A retired couple’s expensive 12-year legal battle to stop ramblers and dog walkers roaming through their garden on a disputed public footpath has failed after they lost a second Planning Inspectorate hearing.
Ann and John Scott moved into their home on a half-acre plot in the picturesque Norfolk village of Thompson 25 years ago.
But in 2013 an elderly local claimed there was a historical right of access across the site, plunging them into the legal nightmare that had consumed their time ever since.
The matter eventually went to a Planning Inquiry in 2022, where Norfolk County Council dropped a claim that vehicles could also drive along the route.
But the inspector still ruled a 'public right of way on foot' had been established before the Scotts arrived.
