[torstenvl]

First off, thank you for being one of the few people in this thread to have a rational discussion. I ultimately disagree with you, but at least you didn't go all Reddit like so many others here.

I think there are a couple points I'd like to make, to see if any of them change your mind at all.

- First, you bring up what the landowner knew when they bought the building. However, three years after they bought it, the law was changed to make it harder to convert pubs to other uses. FTA: Watson was involved in campaigning for legislation in 2017 that went some way to stopping pubs from being converted into shops under permitted development rules – full planning permission is now required.

- Second, it's shocking to the conscience that a local government unit like the Westminster council can order someone to perform labor. In the United States and most developed other countries, involuntary labor was outlawed over a century ago, with exceptions for sentences upon conviction of a crime. Is that really not the case in the UK? Can your local council just order you to build whatever they want?

[altacc]

As I said elsewhere, planning permission has been required since 1948 and so is by no means a new thing. Restrictive planning rules are a constant for architects & developers. Even the permitted development rules can be quite restrictive and wouldn't apply to this development. The 2017 law change is a moot point as the building was demolished in 2015.

There was no "forcing someone to perform labor". The owner of the development company was not required to physically rebuild himself, there was a requirement to make good what they had willfully damaged. If you willfully damage someone else's property is it involuntary labour for legal redress to force you to pay to repair to replace what you damaged? The obvious answer is no, you're facing a financial, not physical, penalty.

[toyg]

If you infringe building regulations, yes, you can be ordered to redress the situation at your expense. Typically that means demolishing illegal structures; in this case it was the opposite, which is pretty rare but can happen.

For the record, this is common throughout Europe, it's not a UK-specific thing.

> three years after they bought it, the law was changed

That's tough, but dura lex sed lex.