Man spends £5k on 6ft 'security' wall outside home but council want it bulldozed
09.04.2023 - 13:49
/ dailyrecord.co.uk
A man who erected a six-foot wall outside his house for "security" has been locked in a two-year battle with the council because they want it demolished.
Mark Roberts paid £5,000 to build the structure outside his home in Caerphilly, Wales in 2020. But just one year later he received a letter from Caerphilly County Borough Council demanding the wall be demolished.
“The wall is three years old this month and I had a huge conifer hedge there,” the garden product manufacturer told Wales Online. “I took it all down because the wall was coming apart and it was getting dangerous. So I then built the wall - a nice strong wall, didn’t think anything of it, and then we had a letter from the council that someone had reported it.
“I was really shocked because the wall had been up for some time. I’m not the only one with a wall like this either. I’ve walked around the estate and there are a lot of walls like that and they’ve never had a problem.
“Another wall has been built across the road - a beautiful wall but a similar height to mine. But because no-one reported him he’s fine. If I reported all the people with high walls by here they’d go through the same thing, but I’d never do that, that’s not me."
Explaining why he felt the need to build the wall in the first place, Mark said: “We’ve had problems with things going missing from the garden, kids running in and out of the garden. We had syringes in the hedges, beer cans. It was ridiculous.”
Mark, who lives at Aneurin Bevan Avenue in Gelligaer, said he was unaware he had to get planning permission to build the wall and was told by Caerphilly County Borough Council officers the structure would need to be demolished. It was a way to protect my home and it was for my privacy and security,”