Convicted drug dealer is linked to shady group of companies buying traveller 'land grab' targets before bulldozers turn up and transform green fields into tarmac building sites

Published: 00:01, 28 May 2026 | Updated: 00:01, 28 May 2026 A convicted drug dealer is linked to a group of companies that are buying traveller 'land grab' targets before bulldozers turn up and transform the green fields into tarmac building sites, the Daily Mail can reveal.  Work with heavy machinery began at a site in West Chiltington, in West Sussex, on Friday, near the world-renowned English sparkling wine estate Nyetimber. It carried on throughout the weekend in the picturesque village, despite Horsham District Council issuing temporary stop notices designed to ban any further development. It was the same tactics used by a team of about 30 travellers in the hamlet of Willows Green, near Felsted, Essex, on Friday May 1.  Locals were left watching in horror as travellers used construction vehicles to concreted over a field. In both cases, the councils were alerted by the Daily Mail in advance that it was about to happen.  It is part of a trend that sees travellers build unauthorised developments over long weekends when council enforcement teams are at home. They then apply for retrospective planning permission in a bid to make them permanent.  Now, we can also reveal that the same people, who are not thought to be part of the traveller community, are behind a group of companies that bought both West Chiltington and Willows Green sites for cash last year. Chad Brady, a 31-year-old Yorkshireman, is pictured here outside Hull Crown Court last April. He admitted possessing cocaine with intent to supply and was given a two-year suspended prison sentence  WEST SUSSEX: Work involving heavy machinery started at a site in the picturesque village of West Chiltington on Friday and carried on throughout the weekend Picture from Google Earth showing what the field looked like before the work began  UK Real Estate and Land 2 Limited paid £125,000 for the land at Willows Green on April 29 2025. Just under three months later, on July 21, UK Real Estate and Land 1 Limited paid £200,000 for the West Chiltington site. There is a third firm - UK Real Estate and Land Limited - which has involved the same directors before they were all dissolved on April 28 this year, shortly before the unauthorised developments. This followed voluntary strike-off applications, according to the Companies House register. All three firms were set up between November 2022 and May 2023 and only filed accounts for a dormant company. From the outset, Chad Brady, a 31-year-old Yorkshireman, was a key director. Brady was named at Hull Crown Court last year as the 'manager' of a lucrative cocaine dealing operation in the seaside town of Bridlington. The shameless criminal recruited his own sister as a £150-a-day runner but was busted after sending bulk advertising messages to locals. He admitted possessing cocaine with intent to supply and was given a two-year suspended prison sentence, 200 hours of unpaid work and 10 days rehabilitation. Brady resigned as a director of all three firms last January, as the criminal court case was underway, and before the two significant land purchases.  He is the director of 17 other dissolved companies and three active ones, one of which describes itself as a yoga school. Uttlesford Council was warned a month before the Willows Green site was racked up that there were plans to import thousands of tonnes of hardcore to the field. It came after traveller Martin Mongan was seen using a Facebook group to arrange up to 150 lorry loads of aggregate. A traveller site appeared over the last bank holiday weekend in the village of Willows Green, Essex The field before, when it was described as a haven for wildlife including great-crested newts and rare albino fallow deer  When the Daily Mail asked the council on April 30 about the threat, it confirmed it was aware but said it could do nothing unless any development started. However, fears of a second potential site on another field just 300 yards away from the first were raised during a tense packed meeting of the parish council earlier this month.  The local authority successfully applied for an emergency High Court injunction after we alerted it to the fact the land had been purchased for £150,000 last July by a traveller from a family with a history of unauthorised development. The injunctions ban named individuals and persons unknown from carrying out any development on the land, with the threat of imprisonment if it is breached. The second field at Willows Green was not developed over the last bank holiday. Ahead of the bank holiday last week, we revealed how Karl Kavanagh, 48, boss of Hampshire-based KK Construction, had used the same Facebook group as Mr Mongan to try to secure large amounts of aggregates to be delivered to undisclosed sites in Horley and Horsham over the bank holiday weekend. Approached by the Mail ahead of the weekend, he said he did not know the exact locations as he was acting as a subcontractor, but he said he could not rule out them being for traveller sites. It is not known if he secured any materials or if the site in West Chiltington, about five miles from Horsham, is linked to his posts. Both Reigate and Banstead and Horsham councils were alerted to the potential threats by the Daily Mail. Reigate and Banstead said it would have officers on standby. However, Horsham Council made no mention of the West Chiltington site being under threat. Your browser does not support iframes. After the development began there on Friday, it said it had been aware. A spokesperson said: 'Following reports received last week that unauthorised works at a site on land south of Clayes Farm in Broadford Bridge Road, West Chiltington were likely to take place over the Bank Holiday weekend, Horsham District Council prepared Temporary Stop Notices which were issued and served on the land early on the morning of Saturday 23 May. 'Investigations are continuing, which may result in further formal action.' We asked Horsham Council if it was aware who the owner of the West Chiltington site was, and that the firm was connected to another site that had recently been developed as a traveller site without planning consent. We also asked if it had considered applying for an emergency High Court injunction to ban any development there and await a response. No comments have so far been submitted. Why not be the first to send us your thoughts, or debate this issue live on our message boards. By posting your comment you agree to our house rules. Do you want to automatically post your MailOnline comments to your Facebook Timeline? Your comment will be posted to MailOnline as usual. Do you want to automatically post your MailOnline comments to your Facebook Timeline? Your comment will be posted to MailOnline as usual We will automatically post your comment and a link to the news story to your Facebook timeline at the same time it is posted on MailOnline. To do this we will link your MailOnline account with your Facebook account. We’ll ask you to confirm this for your first post to Facebook. You can choose on each post whether you would like it to be posted to Facebook. 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