Dinah and Stig Mason with sons Yosse, 8, and Dahli, 9, and Moo the dog
at their lorry home (Marcus Thompson)
July 12 Update: The Mason family is now living in a tent offsite while appealing the decision. You can write to Councilor Peter Hare-Scott, the authority’s leader, in support of them. pharescott@middevon.gov.uk
A COUPLE living an “off-grid” lifestyle say they face prison unless they move from their own land in Willand and return to an existence in the benefits trap.
Stig and Dinah Mason bought Muxbeare Orchard after a sudden windfall allowed them to quit their impoverished lives on a Hertfordshire council estate two years ago.
The Masons have transformed what they described as a derelict four-acre plot into a haven of self-sufficiency boasting a 400 sq m allotment, a polytunnel and greenhouses to grow fruit and vegetables, chickens for egg production and an orchard they have regenerated by planting around 14 new apple trees of various species.
The couple, who have two boys, aged eight and nine, say because they moved onto the site in order to work the land, Mid Devon District Council is turfing them off as officers do not consider them to be conserving an agricultural area.
They faced magistrates on March 31 when they were served with an injunction to leave within 28 days from June 1.
Dinah, 35, who spent a year with her husband clearing four-foot high nettles and thistles which engulfed the four-acre site, said: “How anybody can say the orchard was being conserved before is beyond my comprehension.”
Read more at Mid Devon Gazette
####
This did this in Indiana, too: Elderly Man Evicted from His Land for Living off the Grid
Food Freedom 
This is obviously yet another case of bureaucratic madness, if not part of the New World Order Agenda make us all dependent on their psychotic system, no exceptions allowed. I also suspect that the council staff responsible are ETs, because they can’t possibly be human, that is to say with a beating heart and a normally functioning brain in their heart. .
Could someone find out an e-mail address to contact the Mid Devon District Council to lodge a protest?
Mid Devon District Council
Address
Phoenix House
Phoenix Lane
Tiverton
Devon
EX16 6PP
Phone number
01884 255 255
Fax
01884 234 318
Email address
customerfirst@middevon.gov.uk
Website (opens new window)
http://www.middevon.gov.uk
Hours
Monday to Thursday 9.00 am to 5.00 pm, Friday 9.00 am to 4.30 pm (visits);
Monday to Thursday 8.30 am to 5.00 pm, Friday 8.30am to 4.30pm (phone)
Exactly what should be enriching life! A role model Even!
Alas – another OPPOSITE of what is!!
Lettuce use them as a model – For prosperity of Life
so lets get this straight… The family bought 4 acres and the council considers it agricultural land and in order to own so called agricultural land one must have an enterprise that makes money.
I am so sick of the real “terrorists” aka the council in this case… all they ever talk about is war ..war.. war… money…money.. money….
I’m on the other side of the planet, in the US, but that doesn’t meant I can tell when something is totally out of wack!! And this is just nonsense!!
FG
“Any change is resisted because bureaucrats have a vested interest in the chaos in which they exist.” Richard M. Nixon
Doc Blake
Why not manufacture charcoal or anything like that which requires you to live on the land?
now, there’s an idea
De-register the land. Send an affidavit to the prime minister saying you are exempt from their societal rules and want no more part of it. Without registration of the land they have NO power.
The council are just Nazi’s as someone said previously war, war, war, money,money,money this council and the world is totally out of wack and sentient beings are now realising that they are living in a prison without bars. Notice to Councils one day the meek shall inherit the Earth and you will not be invited
can we lodge a protest (or call) if we live in the US??
i’d write them as a concerned citizen
As a concerned ‘global’ citizen. They tend to respond better to people who use their own NWO-inspired vocabulary…
To those who feel as angry as I do about this bullshit attitude of a jobsworth council get this. Another example of the bullshit bureaucratic system we live in her in the UK.
My friend and fellow neighbour recently had her house go up in smoke. Fortunately there was no-one home. But the council say that because there is still furniture in the property (no electricity, totally destroyed kitchen and dining room, trashed first floor where the floor does not exist anymore and extensive smoke damage to the entire property) she must continue to pay £1000 per month in council tax for her property despite the fact that the insurance have condemned her home and moved her into temporary rented accommodation pending the repair of her property. The insurance however does not include paying of council tax in this temporary accommodation so the council are charging her twice. Or at least they are trying to.
As for these good people in the article my intention is to challenge the Tory government via my own MP.
The MP for Tiverton and Honiton in Devon is:
Neil Parish and he can be contacted via the details found here:
http://www.theyworkforyou.com/mp/neil_parish/tiverton_and_honiton
It matters not that you live overseas. When injustice is done to another its everybody’s business. Send him an e-mail and tell him how you found out and be polite at all times. As a very good and wise elderly friend of mine is always saying ‘Always maintain the moral high ground’.
We can help these people and stop this stupidity once and for all.
Also is there some way we can contact these good people with some messages of encouragement just to let them know we are on their side and they are not alone?
since they live off grid, I have no way to find them electronically.
Not true. I live “off the grid” and still have internet and a phone. Just because they live off the grid does not mean there in the stone ages. Mobile internet / solar power i even have freeview a hot running shower. I don’t feel i go without anything. unfortunately i could not find a way to do this in my birth country ( The UK )
I have written to the Mid Devon Council just now and I copy the letter here for your interest (minus my personal details of course):
Dear Sir/Madam,
I have been alerted to what I consider to be a seriously miscarriage of common sense and government policy.
As a subscriber to a website called Food Freedom I received an article relating to the above issue of a family living off-grid on their own orchard land which they had restored to full fertility without recourse to living off benefits or other handouts.
This couple are being treated abysmally in my opinion and despite your councils view that they are in breach of certain regulations I find myself in opposition to these views.
I therefore ask that you retract the eviction order in the interests of common sense and good faith for this family, who by their own initiative and hard work have made every attempt (successfully I might add) to integrate and work within the local community as accepted citizens.
If the council really wants to be seen as being caring and visionary in its approach to the way the local community is being run then at least allow the family to stay and review their progress annually for the next few years to ensure that they are indeed doing what they say they are planning to do.
To act out of jobsworth determination and evict them will not endear you to this family or their fellow community members. I would suggest that a review procedure with an agreement from both parties would be the preferable route to take. Don’t add to the burden of society when a family, willing to work for themselves, show the way to a self sufficient future. Its their life so please don’t mess it up for the sake of bureaucratic integrity.
I look forward to a positive outcome for this family.
Although I know you are not able to comment on individual cases your response would still be most welcome should you choose to make one.
Regards
Beyond this point I posted the links to this page and the original article.
Also for information purposes any letters sent must include your full name and address so that they can be responded too and so that they can be authenticated. This is just standard procedure with government departments whether local or national.
well done!
wonderful! Nice job.
I hope more folks write the Council.
Sepp Holzer, the Austrian permaculture specialist, said it best, there is alot of money to be made in human need and suffering. This family doesn’t need anything, therefore, bureaucracies can’t justify their own existences.
The tyrants of the New World Order obviously felt threatened by a self sufficient family. That is exactly why self sufficient families are so critically important in the fight against tyranny because they have no need for the NWO. How insane, they are productive and self sufficient, so they have to go. I say the morally bankrupt UN and the NWO has to go. This self sufficient and productive family should be held up as a model for the rest of society, but then the social engineers would be seen as superfluous.
The family should stay put and continue to refuse to recognize the Council’s authority over them and their land. Period.
I totally agree: SQUAT!
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This is another example of the UNs Agenda 21 in action, right down to the level of turning one family’s dream into a nightmare.
One suggestion I have is for them to rear and sell rare-breed farm animals. That would require someone to live there to tend to the animals and would provide a modest income.
I have just read the story about Stig and Dinah Mason, who bought Muxbeare Orchard after a sudden windfall allowed them to quit their impoverished lives on a Hertfordshire council estate two years ago.
It then states that your council in their warped decision are about to evict these wonderful people with their two young children from their home, on the feeble excuse they have breached some pathetic technicality .
That is a minor error which could easily be corrected, yet your officials have chosen to abuse your tax payers powers to evict these productive and intelligent people from their home, and their land. Whoever made such a crass draconian decision to break up this family, making them homeless, should themselves be sacked and then evicted from their home.
I think any one reading the Mason family’s current plight would see this as an appalling decision made by appalling Mid Devon District Council bullies
yeah, Vincent ~ let us know if they reply
100% correct Vincent but you are all forgetting including the Council the words of Cameron. If you want to start a buisiness then go ahead and do it. But sack this scumbag while they are at it. Raymond Ashley
Ex Master Builder. Best of luck to these wonderful people.
This is the latest news we have on this family’s situation: http://www.thisisdevon.co.uk/Father-writes-support-family-face-eviction-land/story-12927825-detail/story.html
thanks, I’ve updated the article.
July 12 Update: The Mason family is now living in a tent offsite while appealing the decision. You can write to Councilor Peter Hare-Scott, the authority’s leader, in support of them. pharescott@middevon.gov.uk
Members of the District Council are either insane or stupid to take the means of an income out of the mouths of an entire family who got itself off the dole, forcing them back onto the dole.
The decision regarding the Masons exemplifies when it’s time to reconstitute government — one that acts on behalf of the community rather than as some authoritarian bureaucracy that costs the taxpayers money with their salaries and with fiscally retarded rules.
The entire town should get behind this family and force the District to change its rules. They serve at the people’s pleasure, after all.
It is the bird brained buffoons in the Council that should go during the cuts in Public Servises, and good riddence to the lot of them, and they should be named and shamed, for the public to see, and we could get them all together and put them in a mental hospital for some treatment, but then we could never cure these kind of individuals because they are all the same in every Council in the Country Corrupt and drunk with power.But give them one last chance and send them to LYBIA
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This is exactly why there are riots in England
It’s neo feudalism, plain and simple, where the “corporaticracy” and wage-slave has replaced the king and peasant, respectively.
heartbreakinly sad but… I would say… stay and fight fight fight… good luck beautiful strong smart people ;-)))
this is england for you again,but when the council want to build on green belt land thats ok !!!!!, if people are sick of the rat race as i am and want to live off the land, whats the problem!!! the problem is its all a conspiracy in england its all about govenment greed for money.whats wrong with freedom!!!
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im looking to go off the grid myself…4arces is worth fighting for after all that hard work
you have my best wishes R
Bureaucratic idiocy at its finest! I’ve lived in Devon for many years and to say the local authorities aren’t very bright is an understatement. ‘We’ve always done things this way’ is something I’ve frequently come across in this part of the country, and some miserable jobsworth who probably spends his day hunting out obscure legislation in order to persecute a family who are doing everything right for themselves, harming nobody and resurrecting a piece of derelict land in the process, is an apalling waste of taxpayer’s money.
I fully support the Masons and wish them well.
Go to LawfulRebelion.co.uk what they are trying to do isn’t legal. You don’t need to move!
We and finally discovered on the internet the way in which to post! However, great web site and added yah for so next time.
Gov’t Terrorism At Its Finest! BOO!
what a useful website – 1 practical suggestion surrounded by a load of paranoid ramblings – i’d like to see our world change too but nobody will respond to you when you sound like a bunch of survivalists in Nebraska.
switch on!
yes nothing the government does makes any sense at all. it’s all about agenda 21 plans to have everyone living under a smart grid for the ability of total control.
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This has really pissed me off, they are living a self sufficient life style (witch is what I’m hoping to do in the future) they are proving we don’t need money to live I just hate that fact that people are FORCED to do things,why do the council have power? They don’t they are only human like you and me its just a form of control it just really pisses me off we are born and we have to pay to live but why? You don’t see a fox paying to live or any other free animal it’s a form of control why can’t people see that, in my eyes people are going to get sick of it and people will rise up, it’s our choice, our life NOT theirs
I wish I could tell the couple my thoughts about how to help them
——-/——
How to live on your land with your horses etc …
or no livestock at all
with no planning
Did you know all can live a parcel of land that you own or a friend with out planning permission
Let me explain
You buy a parcel of land as one unit or as how many fields you want to buy in the first place
Once you own the deeds hopefully with no mortgage
You then are entitled to go to the land registry UK
You then can reregister parcels off this land in small plots etc
This only costs around 600 pounds to do 🙂 14 plots
You are then allowed then 28 days per year on each parcel of land
All you need to register it least 14 plots off on one title deed to make 14 new title deeds for a plot of land etc….
This gives you the right to Camper/mobile home – Caravan – horsebox converted lorry converted to live with your horses on your land for ever
Your towable moveable building can be the size of 20m x6.7m
But make sure you can move it
Also if this big
Made into moveable units
To be able to move
To plot to plot if the council put pressure on you to move it
Also you will not have to pay rates because you are only temporary on the land per plot
I did pay rates for 10 years on my land then I had a eviction put against me on the one Parcel of land
So after the eviction notice the Council said I did not have to pay rates
This made me do then what I did above
12 years later I am still living on the land
there is nothing the council can do
If you own a parcel of land you are allowed to camp on your land for 28 days of year
there is no limit to the amount of people that can be on the land
also the 28 days per year
is as per plot of land
If the council issue you to fill out any forms saying your residential
you decline on the form and say on the form you are only camping
as it is your right under the government guidelines
(a) 28-day tent camping rights
Many tent campsites operate under the ’28-day’ rules, a form of ‘permitted development’ allowing land to be used without planning permission ‘for any purpose for not more than 28 days in total in any calendar year…and the provision on land of any moveable structures [tents] for the purposes of the permitted use’.
This suits the typical summer campsite perfectly, allowing not only tent camping but also portable buildings for ablutions and offices. Note that planning permission is still required for any engineering work to install drains, electricity, roads, etc.
‘The government says’
The rules on 28-day camping are vague. In particular, it’s not clear whether the 28 days have to run consecutively, so many owners ‘cherry pick’ the busiest periods, sacrificing some of the summer period for spring bank-holiday weekends. Technically, land must be restored to its original condition between the periods of use, and any moveable structures removed, so a continuous period of 28 days may be more viable. However, some owners take advantage of different 28-day periods on different parcels of land under the same ownership.
This like below give you ideas of what a moveable structure is :
http://www.timberspecs.co.uk/mobile-homes-legal.html
Hi John, this is great advice, i have a similar situation. wondering if we could have a chat? Mark
At the moment I am living on my own land and have had a PCN issued against me by the council. I have applied for planning permission for a mobile log house, within the measurements for a mobile home. We are buying more land and renting more to give us the 5 hectares needed to qualify for permitted development. We are in no ones way, no one can see us from anywhere, we are starting an agricultural business but when we first applied and were rejected we asked for a meeting with the LPA with our ward councillor to try to iron out any issues but they refused a meeting !!! there is no help no information and the legal bods just want money to fight your case. we work, have 4 children and live in a mobile home through 2 winters, I am going to fight these bods through ‘common law’ and will not let go. The other ward councillor also stepped in and made a complaint on someone elses behalf, turns out his step-daughter had extra tuition with this woman !!! complained to the councils solicitor who told me he had not done anything wrong. Blooming council, they are elected by the people for the people, am taking this as far as possible. I signed the petition for these people, thankfully the NPPF came into being and they are now back yay.
Everyone says Muslims are terrorist millions of Muslims live in england anythink happens? The real terrorist is the government you work hard pay tax cannot afford to eat work like slave and feed government now who is terrorist?
Utter bullsh!t..
You should be able to live how you choose.
It’s all designed to extract money.
We need a civil war.. make a stand. Like the lorry Drivers did over fuel. Only a few days away from the country calapse.. But give up. I would not.
What if we had to go to war..
Let’s see how many would go..
How many leave the country..
How many refused..
They insite fear..
Control us by letting us buy houses. Then threaten to kick us & our family out. With thugs & legal bullsh!t..
Sit back think what these bastard’s are doing.
Make your money.. get out.
You can’t beat the system.. the reason why…
British people won’t stand together..
Rather live in fear like scared rabbit’s.. run hide. Close the door..
i live in the States, and when we elected his majesty Bush jr I knew that we were in trouble, and heading toward a revolution. Then O’bozo got 2 terms in office via 9/11, and I was sure that at anytime the pot was going to boil over, BUT NO!
Then when HRM HELL”O” REE, ran against The Donald, I knew that we have finally moved to simmer! But it has taken from then until now to see the slightest spark of trouble. It is there, still glacially moving toward conflagration, but it needs a good nudge to set it off!
Though I foresee a “dud,” not a revolution? I believe that HELL”O” REE’s side will never really fire a shot. Maybe burn down a few gay bars, have a little tantrum, and some LGBT confusion?…Have another good cry, pick-up their baby-banki and go home…Put on their bunny slippers, have mom bring them hot coco, and forget the whole thing! While President Trump puts HELL”O” REE and her ilk in the FBI, and the Justice Department before a Fed Judge and prison! While he makes plans to win the next election, raise the wall a little higher, kick out some more muslims, and finish draining the swamp!
So maybe there is hope for you yet Micky? But just not exactly the Civil War that you expected?…Probably one more like the unrecognizable version we are getting over here in the States! Doc Blake
Totally discusted they should be allowed to farm this land I’m gutted for them