A landowner who built a luxury holiday treehouse without planning permission has been told he won’t have to tear it down.

John Kitson, 42, has received retrospective planning permission from Cornwall Council for the £100,000 treehouse on the Morval estate near Looe.

Mr Kitson, 42, a Morval parish councillor, built the accommmodation to bring in money for the estate.

The councillor has admitted he was silly to ignore planning regulations and said he regretted making life difficult for the local planning office.

Mr Kitson built the treehouse on his estate during the covid-19 pandemic.

He said he had feared that he would never see the treehouse after an eye cancer diagnosis threatened to blind him.

He said: “Thankfully my cancer is not as bad as I thought.

“I thought I had a secondary tumour somewhere on my pancreas but thankfully I’m in the clear.

“When I first got checked up I never thought it would be anything serious, but within days I was in London and then Liverpool for treatment.

“I admit it’s not relevant for planning but, from a personal point of view, it focuses your mind a bit if the worst did happen.

“I just didn’t want to wait months for planners and not be able to see the finished build.

“It’s a very weak justification and that doesn’t justify what I’ve done but it was the reason for wanting to get on with it.”