MOLE MAN IN A HOLE

MOLE MAN IN A HOLE
Human mole is banned from £1m home for TUNNELLING

By Tom Pettifor

AN eccentric known as The Mole Man has been banned from his £1million home after digging a 60ft network of tunnels beneath it.

William Lyttle, 75, spent 40 years burrowing under his 20-room house, removing 100 cubic metres of earth with a spade and pulleys.

It is now feared the street could give way. Philip Wilman, a surveyor for Hackney Council, told Thames magistrates: "There has been movement in the ground. He's fortunate a London bus is not in his front garden. It's liable to lead to catastrophe." Ex-electrical engineer Lyttle is staying in a £25-a-night hotel, paid for by the council, after an injunction under the London Building Act which allows the £100,000 repairs to be done.

Work at the house in De Beauvoir, East London, could include flooding the tunnels - big enough to stand up in and dropping to a depth of eight metres -with cement. The tunnels are also thought to threaten the wall of a neighbouring property and a large pond has formed in one of them.

Mr Lyttle, who will have to pay for the repairs, said: "It's not saleable, there has never been any attempt to tart it up."

The pavement outside the house fell through in 2001, leaving a 15ft wide hole. In 1999 the roof was damaged when the house caught fire. Water has since got into the building, affecting brick work.

There are fears the chimney stack could collapse after Mr Lyttle removed supporting walls.

The house is also filled with so much junk surveyors are worried about the pressure on the floors.