A BUILDING company has been labelled "mischievous" and ordered to carry out major repairs and alterations to the site of two blocks of flats it built after defying council planners for years.

Scammell Developments of Wigmore faces a council bill running into tens of thousands of pounds after being told they had deliberately appealed against planners’ orders to avoid doing things correctly on the flats development site at the end of Longhill Avenue, Chatham.

Steve Kearney, Medway’s deputy mayor and the local ward councillor, was delighted at the outcome.

He said: "This is a victory for the local people. I just hope that two years down the line they don’t try the same stuff again, and have learned their lesson after getting their fingers burnt."

Scammells spokesman Jamie Scammell, said: "We are quite disappointed with the outcome, but we have already started putting things right.

"Our architect was always being asked for information by the council and would never get in touch with them. We want to work with the council now."

The planning inspector threw out five appeals.

Four were against council enforcement orders trying to stop the destruction of the chalk escarpment on the edge of the Great Lines beside Chatham Hill. The fifth was an appeal seeking planning permission for further developments on the excavated embankment.

The inspector, David Baldock, said the company had repeatedly made mischievous attempts to undermine the clearly understood implications of notices served by the planning officers.

Scammells now have 11 months to restore the embankment, remove a residents’ car park and bin store, take down fences, and reseed the land for wild flowers.

Cllr Kearney said: "It will be interesting to see how they restore a compact, chalk bank that has been there since the dawn of time."