A PUSHCHAIR is at the centre of a three-month dispute between a couple in Abbots Langley and Three Rivers District Council.

Mr Paul Woodeson and Miss Julie Cromwell, who live in Causeway House in High Street, have kept a pushchair in the hallway outside their flat since the birth of their second daughter three months ago.

Estate officers at the district council have asked the couple to make alternative arrangments and store the pushchair elsewhere on the grounds that it is a hazard to the other residents in the block.

If the couple do not comply with the request to remove the pushchair a contractor would be employed to remove it from the hallway and Mr Woodeson and Miss Cromwell would be invoiced.

Mr Woodeson, a telesalesman, said: 'The council won't let us put the chair in the hallway and have asked us to put it in the shed.

'This means that if my partner is alone with the children she would have to leave the children alone in the flat while she went downstairs to get the pushchair out of the shed which we don't want to do.

'I am not very happy with the council at all.

'The shed does not even have a lock on it at the moment.'

A spokesman for the council said: 'The place where this couple have stored their pushchair is not suitable as it blocks fire exits and access wherever it is.

'In some blocks of flats there is usually room under the stairwell to store things but not in Causeway House.

'This means there is not convenient place to put the chair.

'We have had to call upon health and safety and the terms of the tenancy agreement.

'We have offered for the couple to clear out the shed and then we will clean it and make the shed a suitable unit for their pushchair.'

Mr Woodeson said: 'My girlfriend spends all day in the flat with the children. If the pushchair is kept in the flat she cannot get the kids and the chair downstairs which means she is trapped in the flat all day.'

Mr Woodeson and Miss Cromwell are currently unsure of what action to take at present but have been informed by the council that officers plan to make a return visit to Causeway House before the end of the month.