Linda Hufton was heartbroken by what happened to her back garden – but what followed was even worse
A woman has described her heartbreak after a brick wall collapsed into her beloved garden and described the painful months-long wait for action to be taken to address the damage.
Linda Hufton has lived at her house in West Derby for 11 years. She lives alone following the death of her husband and said that taking care of her immaculate garden has become a crucial outlet for her.
Her garden backs on to the West Derby Bowling Club in Mill Lane. The bowling club is soon set to become the new home of Zoe’s Place children’s hospice, which is set to create a new state-of-the-art facility on the land having raised millions of pounds in a stunning public campaign last year.
But while Ms Hufton welcomes the new Zoe’s Place moving in behind her property, she is struggling with something that happened earlier this year.
She explained: “It was January of this year and I had been visiting a friend when there was a bad storm. I ended up staying at their house. When I came home the next day and opened my curtains to look at my garden, I couldn’t believe what I saw.”
Mrs Hufton said the whole wall from the bowling club behind her had collapsed following the storm, with large numbers of bricks coming down ‘like a deck of cards’ and smashing onto her patio. The bricks also smashed into her greenhouse, smashing it into pieces.
She said: “I just didn’t know what to do. I contacted my insurance company who came out and stacked up all the loose bricks for me. But there was a discussion about whose wall it was before it was decided it was the club’s wall.”
The 77-year-old said what followed was an interminable wait for any action to be taken to repair the wall and the damage to her garden.
She said: “For a long time it just felt like nobody cared. I was so upset about it. I really love my garden. I am a widow and I live on my own. I spend a lot of time in my garden and this destroyed parts of it – it ruined my greenhouse and my planters and it felt like I was just left to deal with it.”
Mrs Hufton was particularly perturbed when she says she received a letter suggesting the onus was on her to contact her own insurance company to sort the situation out. She said: “I thought they way I was spoken to in the letter was disgusting – to send that to a lady of my age.”
However there does appear to now be movement in terms of repairing the wall – or at least the promise of movement.
The ECHO contacted the bowling club and a representative told us there had been a delay in carrying out the repair work because of their insurance company, but confirmed that work to rebuild the wall would be starting on Monday.
The representative indicated they did not want to speak further on the matter.
