Sunita Somvanshi
# Derbyshire Woman, 81, Wins Three-Year Fight Over Blocked Garden Gate
If a local council ever blocks an access route you’ve used for decades, this case shows fighting back can work, even if it takes years. An 81-year-old woman in Matlock has won a three-year battle against Derbyshire County Council after it fenced across a gap in her garden wall that her family had used as access for decades.
Helene Ball, who has lived on George Road in Matlock since 1967, took legal action after Derbyshire County Council cemented a metal fence panel blocking a 98-centimetre gated gap between her garden and a nearby council car park in April 2023. A first-tier tribunal ruled in Ball’s favor after she proved use of the gate since the 1960s, establishing a right of way and ordering the council to pay £50,000 in costs. The council must also ensure her access is not impeded again.
The fence panel itself was removed within a year, but vehicle access stayed blocked throughout the legal battle, largely because the Cavendish Road car park has been on the market for sale as a small housing development. The council has since created a route through the site for Ball using concrete blocks. Judge Robert Brown found parts of the council’s legal representation “totally irrelevant” and “most unhelpful,” and described the litigation as “pugnacious.”
“I have taught nine, 10 and 11-year-olds all my life, but I never expected the council to act so babyish. They have been spitting their dummies out of the pram and it has been beyond childish,” Ball told the Local Democracy Reporting Service. “They did everything they could to bully me. They tried to put us off but they messed with the wrong ones.”
What happened in the Matlock garden gate dispute? Derbyshire County Council blocked a gate that Helene Ball, 81, had used since the 1960s by cementing a fence panel in place in April 2023. A tribunal ruled in her favor in 2026, establishing her right of way and ordering the council to pay £50,000 in legal costs.
Derbyshire County Council declined to comment on the case or disclose its own legal costs. The car park remains listed for potential housing development, so Ball’s access route may face future challenges if that sale goes ahead.
