A RETIRED couple have been left fuming after being forced to plant a £3,000 row of tall trees to block out their neighbour’s “eye sore” new bungalow.
Terry and Mary Cook have fought a fierce four-year-battle to stop the controversial new home being built next door overlooking their beautiful, pristine kept property.
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The retired miner and his wife added that they feared they would be spied upon from while living in a “goldfish bowl.”
And when a Government Planning Inspector overturned a local council decision to block the development, the horrified pensioners refused to be defeated.
Before the large single-storey building went up, the feisty OAP’s dug up a side border and planted a huge hedge of Leylandii.
Terry, 81, admitted: “We have to accept the bungalow next door, we can’t do anything about it. We’ve been fighting it for four years and it’s been awful.”
His wife Mary, 78, said: “It’s an eyesore and without our row of conifers we would have been living in a goldfish bowl, being looked at all the time, and they would be seeing us sitting in our lounge watching TV.”
The couple are among half a dozen neighbours who have complained about the “intrusive” and “in your face” bungalow.
After a long running wrangle the property was finally built in a back yard in the desirable village of Newthorpe, Nottinghamshire.
The Cook’s invited The Sun Online into their house of 24 years – a charming bungalow with a single dormer roof bedroom, but now overlooking the new built completed six months ago.
Terry told how to block the view he had “no option” but to plant a hedge at his cost and labour.
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He said: “We’ve had to go to a lot of expense in an attempt to shield that horrible building. It’s cost £2,400 to buy the Leylandii trees and more than £500 for special platform and steps to plant and maintain them.”
While Mary added: “It’s an eyesore next door, it’s not attractive and we have to look at it but the hedge thankfully helps screen it. Otherwise we would have been on view all the time.”
The couple feel it is “unfair” they have had to use their pension to pay for “essential screening.”
Mary, a retired police force office worker, also told how how husband had carried out the strenuous task of planting the trees himself, and maintaining them.
She confided: “He had to do away with our border a few year year ago and put up the hedge to screen it. He has to trim and maintain it. I get so worried when he climbs up on the platform to do it, it is scary to watch, but he won’t have anyone else do it.”
Mary, who has a daughter and three grandkids, told how a lengthy fight for planning permission not to be granted had taken its toll on both her and her husband’s health.
She said: “There were lots of objections but it is better than the original plans but we still feel very squashed in and looked over but luckily we now have our conifers.”
“It’s an eyesore next door, it’s not attractive and we have to look at it but the hedge thankfully helps screen it.”
Mary Cook, 78
Another couple who live behind the “intrusive” new bungalow – coincidentally in the former home of the Cooks – are disgruntled Roger and Sharon Smith.
Sharon, 61, and husband Roger, 59, claim £30,000 has been wiped off the value of their four-bed 1960’s detached home which the new build virtually smacks into.
The despairing husband and wife told The Sun Online they were advised the unwanted build may have knocked off a huge amount of the value of their estimated £300,000 home they have lived in for 22 years.
She took our team into her pretty back garden, which boasts a pond of coy carp and other fish, and physically touched the roof of the new neighbouring bungalow from her side access.
Exclaiming: “Look I can touch the roof! It’s intrusive, it’s in your face but we have to get used to it.
“They should have built further back.”
Sharon added: “They started building in the summer of last year, finishing in April and the new people moved in.
“We have no grievance with them, they paid the money and bought the house after planning rights were granted.”
Plans for the “ghastly big bungalow” had been rejected numerous times by Broxtowe Borough Council but was won on a second appeal in July 2018 with building permission granted.
Sharon said they had even tried to buy the land to prevent the bungalow being built but were unsuccessful, saying: “We put in an offer of £70,000 and the owner told us he wanted £99,000 without access.”
She added: “I feel sorry for the people who have bought it in good faith, it remains a big impact for us and our neighbours.”
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But landowner Mark Copeland hit back at residents after winning a bitter years-long planning dispute “fairly and squarely”.
The former construction company boss spoke out after furious locals blamed him for an “eyesore” sprawling new bungalow in the desirable village of Newthorpe, Nottinghamshire.
Mark admitted: “It’s been a tricky one and an expensive process trying to appease neighbours.
“It took five applications and drawings. Everything was done above board and correctly, but nothing proposed appeased the neighbours. Their objections were obstructive.
“It is had been two-storey it would have had less impact on the footprint.
“The plans were finally accepted by the Inspector. Nothing was done underhanded.”
Mark, speaking exclusively to The Sun Online, said: “I nearly decided not to continue had it not been for contention in the Town Hall at the borough council.
“It was a little tricky and I was going to decide not to continue but a friend said I must continue, and if I didn’t he wouldn’t be a friend on mine any more.
“The second appeal we won fairly and squarely. We won the day.”
Mark and his wife used to live at a five-bed house next door in Mill Lane and had intended to downsize to the new bungalow but an ongoing feud with neighbours over planning led them to move away.
He explained: “The neighbours’ attitudes soured that, we were not driven out but we decided to move into the countryside in Lincolnshire.
‘WE WANTED TO WORK TOGETHER’
Mark told how on one occasion he took the proposal to the Smiths – whose home backs onto the bungalow – “ We wanted to work together and I invited them to my house with my wife but they declined that meeting”.
He added how he sold the land with permission to build to a developer, who then sold it to David and Brenda Kitching.
He said: “It’s out of my hands twice now.”
He doesn’t know the new owners personally but said coincidentally he knew of the Kitchings because they had previously bought a house from him.
He explained: “I sold a house to them before.”
Mark added: “The Smiths are implying they have lost £30,000 on their house which is a four bed detached and must be worth £300,000 but the bungalow is a very nice property and only enhances theirs.”
He said how when he sold the land to a developer, that purchaser had called him.
“I told him ‘You have full planning permission, get on with the job and enjoy building a bungalow!’”
Despite this, Mark added “there’s no animosity now with the owners”.
And Mark’s daughter Joanna Copeland happens to live in a bungalow on Mill Road – next door to her parents’ former home and in front of the controversial bungalow.
She said: “It’s built in my back garden!
“I’ve lived here for five years. The neighbours are not best pleased because they think they new bungalow looks down on everyone else’s garden.
“My dad is an ex property developer and he sold the development after planning was granted a few years ago.
“The neighbour’s behind are just dredging up the past, they were offered the land and refused to buy it.
“Permission has been granted, everyone’s house is built in a back garden, they should get over it.
“If they are that bothered they should have bought the land or move on.”
Joanna added: “But they have no grievance with the new owners, they are on OK terms.”
