A COMPANY director from Powick, accused of causing a nuisance to a neighbour, has vowed to take her case to the High Court.

Claire Crossley has run up costs of more than £61,000 after a neighbour complained to Malvern Hills District Council about sewage work she had carried out on his land.

Her problems began when she decided to improve the sewerage system that served her property, Kings End Cottage, and two other neighbouring houses.

Mrs Crossley, of Kings End Road, paid for settlement tanks and a reeded ditch outfall system to be installed to deal with sewage from the houses, at a cost of about £25,000, in 1997.

She said she gained the consent of Robin Wallace to dig the ditch on his land, which shares a boundary with the grounds of Kings End Cottage.

She claimed Mr Wallace then changed his mind and complained to the council about the smell and nuisance caused by the works.

The 54-year-old property management director said environmental health officer Mr Robinson visited the site on a number of occasions and said there was a slight smell coming from the ditch, but it did not constitute a nuisance.

However, after problems which Mrs Crossley said were caused by flooding and severe weather conditions, the council served her with an abatement notice in April, last year.

It required her to stop discharge from the septic tank to the ditch and replace the system with a package treatment unit, at a cost of £23,000.

"The environmental team manager served the notice without replying to my letters and without any consultation," said Mrs Crossley. "He had site meetings with Mr Wallace, but none with me."

She unsuccessfully challenged the abatement notice at Droitwich Magistrates Court last October, and has now lost her appeal as well.

During the appeal at Hereford Crown Court, Mr Wallace said he did not know that much of the work was happening and said he was "horror-struck" to see what had happened to his land.

And the council's environmental health officer, Andy Ferguson, said he was shocked by the deterioration of the ditch when he visited it in February, last year.

In his evidence, he described it as a "stinking mess."

Judge Martin Wilson and two lay magistrates "wholly rejected" the contention that the council had misused its powers by serving the notice.

They were also satisfied that Mr Wallace did not give his consent for the work to be carried out.

"Why should they have to put up with this burgeoning system and its maintenance work on their land?" asked Judge Wilson.

They concluded that the system could not operate effectively without a permanent right of access, and agreed that it created a nuisance.

However, Mrs Crossley is determined to continue with her fight.

"I regard it as a matter of principle," she said. "I think I have been treated very badly by the council and they failed to exercise a duty of care."