A YouTuber who spent years digging a secret tunnel underneath his home has admitted he hadn’t applied for planning permission until the project was almost finished.
Colin Furze, from Lincolnshire, has documented the project on his YouTube channel, where he has almost 12 million subscribers and has previously shared clips of his other unusual projects including creating a hot tub from a BMW.
Furze started creating the tunnel back in 2018, with the 1.2 metre wide by two metre high tunnel linking his home to his workshop, through a hidden door in his kitchen.
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In a video shared to YouTube, the 42-year-old explained that South Kesteven District Council has granted retrospective planning permission for the tunnel, which is reinforced with concrete and steel.
He explained: "I didn't have permission for it, not until a week ago anyway.
"But I'm pleased to say it got planning permission, it's all good, I don't have to fill it in.
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"It wasn't that I wasn't going to tell them, it's just that I always think it's a bit easier to ask for forgiveness than [...] for permission and also if you're putting in planning permission before, you essentially just give everyone else a head start to moan or worry about it.
"I didn't want anybody to do that so I thought, let's just crack on with it.
"Up until the first video landed, it genuinely was a completely secret tunnel. Only a handful of people knew about it.
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"The council were actually really good, it wasn't I think until about video five that somebody at the council saw it on Facebook and rang me up but they sent a guy out who was a really nice bloke.
"He came round and had a look and was quite impressed with it."
Stamford Town Council had expressed a ‘strong objection’ to the tunnel, due to ‘health and safety and subsidence concerns’, but South Kesteven District Council had no such concerns and gave it the thumbs up.
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In its report on the application, South Kesteven District Council said: "There is still further works required to complete the tunnels linking the house to the workshop.
"This application is not for a change of use as the dwelling would remain residential and the work would be contained within the specific areas, ancillary to the overall residential use of the site."
Claire Reid