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.
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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.