Larch Grove is a Grade 2 listed building, and is an ancient Drover’s Inn. It is the home of Neil Richards, who lives there with his wife and daughter and he's just had a grand daughter who is only a few weeks old. Opposite the house, only a few yards away, is the entrance to Llandegley Rhos Common that is an important part of the setting of Neil’s home. There is an ancient Scots Pine that marks the ancient Drovers’ Route. All this is under threat of destruction from a proposal to build a massive, industrial, splayed entrance for a wind farm that is being constructed on Llandegley Rhos Common.

The wind farm is being rushed through the planning process by the local council without the proper procedures. The Welsh Government has thrown out local democracy, over-riding hundreds of objections, the local planning authority decision to refuse and a categorical refusal by a public Inquiry.

Neil has been ignored by the developers whose drawings and maps have airbrushed his home out of their planning application and have not had the decency even to visit him or contact him in any way. Neil has graziers’rights on the common and whenever he goes to tend his sheep he is obstructed and abused by the security staff employed by the developer. The house shakes whenever the heavy construction traffic use the track onto the common and Neil is worried that the structure is being damaged.

Larch Grove is an important building and is described in British Listed Buildings as “ A long low range with rear lean-tos. Formerly a roadside inn known as The Drover's Arms........Listed as a long range by roadside with considerable vernacular character.”

Neil has asked a solicitor to try to get a court order to stop this destruction of the setting of his home but he doesn’t have any money to pay the solicitor and a barrister to bring it to court. Please help Neil protect the setting by donating what you can to save both the setting of his home and an unspoilt patch of nature.

Neil says: "I am not very well. I had a pancreas and kidney transplant in 2011 and have no energy to do anything anymore. I just go from day to day and leave everyone else alone and then this comes along. Life is hard enough without this lot bullying me. I am so afraid they are going to do what they like to the copse and to hell with the consequences”

I can confirm on behalf of Contract Answers that the money raised by Jenny Keal’s crowdfunding campaign on behalf of Neil and Sue against Hendy Wind Farm Limited has been used to fund legal costs and liabilities in relation to the application by them and other commoners to the High Court in Cardiff on 16 January. The copse opposite Neil and Sue’s house is still standing. Before the application Hendy was apparently threatening to demolish it in order to increase the width of the access from the A44 to the Common for its construction vehicles and turbine equipment. What Hendy did after the application was to secure alternative access to the Common from a neighbouring landowner. They demolished a long section of hedge adjacent to the copse and then used the neighbouring land to access the Common from the A44. This was apparently done without planning permission, and we are not aware that Powys County Council took any steps to prevent it. The land on which the copse stands has been occupied and used by Neil and Sue for many years, and legal steps are being taken to register title to that land in their names. Hendy are now claiming some £17,000 in costs from Neil, Sue and the other commoners following the discontinuance of the proceedings against Hendy. That claim is being resisted.

– Paul Stafford