A garden centre praised for its green credentials has been ordered to remove a wildlife haven at its site.

Lesley Phillips has run Russells Garden Centre in Birdham with her husband for 13 years.

Last year the couple, who are helped with the day-to-day running of the centre by their three children James, 18, Adam, 15 and Amelia, two, created a wild patch at one end of the site.

Mrs Phillips explained: "The previous owners had used a large area at the end of the site as a dumping ground which had rubble and wood and things on it.

"It has taken a long time to clear and sort out and last year we turned it into a wildlife haven by piling the rubble up and covering it in topsoil before grassing it over.

"Now it's got all sorts of animals living there, including lizards, slow worms, mice, rabbits and all sorts of insects but the council have demanded we take it down.

"It's very upsetting. We are very environmentally minded and were finalists in the Seeda sustainable business awards in 2004. It's going to be heartbreaking to have to take it down."

But Chichester District Council, which in 2004 voted the centre its green business of the year, has since demanded that the mound is removed.

It wrote to the Phillips family and told them that there had been a complaint about it and that it had to go as it did not have planning permission.

The council served an enforcement notice for the mound to be removed but the Phillips family appealed against the order and planning inspector Alan Langton was called in.

He upheld the decision and described it as looking "distinctly odd". He suggested the land was still used as a wildlife haven but without the mound.

Roger Tilbury, chairman of Birdham Parish Council, said he and his fellow councillors had written to the inspector to show their support for the mound.

A spokesman for Chichester District Council said: "We would support any business where possible with their plans to become an environmentally friendly, but this has to be done within the confines of the planning laws, and as was also acknowledged by the planning inspector, there are other, less visually harmful, ways of achieving this."

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