EXCLUSIVE

FAMILIES AT WAR OVER COUNCIL BLUNDER

10-11-2006

Blundering housing officials working for Sandwell Council have sparked a war between neighbouring families by giving them contradictory information about a disputed right of way. The row has split the street where they live and could end up costing taxpayers thousands of pounds.

The dispute is in King Richard Street West in West Bromwich where one-time council tenant Carlene Clarke was being regularly disturbed by her previous neighbours who had access to their house through her back garden.

Carlene's husband Derek says he saw syringes on the floor and the couple, who have two young children, heard passers-by trying their back door at night. The walkway from the street went past their downstairs bathroom window, and their privacy was being invaded to the point where they refused to let their son play in his own back garden.

Not unreasonably, they demanded action, and Sandwell Homes - the arms length management organisation working on behalf of the council - blocked the rear access.

When Carlenewas thinking about buyingthe house, she asked Sandwell Homes to confirm that the entry could be permanentlysealed off. An independent assessment was carried out, and the verdict was clear.

It said: “The council is legally able to block off the access way.…completely”. And it added the rider that if any new neighbour wanted the old right of way restored,“this is not something he can demand.”

Peter John, the Operations Director of Sandwell Homes even wrote on 13 October 2004 saying: “I will arrange for the disputed access to be blocked off permanently.”

On this basis, Carlene went ahead and bought the house.

The trouble is that when the next tenants Andy and Patricia Hallard moved in next door they had no idea that they couldn'tget to their house roundthe back - especially asevery other house in the road has shared rear access.

They havesince beenthreatenedwith evictionfor neglecting their garden, but asAndy explains: “We can't tidy itas quickly as we'd like because whenever we want to take anything out of the garden toclean it up, orbring something in to make it look better, we have to trail it through the house.”

The couple who have five children currently don't have any downstairs carpet because they say it would only be ruinedif garden refuseor concrete slabs were carried through.

They havedemanded the access be re-opened, and even got local MP Tom Watson involved. He wanted to know why it was taking so longto getthe job done, andahousing officer wrote to him saying the route round the back of the housewould be re-establishedby 25 August 2005.

When nothing happened, theHallards complained again, and although in June this year Sandwell Homes were still saying there was a right of passage over the garden,they blamed Carlene Clarke for the delay in opening the access.

They said she had refused to discuss an “amicable solution”, although Carlene's recollection is that she had actually suggested that agate be placed higher up the garden, away fromher kitchen and bathroom, only for the housing company to reject the offer.

She says: “The whole thing has been a nightmare. It's felt at times as though the whole street has been ganging up on me because they haven't known the full facts. But when the access was open it was a nightmare for me and my children, and I never felt safe.”

If Carlene is forced to re-open the access she has vowed to sue the council; but if they don't re-open it they could be liable to a counter-claim from the Hallards who have itdown in black and white that access was going to be restored.

Either way it seems as though Sandwell Homes have been responsible for a monumental blunder that hassetneighbours at each others throats.

The Stirrer awaits their reply with interest.