Neighbours say they have been ‘through hell’ as four-year row over home comes to end

The exhausting fall-out between neighbours in Banfordhill Close in Oldbury over an unlawful demolition and rebuild job has left one elderly couple feeling trapped in their own home with their pleas for help often ignored.

Harminder Singh Reehal first received the green light from Sandwell Council to add a handful of extensions to his home in Barnfordhill Close in 2021, but despite the authority’s planners saying he could not build a two-storey extension, he built it anyway.

Following complaints, the illegal build was investigated by the council and the wait for a ruling has rumbled on for more than a year.

Mr Reehal first tried to get planning permission for various extensions in 2020.

The neighbours say they have been ‘through hell’ by the work with constant banging from scaffolding depriving them of sleep.

Loose loft insulation and other building materials have left their garden a mess and a no-go zone.

The neighbour told the planning committee on July 24: “We are living in that house but we are not doing what we want to do.

“My grandchildren don’t go in the garden because of the loft insulation going everywhere, we don’t sit in the garden. We don’t do anything.

“Our garden is unjust a mess and it has caused me anxiety, it has caused me depression and it has caused me stress.

“At this time in our lives, we need to sit and relax and not have this stress over our heads from our neighbours who don’t wish to listen.”

Sandwell Council said the approval of the application would finally ‘draw a line’ under the ordeal.

The council’s planning committee was due to decide on the ‘retrospective’ proposals for the family home in March, but quickly abandoned the debate after Mr Reehal threw another spanner in the works and revealed only one of the home’s original walls was still in place.

The planning application, which included a first-floor side extension, single-storey side extension and single and two-storey rear extensions, was quickly scrapped and replaced with a fresh application for a ‘new’ home.

The work includes a bigger home with a first-floor side extension, a single-storey side extension to the roadside, single and two-storey rear extensions, an increase in roof height, two rear dormer windows and a front porch. The application also proposes the reinstatement of a grass verge and a new fence.

The council said the application would have “no significant impact on the amenity of surrounding residents and the design and scale would assimilate into the surrounding area.

“Whilst the unauthorised demolition, rebuild and removal of the verge is regrettable, the proposal builds on the principles set in a previous approval and seeks to rectify wrongs with a reasonable scheme to address the visual amenity issues.”

Mr Reehal apologised to his neighbours at the planning meeting in March saying the work was taking longer than expected, but did not attend last week’s meeting.

He said in March: “We just want to improve the area and get on.

“It’s a family house, my mom and dad are supposed to come in and that’s why we want to extend the house as I just want to look after my mom and dad.”

Mr Reehal then told the committee he had demolished all but one of the walls on the original building, which led to the council’s solicitor recommending an immediate deferral.