Millionaire who felled 28 trees to create room for clifftop pool fined £20,000

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/bill-buckler-poole-trees-planning-b2907520.html

Posted by topotaul

37 Comments

  1. JimmyShirley25 on

    Not enough. I hate bellends who fell trees without a good reason. “Oh yeah, that living miracle of nature was in the way of compensating that I’ve got a tiny willy”
    Twat.

  2. Millionaire gets slap on the wrist and continues on doing wrong things as he can get away with it*

  3. FlyConsistent6464 on

    Not even £1000 pee tree..
    They could have fined 10x that would have actually tort them a lesson, be a future deterrent, and could have used that money to plant hundreds more trees.

  4. NastyStreetRat on

    Millionaire fined $20k… that’s half of what he spends on clothes every time he goes shopping

  5. ConstantineGSB on

    Fines are just additional expenditure for millionaires. Like popping to the shops to grab a bottle of milk, no biggie. Until all fines are based on a % of all income, it wont matter at all.

  6. Should have been fined 10x and also forced to plant replacement equivalent trees.

    It’s be cause of situations like this that the social contract of communities is broken with it become clear that extreme wealth allows all actions to be essentially allowed.

  7. If a fine doesn’t hurt it’s just a cost of the job.

    For a millionaire this is just paying to do something no one else can do (see also parking wherever in London and just paying the tickets).

  8. I think we are all missing the bigger issue here. The representative from Natural England was Nick Squirrel…..

  9. Icy-Meaning1801 on

    Ideally, they should also order him to demolish what he’d built in addition to the fine, but these bastards have plenty of money to litigate and in the end they almost always get their way.

  10. That’s nothing to a millionaire.

    Stop giving the rich such an easy ride to skirt common law and decency.

    Fines and prison sentences must scale in proportion to income and influence.

  11. Fines should be means tested, otherwise the punishment is in effect only for the poor. Like traffic tickets in some EU countries, where what you pay is proportional to your wealth. Speed while poor? Might be a €100 fine, which hurts for you. Speed while rich? Might be a €1M fine. Whatever is the same PROPORTIONAL level of financial hurt 🤷‍♂️

  12. I’m only echoing other comments but there needs to be some kind of law introduced for fines and percentages based on wage/wealth. No, I don’t know how it’d strictly work, but the spirit would be “if you’re wealthy and you receive a fine, it’s going to be much worse than the standard.” Just a little 1am rage at wealthy arseholes showing no responsibility.

  13. jimmywhereareya on

    They should jail these fuckers. A financial penalty means nothing to them. The 2 blokes who chopped down the Sycamore gap tree were jailed for over 4 years. And they didn’t have a pot between them to piss in

  14. KingSolomansLament on

    If the goal of the fine isn’t a deterrence, it doesn’t need to be proportional. Maybe society is better off with the extra revenue from the fine, and we don’t need to be so mad

  15. I sure do hope those cliffs don’t suffer from erosion and his stupid pool doesn’t fall in the sea.

  16. AVeryNiceBoyPerhaps on

    those trees were almost certainly holding the soil together with their roots. Now they’re gone it’s a matter of time before the ground erodes away

  17. Should not be allowed to build on there and should be made to make good as far as possible or it’s just the cost of doing business to a multi millionaire rich enough to flout the law. Should be in prison and lose the building.

    Also disgusting that he was allowed to continue clearing for a year before anyone stepped in.

  18. That’s not enough. We need an income percentage based punishment. The rich are out there being so wealthy that fines are nothing but just a bit more tax to them. It’s supposed to hurt not be a minor inconvenience.

  19. He probably has that much loose change in his sofa. Needs at least two more zeros before it would get his attention. Pathetic.

  20. I just knew this would be Poole before I read the article. The area has been sucking in entitled pricks since the 1990s.

    This guy cut down the trees to improve his view, not just make room for the pool. Unfortunately for him removing all that vegetation from the side of a cliff is going to cause serious erosion and no way will he be able to build a wall strong enough there to hold back the weight of the water in his pool. That’s an accident waiting to happen.

  21. Should have ordered trees replanted and the planning permission for the pool revoked and ordered to be demolished.

    Higher fines, even tied to a homes value, leave peoole vulnerable to rogue landscapers and farmers vulnerable to losing generational farms over it.

  22. convictedninja on

    “Millionaire” fined £20,000. Cool I guess if a regular person did it they’d be fined 50p?
    If it’s not means tested then it isn’t a fine, it’s a cost.

  23. Should been fined $50k and  any & all further development should be aimed at undoing the damage caused. I know it said that that they can’t rip out what has been put in already but they could add stuff to reduce the effects of the added stuff and probably make the developer stump up more dosh to create more wildlife space to compensate for the space that has been destroyed. With a obvious permanent stop work notice in place for that part of the site.

  24. quite_acceptable_man on

    So he got exactly what he wanted and it only cost him £20,000. What he did has probably added more than that to the value of the house, so it’s a win/win for him.

    Kind of confirms that ‘punishable by fine’ simply means ‘legal for the rich’.

  25. RunRinseRepeat666 on

    £20k yup.
    That’s why it’s easier just to cut down what suits the build and just pay the fine. 20k in a 10M build is very cheap. Much cheaper than the consultancy chain costs to even engage in a legal solution.