A local council has forked out £100,000 on scaffolding to prevent a car park from collapsing onto an elderly widower’s home, with the pensioner despairing he feels “trapped” and abandoned by the authority.
The temporary structure was installed at Home Farm in South Woodchester back in 2019 by Stroud District Council in Gloucestershire after a retaining wall shifted by four inches.
Since then, taxpayers have been footing a bill of £368 each week, with the total surpassing a six-figure sum by the close of last year.
Despite years of ongoing costs, no permanent fix has been identified for the problematic wall, leaving homeowner Andrew Ewart-James in limbo.
The 79-year-old widower purchased the property nearly fifty years ago in 1977, hoping to leave it to his children as an inheritance.
Following his wife’s death, Mr Ewart-James had planned to move to a smaller home, but the unresolved wall situation has scuppered those plans entirely.
He maintains the ongoing dispute has slashed his property’s worth by more than half, estimating it has fallen from over £1million to approximately £400,000.
Mr Ewart-James expressed his frustration at the council’s handling of the matter, stating: “They’ve just left the scaffolding in the yard. It’s a disgrace, and the impression that the council really just doesn’t care.”
Stroud District Council has spent £100,000 on scaffolding to prevent a car park from collapsing onto an elderly widower’s home
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He added: “I feel trapped. I am fed up with the council – they never say anything, never respond to me and never say what they are doing.”
The widower has now launched legal action, saying: “I’m too old to hang around, so I have issued instructions to go to High Court proceedings against them for damages.”
Former Labour county councillor Lesley Williams condemned the expenditure, fuming: “This is taxpayers’ money that has been totally wasted because Stroud District Council have failed in their duty to take responsibility for their mistake.
“By the time the work required is completed, it could be costing you, the council taxpayer, up to £1,000,000! What a scandal.”
The pensioner revealed the blunder has wiped £600,000 from the price of his properety
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Mr Ewart-James also remarked on the property’s diminished appeal, commenting: “Nobody with half a brain would buy a house in this condition.
“It’s probably worth somewhere over £1million. I reckon the fall in the value of this house would mean only an investor would buy it in its current condition for around £400,000.”
The wall’s troubles stretch back decades, with Mr Ewart-James’s surveyor cautioning him at the time of purchase the 12-foot retaining structure, whilst sound, would likely cause difficulties in future.
His concerns proved prescient when cracks began appearing in 1986, prompting a dedicated structural survey.
“The cracks were going through the bricks. We knew we had a problem,” Mr Ewart-James said.
He first alerted the council to the issue that same year and installed marker tags to monitor any movement.
“It showed slight movement over the years, and then in January 2019, the wall lurched four inches, being pushed by the council’s wall,” the homeowner continued.
He also noted vehicles using the car park have increased from two to seven or eight since 1977, adding: “The cars are getting heavier and bigger every year.”
Stroud District Council said it remains committed to advancing the project swiftly, attributing delays in late 2024 to disagreements over design details with Mr Ewart-James’s structural engineer, The Oxford Mail reports.
A spokesman said: “To resolve this, we appointed an independent Party Wall surveyor, as did Mr Ewart-James. By March 2025, proposals were agreed.”
The local authority added it is finalising a licence agreement before appointing contractors.
