ANGRY neighbours blasted the owner of a shipping container and mobile home for making their Park South estate look like “a junkyard” and “building site”.

A fiery public meeting descended into bedlam after the crowd of 50 people loudly rejected owner Lillie Goddard’s defence of her actions.

Furious residents quizzed her about why she moved into a house without carrying out safety surveys beforehand and why she had spent so much money on the caravan and the container instead of putting it all into fixing her house.

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Ms Goddard claimed that the cost of fixing the heating was more than what she had spent.

But she admitted renting out her Loxley Walk property to two people while it was being repaired and appearing in court in 2016 for renting out an unsafe HMO in Pinehurst.

A man who gave his name as Chris came from Pinehurst to talk about what it was like to live near Ms Goddard before she moved.

He said: “It was a nice house until she moved in. For years, we’ve had problems with Lillie.

“She’s always the victim, always has a sob story and always blames other people. Even now, there’s rubbish left outside the house.”

It was suggested that neighbours help Ms Goddard resolve her problems but this idea became less popular as the meeting went on.

An idea to put up a fence was considered hiding the problem instead of fixing it. Ms Goddard tried to bring her young children to the front of the hall to speak but that was deemed inappropriate by meeting chairman Martin Costello.

A friend of Ms Goddard defiantly asked what she had done wrong and dismissed explanations of planning and environment law-breaking as “opinions”.

He added: “If someone has a caravan in their garden, it does not disturb me, it’s their private business. 

“When we look across the street, most of the other homes there look terrible but we don’t complain.”

One audience member said: “We want her out. No-one has done anything like this in the Parks before because we respect where we live. 

“Suddenly, she starts flouting the rules, she did it before, it stinks of smoke and it shouldn’t be there.”

Another said: “Please do not stand there and tell us that we do not understand how hard it is. When I was struggling, I had to cope by myself. If I didn’t have the money, I went without. Stand up on your own two feet.”

Ms Goddard said: “My situation is very sad. I wanted to start over and move to a new area. There were occasions where people called me a gypsy and said I should move away. It’s been very difficult. I’m very sorry, I thought I didn’t need planning permission.”

One woman said: “All we are trying to do is get you to follow the law like everybody else does.
“It doesn’t matter where you’re from, we just want you to do the same as us and live by the law of this land.”

Mr Costello criticised Swindon Borough Council for not responding to residents’ concerns about the mobile home quickly enough when it was first set up.

The borough is investigating neighbours’ concerns and claims of illegality and has served an enforcement notice, which was explained to Ms Goddard by Coun Bazil Solomon.

He said: “We can’t just go and rip the caravans out but we need to move the large one and the container as soon as we can. It’s under investigation by the council, which is a slow legal process and it’ll probably end up in court.”

Ms Goddard pledged to try to have the container and mobile home removed from her garden within the next three months.

A cameraman filmed the entire meeting for a Channel 5 documentary called The Nightmare Neighbour Next Door.