{"id":729542,"date":"2026-08-06T17:06:09","date_gmt":"2026-08-06T17:06:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/729542\/"},"modified":"2026-08-06T17:06:09","modified_gmt":"2026-08-06T17:06:09","slug":"dire-straits-guitarist-wades-into-devon-planning-row","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/729542\/","title":{"rendered":"Dire Straits guitarist wades into Devon planning row"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Knopfler said Lord Banner &#8220;dismissively suggested the objectors included a local rock star, perhaps hoping to conjure the image of a spoilt multi-millionaire living in a large manor house with no interest in those in need of housing&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Addressing the planning inquiry being held at Teignbridge District Council offices, Knopfler said: &#8220;I would just like the record to show that while I&#8217;m proud of my lifelong achievements as a rather more humble musician, the reality is I&#8217;m a 73-year-old pensioner, an economics graduate and former social worker living in a semi-detached, who happened to spend three years in a rock band almost fifty years ago.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">He described the development as &#8220;a textbook definition of urban blight&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">He added: &#8220;I&#8217;ve spent my entire life being misrepresented like this so it came as no surprise that this would be thrown opportunistically into their claim.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Knopfler set up the band with brother Mark and played on hit singles including Sultans of Swing but left the band before it achieved global success with tracks like  Money for Nothing and Walk of Life.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Knopfler said Lord Banner &#8220;dismissively suggested the objectors included a local rock star, perhaps hoping to conjure the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":729543,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[6491,96,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-729542","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/729542","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=729542"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/729542\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/729543"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=729542"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=729542"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=729542"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}