EXCLUSIVE

"I'M LOSING MY LITTLE PIECE OF HEAVEN" - FRED GROVE LATEST

23-08-2006

These are testing times for Fred Grove, the 76 year old Brummie battler fighting to save his home in the face of heartless developers who've served a compulsory purchase order on his canalside cottage.

Fred, who's lived for 41 years at Belmont Row, Vauxhall (aka "Eastside") is awaiting a valuation on his property after a visit this week from a council official.

But cash is no compensation for the loss of a family home, and now he's also been told that even if he wins his fight against eviction, the garden he's so lovingly tended will be taken from him…

The irony is that without Fred, the small mooring on the riverbank behind his house would by now be completely overgrown.

It used to serve as a landing bay for the factory next door, but as barges lost out to trucks in the battle to carry freight it fell into disuse.

There's no public access, and so Fred had to build his own patio with a ladder to get down to the canal.

He's turned this weed-strewn patch, in his own words, into “my little piece of heaven”.

He's even designed a bridge which extends from the mooring across to his own DIY rockery.

There's a home-made water mill, a goldfish pond, and beautiful flowers.

"This was a wasteland until I started working it" Fred recalls.

"Now I've got plums here, apple trees, rhubarb. I've created a real little wildlife haven."

It can't last though - a vindictive bureaucrat has spotted that this little parcel of land - which has otherwise been completely neglected by officialdom for more than two decades - isn't on the title deeds to his house.

And the council has told him that even if he succeeds in his battle to remain there, he'll be banned from using this lovingly nurtured green space.

"You can imagine the turmoil I'm in" he said.

"Everything I've worked for there over the last 20 or 30 years will be just wiped out.

"They'd be happy to leave me staring at the four walls."

Understandably Fred is feeling quite low at the moment, but remains determined to fight on.

Feel free to explore his picture gallery and offer your words of support via our messageboard.