Wealthy villagers have accused a farmer of using “bullying” tactics after 30ft high stacks of hay bales were dumped outside their homes following a planning row.
Thirty tons of hay were piled up on trailers in a field adjacent to the back gardens of several £500,000 detached properties.
The villagers believe they were put there deliberately after a planning application by farmer Richard Barton to run a waste processing site was rejected.
Resident Peter Shaw, 55, said the bales were stacked behind his house on Cole Road, Ockbrook, Derbys., last Thursday (9/8).
Mr Shaw and his wife Helen, 50, moved into the home in 2004, and say this is the first time they have encountered an issue with Mr Barton.
Mr Shaw, who works in the motoring trade, says the bales are a potential fire risk and is urging Mr Barton, 44, to remove them.
He said: “The farmer won’t speak to you, I have tried.
“He’s just a bully.
“I truly believe it is just something we are going to have to live with now.
“I have contact everyone and anyone that I possibly can and nothing seems to getting done about it.
“It feels as though there is one rule for one person and another rule for others.
“It’s an eye sore – I’m not sure they are even stored correctly.
“He’s put 30 tonnes on a trailer.
“First, the lorries came and they were full of hay bales and he put them in place one by one.
“So we’ve got three in a row.
“More and more bales were put on top – there might be a row of seven or eight – I’m not entirely sure now.
2You can see it from the road, you can see it from the footbridge.
“It’s about ten meters from my home – if they were to fall then they would destroy my garden.
“I thought they were a fire risk but the fire brigade said to me they’re not a fire risk.
“The farmer has been trying to put a planning application through now for the past eight years.
“He wants to create a site to process waste.
“The application has been rejected not just by ourselves but by the whole village.
“It just seems because my house backs onto his farm – that we have to bear the brunt of this.”
Another resident on the street said: “The view from our back garden used to be open fields but now all you can see is a wall of hay.
“I’m convinced this is some kind of protest against the village because the farmer didn’t get the planning permission he wanted.
“It’s a form of intimidation and is just simply being done out of spite.”
A Derbyshire Fire and Rescue Service spokesperson said: “The storing of these types of bales is done safely and responsibly across the whole of the country and as a result.
“There is no cause for concern relating to this type of storage in its current state.
“If in the future the situation changes and this poses a risk of fire, then the fire and rescue service will do everything in its power to reduce that risk to the surrounding residents and property.”
A man who answered the door at Carr Hill Farm, where the bales have been left, refused to comment.
