'We could have to pay £1m to fix a collapsed wall'

Residents in a Nottingham suburb say they are facing a bill of hundreds of thousands of pounds to repair a retaining wall.

Luke Drayton, who lives on Windmill Lane in Sneinton, said the 70ft (21.34m) structure collapsed on 3 February 2021.

The 30-year-old said residents have been unable to get costs for repairs covered by insurers, and called on Nottingham City Council - who rebuilt the wall in 2003 - to "take responsibility".

The council said it will not comment "as the wall is privately owned and therefore the council is not responsible for its upkeep or repair".

Mr Drayton, who has lived in his house since 2016, said the wall was rebuilt by the council in 2003, but said two structural engineers hired by neighbours found the structure "was never fit for purpose in the first place".

After the "massive panic" caused by the collapse, he said residents were left with a £60,000 bill to clear up 200 tonnes of debris, and described the current difficulties in finding a permanent fix as a "tricky situation".

"The design flaw was in the wall that had been signed off by Nottingham City Council, and paid by Nottingham City Council, which was subsequently then charged back to us," he said.

"It's been a four-year process where people have really been struggling, emotionally and financially."

Without the wall, Mr Drayton said the site is "totally unsafe", with residents unable to use their gardens without risking more damage.

He said they are struggling to find a way to pay for the necessary work.

"We've been in with lots of builders, structural engineers and whatnot, trying to understand what the cost of the rebuild would be, and that cost is somewhere between £600,000 and £1m, and that's between six houses," he said.

"To put that in perspective, I bought the house - my first home - for less than the value of what it would cost to rebuild that wall, so it puts us in a really difficult situation.

"How we see it is that it's the council that has put us in that situation, because they didn't rebuild the wall properly in the first place, and we've got proof of that."

With one neighbour putting up their house for auction and others having had therapy to deal with the stress, Mr Drayton said they face an uncertain future.

"Financially we can't really do a lot about it," he said.

"None of us can move from it until it's done."

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