A former pub landlady who inherited £2.5million from shotgun farmer Tony Martin has withdrawn plans to build homes on his land amid concerns about the damage to wildlife.
Jacqueline Wadsley, 52, was named as the sole beneficiary in February of the estate of Mr Martin who shot dead a teenage burglar at his remote farmhouse in August 1999.
She and her husband David, 45, had applied to convert five run-down detached barns into ten new homes on Mr Martin’s land at Bleak House Farm in Emneth Hungate, Norfolk.
But documents submitted to King’s Lynn and West Norfolk Borough Council have revealed they have ditched the application.
It followed the council’s ecology officer, Claire Wiggs, raising concerns that ‘no ecological information’ had been included in the proposal and calling for ‘preliminary’ assessments on wildlife to be carried out.
‘It is possible that protected species are present on the site including breeding birds, reptiles and roosting bats and could be impacted by the proposals,’ she said in a report.
‘There are known records of roosting pipistrelle within 1km and badgers within 2km of the site.’
Ms Wiggs stated that a preliminary ecological appraisal, including a ‘preliminary roost assessment’, was needed to assess the likely presence or absence of protected species.
Jacqueline Wadsley, 52, and her husband David (pictured) inherited shotgun farmer Tony Martin’s land
Norfolk County Council’s highways development management officer, Richard Smith, described the single carriageway road leading to the farm as ‘inadequate’, as it featured no footway or dedicated cycle links and had poor visibility
He also suggested that the ten homes on the site would produce 60 vehicle movements a day which would be to ‘the detriment of highway safety’.
The plans should be scaled down to ‘no more than four homes’ to create a ‘more proportional development’, Mr Smith added.
Mrs Wadsley and her husband had asked the council for consent to create houses under permitted development rights, which allow agricultural buildings to be turned into homes without full planning permission.
Mr Martin became friends with Mrs Wadsley while drinking in the Hare and Hounds which she ran in Wisbech, Cambridgeshire, following his release from Highpoint Prison, Suffolk, in 2003.
The pair were said to have formed ‘a father and daughter’ style relationship, with Mrs Wadsley often cooking him Sunday lunches and him doing odd jobs for her family to keep himself busy.
The farmer, who died aged 80 in February last year after a stroke, made her and her husband executors of his will in 2013 but she reportedly had no idea before his death that he was leaving everything to her.
Plans reveal that the Wadsleys wanted to redevelop barns which were described as ‘functional agricultural buildings and modest in appearance’.
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Mr Martin (pictured) shot dead Fred Barras, 16, and injured accomplice Brendan Fearon, then aged 29, in 1999
Two of the outbuildings were steel-framed and the others were built from brick with metal-clad roofs.
They were just a few yards from Bleak House farmhouse, where Mr Martin shot dead Fred Barras, 16, and injured accomplice Brendan Fearon, then aged 29.
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Mr Martin opened fire on the pair with an unlicensed pump action shotgun from his stairs after being woken up by them breaking in to try and steal his antiques.
The eccentric bachelor was jailed for life in April 2000 after being convicted of murder and wounding at Norwich Crown Court but his sentence was reduced on appeal to five years for manslaughter.
The case sparked a national debate about the rights of householders to protect themselves and their property from intruders.
Mr Martin never set foot again in Bleak House following his release from prison, instead often preferring to sleep in his car parked in one of his barns.
Bleak House has been boarded up with steel shutters and covered in ivy with part of its roof collapsed since the shooting.
The house and another derelict cottage on the farm did not feature in the plans, although planning consent would not be required to renovate them.
Pictured: The farm earlier this year
The undergrowth around Bleak House was so dense at the time of the shooting that police did not find Fred’s body lying in bushes until the next day.
Mr Martin always said he was ‘too old’ to consider restoring the once-grand property originally known as Cow Croft Field Farm, which he was left by an uncle in 1993.
He stated in 2022 that he would be leaving his farm to someone but declined to say who.
Probate records revealed in February this year that his estate in the UK, which included his 350-acre farm, was worth £2,573,973, reduced after payment of liabilities to a net figure of £2,567,795 before inheritance tax.
His entire estate after funeral and legal expenses was left in trust to Mrs Wadsley but did not include any property that he may have had overseas. Mr Martin was rumoured at the time of his death to have some property in Australia.
Mr Wadsley stated after Mr Martin’s will was revealed that his wife had helped the farmer with medical appointments, accommodation and was ‘there at all hours of the day’ when he needed assistance in his final years.
The planning statement for the project to convert the barns stated: ‘The barns are arranged in clusters across the site and are set within areas of hardstanding and grassland, surrounded by mature trees and open fields.’
It added that the appearance of the barns would be largely the same following conversion which would involve upgrading walls, roofs, doors and installing doors and windows to make them into homes.
