A bloke who built a six-foot wall around his home for ‘security’ has been locked in a two-year-long fight with the local council who are demanding he has it knocked down.
Mark Roberts paid more than £5,000 to have the wall erected outside his home in Gelligaer, in Caerphilly borough, Wales, in 2020.
Speaking to WalesOnline, Roberts said: “It was a way to protect my home and it was for my privacy and security.”
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But in October 2021, he received a letter from Caerphilly Council, telling him there had been a complaint made about the height of his wall.
He was then visited by council inspectors who told him he would have to demolish it.
If permanent structures, such as Robert’s wall, are higher than one metre then the homeowner must gain planning permission from the local council.
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However, Roberts says he was unaware of the rule when he had the wall put up back in 2020.
He said: “I was really shocked because the wall had been up for some time. I’m not the only one with a wall like this either. I’ve walked around the estate and there are a lot of walls like that and they’ve never had a problem.
“Another wall has been built across the road - a beautiful wall but a similar height to mine. But because no-one reported him he’s fine. If I reported all the people with high walls by here they’d go through the same thing, but I’d never do that, that’s not me.
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“I asked all my neighbours and not one of them objected. They had letters from the council asking if they wanted to object, but none of them did.
“The council told me to put in a retrospective application for the wall, which I did. It cost me another £240 to put that in and then they told me it’d been refused.”
In a last-ditch attempt to keep his wall, Roberts decided to appeal to government department Planning and Environmental Decisions Wales (PEDW) and had a largely successful outcome.
The inspector concluded: “I see no purpose in requiring the demolition of the wall in its entirety, only for a lower wall constructed using the same materials as those used on the main dwelling to be immediately erected under development rights. Therefore, and within the context that the enforcement process should be remedial rather than punitive, I find that the requirements of the notice are excessive in this case.
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"I shall therefore vary the requirements of the notice to include the option of reducing the height of those elements of the wall.”
Responding to the news, Roberts said: “I’m happy with that outcome. It’s better than saying ‘take it all down’ isn’t it? Initially they wanted me to demolish it, so it’s progress. I’m not as gutted as I thought I would be. We now have two months to alter it. I’ve got to reduce it to a metre in height, so I’ve nearly got to half it. I feel like I’ve won but I also feel like I’ve lost a bit.”
Caerphilly Council has been contacted for comment.
Claire Reid