Man makes his point in Tewkesbury bus stop row

Living next to a Tewkesbury bus stop is driving Alan Grimmett and his family around the bend.

After months of arguments with Gloucestershire County Council about buses creating noise and pollution, and taking away their privacy, he has taken his protest to a new level.

The 48-year-old has covered the living room window of his home with an 8ft sign – made to look like the back end of a bus.

It gets his message over loud and clear to anyone passing the bus stop, in Monterey Road, on Tewkesbury's Wheatpieces estate.

The sign, which he has made from plywood and painted red, claims 89 buses pass Mr Grimmett's house every day.

It also accuses members of Wheatpieces Parish Council and the county council of wasting public money, affecting climate change and creating pollution and congestion.

Mr Grimmett said the problems began 10 months ago when a temporary bus stop was placed opposite his home.

The regular bus service sees large vehicles rumble past his house from 6.15am until 10pm every day.

He is considering suing the county council for making his family's life a misery and for devaluing the property.

Mr Grimmett said he, his wife Andrea and their three grown-up children would try and move house but feel no one would buy it with a bus stop opposite.

He said the family has spent £2,000 on seeking legal advice.

He said: "I can't stress enough the devastation this is causing me, my family and my neighbours.

"We are being bullied into living with the consequences of the county council action.

"The noise and pollution means that we can't open our windows.

"We are woken up every morning by the first bus at 6.15am and we can feel vibrations from the engines all day. They are so strong they rattle ornaments in the house.

"Apart from a crowd of schoolchildren in the morning, the stop is barely used but the buses still come past until 10pm.

"We have lost our privacy because everyone waiting for the bus stares at us. When the double-decker buses stop, the passengers on the upper deck get a perfect view into our bedroom windows."

He said the county council had told him the bus stop was temporary and had been put in the wrong place.

He added the authority had told him it would be moved to a spot 20 yards away before the end of the year.

He fears this will cause the same problem for people living near the new location and believes the bus stop should be placed at the nearby community centre where it would not be opposite houses.

But the council has ruled this out because the site has failed a safety inspection on the grounds of restricted visibility.

Cabinet member for the environment Stan Waddington said: "We are making changes to help Mr Grimmett by moving the bus stop along the road.

"However, there does need to be a bus service for the hundreds of families on the Wheatpieces estate and the stop for that service needs to go somewhere.

"I take issue with some of the claims Mr Grimmett makes. Buses don't cause congestion, they actually reduce it and benefit the environment.

"There are 21 million journeys on local buses in Gloucestershire every year and the vast majority of these take a car off the road and reduce greenhouse gases."