HUNDREDS of Bolton homeowners will be told to dig up part of their garden - because they don't own it!

Council chiefs are to get tough with residents who have built over service strips for gas, electricity and water supplies.

The homes affected are mainly cul-de-sacs on new estates where there are no pavements and gardens stretch right up to the road.

Rockeries, rose gardens and even walls have been built over the 1.8 metre service sections of gardens.

Mr Adrian Golland, assistant director of planning and engineering services, said: "Technically these strips do not belong to them, they are part of the highway."

Grass or ground cover can be put over them, but not items which cause an obstruction in an emergency.

Many residents who were perhaps the second owner of a house may have innocently built over them, not realising they were a service strip. Mr Golland said the council had the power to go in with a digger but would prefer the owners to remove the obstacles.

The obstruction of service strips have also meant that the council has refused to adopt roads on some new estates, leaving residents without street lighting and roads not made up.

In future, planning chiefs will no longer allow cul-de-sacs to be built without pavements.

Westhoughton Liberal Democrat Cllr David Wilkinson added: "These designs of cul-de-sac may have looked very nice, but in reality, they have been a disaster."

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