Report by Local Democracy Reporter – Eddie Bisknell
A decade-long saga of unlawful construction and illegal tree felling at a Derbyshire holiday park appears to have come to an end.
Haytop Country Park, which is based in woodland overlooking Whatstandwell and the Derwent Valley, has been at the centre of issues for 10 years in a saga that has involved multi-millionaire owners of a national caravan park company, illegal tree felling, armed police raids, comedian Bobby Davro and years and years of council and legal battles all the way up to the Supreme Court.
Haytop Country Park Limited is owned by Anthony and Donna Barney, with the married couple buying the Whatstandwell site from the George family in 2016 after 64 years in operation.
It was added to the couple’s 26-site portfolio of holiday and caravan park sites – Countrywide Park Homes and the broader Baslow Parks and Baslow Holdings umbrella – and continues to be registered with Companies House to a rundown industrial unit on a housing estate in Cromford Road, Langley Mill.
The firm also operates another Derbyshire location at Ainmoor Grange Country Park in Mickley Lane, Stretton, with properties for sale for up to £295,000.
Countrywides’ properties are widely marketed by TV personality and comedian Bobby Davro.
In March 2017, 121 trees were illegally felled at Haytop Country Park by its new owners for which they were subsequently fined £8,000 and dubbed “incompetent” and “reprehensible” by a 2019 tribunal judge.
The tree felling was to make way for 27 concrete bases for permanent holiday lodges to be installed on, for people to live in for most of the year, along with a new road, street lighting columns, large stone filled wire cages called gabions and the entire reprofilling of the hillside to create stepped platforms for the overall development.
In August 2021, a landmark inquiry saw Government inspector Claire Sherratt order the owners to demolish the concrete bases, boulder walls, road, lighting and to reprofile the hillside on the site – all of which was carried out without permission – with tree replanting to form a separate order.
Haytop appealed that decision in the High Court in October 2021 but Judge Timothy Mould rejected the appeal.
In 2024, a further Government inspector, John Felgate, largely ruled against Haytop over the tree replanting, saying 12 would have their locations reassigned and 13 would have their species change, but all must still be replanted.
In November 2025, the Supreme Court, which hears cases from the Court of Appeal, rejected a bid from Haytop to quash previous orders to remove the concrete bases, hill reprofiling and other works and to instead issue a licence for the works.
This month, the Supreme Court has refused to hear an appeal over this case – appealing an appeal in the court of appeal – bringing an apparent close to the saga.
This has seen Amber Valley Borough Council defend numerous planning hearings, inquiries and court challenges over the past few decades, though costs have on occasions been awarded in its favour, including £18,000 following the High Court challenge in 2022.
The Whatstandwell and Alderwasley Action Group (WACAG) has campaigned over the owners for years and fundraised for its own legal representation in the landmark 2021 inquiry.
They told the Local Democracy Reporting Service that residents saw a bulldozer breaking up a number of the concrete bases last week but that this work stopped on Tuesday, April 14 and that four holiday lodges are still occupied.
In 2024, the borough council’s legal representative had said nine holiday lodges were being occupied as permanent homes, as cemented by council tax payments.
A WACAG spokesperson said: “We are very pleased to see the damage done to the landscape at Haytop Country Park has started to be repaired, with the removal of concrete hard standings.
“However, we are anxious to see further remediation to the site involving the removal of retaining walls, a roadway and the reprofiling of the site to its original condition.
“We wish to thank Amber Valley Borough Council for their persistence in addressing the unlawful activity on the site over a nine-year period.
“Countrywide Park Homes Ltd. have repeatedly appealed directions from Amber Valley planning officers, tribunals, the Planning Inspectorate and the courts, resulting in rejections by the Court of Appeal and Supreme Court.
“We are looking forward to the planting of native trees on the site to replace those unlawfully destroyed by the owners.
“However, these trees will, sadly, take decades to fully replace those which were unlawfully felled.
“The community is relieved that justice has prevailed.”
The borough council was approached for comment but has not yet provided a statement.
