Shamed Archer can't solve latest plot

Lord Archer's past words have come back to haunt him again - this time in a battle with planners over an orchard he wanted the option to build on.

Councillors have blocked the Archers' bid to renew planning permission allowing them to build on the orchard after learning the couple themselves protested about a similar application several years ago. The planning committee of South Cambridgeshire district council seized on Lord Archer's earlier objection, which had said any development on the site, by their 13th century, Grade-II listed Old Vicarage in Grantchester, would be a "blot on the landscape".

The new application in the name of Lady Archer - who is waiting for her husband to complete his fouryear sentence for perjury at North Sea Camp prison - was voted down by 20 to one yesterday. The multimillionaire novelist, currently better known as Prisoner FF8282, supported his wife's submission, in which she asked for the right to build commercially on the 60m by 24m plot, although she claimed to have no plans to do so.

Granchester's Independent district councillor, Robin Page - a former host of One Man and His Dog - said: "It was refused for the reasons Archer himself gave a few years ago - I thank him for bringing it to my attention so eloquently. He created merry hell about plans to build on the land. The next thing I knew he bought the land. Now the application is in the name of Lady Archer. They have come out of this badly and look very greedy."

A spokeswoman for Lady Archer said: "The Archers have no intention of building on the land. It is part of their garden. It is just a question of keeping their options open so the property is more valuable with consent."