comment today.

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