Distraught Gemma Davitt looked on as a group of Peterborough City Council employees pulled down a contraption made out of pieces of wooden trellis, barbed wire and planks which she had attached to the fence in her rear garden.

Wearing protective gloves and fluorescent jackets, they set to work detangling plants which had snaked up the piece of handiwork – which she had nailed together herself – at her home in Peddars Way, Longthorpe, Peterborough.

Peterborough City Council today said it was forced to take action because Mrs Davitt did not have planning permission to extend her fence above two metres in height.

At least six officials visited her home to take, or witness, the enforcement action yesterday.

Watching her work being undone the keen gardener, who said she put up the structure to fend back her neighbour’s overhanging shrubbery, said: “Where is the justice?

“How come my neighbour can have trees which grow so high, but I can’t have my fence?

“I can’t believe people could do this to me.”

Mrs Davitt’s next door neighbour Adrian Curtis, whose garden shares the fence, said he regretted the fact the dispute could not have been resolved at an earlier stage.

He said: “Basically, I feel that this addition to the fence is an eyesore which devalues my property.

“It is regrettable that it has come to this point, but the council has been excellent in handling this situation.”

Peterborough City Council said it was “very rare” for any situation to reach the point where a fence had to be taken down by staff, and added that council officers had visited Mrs Davitt to discuss the matter with her previously.

A spokeswoman said: “We did everything we could to avoid things getting this far.

“We have tried to resolve the matter informally in the past, but this has been going on for some years now.

“We have tried to handle this as sensitively as we can.”

Police officers had been deployed to Mrs Davitt’s home yesterday to ensure the situation did not get out of hand.

Pc Dave Tudman, who was on the scene, said: “Our job is to basically listen to everyone’s point of view and find some common ground.”

Mrs Davitt said she did not think it was fair that she had to have permission to make the addition to her fence.