Video goes viral as Bedford council officer investigates girl's teddy bear café following complaint
A bizarre video which popped up over the weekend is getting traction on social media following a council officer’s visit to a property.
An anonymous person complained about a change of use of a building to a café, with a clear hint something wasn’t above board.
The only trouble was it was a girl's pretend teddy bear café and now the video posted by Brendan Kavanagh – known as YouTuber Dr K – has been viewed 2.6 million times on Elon Musk’s social networking platform since Saturday (October 24).
Bedford Borough Council’s planning enforcement officer, Kerri Boydell, visited the property and is clearly shown displaying her ID on the vid before telling Brendan the nature of the complaint.
She said: “We’ve just received a concern raised to the council that there has been a change of use of a building … that’s being used as a café.”
But the perplexed dad confirmed a building has indeed been slightly altered – but only so his 12-year-old daughter Zoe can play café make believe with her teddy bears.
In a second video, the planning enforcement officer is shown around the pretend café which Brendan confirmed is also frequented by his daughter’s friends so they can play.
But the YouTuber – who also described himself as a boogie-woogie pianist and teacher – was clearly mystified by who would make such a complaint.
He told Ms Boydell: “I didn’t know we had to report that to the council – and why somebody would report it, we just think it’s vexatious.”
He’s even considering applying for a Subject Access Request (SAR) to uncover who exactly made the complaint.
A Bedford Borough Council spokesperson said: “The video from last year has recently resurfaced on social media. This relates to a report that was made to Bedford Borough Council of a suspected planning breach, and therefore it was investigated. It was the property that was investigated rather than a specific person.
“Learn more about reporting a planning breach and how we investigate these here”
We’ve also approached Brendan Kavanagh for comment but he did say on X (formerly Twitter): “We were getting threatening legal letters from the council’s planning department about running an illegal café.”
Some people on X were equally perplexed by the council visit. One wrote: “I’ve said it before. The reason Monty Python isn’t funny anymore is because we live in the world they created. The surreal is the new normal.”
Another posted: “Burglars can rob your house and police will text you a crime reference number within four minutes, but let a 12-year-old set up toy bears with miniature teacups and the council sends out a badge-carrying enforcement officer same day. Unbelievable misuse of taxpayer money.”