Mum who dug in over garden row celebrates U-turn
A MUM is celebrating after winning a year-long battle to fix up her garden.
Bev Smith, 35, has spent the last 12 months at logger-heads with Peaks and Plains Housing Trust over the state of the back yard of the property she rents on Wilwick Lane, on the Moss estate.
Rubble and concrete left behind by the previous tenant had left the garden unsafe for her two-year-old son Warren to play in.
She began complaining last summer but the clean-up was not completed.
Facing another summer with Warren cooped up in doors Bev complained again and has finally got a result.
Peaks and Plains has now agreed to put the garden back into use.
Bev, a legal secretary, said: “When I moved in to the property in March 2012 when I was eight months pregnant, there were various pieces of concrete and broken walls in the garden which had been left by a previous tenant who had greenhouses or flower beds on them. The garden was in no way a priority of mine then but last summer my son had started to walk and I decided it would be a good time to get the garden done so that he could play outside.
“Peaks and Plains removed one of the concrete slabs but left three behind. I was frustrated and attempted to get the work done myself but could not afford the £700 I was being quoted.”
“I complained again and a contractor who visited called the garden a ‘death trap’ and refused for her workmen to go in the garden. I felt helpless.”
A spokesman for Peaks and Plains said: “Following a complaint we are arranging to have the concrete bases removed as soon as possible, and as a gesture of goodwill we have also agreed to completely clear the overgrown garden, so that Ms Smith is able to start afresh.”