the local council spent at least a year repeatedly denying my parents planning permission to convert one of our family's barns into an office for a local business to set up in. they would use excuses like it would ruin the local scenery (how is a disused barn more aesthetically pleasing than an office which looks like a barn I wonder?!) and even started threatening my parents when they kept applying for permission (as in threatening to send them to prison/fines etc if they didn't drop the application - yes,
prison). eventually my parents went to the top regional authority and a vote was cast resulting in a unanimous decision that they
should be allowed to convert the barn.
fast forward a couple of years and the barn is now converted into offices ( I worked on it), and the best thing is the local council who spent so much effort trying to stop it getting converted for stupid reasons was forced to put a photo of it on the front of their monthly magazine, as a prime example of thriving businesses in the area
here's a pic of the offices as they were nearing completion:
what's that? oh yea they put up a freaking
skull & crossbones flag outside at one stage to try and deter us.