A TWELVE year long dispute over a fence in Blaenavon has finally come to an end.

For more than a decade Torfaen Council has battled with the owners of land at The School, Forgeside, Blaenavon, to force them to remove a fence erected without planning permission.

The current majority landowner Colin Parry, of Bromsgrove, near Birmingham, was successfully prosecuted by the council in March - the second prosecution since the offending item was built - according to a Torfaen planning committee report.

In 1997 a perimeter fence was built at the site, occupied and owned by Kevin Andrew Horstwood, without permission.

Several attempts were made have the fence approved in a modified form, but all were refused by council planning and on appeal.

The matter dragged on to 2001, when Torfaen Council issued an enforcement notice over the fence ordering it to be removed by the following November.

The authority said the fence had an “unacceptable effect” on next door Zion Baptist Church - a listed building - and on the area as a whole.

It also had an adverse impact on highway safety, they argued.

Despite objections, further applications for planning permission were made to and rejected by Torfaen planning.

The fence was not taken down and in 2006 Torfaen prosecuted the occupier of the site, who owned the majority of the land, for failing to adhere to the notice.

The landowner was later found guilty and was fined £7,000.

He then sold the land he owned and left.

As a result the landowner took on the responsibility of removing the fence, but also failed to comply, the report said.

A new prosecution was launched in 2008, and on March 17 this year the new landowner was found guilty of failing to comply with the notice.

He was fined £2,000, and ordered to pay £195.60 costs.

The fence in now being taken down.