AMAZED home owner Jean Severn blew a fuse after returning home from work to discover that a 17ft lamp post had been put on the front lawn.

The street light was erected just 15ft from the window of her £124,500 Barratt home by Hyndburn Council workers.

And the 42-year-old was dumbstruck when the building firm told her the stretch of the lawn where the light had been placed didn't even belong to her!

Today Barratt agreed to move it to a more convenient position.

Jean, of Spring Meadows, Clayton-le-Moors, returned from work at fizzy-pop manufacturer McCall's, in Nelson, to find the lamppost had been erected.

She said she didn't remember looking at the deeds at the time of buying the property with her husband Steve last April so didn't know if the lamp post was on the original plans for the estate.

She said: "As it turns out None of my neighbours knew anything about it either. If I had known, I wouldn't have bought the house.

"You feel claustrophobic. When you sit in the front room, you feel it leaning in on you, you keep having to look over your shoulder.

"It's grassed like the rest of my front garden and is one continuous lawn.

"My neighbour Kath said she couldn't wait for me to come back and go mad, she knows what I'm like.

"Looking back, I suppose if it had been connected we wouldn't have to put the big light on. We'd at least have saved on electricity!"

Local councillor John Burke said: "She has been let down and perhaps Barratt should think about reimbursing her."

John Schofield, head of transport and technical services for Hyndburn Council, said: "The lighting scheme was designed by Barratt.

"Council staff were employed on behalf of them to install the lamp post. Barratt designed the layout of the lighting and the council as contractors carried out their wishes.

"The service way is an area that forms part of the highway, a lot of services and utilities like lighting are put in there. At the moment it is owned by Barratt until the roads are completed.

"We make sure they are done to a certain standard and the Highways Authority takes them over. It is up to whoever designs the lighting, quite often they are in the middle and sometimes they are on the corner, it depends on the design of the scheme as a whole.

"In some cases it wouldn't have been possible for them to move it because the lighting levels are not sufficient on either side.

"But because they've moved it there must have been some flexibility in the plan. But if there hadn't have been they might have had to move a number of other lamp posts to compensate for it."

A spokesman for Barratt said: "Mrs Severn spoke to Barratt on Monday and we have agreed, without prejudice, as a gesture of goodwill, to move the lamp post."