UK: Council bills green-fingered couple nearly £500 for growing vegetables in their own garden –
Lee and Kirstie Lawes decided to transform part of lawn into a vegetable patch as a project during lockdown
By James Robinson
For Mailonline
11 February 2022
Excerpt:
A green-fingered couple who turned to self-sufficiency during lockdown have accused council bosses of losing the plot after they told them they would have to fork out almost £500 to keep growing vegetables in their own garden.
Amateur growers Lee and Kirstie Lawes decided to transform part of their lawn into a vegetable patch as a lockdown hobby – one they could enjoy with their two-year-old granddaughter Ella.
The pair, from Deeping St James, Lincs, were so successful with their growing that they even started handed out their produce among neighbours.
But their well-meaning pandemic project, which has shades of Tom and Barbara Good in the hit BBC comedy series The Good Life, may now have to be uprooted.
That’s because council chiefs say installing the vegetable patch has resulted in a ‘change of use’ of the land.
Despite them owning the small piece of land, it has never previously been fenced off and has been open to members of the public.
