Grandma hurt in row over a garden fence

on 22 September 2014

Police and ambulance crews attended a dispute in Adlington, Lancashire earlier this month when a row about a garden fence got out of control. 

During the dispute grandmother Christine Clewlow fell to the ground whilst trying to stop builders removing a fence panel.  The 54 year-old claims to have been knocked unconscious during the incident. 

The situation arose after builders from Bellway Homes came to take the fence down in the latest round of an ongoing boundary dispute. 

Mrs Clewlow, who has a video of the incident, explained: "I was holding on to fence panels in a corner.  One of the workmen is on stepladders over the fence with an electric screwdriver trying to unscrew the panels from the post, leaning right over. 

"There's another on the other side trying to prise panels away.  They were doing something underneath as well.  Between myself, my partner and the next door neighbour, we were trying to keep the fence together.

"The next minute, one of the panels shoots back. Something comes up from underneath and I went backwards onto concrete base panels."

Police say no crime was committed and that Mrs Clewlow's injuries were "not as a result of an assualt."  A spokeswoman for Lancashire Police added: "It's an ongoing civil matter and there will be no police investigation."

Meanwhile North West Ambulance Service have confirmed that an ambulance was sent to Mayfield Avenue, where the incident took place, on that day.

The dispute arose while Grove Farm estate, a Bellway Homes development, was being built.   Residents have sought legal advice:

"We back onto open farmland which is now a Bellway estate.  Nobody had fencing at the end of their garden, it was a natural drainage ditch which belongs to the properties.  Over the years people have put fences up, some had hedges, other had a few trees." Mrs Clewlow explained. 

Meanwhile Chlorley Council have asked Bellway to work with residents to resolve the dispute after they sent officers to the site last September to investigate complaints of a land collapse.