Hedge removal has left me in ‘hell zone’
The owner of a park home in Bath has said he is living in a “hell zone” after a hedge by his pitch was torn down.
David Edgar, 70, has lived at Quarry Rock Gardens for five years after he and his late wife bought their retirement property.
On Saturday morning, he was awoken by the sound of machinery and looked out to see “trees being chopped down”. By the end of the day, the whole hedge was gone, leaving David’s home exposed to the nearby common.
He said: “At the moment, there is nothing there between me and the common and people will come up and look through the windows.
“I feel pretty bad generally, every time I hear machinery droning I feel sick. I am living in this hell zone and I feel pretty much alone.
“The people living in this row, we’re all old. Two homes down, the chap died recently and beyond that, the lady has gone off to a home or something.
“I paid a lot for this property and I have got no rights.”
The removal of the hedge is the latest work to the site after it was sold to Wyldecrest Parks around a year and a half ago. Since then, the company - owned by businessman Alfie Best - has seen new water mains and Tarmac roads laid down for residents.
David said he was very upset to see the hedge cut down, as he had always considered the land behind his house as a sort of “garden”.
Although when he bought his home he didn’t receive a plan of his pitch, the pensioner had believed himself responsible for the patch and said other residents had brought in gardeners to maintain it.
“We had quite a large expanse which we thought was ours but apparently, we are only supposed to have three metres from the sides of our park home,” he said.
Before he retired, David and his wife lived in a flat in the middle of Newport. They moved to Bath to be near their son and picked Quarry Rock Gardens for its tranquil atmosphere and proximity to nature.
“We liked the environment here, that is why we came, but this has turned into an absolute nightmare. We are on the corner of the common and we had deer, badgers and foxes, and even an otter. It was a mature hedge and lots of creatures lived there,” the 70-year-old said.
Mr Best said: “Every resident is important to us, but the safety of our residents has to come first.
“We took the old hedge down because some of it was dying and some of it was rotten. There was also a barbed-wire fence running up the middle of it and it is illegal to use barbed wire on residential properties. We also took down a tree beside someone’s home and they thanked us for doing that.”
Mr Best said that the removal of the hedge had been in his plans for 18 months and that residents had been consulted.
“We have put in new water mains and driveways - all at no cost to the residents.
“We will be putting up a new fence which is much safer and planting a new hedgerow that is complementary to the environment.”