A fed-up St Albans man is calling on the council to knock down or ‘do up’ a vandalised and partly burnt out row of garages behind his home.

John Holland said the Carnegie Road garages had been derelict for quite some time and recently one of the units was gutted by a fire.

He said: “It’s all just completely wrecked. They’ve been like that for two to three months.”

John claimed St Albans district council’s poor attitude was the reason they had fallen into disrepair: “They’ve just abandoned them. They just board them up but people just rip them off the wall. If you look on the website they don’t even list them on there.

“They’ve got to make a decision, are they going to knock them down or are they going to tidy them up? I want them cleaned up. I’ve rung the council and asked them about it before, they said it would take 30 days. I want them done now.”

But in response, Karen Dragovic, head of housing at the council said the garages in Carnegie Road were in fact earmarked for development which is why they were not listed on their website for new rentals.

She said: “We are aware that in the past there have been some instances of anti-social behaviour at the garage site bordered by Carnegie Road and Partridge Road. Following an appraisal of our garage sites, this site has been identified for development to provide much needed additional social housing to the area, and a local public consultation was undertaken earlier this year.

“As a council we are looking at redeveloping under-utilised, council-owned garages into affordable homes to help meet demand for housing in the district.”