Homemade rooftop garden and 'haven for wildlife' ordered demolition by council

SWNS

A homemade rooftop garden tackling anti-social behaviour and a 'haven for wildlife' has been ordered to be taken down by local council - over health and safety fears.  Rob Wood, 53, built the Mediterranean roof garden at Broadsands Beach Watersports Centre in Paignton, Devon.  Rob, who has owned the space for 17 years, said it was a haven for wildlife and has even been deterring anti-social behaviour.  But Torbay Council, which leases the centre building site to Rob, said any modifications to leased buildings "must comply with planning, structural safety, and health and safety regulations".

Transcript

00:00We started in around March this year, just planting the odd, a couple of nasturtiums

00:05to start with.

00:06No gardening experience amongst me or any of the boys at work here.

00:10So I went to my go-to nasturtium, which I used to plant with my nan when I was a young

00:13kid.

00:14So I planted them with my little niece, age three, Dolce, so she was spending one day

00:18a week over here in the winter helping me.

00:20So we started planting plants, and it's just sort of gone on from there really.

00:23It was a really ugly space up here before, the wall was horrible, all it did was attract

00:28anti-social behaviour, kids drinking cider, that kind of stuff.

00:31The area around now would have just been awash with beer cans on that on a Sunday morning.

00:35So it just snowballed on really, when the people helped me along with advice, more advice

00:39than anything, people gave me some cuttings, but mainly gave me advice, lots of local people

00:42who are good gardeners helped me along the way.

00:44And we've just ended up with this, tourists, locals, everybody loves it, you know.

00:48What I didn't really like was the blanket, get rid of it, you know, why not have a bit

00:51of compromise, you know.

00:52So we've taken our beer on board somewhat, the councillor said, we put up a no access

00:56sign, there was a table and chairs behind me here, we've taken that away so there's

00:58now no temptation for people to come up here, or reason to come up here.

01:01They can see it all from the ground.

01:03So we're just hoping that common sense will prevail and there's a compromise that can

01:06be met where we don't have to get rid of all of it.

01:09Health and safety has gone mad, 100%, yeah.

01:11My background is in civil engineering, this is a concrete beam and block construction,

01:15it's basically, our loading has been distributed around the perimeter edges, the loading of

01:19the boat is above a sporting wall beneath it, so there is, you know, there is a thought

01:23process going into what we've done here.

01:25And the no access sign we've put up now, so I think we've ticked all the boxes and

01:29I think unfortunately maybe my knowledge has been a bit overridden and no one's paid any

01:32attention that I, you know, wasn't always a beach bum and I do know what I'm doing a

01:34little bit, you know.

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