A shop owner ordered by Bradford Council to remove heavy duty metal shutters because they breach regulations fears it will mean the end of his livelihood if he has to take them down.

Repeat attempted burglaries in 2009, including one with a battering ram as raiders tried to bash the door down, meant Andrew Dmitarjbul, the proprietor of Woollett Home Electrical, Cottingley Road, Sandy Lane, had no choice but to install shutters at the request of his insurance company.

But Council officials have said that they breach planning regulations and have ordered them to be removed after planning permission was turned down.

The Council have threatened enforcement action if they are not removed.

But Mr Dmitarjbul fears that removing them will leave him an open target for burglars and his tenant, who lives above the shop, will leave if they go because she feels unsafe.

He went to Bradford West Respect MP George Galloway in tears for help.

Mr Galloway has written to Council chief executive Tony Reeves demanding that the situation is resolved because the shutters are not in a conservation site or on a listed building.

Mr Dmitarjbul said: “If I take the shutters down I will not have any security and may as well open every door and let them rob me blind. This has given me so much stress and I have been having palpitations and when I went to see Mr Galloway I wept like a baby.”

Mr Galloway said that he had seen some “rum and peculiar planning decisions in 25 years in Parliament’’ but could not think of one as “downright disgraceful”.

“It appears that you’re not entitled in Bradford to protect your property without the say-so of the local Council,” he said. “It’s clearly open season for burglars in Bradford.”

In his letter to Bradford Council chief executive Tony Reeves, Mr Galloway said that the shutters were discreet and neat and should cause no offence.

Bradford Council, when they refused planning permission last year, said in their letter that the roller shutters diversely affected the visual amenity of the application building, a nearby listed building and the character of the wider street scene by reason of their protruding shutter boxes.

The Council were unavailable for comment at the time of going to press.