What a light-mare!
Gaffe leaves family with 2 lampposts in front garden
IT should have been an easy fix. But a row over where a lamppost should have been sited has left a family with two in their front garden.
And to make matters worse, Steve and Louise Price have also discovered the garden of their newbuild home is 3ft shorter than it should have been.
The trouble began when the couple were told by builders that a lamppost had been put up in the wrong place. When they checked the plans for their property it revealed the 35-inch shortfall.
Developers Crest Nicholson then offered Mr and Mrs Price £15,000 compensation for the lost land – and a further strip of 19 inches the council would need for maintenance of the lamppost. A legal battle ensued, during which Mr Price claims the payout offer was withdrawn. Three years on, a second lamppost has now been put up on the other side of the Prices’ house on land which the developers own.
So enraged are the couple by the dispute that they are now refusing to let workmen on to the front garden of the £400,000 detached house to remove the first lamppost.
Mr Price, 41, said: ‘The whole situation has caused us a huge amount of upset and stress. I’ve been petrified they will turn up at my house when I’m at work and dig up my garden. We are in a stand-off. They won’t pay us for the loss of land so I am trying to stop them from finishing the work until they pay.
‘We wouldn’t be in this position if they put the lamppost in the right place to begin with.’ The public service worker and his banker wife, 40, moved into the four-bedroom house in Maldon, Essex, with their son Charlie, now six, in 2016.
Two months later the first lamppost went up. It was supposed to be on the left of the house viewed from the front, but was put up on the right by mistake.
Mr Price claims Crest Nicholson withdrew their offer of compensation when he raised concerns over how much lawn he would lose.
Crest Nicholson said: ‘After careful investigation, a solution has been found by placing the street lamp on land Crest Nicholson owns, outside of the Prices’ property.
‘We await Mr and Mrs Price’s consent before removing the old post from their garden.’
‘We are in a stand-off’