AN MP today called on councillors to start using common sense as a couple who spent £12,000 building the garden of their dreams revealed they were following council orders and dismantling it.

Hyndburn MP Greg Pope believes the tough stance of Hyndburn Council is discrediting the council everywhere.

Last month, Frank and Rosemary Jackson, of Holme Lea, Clayton-le-Moors, were told part of their garden would have to be returned to its natural state because it had been created out of green belt land.

And this week, Oswaldtwistle man Bob Landon, of Catlow Hall Street, was told he would have to destroy the rooftop garden he had created behind his chip shop for his daughter Millie, who has cerebral palsy.

He has vowed to fight the council but Mr and Mrs Jackson have now re-submitted planning permission to Hyndburn Council for their garden, agreeing to remove the walkways and summerhouse which had caused the problems in the first place.

The garden was extended by the green-fingered couple more than a decade ago and has been transformed by the pair using more than £12,000 of their own money.

It was only when the garden was completed that they realised they had contravened green belt laws, which are designed to safegaurd open countryside.

Mrs Jackson, a teacher at Moor End Primary School, said: "At the end of the day, they aren't going to change their mind.

"We have made some concessions in the new planning application which will hopefully solve the problem and if they still say no, we will appeal.

"We are removing various things like the summerhouse because we cannot keep fighting the council.

"But they have destroyed our dream garden, they really have. It isn't how we wanted it at all. They have wrecked it."

The extra patch of land they bought took their back garden to a total of one and a half acres in size, and they began turning into the garden of their dreams.

It now comprises shrubs, trees, herbaceous borders with flowered perennial plants like angelica, trellises, paths and a vegetable garden.

But when they erected a summerhouse in the green belt part of the garden, neighbours complained and planning officials told the couple they had broken regulations by developing green belt land without permission. A retrospective planning application was refused by councillors in July and the enforcement notice asking them to return the green belt half of the garden to its natural state was served last month.

Mr Pope said: "I am very disappointed this couple feel they have no choice but to ruin their garden.

"The council should be ashamed of themselves. They have taken planning laws designed to protect the countryside and made a mockery out of local government. They need to exercise common sense from now on and follow the spirit of the law rather than the letter all the time.

"The same applies to the case in Oswaldtwistle. What real harm is it doing to anyone?"

The Jacksons' planning application will be discussed at a future meeting of the development services committee.

Neither Coun John Griffiths, chairman of development services, or planning officer Brendan Lyons, were available for comment.