We can see! Newlyweds’ ‘prison’ fence is torn down
A NEWLYWED couple who returned from honeymoon to find a 6ft fence had been erected just 2ft from their front door are celebrating after it was torn down.
The couple said they had felt like ‘prisoners in their own home’ after they became the victims of a long-running land dispute between the owner of neighbouring Upper Mickle Hay Farm and developer Persimmon, which built the new estate.
Thomas Entwistle, 27, and his wife Rebekah, 24, had moved into the £220,000 four- bedroom home on Persimmon Homes’ Brook View estate in Blackburn, just before Christmas.
But they returned from an 11-day honeymoon in the Caribbean earlier this month to find their countryside view completely blocked, with a fence they compared to looking ‘like the Berlin Wall’.
Mrs Entwistle even moved back to her parents’ home because of the fence’s impact on the couple’s lives.
However, this week it was pulled down by a team from Persimmon, after Blackburn With Darwen Council planning officials visited and told the firm that the fence was constructed on land it owned.
The company insisted that none of its development encroaches on land it does not already own.
Mr Entwistle said: ‘We are so relieved. I can’t tell you how excited we are that the fence is down. Our fear now is that it will be put back up again. We just hope it is gone for good.’
A spokesman for the farmer’s land agent, Gary Hoerty Associates of Grindleton, declined to comment.
Council officials will now see if the fence was in breach of planning regulations.