A STINKING row over an environmentally-friendly sewage works is set to run on with yet another twist in the pipeline.

Powick woman Claire Crossley has already spent more than £100,000 fighting to keep a £25,000 reed bed drainage system she has been told to remove.

Representing herself, the 55-year-old, who owns Kings Road Cottage, appeared at the High Court yesterday to argue her case.

She was granted an adjournment, however, pending yet another court case.

In her battle with the son of a viscount, the Hon Robin Wallace, Mrs Crossley goes to Worcester County Court on Friday, June 20.

A claim for nuisance against her for accessing Mr Wallace's land to maintain the drainage system will be counter-claimed by Mrs Crossley over his refusal to let her on to his land.

The problems began in 1997 when Mrs Crossley decided to improve the sewerage system that served her property.

She maintains she gained the consent of Robin Wallace to dig a reeded ditch on his land, but that he then changed his mind and complained to the council about the smell and nuisance caused by the works.

Malvern Hills District Council ordered her to stop discharge from a septic tank to the ditch and replace it with a package treatment unit at a cost of £23,000.

She refused and unsuccessfully challenged the order at Droitwich Magistrates Court in October 2001. She also lost the appeal at Hereford Crown Court.

Speaking of the latest developments, she said: "I am extremely hopeful of winning my case at Worcester.

"I am claiming damages of more than £100,000 for Mr Wallace's interference to my reeds. He has tried to prevent me from maintaining the system, and that just isn't right.

"I regard this as a matter of principle and I think I have been treated very badly by everyone so far, especially by Malvern District Council, who have failed to exercise a duty of care.

"However, I thought Mr Justice Collins at the High Court was extremely fair and seemed to agree that I had a case.

"When I do win the property rights case, the judge would be minded to grant leave for a judicial review."