Helene Ball returned from a shopping trip with a friend to discover that her local council had installed a green metal fence outside her home, completely cutting off access to the rear of her garden.
“The cement was already dry. I was angry at first, then I just laughed,” she said.
“You have to laugh about it, otherwise you’ll cry.”
Mrs Ball spoke this week from her immaculate semi-detached home overlooking the picturesque Derbyshire Dales town of Matlock, after winning a three-year, £50,000 David-and-Goliath legal battle with Derbyshire County Council over the 3ft 3in gateway.
She was preparing a Victoria sponge cake but admitted that she was feeling “worn out”.
Despite her trademark humour, the extraordinary dispute has taken a heavy toll on the 81-year-old retired teacher and her family.
And the saga is not over. Last week, in what Mrs Ball called a final act of vindictiveness, the council delivered giant concrete blocks outside her property, supposedly to restore her access after her decisive legal victory.
However, the 54 two-foot blocks, which look like enormous Lego pieces and cost the council £7,700, have only deepened her frustration.
“It’s stolen my summer. I haven’t been able to enjoy my garden,” she said. “I just hope I live long enough to get another one next year that I can enjoy.”
Helene Ball, 81, faces a fresh dispute after giant concrete “Lego” blocks were placed outside her property in Matlock, Derbyshire
Mrs Ball pictured in her garden beside the 3ft gateway at the centre of the legal dispute
An aerial view shows the large concrete blocks installed by the council outside her home
Derbyshire County Council said the blocks were installed to “enable vehicular access to Mrs Ball while preventing fly-tipping and racing and other antisocial activities elsewhere on the site”
The fence that triggered the three-year legal dispute
The dispute began in April 2023, when the gate appeared. By then, Mrs Ball had lived at the property for nearly 60 years.
She and her late husband, Brian, whom she met at teacher training college in Matlock, bought the house soon after it was built in 1967. The couple raised their two children, David and Frances, there.
At the bottom of the garden stood a concrete wall with a small opening left for a gate, which Mr Ball later installed.
The green metal fence was erected a month before the second anniversary of his death, during an especially difficult period for Mrs Ball.
“I had been shopping in town. My neighbour said, ‘Do you know the council have concreted a fence in front of your gate?’ I came outside and there it was. By then, the concrete had set solid.”
The gateway opens onto a council-owned car park. The land originally belonged to the local teacher training college, where Mrs Ball studied, before being transferred to the county council and used as staff parking. The authority later decided to sell the site for housing in a bid to raise much-needed capital funds.
It seems to have been this decision to sell which prompted the council to block Mrs Ball’s access as a short time later the car park was fenced off and the metal gate erected.
‘They don’t want anyone parking because they want to sell it with vacant possession,’ Mrs Ball said.
‘I just came home and there it was. No communication whatsoever. They only came to see me afterwards when they tried to fool me to into losing my rights.’
She is referring to a visit from the council in which they asked her to sign a temporary licence to use the gate.
It would have meant she would have lost her right to claim prescriptive easement – the legal right to use another person’s land, which can be acquired by proving continuous use over at least 20 years.
Thankfully she didn’t and instead sought legal advice while David, a landscape gardener, started his own research and they applied for the access to be added to the land registry.
The case finally went before a first-tier tribunal judge in May.
Mrs Ball was questioned during an online hearing, while her son David gave evidence for more than two hours.
They argued that her continued access amounted to prescriptive rights to access and, finally in August, the land judge ruled in her favour.
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The access will now be added to the deed for the land while the council was also ordered to pay her costs of around £50,000 as well as ensure her pedestrian and vehicular access is not impeded.
It came after Mrs Ball was able to demonstrate she and her family had used the gate to access the car park on foot and by car since 1967.
For while the couple had a driveway and a garage at the front of their house, their home is at the end of a steep, narrow S-shaped cul-de-sac and access to the rear was easier.
They were able to prove – through pictures and oral testimony – that from approximately 1967 onwards, she, her husband, their children and visitors to their house all used the car park for pedestrian and vehicular access.
Mrs Ball told how her husband, a forklift truck driver at a local quarry, would walk through the car park to the town centre, where he would be picked up by a colleague, until he retired in 1997.
Mr Ball would also leave the house via the car park when he would walk down to the River Derwent to go fishing.
Until she retired in 1973, Mrs Ball, who worked at Alfreton Junior School, would walk through the rear gate, down the car park and into town where she too would be picked up by a colleague.
Pictures show her children playing in the snow on the land and learning to ride bikes there while Mr Ball had fitted a tyre swing to one of the trees for them.
David would be picked up and dropped off by car at the rear gate following rugby practice and nights out.
For their part the council, who hired lawyers to fight the case, accused Mrs Ball and her son of demonstrating a ‘degree of entitlement’, because they believed the access was of ‘benefit to the property’, accusing them of embellishing their evidence.
Lawyers acting for the council also claimed the row stemmed from the fact that Mrs Ball and her son were opposed to houses being built on the land and ‘they realised the registration of a right of way could inconvenience potential future development’.
The judge however said they were honest witnesses and described the council’s case as ‘pugnacious’.
Allen Shepherd, the council’s head of Estates, Corporate Property, Corporate Services and Transformation, was ‘surprisingly combative’ the judge said while his ‘evidence consisted of unsubstantiated assertions’.
One of his sarcastic responses was ‘totally irrelevant’ and ‘most unhelpful’ the judge added.
They were able to prove – through pictures and oral testimony – that from approximately 1967 onwards, they had used the gate. Pictured is Mrs Ball’s daughter Frances and son David sledging on the car park
Mrs Ball and her children on their bikes in the car park behind the house in 1977
Mrs Ball with husband Brian on holiday in San Francisco in 2000. He died in 2021
Yesterday the council issued a statement apologising to Mrs Ball, saying it recognised the ‘situation has brought distress’ to her and ‘remain sorry for the upset caused’.
It said the blocks were installed to ‘enable vehicular access to Mrs Ball while preventing fly-tipping and racing and other antisocial activities elsewhere on the site’.
But they later admitted temporary blocks actually remained at the car park entrance while ‘we await the final judgment and confirm that the arrangements fully reflect it’.
It also said it has no current plans to sell the land despite a large for sale sign outside.
Mrs Ball, whose grandchildren have taken to calling her ‘gangster Granny’, even mocking up a picture of her wearing a chain and smoking a cigar following her victory, believes the blocks were installed out of ‘spite’.
‘Because I have won my case, it has devalued the amount of money they can actually ask,’ she said.
‘They have been antagonistic and it was totally unnecessary. They knew they couldn’t win. When they saw our witness statements over a period of 60 years – why did they carry on?
‘At one stage they just flatly refused to communicate.
‘They thought they would frighten me sufficiently that I would stop and give in. But I didn’t, though I couldn’t have done it without David.’
Asked what she wants to happen now, she says she simply wants the blocks removed but isn’t hopeful they will be anytime soon.
‘All I want now is to be left in peace to enjoy the rest of my life. I have had enough. It has been a long time, it has taken over my life and David’s. All over a tiny gate.’