Stone me! Steve’s rebuild earns rebuke

Good intentions... Steve Quilter says he is doing his best to improve the council property.

ONE man’s oasis is another man’s dump it seems as council officers have come down hard on a Greenfield landscaper.

Steve Quilter (63), of Warlow Crest, Gladstone Terrace Road, has plans to turn the front garden of his property into a tranquil space complete with woodland wonder.

But after using a metre-square piece of land to store boulders for his rockery, he was accused of fly-tipping by Oldham Council and asked to attend a taped interview.

The landscape gardener, who has osteo-arthritis and angina, says he plans to use everything on the pile to transform the garden of the house he rents from the council.

He said: “This can’t be fly-tipping. I’m using the stuff that is there.

“Before the garden was a mess. There were brambles and bushes everywhere and it was completely overgrown.

“It’s absolutely stupidity. I can’t believe they have come down so hard on someone who is trying to improve a council property.

“Because of my health, I can only do a little bit at a time and it’s difficult lugging the stones back and forth.”

He says officers told him the items encroach on the public footpath, but he says no one uses the pavement as it is a dead end, and heavy rain had dislodged the rocks.

The former council worker got his ideas from the Harrogate Flower Show during a visit last year.

However, far from being prize-winning, he is now worried his work-in-progress could lead to him being prosecuted for fly-tipping.

Councillor Jean Stretton, Cabinet Member for Neighbourhoods, said: “A complaint of fly-tipping on Gladstone Terrace Road has been received by Oldham Council and officers are currently investigating.”

Mr Quilter, who was once a drystone waller, also wanted to plant colourful flowers on the land in question to spruce up what he describes as a “dull corner”.

He says he will now fight the claim.