Residents have come to the end of their tether after a flock of unruly sheep have caused carnage in a Gloucestershire village for nearly a decade.
Locals of the Kidnalls Drive estate in the Forest of Dean have had to put up with destroyed gardens, which have been used as toilets by the free-roaming sheep, can't grow any flowers or vegetation in their gardens, and are constantly kept up during the night.
The sheep have been causing chaos on the Whitecroft estate since it was built in 2014, and it has reached the point of no return with residents pointing the finger at a local shepherd for not controlling the animals.
The shepherd clapped back, claiming his sheep have the right to graze anywhere in the Forest of Dean under 'common of mast' laws originating in the Middle Ages.
However, long-suffering locals claimed the Forest boundary is marked by a bollard 30 metres down the road from the estate, and the sheep had no right to roam there, causing uproar between both camps.
One resident, Jeff Beveridge, has lived on the estate since it was first built, and said his neighbours were considering launching a petition to get a cattle grid built to prevent the sheep getting through.
He told Gloucestershire Live: "We can’t grow anything out the front.
"There are only two bushes so far that the sheep won’t eat – lavender and rosemary. In the front of everybody’s houses, the developers put escallonia, a nice flowering shrub, and the sheep ate that. They’ll eat anything.
"If the lambs are distressed and they can’t find the ewe, their mother’s looking for them, and both of them will be bleating all the time. We can hear them at night and in the early hours of the morning they’ll be here."
Councillor Richard Boyles, who represents Newnham ward on Forest of Dean District Council, during a meeting last week called for a cattle grid to be installed so the sheep can’t get through from the main road.
Retired university lecturer Dr David Collier has lived on the estate for two-and-a-half years and backed the cattle grid proposal. He said: "When we were looking at the housing estate we were surprised that nobody had any flowers in their front gardens.
We came in November 2020 and in the early spring we heard sheep and we saw lambs in our front garden, which was initially rather sweet. But then we realised. We had a little tree that got nibbled which we’ve taken down and obviously there’s muck left on the drive, grass and path.
"It’s a first world problem but nonetheless it does have an impact and they do cause damage. The sheep are completely uncontrolled. They can’t help it and [the shepherd] can’t control the problem. There needs to be a physical barrier."
The local shepherd has now been expelled from the local association of graziers for not keeping his sheep within the Forest’s boundaries.
He denied the estate was outside the grazing boundary and said his sheep caused no damage to people’s gardens.
He said: "The association says it’s outside the boundary but I don’t think it is actually.
"The sheep have got the right to wander. It’s not a lot of people complaining. It’s only one or two causing a lot of trouble.
"They might not just be my sheep. They may be other people’s as well. It’s not just me who keeps sheep. Other people keep sheep."
He added: "No one has complained to me directly. If someone asked me to move them, I’d move them."
