Trabant man loses his last appeal

A Derbyshire man who has spent almost 20 years collecting East German Trabant cars has lost his final appeal against an order to remove them.

Graham Goodall, 61, who lives in Middleton-by-Youlgreave, has been involved in a dispute with the Peak District Park Authority since 2004.

The authority issued planning notices to remove 40 of his 49 vehicles.

Two judges at London's High Court said Goodall was the "author of his own misfortune" and turned down the appeal.

Graham Goodall began collecting the Trabant - the two-stroke workhorse of former communist East Germany - after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Cheap to make but notoriously smoky and unreliable, they were one of the few cars available to Germans behind the Iron Curtain.

In 2004, Chesterfield magistrates fined Goodall £750 with £250 legal costs after being convicted of breaking planning rules. He was also issued with a notice to remove the cars but appealed against the order in 2005.

Derbyshire District Peak Authority said the notice had been issued after residents and visitors complained the Trabants were an eyesore, parked 1,310 ft (400m) from a public footpath.

They added Mr Goodall did not have planning permission to store the cars in the grounds of his home.

Buying a boat

Mr Goodall argued the prosecution was an abuse of process because he had been unaware of the notice until it was too late to appeal as he had been in Germany.

But Lord Justice Keene, sitting with Mr Justice Treacy, ruled Mr Goodall could have reasonably anticipated receiving the notice as it was the second to be issued.

Dismissing the appeal, Lord Justice Keene said: "The reality here is that he was, to a large extent, the author of his own misfortune."

In December 2007, Mr Goodall began to sell his collection of Trabants, declaring he was going to buy a boat with the proceeds.

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