The head of a multi-million pound company is battling planners yet again over access to his Burley Woodhead home.

Ken Brook-Chrispin has been forced to apply for retrospective planning permission after installing 12 lamps along a private driveway.

The chairman and chief executive of Seabrook Crisps hit the headlines in 2007 after building a road to his house on Green Lane.

Neighbours were angered to see diggers ploughing up a field for the unauthorised track and launched a campaign against it. Bradford Council then ordered him to remove 75 square metres of decking from the front of his property.

Mr Brook-Chrispin said cars had been run off his driveway by thieves and that he had been advised to install lighting by the police.

“I have two daughters at university and my wife spends a lot of time on her own when I’m abroad. It’s a 300 metre drive and I don’t like the idea of them going along there,” he said.

He examined guidelines on lighting and had believed there was no requirement for permission for the posts. The lamp-posts with lanterns will be linked to an electronic gate and sensor and will only remain lit while a vehicle is moving along the drive.

But Green Lane resident Christine Thornthwaite said she: “When the lights are on they are like a beacon, highlighting that there is a community up here and attracting non-local people to the area.”

  • Read the full story in Thursday's T&A