A DISPUTE over the rights to a strip of land has erupted in a quiet residential street.

The row has ignited tensions in Connaught Road, in Chingford, after developers dug up a strip of disputed land behind a veterinary surgery.

Owner of VETCall, Stephen Posnett, has run his business on Station Road for 15 years and uses the land behind it for staff and customer parking.

For 30 years, the land being developed in Connaught Road has been derelict with no developer managing to build on it for decades.

The land backs onto the vet’s car park and the rear of the grocery shop, Empire Food and Wine, in Station Road, embroiling its owners into the dispute.

Mr Posnett, said the developers, I A Investments Ltd, approached him to discuss their desire to take the land.

But on the second the occasion the vet said they became more demanding and told him they would take it as their building footprint was not big enough.

He said: “They then turned up on a quiet Sunday when our business was closed and began digging away at our car park.

“He did it when no one was working here and no one would tell him to stop.

“I think it’s audacious what they have done.

“You can’t stop me, that’s the attitude.

“This is England, we have rules.

“This is not the wild west.”

Antony Everitt, who owns the property two doors down from Mr Posnett, said the developer must be a property amateur the way he is going about it.

He said: "It is the law of the land, our home is our castle and we should defend our castle."

Speaking on behalf of the developer, Imtiaz Ali said they have evidence proving the vet’s car park is encroaching on the owner’s property by nearly a foot.

He said: “We have checked the land registry and they are eight to ten inches onto the property.

“All the developer wants is about four inches more to get a straight line for the foundations.”

Mr Ali said the veterinary surgeon has refused all points of contact with them, exhausting all lines of reasonable communication.

He added: “If he has the evidence to prove the land is his then show it to us.

“But if he is not prepared to do that then what are we supposed to do.”