A fence likened to the Berlin Wall is stopping a community from accessing their local park. The structure surrounds a ditch that was created to make way for a new water culvert by builders putting up new homes - but work has stalled and the barrier has stayed for months.
Residents who can normally walk on to the recreation ground directly have to add 20 minutes to their journey to get there on foot. One neighbour, Adele Atkinson, lives close to the park but said she now has to drive round to another entrance to take her dogs out in the evening.
She said: "It's driving me potty. Normally, I can come home from work, get the dogs out and we're straight onto the rec. It's a social thing and people know each other and the dogs know each other. That's all gone. Some people can use the rec and the rest of us have to use this patch. It's like the Berlin Wall."
The fence, erected in November, is blocking Field Lane recreation ground from Boulton Moor in Chellaston, Derbyshire. The ditch was created by builders on a new Bellway Homes estate where construction began in September 2022, DerbyshireLive reports.
A yellow warning sign was displayed in November saying access would not be possible from the week commencing November 18. However the work to dig out the ditch did not take place until December and was completed, with vehicles having left the site, by December 16.
But the culvert still hasn't been installed and the site has been left untouched since. Adele said: "Why don't they just fill it in again (if they don't have the materials?) It'll take them two minutes to do. I don't know what the reason is for doing nothing."
Adele said children have started scaling the fences and crossing the ditch to avoid having to walk around. She added that Bellway has resorted to chaining the fence to the ground to stop people vandalising it.
Grassroots football matches still take place on the rec despite the nearby work. Fence panels are removed on Saturday and Sunday mornings to allow for stray balls to be fetched when they go into the ditch. DerbyshireLive reported that, on the weekend of March 18 and 19, a pair of referees arrived for their first match in a while at their usual entrance to the park and got all the way to the ditch before they realised it was closed.
The yellow notice at the fence says that once the culvert is completed, a "new, formal crossing" is to be installed, possibly in the form of a bridge, to make it easier for locals to get over.
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"It doesn't do mine or a lot of people's mental health any good," said Adele. "People need more exercise, not less, but are being forced to jump in the car and drive around. Not everybody can afford to do that and not even everyone has a car. There's a big community of elderly people who use their morning dog walk on the rec as a social event. But they can't now."
A Bellway spokesperson said: “Bellway is upgrading an offsite drainage channel next to the Field Lane playing field under the planning consent for The Meadows. This is necessary to ensure the onsite drainage functions correctly.
“The area has been fenced off to ensure the safety of residents and the wider public. We have experienced some delays in receiving materials to complete the work due to ongoing shortages in the industry. We apologise for any inconvenience this causes and will ensure the work is completed as soon as possible.”
