A grandmother fears she faces eviction from her council house after spending £30k on a garden makeover without planning permission.
Renata Mahmoud, 48, has lived in the three-bed council property in Moulsecoomb, East Sussex for 19 years and raised her three children there.
The semi-detached property boasts a large back garden but it became overgrown and, after one of her children was injured playing, she decided to transform the space.
Ms Mahmoud saved up and in 2023 building work began to level out the slope into a three-tier patio.
She told the MailOnline: 'The garden before was awful, you couldn’t do anything, no gardener would do it. You have to make it level, so I’ve been asking the council for years, please could you help me out to make it level.
'I was asking them, saying "I don’t want you to make it nice, I just want you to help me to start off, to do the level, I don’t want you to design for me".
'They gave me nothing towards it. Their response was: "No, I’m sorry the council doesn’t have any money, it’s the tenants’ responsibility." That was their answer.
'I made a lovely garden and they’ve ordered me to take it down. It’s very depressing as I don't know if I can afford to, we could sleep on the streets because of this.'
lovely garden
slabs everywhere