A businessman who has launched a new Cornish spring water supply company may have to turn off the taps because council officials say he doesn't have permission.

John Holland took over the former Penhalvean Pottery, near Redruth, to turn it into a bottling plant selling water he extracts from the surrounding countryside.

He has rebuilt a derelict barn and considerably widened a driveway into the complex which is opposite a wholesale butchery business owned by Robert Trevarthen. But he did so without planning permission and now Kerrier district council is preparing to take legal action against him.

Neighbours at Penhalvean, a quiet hamlet on the Redruth-Stithians road, have complained about the bottling plant and are demanding action.

Mr Holland says he is simply operating a business at a site which was once a pottery and therefore already a commercial building.

He is, he says, providing local employment like other companies which operate in the immediate area.

Currently Mr Holland is extracting 20,000 litres of water a day from bore holes sunk last year and which is bottled and sold to local shops and other outlets under the brand name of Pendeen Cornish Spring Water.

He says he has 15 contracts for the water and also sells to Fifteen, the restaurant set up by Jamie Oliver near Newquay. Even representatives from Tesco have visited his plant, he says.

As well as objecting to building work on the site, some of the neighbours have questioned the quality of the water being extracted from Mr Holland's boreholes.

Among the objectors are well-known environmental campaigner George Pritchard and his wife, Susan, who live opposite the site. They completed a planning enforcement complaints form in which they questioned whether environmental health officers were satisfied with the quality of the water being extracted. They said Mr Holland had a "blatant disregard" for the planning authority "from the start."

Mr Holland told the Packet yesterday that he could not understand what all the fuss was about. He had taken over old agricultural buildings, renovated them and began to bottle spring water.

He admitted he had sunk bore wells into natural springs but said he was acting within the law. He agreed he had gone ahead with building work but hoped permission would be granted.

"This seems to be the bone of contention," he said. "I find it amusing. We have replaced new for old. The water here is pure. The springs were here already and have been for thousands of years. All we do is take the water out of the ground through the treatment plant and bottle it."

He had not yet been served with an enforcement notice but had made a fresh planning application retrospectively. "The driveway was already there," he said. "We have opened it by clearing away the scrub. It is not detrimental to the area."

But Kerrier planners are adamant that an enforcement notice - a legal procedure to stop unauthorised developments - will be issued shortly. Mr Peter Blackshaw, for the council, said yesterday the notice was being finalised and "there was not doubt" it would be issued. They were simply ensuring everything in the notice was accurate.

"He (Mr Holland) has already had a planning application refused although he has made a fresh application," said Mr Blackshaw.

Only if permission was granted would the enforcement notice become nul and void, he said.

Neil Plummer, the district and county councillor for the area, said he was fed up with the attitude and "complete and utter disregard" taken by some people who thought they could get round the planning laws. If necessary he would "fight them all the way through the courts."