Hay! Will you stop blocking our view
8ft wall is final straw for neighbour
A LANDOWNER has been accused of blocking his disabled neighbour’s view of his meadow with hay and straw bales in an ‘act of spite’.
Stephen Bett, a former Norfolk police and crime commissioner, erected the 8fthigh wall after an unknown vandal tore down 95 leylandii trees he had planted.
The barrier covers the 60ft width of Maxine Turner’s bungalow next to the grounds of his 18th- century mansion. Mrs Turner’s son John, 50, who lives with his mother as her carer in Thornham, Norfolk, said it seemed Mr Bett wrongly believed he had felled the 10ft leylandii.
Staff of Mr Bett, pictured right, built a bale wall which Mr Turner admitted toppling. It was later rebuilt to make it impossible for one person to demolish. Mr Turner, a part-time gardener, said: ‘Mr Bett has hundreds of acres of farmland and he could have put them anywhere – but he chose to put them here.
‘My mother has multiple sclerosis and macular degeneration so her eyesight is failing. Looking out on the horses on the meadow was a real pleasure for her.’ But Mr Bett, 69, said he did not want to look at his neighbours ‘ barbecuing and putting their washing out’. He added: ‘To say I am spoiling his view is totally wrong. I am protecting my view.’ Norfolk Police investigated the vandalism on July 2 but did not find the culprit.