Residents who spent years developing a community garden in an alleyway came home to find workmen had ripped it out.
They said they had spent five years growing fruit trees and decking out the Levenshume, Greater Manchester alley – some of it paid for by Manchester City Council funding.
But Tom Marrett and Maeve Cowan returned home to find everything gone, including a mature grapevine.
Basat Sheikh, the council’s executive member for neighbourhoods, and Zahid Hussain said senior officers had been asked to investigate, adding the clearance “should never have happened”.
The garden runs behind homes between Stanhope Street, Gordon Avenue and Delamere Road.
Marrett, 37, a designer who runs a community workshop in Stockport, discovered the clearance while taking out his bins on Friday evening.