Former policeman Steve Hann explains how his property has been affected

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Transcript

00:00Two years ago, during the summer, round about July, my neighbour decided to dredge their pond

00:09that my land runs alongside. The very weekend that they put a tractor in there and dredged out

00:16a load of silt, my land collapsed along its entire length and sank down about six inches

00:26by 12 foot wide through my brand new patio and out through to the drive.

00:34The person responsible has admitted liability immediately and contacted his insurers,

00:42that's the NFU. They took months and months before they finally said to me verbally

00:51that they would get my garden back to what it was. We're now at the end of the second year

01:01and all we've got to now is there are contractors willing to do the work

01:08but they're not sure exactly how to do the work and I've now got the NFU telling me

01:16they're going to find somebody at some point to come along and do a report on how to do the work

01:24but we're now getting to the end of the window of opportunity of when that work can be done

01:30because the pond at the moment is at its lowest but obviously going into September, October,

01:37November, we get sufficient rainfall that pond will fill up again. So a year ago my daughter

01:45moved in with us with her two young children, they're six and three years old.

01:51We've had to keep them away from anywhere near that side of the garden because it's too dangerous.

01:59We're unable to sell our house. We were planning to move away from Kent

02:06to buy a bigger house so that the children and my daughter could live with us. At the moment we're

02:12all squashed into one little bungalow and there are three people sharing one bedroom but obviously

02:19we can't because no one will buy a house with a garden that's collapsed. So what I want,

02:25I want the NFU to fix my garden and I want it done this year.