Residents of Clear Court, Latchingdon bristling with anger at overgrown weeds and brambles

People living at Clear Court, in Buchanan Way, Latchingdon, say their lives have been made a misery by the unsightly greenery.

The 16 apartment complex is run by Moat Housing.

Sally Docherty, 75, has lived in one of the flats for ten years, but says problems with overgrown rose brambles, weeds and grass have become a problem in the past two years.

She said: “The problems have been going on for ages now. The grass patches near our block are so long and unkempt and a nightmare for people walking by.

“The rose brambles are especially bad around the back of the block. When I take my dog for a walk you can see they grow so high up the walls.

“The pavements look dreadful, and whenever you try to ask the workers when they do come, they just say that they take their orders from higher up, so they don’t listen to you.

“In the ground floor flat below me there’s a gentlemen who suffers from dementia; he has his window open quite a lot, and because the brambles and bushes outside have grown so high, they’ve ended up growing in front of and into his flat.”

Mrs Docherty said that despite constant requests to Moat Housing to improve the state of the homes, the company has not made any significant changes.

She also claimed that Moat replied to her saying that if the residents wanted more work done on the hedges, they would have to pay for it themselves.

She said: “They make us pay for any more work we think needs doing, but that’s not right.

“They are not doing their jobs properly, they have a duty to ensure the bramble bushes are maintained, the grass mown and the weeds removed. But this hasn’t happened, certainly not in the last year.

“I think people need to be made aware of this, that they shouldn’t be making their own tenants pay for a service they should be doing better.”

Moat Housing was contacted for comment but did not respond before the Standard went to print.