Our neighbour’s spiked 10ft privacy fence towers over our garden… it’s like living off a motorway or prison camp
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A COUPLE have likened their garden to "Colditz" after their neighbour put up a three-metre spiked fence around her property for "privacy" - just two months after moving in. Alison and Ian Lawrence said the "hideous" structure surrounding Deborah Olthof's home was constructed without permission and has "ruined" their garden - which they recently spent £20,000 on to landscape.
![[Alison Lawrence in front of the fences between the two gardens]](https://www.thesun.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/fe27455c-3787-4db3-8638-3f1897946484.jpg?strip=all&w=960)
After putting in a retrospective application, the local authority have allowed real estate managing director Ms Olthof - who moved to the coastal town last Spring - to keep the fence, a move which Mrs Lawrence, 58, branded "soul destroying". The business owner and her husband, 71, have now slammed the local council in New Milton, Hants, for showing "no regard to the detriment of our property" - said they will escalate the matter "as far" as they can.
![[Plastic spikes are fitted onto the fence for pest control]](https://www.thesun.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/d7322f34-a54a-48a6-a1f3-d5cd73da24da.jpg?strip=all&w=960)
Ms Olthof moved into her £640,000 four-bed home in April of last year and built the spiked fence some two months later. While there was previously a fence in the rear garden, this has been "grossly heightened" by Ms Olthof as part of her works - and is now "in excess" of three metres, according to her neighbour.
![[Alison likened her garden to ‘Colditz’]](https://www.thesun.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/d96c3209-6fad-46f5-903b-739b0632365b.jpg?strip=all&w=960)
Mrs Lawrence, a mother of three adult children, said since it was constructed, the fence has caused "major problems" as it "overshadows the garden". "It's ruined our property," she said. "If we wanted to sell our property, I don't know of anybody that would want to buy it seeing that fence like that.".
![[Colditz Castle near Leipzig, Germany, was used to house POWs in WW2]](https://www.thesun.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/NINTCHDBPICT000759095658.jpg?strip=all&w=960)
