A builder has dug himself out of a hole with the help of the council.

Several neighbours of Shand Boag complained that he was using his detached house on an estate in Haywards Heath to run his building firm.

The disagreement went all the way to the council after visits from planning officers, but councillors have decided the complaints had no foundation.

Mr Boag, 37, who says he has a builders' yard in Henfield, bought the house about 18 months ago and used the garden to store materials and equipment while he renovated it. The work included a substantial amount of brickwork in the garden.

Mr Boag said: "My business mail comes here and that's all.

"When I was doing all the work on the house, I had 6,000 bricks, my concrete mixer and my wheelbarrow here. I suppose it must have looked like a builders' yard.

"The bricks came from a job in Horsham where they gave them to me as part-payment.

"The house needed a lot of work done to it. The garden was a complete nightmare, but OK for me to tackle because that is what I do.

"One of the neighbours even videoed me".

The row was settled by the central plans sub-committee of Mid Sussex District Council.

Sub-committee chairman, Peter Jones, said: "It is one of those situations where the neighbours said one thing and he said another.

"Officers visited the site and were satisfied that all work going on was being done on his own house. However, we will continue to monitor that."