A row between neighbours has erupted after a retired widow was accused of “spending hours” tending to her new planter.
Jane Higgins, 74, would spend her day looking after the plants and ornaments within her new planter after she had it installed in the front garden of her semi-detached home in East Lothian, Scotland.
However, Ms Higgins was forced to apply for retrospective planning permission after her neighbour complained that the planter caused a “disruption” to parking and privacy.
They said the addition to her garden impedes their privacy “as the neighbour spends hours attending to their plants”.
Jane Higgins had the planter installed in April this year
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The neighbour claimed the planter’s construction “caused disruption to street parking” when it was built in April this year, and described it as a “hideous eyesore”.
They also said it had become a “haven for cats who use it as a litter tray” and that “cats now fight at night causing excessive noise”.
The new planter measures around seven metres in length, 0.9 metres wide and 0.8 metres high.
Having spent hundreds of pounds on planning fees and an architect, Ms Higgins has been given permission to keep the “beautiful” timber planter.
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Ms Higgins’s family said they were in disbelief when they were informed she would need to get retrospective planing permission
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A planning officer for East Lothian District Council said: “The raised planter is visible from the public road to the northwest, it is however only some 0.8 metres in height and is similar in its height and overall appearance to boundary enclosures, which are present within the surrounding area.”
According to planning officers, damage to property, parking disruption, and concern over cat noise were not planning considerations.
Ms Higgins’s 54-year-old son, Craig Higgins, described the row as “ridiculous”.
He said: “We were in disbelief about the whole thing. It is just crazy.
“My mum had put the planter in and never in a million years did we think she would need planning permission for it.
“But the council wrote to her and told her there had been an objection so we needed to get planning consent.
“We laughed it off at the beginning as we thought it had been a mistake.”
He added that the situation had “caused a lot of stress” and “taken a couple of months to manage and cost a few hundred pounds”.