A furious homeowner has hit out at the council after his garden was paved over to make a communal patio.

Will Howell, 49, owns a flat in a block of council-owned homes in Heath Way, Shard End, Birmingham.

He and other residents used to have their own gardens until Birmingham City Council paved over them to create the joint space following a consultation in 2018.

Mr Howell, a performance manager in the building industry, said he only agreed to the move on the basis he would get a new garden – but three years later it has still not happened.

He said the council ‘seemed to make promises when they needed to do the work and they went missing afterwards’, adding: ‘I wasn’t asking for anything over and above.

‘I was just asking for my garden to be put back the way it was. You can’t go round making promises to people and then take their garden away.’

Mr Howell said the space ‘was seriously missed during the Covid period’, describing how his niece and nephew were put off venturing outside ‘because it’s open to anyone’ and ‘there’s no private area’.

He said: ‘I just want them to do the right thing. They had their chance at the beginning and made their excuses. They have just left me in the lurch.’

To make things worse, he says the council has also told him he owes £25,000 for additional refurbishment works being carried out on the building – ‘more than [he] paid for the property in the first place’.

Birmingham City Council said it would work with Mr Howell on a ‘suitable solution’.

A spokesperson told BirminghamLive ‘the area was identified for major refurbishment’ as the gardens ‘were significantly overgrown and unusable’ for families and other residents.

They explained that while ‘individual concerns’ are taken into account as part of the overall consultation, ‘a wider decision has to be made for the benefit of the whole block’.

The spokesperson went on: ‘The work that took place significantly improved the lives of residents in these blocks and the feedback that was gathered from the wider community has been extremely positive.’

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