A COUPLE involved in a six-year dispute over a broken fence that borders land between a pub and their home may be within sight of victory.Sharon and Robert Webb live next door to the Churchills public house, in Bramford Road, Ipswich, and have been quarrelling about who should repair a broken fence since 1997.

A COUPLE involved in a six-year dispute over a broken fence that borders land between a pub and their home may be within sight of victory.

Sharon and Robert Webb live next door to the Churchills public house, in Bramford Road, Ipswich, and have been quarrelling about who should repair a broken fence since 1997.

The couple claim the fence belongs to the pub and is their responsibility to fix. Until they purchased their council house in January, the couple had also been in discussion with Ipswich council to seek their assistance.

These talks were halted, however, when the property ceased to be owned by the council.

Mr Webb, 45, a lorry driver, said they had been trying to sort out the fence since it began to crumble.

He said: "My solicitor said to me to put my own fence up, but why should I? I can't just put it on their land and would have to put it in my garden and why should I lose my land?"

The pub, which is owned by Richard Cattermole, has been closed for around four months but was previously leased to a private company.

Mr Cattermole said he was in the process of trying to repossess the pub from this company and hopes to repair the fence after completing the repossession.

"We're repossessing the pub because we can't touch anything until we've done that, he said. "Once we've done that and we recognise the fence is ours, which we have, we will repair it."

He added he had become embroiled in a rental dispute with the leaseholders but expected the saga to be resolved within the next couple of months.

The news of progress, which was prompted by a phone call from The Evening Star, has pleased Mrs Webb, although she is still waiting for action.

She said: "We're pleased with the development and I'm pleased you were able to get hold of him because we never got any response.

"Hopefully something will happen now but until it does I'm not getting my hopes up."