AN eight foot-tall fence to keep children away from a high voltage electrical site in Bamber Bridge has stirred up trouble at the local vicarage.

As construction workers began to erect the metal security fence at the Norweb Sub Station site, off Station Road, the vicar of neighbouring St Aiden's CE Church decided to throw a spanner in the works.

Father Graham Piper was outraged that he had not been told that the three-week job was about to start. And his anger reached boiling point when the Liverpool-based construction firm Darfen began to build the 61-metre long steel palisade fencing on the border of the church's driveway.

While he understood the grey fencing was intended to protect children from entering the dangerous site, Father Piper called a halt to the work, complaining that the fence was an eyesore.

He said: "The company decided to do the work without any consultation, so I believed they were trespassing. The fence is ugly and is backing onto a holy and historic site."

Norweb bosses have agreed to shift the fence one metre towards the sub station.

Darfen construction manager Tony Simpkin said: "I would have normally called on the immediate neighbours to tell them that work was going to start. Unfortunately a family bereavement has meant I've been unavailable to deal with this matter."

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