Tina told to dock height of her deck

Tina Hodgson’s decking, from, Shaw, has been ruled too high and she will have to remodel the whole £3,600 project

A CHILDMINDER who spent £3,600 on wooden decking to provide a safe area for children in her care has been told that she must rip it up - because it doesn’t meet planning regulations.

Tina Hodgson of The Grove in Shaw, now has to find a way to lower its height after a neighbour complained about breach of privacy.

Mrs Hodgson (51) hired D&D gardening maintenance and landscape services in Shaw to do the initial work and has questioned whether the company should have informed her about planning permission.

She said: “These are rules that have been in place for years, surely they would have known we might have problems and could have warned us about this.”

After being contacted by the Chronicle, Andrew Walker from D&D explained the company was unaware the project required planning permission because it didn’t have experience in that field: “If we had known about this we would have let the customer know.”

Council regulations say the responsibility for finding out if planning permission is required lies with the property owner.

Mrs Hodgson added: “It’s so upsetting that we’ve been put in this situation when our only goal was to create a safe environment for the children. We feel totally helpless. ”