Residents in Abertridwr face the possibility of having to pay up to £15,000 to repair a retaining wall after it collapsed.
The wall fell in St Annes Gardens, Abertridwr, on the afternoon of Saturday August 20, spilling on to the path and road below.
Inspectors from Caerphilly County Borough Council had been monitoring the wall, which is believed to have been leaning at a 30 degree angle, before its collapse.
The affected St Annes Gardens homeowners were sent letters from the council, stating they were required to repair the leaning wall, which was deemed dangerous, or face further action.
Rachel Hawkins, 31, lives at one of the houses supported by the wall, with her two children. She said: “It was Saturday afternoon, and there was a massive bang. It sounded like an artic lorry had crashed, so we all ran to the window and just saw bricks everywhere.
“I phoned the council and the police straightaway.”
The family and their neighbours were evacuated from their homes for several hours while structural engineers from the council conducted safety assessments.
They were allowed back inside later that evening, but have been quoted between £11,000 and £15,000 to repair the damage.
Rachel added: “We’ve lived here for five years and never had a problem with the wall. The deeds to the house don’t even reference the upkeep of the wall, so I think it’s unrealistic to ask us to pay for the repair.
“What’s even more frustrating is that we’ve been told that if any more of the retaining wall comes down, there’s a possibility of damage to the house itself.”
Houses on St Annes Garden are believed to have been built during the late 1970s, and residents are questioning the structural integrity of the wall.
Supermarket worker Jess Emerson, 24, has lived in her home for four years, and is in the process of completing a sale.
She said: “We’re slightly worried about the impact the wall collapsing is going to have on us moving house. We noticed it was leaning before it came down, but the surveyor who came to look at it a few months ago said they couldn’t do anything without seeing behind the brickwork.
“There’s no way we can afford to spend £15,000 on repairing the wall.”
Plaid Cymru’s Aber Valley councillor Lyndon Binding said he would be speaking to Caerphilly County Borough Council to see if residents were eligible for any grants or loans to help fix the wall.
He said: “Safety of the residents is my first priority, but I’ll be speaking to the council about the issue of money.
“It’s really not on that residents should foot the bill if the collapse was a result of poor workmanship. I’m supporting these residents and working with the council to determine the original builders, and to ascertain what has happened.
“It could take a while for the truth to come out seeing as we’re talking over 30 years since these houses were built, but questions do need asking.”
A spokesman for Caerphilly County Borough Council said: “The retaining wall in question forms part of the boundary of a number of privately-owned properties along its length. Following the collapse, the council made the site safe for pedestrians and motorists.
“The footpath and part of the carriageway is currently fenced off and the road is under traffic light control. Options for the site will now be considered, and we will work with the relevant home owners to agree a way forward.”
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The big question should be why did the councils building inspectors sign off a wall that was clearly not sufficient nor safe in the first place! The residents/ homeowners affected should not be expected to fork out to repair this wall if regulations were not met at the time of building. Surely responsibility should fall with the original builders AND Caerphilli County Borough Council because it was their mistake.
I doubt that council inspectors would have signed off the wall because you don’t need planning permission or buildings inspection for a retaining wall, but as it is alongside a public footpath it should have been built much stronger than it obviously has been, everything that goes on in a town is not automatically the responsibility of the local council, people need to start taking responsibility for themselves.
You do need permission for a retaining wall and as this was a completely new street, built into the side of the mountain, holding back a massive amount of weight building inspection and aign off was required.
We built in the street next to St Anne’s gardens a few years after completion and building inspectors were up and down at every stage including signing off of retaining walls which had to be a certain height, thickness, correctly tied in etc.
The wall in question is over 20ft high yet was single Brock construction and not a sign of any wall ties.
I fail to see how you can say the residents are lucky they aren’t facing a manslaughtwr charge, that’s absolute crazy talk, they aren’t responsible for the poor quality wall and wouldn’t even have known it wasn’t adequate
If they did need planning permission then a qualified surveyor would have been required to draw up engineering drawings and the wall built to those specifications, the council would have passed the drawings but would not have known if the wall was actually built to them as they would only have seen the end result. I’m only saying that when you purchase a house you should have a survey done to determine if there are any problems which includes the boundaries of the property, if the wall had fallen on somebody walking past things would be much worse, it states in the report that the owners were warned about the wall but choose to do nothing about it.
What would you have done then? I am sure you will say you would have paid around £15k to have it removed and rebuilt promptly? There is no way that wall should have been allowed to be built as it was and no way should residents be accountable. Instead of warning the residents why did the council not do more to prevent this collapse?
Why blame the council, the retaining wall does not belong to them, the council are not responsible for the maintenance of it, that responsibility lies with the homeowners. Garden and boundary walls are the most common forms of masonry to suffer collapse and they are the commonest causes of death by falling masonry.
Why should they ? its NOT thier wall.
Do you know how surveys work when purchasing a house? If you did you wouldn’t say such a thing. A survey for mortgage purposes isn’t that in depth and even a full building survey wouldn’t have picked up on the issue because it couldn’t be seen, nobody knew what was behind that wall, as far as everyone in the street was concerned the red bricks were just there as a front, one would assume adequate concrete reinforcement was behind, but no!
Unless you can actually see through walls there was no way of knowing.
As for the residents being warned it was only a day or two before the wall came down, the council however state they had been monitoring the wall for 3 month so why did they leave it so long to inform the homeowner?
I do know how surveys work and I do a know about retaining walls. Again it is the responsibility of the buyer to have a survey carried out on a property, most mortgage companies do not require an indepth survey because all they are interested in is getting their money back should the owner not pay the mortgage. Most buyers will simply have a cheap survey done to satisfy the mortgage company and then complain if any nasties show up after they’ve moved in. If the houses are only a few years old they should have a warranty on them as a mortgage company will not lend money on a new build which does not have a warranty, this may be a NHBC warranty or a private warranty paid for by the housebuilders, this warranty may cover the boundary wall, if it doesn’t then house insurance may cover it but the insurance company will inevitably try and find a clause in the policy so it doesn’t have to pay out. The homeowner should have been monitoring the wall as the wall is solely their responsibility, if the property is leasehold the owner may have a claim against the company who own the land that the house is built on. If you were walking past my house and my garden wall fell on you then you would blame me not the council as it’s my house, my wall, my responsibility.
Essentially Paul the blame lies with the builders and councils building inspectors, the builders for such poor, substandard work and the Council’s building inspectors who signed it off!
NHBC covers new build houses for 10 years but prior to this work will have been inspected and signed off and should that work be of poor quality, not adequate or in this case not safe it should not be signed off under any circumstances and if it is someone isn’t doing their job properly and that is NOT the responsibility of the homeowner. As stated previously this issue would not have been picked up by a surveyor because they don’t have super powers to see though walls!
I wonder if you actually work for the council as you seem very defensive and desperate to pass the blame!
If you were walking past my house and my wall fell on you you would quite rightly blame me as it’s my house, my wall, my responsibility, it would not be the fault of the local council. The council building inspector did not build the wall, they would have passed engineering drawings to show the specification the wall should have been built to, then they would have seen the wall finished but not actually how it was built – sadly it is quite easy for a builder to cheat a building inspector. As another person has rightly commented, tax payers of Caerphilly should not foot the bill for something that is the responsibility of the property owner, would you pay for repairs to my property? Home ownership isn’t always a bed of roses, it costs money,things need upkeep and maintenance, things go wrong and that is what home insurance is for. A decent surveyor would have noted that the wall would require regular inspections and maintence by the homeowner as it is adjacent to a public footpath and could cause injury or even death should it fall on somebody using the public footpath. Yes the builders who built the wall quite obviously did not build it strong enough, but they’re long gone now and aren’t going to own up to it are they, so ultimately the responsibility lies with the owners of the property, if my wall fell on you you would quite correctly blame me. The owners of the house should have insurance that will cover it but sure as night follows day the insurance company will try to wriggle out of paying. Yes they are in a bad situation but the fact remains that the wall that fell down belongs to them not the local council.
The residents are lucky that they’re not looking at a manslaughter charge, surely this is something that a surveyor should have picked up on when the houses were purchased by the occupants, this is what surveyors are paid to do and if they the owners were warned about the wall something should have been done about it before it fell down completely blocking a public footpath and obstructing the road.
Paul your comment is absolutely outrageous! Our houses were built 4/5 years ago & we had a survey done which had no comment about the wall – there was no such issue then! Know the facts before you start throwing such pathetic comments about!!!
You have to take the surveyors to task about this. Would your buildings insurance cover the damage?
Too many Pauls here! It is not an outrageous comment, the boundaries of a property are the responsibility of the home owner, if the council issued a warning then something should have been done about the unsafe wall, sadly there are far too many builders doing shoddy work and it’s home owners who end up paying the price for it. If somebody had been walking past when the wall collapsed the situation would be far worse, thankfully there was nobody injured,
Stating the obvious there Paul! We are all so thankful nobody got hurt! And for your information we were given a notice LAST WEEK but yet again your making comments on something you know nothing about.
The one problem with this point ( home insurance) is, it is very
unlikely home insurance will cover boundry walls. however, had someone
been injured the householders would probably have been covered due to
the public liability involved.If this extended wall, along the
entire road it appears, is a `boundry wall` as well as a retaining wall,
for the properties it is designed to protect, it is clearly a matter
for the homeowners, and not the Ratepayers via Council funds. Unless of
course, a member of the Council staff was `negligent` in passing the
construction methods of the wall via Building regulations all those
years ago, surely, the first thing residents should do is engage an
Independent Building Surveyor to represent them and to investigate the
consruction methods originally used, depending on this opinion, the
residents troubles may be over. Claim thereafter that liabilty rests
with the CCBC. depending on what the independent surveyors finds, and
remember all the paperwork associated with the passing of the building
regs, who was involved, what was involved etc is all available under a
Freedom of Information request to Caerphilly Council, perhaps one
resident ought to be advised to put such a request in NOW as it can take
a very long time to get what you may need.
Could all that decking built on top have had a bearing? I’m sure the Council need to do a proper investigation to determine what happened. I hope the owners had a survey done before they bought the house and that they have buildings insurance, but not sure if that would cover retaining walls. Just glad no one got injured. I do feel sorry for the owners. Maybe a friendly local builder and the local community can help them out.
Presumably the wall belongs to someone, either the council itself or the residents whose properties the wall adjoins. If it is the latter surely the rebuild cost is covered by their home insurance? That would be my first call if I lived there.
We’ve been notified it is the residents, & we have looked into the insurance & it’s still ongoing.
The residents should be able to claim sucessfully, in that case. There may be an excess to pay but that will be a lot better than footing the entire bill.
The one problem with this point ( home insurance) is, it is very unlikely home insurance will cover boundry walls. however, had someone been injured the householders would probably have been covered due to the public liability involved.
If this extended wall, along the entire road it appears, is a `boundry wall` as well as a retaining wall, for the properties it is designed to protect, it is clearly a matter for the homeowners, and not the Ratepayers via Council funds. Unless of course, a member of the Council staff was `negligent` in passing the construction methods of the wall via Building regulations all those years ago, surely, the first thing residents should do is engage an Independent Building Surveyor to represent them and to investigate the consruction methods originally used, depending on this opinion, the residents troubles may be over. Claim thereafter that liabilty rests with the CCBC. depending on what the independent surveyors finds, and remember all the paperwork associated with the passing of the building regs, who was involved, what was involved etc is all available under a Freedom of Information request to Caerphilly Council, perhaps one resident ought to be advised to put such a request in NOW as it can take a very long time to get what you may need.
Finally a sensible comment, yes it is clearly a matter for the homeowners, though it is not difficult for a builder to deceive a council building inspector if they really wanted to and sadly too many builders cut corners.
In my experience there will be little or no paperwork retained from Building Regs applications of this age. It would also, I presume, have been RVDC back then?
There’s a lot of speculation at the moment, particularly as none of us know the original design philosophy and the mode of failure of the wall. Whether the wall was poorly designed or poorly built are separate things and the professionals involved will determine this.
It is unlikely that a successful negligence claim can be brought against the designer or contractor, depending where the blame lies, after this length of time and that in itself could be an expensive route without legal support.
I hope the residents can get some agreement with CCBC and their insurers rather than being left with a large bill.
Wrong on a number of counts there Johnny;
First the authority have a legal obligation, even after local government reorganisation in he !970`s to retain all this information, if they did or did`nt is another matter, but lots of important information will also be retained in planning documents etc, so there is more than one place to look for it,
The planning application approvals will address your second point about design etc,
Any possible legal action could be funded and supported by at least one resident who had the foresight to include legal cover in thier householders insurance;
None of the residents would be `left` with a large legal bill if they invoked thier legal insurance cover the looser pays the costs in this case if the residents insurers lost THEY would pick up the legal costs bill.
What may be unacceptable to other ratepayers in the County is if the CCBC decided to foot the bill out of our rates, unless it can be conclusively demonstrated that they or thier staff were less than efficient. Or, unless they want this to be a test case on the County Council repairing walls of private properties, like mine.
I don’t have the knowledge as to what information must be legally retained but I do know that you won’t find designs, drawings, calculations, notes, records, photographs, site minutes etc etc
The planning process has nothing to do with building regs there’ll be no engineering data.
My concern was not over a legal bill – most home insurance will provide legal cover.
My concerns were, and still are, over the bill for reconstruction.
What may be unacceptable to other ratepayers in the County is if the CCBC decided to foot the bill out of our rates, unless it can be conclusively demonstrated that they or thier staff were less than efficient. Or, unless they want this to be a test case on the County Council repairing walls of private properties, like mine.
You did actually say “after this length of time and that in itself could be an expensive route without legal support.”
So that one is out of the way now you agree that most of the home owners will have insurances to cover legal costs.
You are also incorrect in saying no minutes would still be available, if there were minutes of any meetings, and there will be a detailed record of reports and recommendations to the planning committee, there will be records of the building inspectors reports notes etc, I think you a correct though in respect to photographic evidence, no mobile [hones with cameras in those days, but, there maybe other photos taken by the inspectors,, there will be a record, if there wascorrespondence between the council and the contractors on the issue do with the wall, they will still exist, when you say planning has nothing to do with building regs, again that is to simplistic a statement, planning officers and building inspectors work in close harmony.
In short there will be a huge amount of documentation, records and `evidence` in respect to this wall, but, to suggest the CCBC pay for repairs to private properties, boundry walls etc is a dead duck, unless the CCBC finds a way to use money from the public purse to do the same for ALL ratepayers, and that would be good news for thousands of househioders up and down the Valley. The answer is in the hands of the householders, thier legal insurance providers, and highly paid private Surveyors and Lawyers.
You’re wrong.
If the wall had planning permission there may be a record of the application or reference to it in minutes.
If the wall had the benefit of building regs approval there will be nothing other than a memory.
If you cant unearth drawings and calculations for mid-nineties developments there’s little chance of doing so for an early eighties retaining wall…
Simple statements work best.
Planning is planning – are we allowed to build this wall?
Building regs is building regs – how do we build it?
Never confuse the two.
Either way, what’s done is done and it needs to go back up before its absence compromises anything else.
If you are correct, and you are NOT, then the residents had better get a move on and get the demedial work done so that this incident does not comprimise the rest of this wall, and currently, only one home appears to be effected, so I presume this is the resident you feel must get a move on not to comprimise the other properties?. , because, if the CCBC decide to fund this work in any way, then it will open the floodgates fot all ratepayers to make similar claims where their boundry walls are in danger of collapse. currently, the CCBC will issue the resident, with a dodgy boundry wall, an order to put it right, THEY WILL NOT FUND SUCH REMEDIAL WORKS ON PRIVATE PROPERTIES, the properties effected in this article are no different. But there are correct ways of dealing with the issue and I have laid those out in previous comments.
The rest of the wall? Already failed – just hasn’t fallen over yet.
You are making catigoric statements which you cannot demonstrate to be correct, you are in danger of causing people to accept what appears to be a dilitory record keeping system by CCBc and the preceeding composite authorities, SOMEONE needs to get a grip if they want to demonstrate that someone, The Builder, The planners, ( who may have failed to ensure safe methods of prospective construction in the applications, and past it) The building Control Section OF THE PLANNING DEPARTMENT, who you say are SEPERATE and UNCONECTED in terms of civic duty, and I KNOW that many records are kept as is required by statute.
Those people effected have first of all to demonstrate “cause” of the catasrophy, the “effect” of it is there for all to see, once the Cause is demonstrated the `case`, as they say, is won. You should not take such a pessamistic position on this, because, it is clear the CCBC will NOT pay for this unless it IS shown they have a responsibility, and they have NO responsiblity in normal circumstances for Citizens Private Boundry Walls. However, I stand to be corrected, and I await the outcome with great interest, My wall, requires remedial work, it bounds a pavement, like the wall in the article, and I would be exreemly happy if the CCBC funded the work in Abertridwr, after which, they can tackle my wall, and a few more walls of friends of mine in Hengoed. and Bargoed.
I’m no expert in LA record-keeping protocols but I think they’re now obliged to keep them for at least 15 years. They weren’t back in the eighties though. 15 months is realistic.
You’re still confusing planning with building control – browse Caerphilly’s website for more info.
The planners will ok a brick wall, building control will ok how thick it is.
Looking at the photos this wall never went near building control.
It’s too thin to have been designed by an Engineer and too thin to have been passed by building control.
Either the wall as designed was never built or the wall built was never designed. My money’s on the latter.
The case is far from won.
The wall has fallen over as it is incapable of resisting the lateral pressures but then again it never was. The fact that the earth mass has mobilised after 30 years may be attributed to many things but the wall has never been capable of carrying those loads from the day it was built.
It’s a common problem, the country’s littered with similar walls.
It may be possible to determine why the soil has mobilised but that’s very different to apportioning blame.
As many here have pointed out, should this wall have been subject to Building Regulations and if so how did it get constructed in such a manner?
If you look at the wall, you will see it is single skin construction, that wall, has fallen away,behind that wall there is a considerable concrete structure, still held in place and still holding back the foundations of the house, the `retaining` structure appears to be doing its job,
The wall is NOT a retaining wall, the earthworks are held back by the heavy conrete structure behind it. The Council WILL NOT PAY FOR THIS DAMAGE IN ANY WAY< it is not the ratepayers problem.
There is no ‘considerable structure’. Unless my eyes are deceiving me there is rough, site mixed concrete, placed behind the brick wall filling the void between the wall and the soil – a common enough procedure as it is effectively self-compacting and minimises damage to the wall. You can clearly see the individual pours in some photos. The remnants of the concrete in the spoil heap appear to be about 225mm thick, unreinforced – far from a suitable solution.
No ties are visible between the concrete and the wall – another clue that the concrete is not structural.
There is also a massive chunk of this ‘considerable structure’ missing. It’s unlikely to be helping much if it’s lying on the ground…
Correction, there are some ties and they’ve ripped out of the concrete.
I have actually found a retaining wall sketch for the 2 houses across the road, it’s for a 6ft high wall, it showed 2.5ft of mass concrete & 4.5ft high. Our wall is higher so would think it should of been at least this, but really you would expect more. The actual build is no where near built as the sketch! The sketch has got all the calculations on it also.
Retaining wall solutions are varied and depend on many factors. From the photos available online the wall isn’t actually a retaining wall, it’s just a wall. It was relying on the hillside for its own stability…
Online photos show that 2 adjoining walls collapsed. They didn’t seem attached. My guess is water got into the hillside somehow and accumulated over time which caused the collapse.
I think it’s the water that’s been keeping them up for the last 30 years – it certainly wasn’t the wall.
I don’t think a comments section is the best place for discussions about soil mechanics though!
It’s not built as a retaining wall, but it should have been.
Indeed. Quite a substantial one too!
Haha ridiculous comment to make that we are lucky we getting charged with manslaughter! Do you really think if I knew that wall was built like that I would of bought the house in the first place!? I have a drawing showing for this street a retaining wall of 6ft should have 2.5ft of mass concrete behind it, our wall is built higher than 6ft so that’s the minimum requirement our wall should of been built with! Thank you for your backing Leigh Curtis.
Doesn’t sound like you feel sorry for the owners Paul! The decking has nothing to do with it as there has always been decking there & as you can see that is fully intact!, what an outrageous comment to make! We wish we never bought this house ourself we don’t need narrow minded people kicking us while we’re down! We feel very lucky that we have had a lot of people like Leigh Curtis backing us & supporting us! This wall should never have been signed off, we have been told by a senior structural engineer that this is the worst build he’s ever seen & it’s completely inadequate.
Huh? How am I kicking you while you’re down? I am genuinely sorry for the owners and I’m even suggesting that perhaps a friendly local builders/local community could help out.
Don’t confuse me with the other Paul.
I seem to have touched a raw nerve about the decking?
Sorry Paul yes I confused you with the other, I’m stating a fact about the decking as we’ve already been accused of that once this week, We’ve had a lot of advice from our community.
No problem. I understand how upsetting all this is for you.
Thank you.
& the outrageous comment was referring to the other Paul saying were lucky were not looking at a manslaughter charge!
Personally IMHO I think the council should track down the construction company and take them to task and they should also look inwards and trace the site inspections and find out how the hell such a pile of … was allowed to be built.
Growing up in the Aber Valley back in the 60’s I saw many houses having extensions and retaining walls built. After so many layers of the walls being built a council surveyor would come out and check that it was being done to safety standards. It seems obvious that this wasn’t done with the wall at St Annes Gardens. So people pointing blame on the residents should put themselves in the shoes of the residents affected and see how they would feel. I really hope that this is resolved quickly and the residents can get back to normality at no cost to them …
There is currently a house in The Graig, on the main street through Abertridwr, which is currently being investigated due to possible similar catistrophic damage and possible risk to life, by a wall in the rear garden holding back the higher ground of properties at the rear of the proerty. The Housing Association which owns the house is currently being encouraged by Caerphilly`s AM Hefin David, and his staff, who were approached by the tenant of the property, to rebuild a much more substantial wall to safguard his family. That work is now underway.
AND TO POINT OUT, THEY HAVE MADE A MISTAKE IN THIS STORY IN REGARDS TO WHEN WE HAD A SURVEYER OUT, IT WAS LAST WEEK NOT A FEW MONTHS AGO, 2 DAYS AFTER WE RECEIVED THE NOTICE FROM THE COUNCIL, AS SOON AS WE WERE ADVISED OF THE SITUATION WE TOOK ACTION.
Look its down to the property owners to repair this wall …..Sort it.
Surely it is the responsibility of the highways department.It looks less than 3.66 metres from the road and should have been adopted by them.By the way, what was the final outcome?