A nine-year battle between a group of neighbours on a Merseyside street and a string of housing providers over a '100-year-old' wall has reached a 'stalemate'.
Residents on Rosemont Road in Aigburth have now been asked the pay thousands of pounds each towards the demolition of the 'dangerous' wall, which has been deteriorating for nearly a decade, despite the fact they don't own it.
A group of more than 20 residents have refused to financially contribute to the offer of the company that now owns land on the other side of the wall - housing provider Onward - as the battle over who is responsible for fixing it rumbles on.
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One of the affected homeowners, Alastair Bain, said he is now 'fed up' and something has to be done' as the wall is 'crumbling' into his garden following poor weather earlier this year.
The 65-year-old told the ECHO: "The wall's been leaning at a precarious angle since 2013. It finally went in April when we had the bad weather and part of the wall fell into our garden.
"There are are three properties on the road have been badly affected since 2012. We're fed up. We can't use the back garden because it's dangerous. It could fall down at any time."
Part of the issue of replacing the wall, which is thought to be over one hundred years old, is its ownership.
This is because the structure is not owned by the council or included in the deeds of the homes on Rosement Road or the land on the other side of the wall, including the Kelton Park housing estate, which is currently owned by housing provider Onward.
Alistair said: "Since the wall started falling in 2012, we reported it to previous associations but after a lengthy battle nothing was achieved.
"Following the bad weather in April we wrote to Onward (the new landowners) but again little was achieved. It was the same nonsense we had many years before."
Alistair said the group was told by Onward that a structural survey it had undertaken estimated the cost of demolishing the wall (which shares a boundary with 24 houses on Rosemont Road) and replacing it with a fence would be £150,000.
He said Onward offered to pay £75,000 of this, with the residents being responsible for paying the remaining £75,000 between them.
Alastair said: "[£75,000] would be around £4,000 each. That's an awfully big expense and many of the homeowners don't have that.
"We've asked them to tell us how they got to these figures and they haven't."
In their communication with Onward, a representative of the Rosemont Road residents said that despite neither party owning the wall, which is three metres high in parts, the 'safety risk is such' that they are willing to 'work together (with Onward) to resolve the matter."
Alastair said: "We've said if [Onward] come down and take the wall down if the £75,000 covers that, then we will put the fence up at our own cost."
Local labour councillor for Mossley Hill, Patrick Hurley said he believes Onward has 'a moral duty' to resolve the issue and that he is 'concerned about the safety aspect' of the wall in its current state, particularly to children playing on the Kelton Park Estate side.
Since June he has been trying to work with both parties to find a solution that will allow them to "share the cost of a rebuild of the wall."
He told The ECHO: "[The wall] had been leaning dangerously for years, and its collapse was evidently only a matter of time.
"The only way this can be done is through one lead organisation contracting with a builder and subsequently recovering costs from the other stakeholders. That lead organisation, in my view, has to be Onward.
"The problem is that Onward will not countenance a full rebuild of the wall, only a partial rebuild with a wooden fence on top. And this option is not acceptable to the property owners on the other side of the wall. So we're at a stalemate.
"I'm very concerned about the safety aspects here. The rest of the wall that is still standing is at danger of collapse, the residents of Kelton Park have been barred from using their communal garden area by temporary metal barriers, and the debris from the collapsed wall is still in situ seven months after the collapse.
"Children play right up next to the section of the wall that is still standing and I dread to think what might happen if they push just a little too hard. "
"I'm concerned also about security. The back gardens of the properties are now secured only by temporary metal fencing, rather than a ten foot high brick wall. This is not sustainable even in the medium-term and leaves the properties vulnerable."
"My position is that, notwithstanding the legal arguments, Onward have a moral duty to rebuild the wall in full, and to subsequently then attempt to clarify ownership of the land upon which the wall is built and try to recover from private insurers the cost of the loss."
A spokesperson for Liverpool City Council said: “As the authority does not own the wall, the Council would not be in a position to re-build it. However, due to the precarious condition the wall is in, it will be inspected by the Building Control service.”
Onward described its previous offer as 'fair and reasonable' and said the company '[takes the safety of its customers seriously."
A spokesperson for the company, which operates in multiple locations across the North West said: “We take the safety of Onward customers seriously and have been engaging with residents and councillors about this matter to provide a suitable solution.
"The wall in question does not belong to Onward, however, we have proposed a solution to pay 50% of the costs to demolish the wall and erect a fence. Furthermore, we have constructed a fence around the portion of the wall located near to Onward properties to ensure the safety of our residents.
"We believe that this is a fair and reasonable solution in the circumstances but recognise that this is an important issue to local people. We have received a request from residents to meet to discuss this further and will be in touch to provide an update in the New Year.”
