A man has become embroiled in a row with neighbours after installing a lofty chunk of the Berlin Wall in his garden.
Steven Thorpe, 65, of Herne Hill, South London, erected the conspicuous 3.1 metre high portion of the wall in his back garden in February.
But the 2.8 tonne structure has provoked the ire of neighbours, who complained to Southwark Council that Mr Thorpe had installed it without seeking planning permission.
Property developer Steven says he not know he needed to apply to the council for the sculptural monument and says he hopes the local authority will give retrospective permission, The Sun reports.
Mr Thorpe said: “Most of my neighbours seem to be very supportive of it.
“Just as we were finished installing it, we worked all day, at about 9 o’clock at night, it was pouring down with rain, we’d just got in position and [a neighbour] came down and said ‘what’s that?’
“I said ‘it’s a piece of the Berlin Wall’ and he said ‘did you ask permission?’ I said ‘I didn’t think I needed to, it’s a piece of artwork’.”
He added that local children often visit to see the wall and he has even produced an information pamphlet with lays out its history.
Other young people interviewed by The Sun were less than complimentary about the installation. Nineteen-year-old Felix Lord, who lives with his grandmother, told reporters the wall was “ugly” and “ruins the character and the view of the gardens”.
Another neighbour, Olly, 18, told the newspaper he thought the structure was “bloody ugly” and “just a slab”, but added: “From a historical point of view, I think it’s bloody sick – I really like it.”
Mr Thorpe says he used to visit Berlin regularly in the late 1980s and early 1990s, as his team Clifton Rugby Club, used to play against the British Army at their base in Germany.
He arrived in Berlin on one of his visits just days after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and later bought a chunk of it from an East German farmer. He spent two years arrange the haulage of the wall from Germany to the UK, citing red tape and ‘a lot of paperwork’ as a problem.
The structure is lit as night and Mr Thorpe says he has plans to help restore it to its Cold War appearance.
A Southwark Council spokesperson said: “We have received a planning complaint about a section of wall installed in Dulwich.
“We will investigate the complaint and take any appropriate action in line with the national planning process.”
