Green-fingered gardener Jacqueline Wells was left seeing red after her garage roof landed in her flower beds - a year after she and her partner had reported it was unsafe after storm damage.
Ms Wells, a retail manager, told how she watched helplessly as the roof took off in the recent storms and ploughed into her fence, ruining the flower beds in the garden of her Leam Lane, Gateshead, home. And she and her partner, Ian, have hit out at Gateshead Council, as they say the damage would not have occurred if the garage had been attended to when it was first damaged by Storm Otto at the beginning of 2022.
"The storm caused damage to our garage roof at the beginning of 2022 and I reported it to the council straight away," said Ms Wells, 59. "The block of five garages were all affected and our car was hit by some of the bricks as they came down. We had to carry out our own repairs just to make it safe and it wasn't until about June that someone from the council came out to see it. After that, we heard nothing until the beginning of February this year, when we were told it was condemned."
