A wall has sparked outrage among some Burnham residents amid fears it may compromise road safety on a busy street.

South Bucks District Council’s (SBDC) planning committee approved a retrospective application for a one-metre high wall which has already been built outside a home in Green Lane.

Karmjit Sidhu insisted he followed planning guidance when building the wall, which has 1.8 metre pillars, adding he felt the design is in keeping with the area.

However Kevin Dean, from the North East Burnham Residents’ Association, called for the wall height to be reduced to 0.6 metres as it creates an “unacceptable obstruction” to drivers.

Mr Dean fears the wall could block drivers’ line of vision and prevent them from seeing school children who walk along the road every day.

Speaking at a meeting of SBDC’s planning committee on July 18 he said : “Not only are the two piers adjacent to the carriageway too high, but the entire one-metre high wall presents an unacceptable obstruction to the line of sight.

“We understand that recently a collision was only just avoided from a car emerging from this very property and another on Green Lane.

“The previous application was dismissed not only at district level but also on appeal.

“However applicants proceeded with the build in defiance – hence the retrospective application.”

However the council case officer insisted the wall does not compromise the safety of the road.

The original application for the wall, pillars, gates and metal railings was refused on appeal – however Mr Sidhu said he then worked closely with the council to ensure he followed planning guidelines.

He said: “When it was rejected we were somewhat surprised – we didn’t feel that we got a good enough reason for the objection so we went for appeal.

"The appeal was rejected. It wasn’t until then that we started dialogue with the planning department as to why it was rejected.

“We had to pay for a planning officer site visit, we then discussed what we can and cannot do.

“From that point we then followed planning advice which was remove all the railings, we reduced the piers by 50 per cent, we removed the wall itself in the original application and we moved all of this back to follow planning guidelines.”

The number of pillars on the wall have been reduced from 10 to five following the original application, while all railings have been removed. Councillor Duncan Smith said while the committee does not usually like dealing with retrospective applications, he could see the wall is in keeping with the area.

He said: “Normally we don’t like retrospective planning applications but in this case it is one of the few ones where having seen it finished we can see it does match other things near it.

“There are other houses nearby within 50 metres with similar walls and peers.”