A FAMILY has hit out at ‘killjoy’ councillors who have demanded they remove a tree-house used by scores of village children.

Mark and Helen Heseltine, of Hincaster, are facing prosecution unless they remove the wooden structure built as a safe place to play.

“I just can’t believe they want us to take it down,” said Mrs Heseltine.

“At any one time we’ve got ten children playing in our garden using the tree house and they absolutely love it.

“You can’t see it from the road and it has been built around branches so as not to harm the tree.

"I find it unbelievable that the council has time to waste on something like this.”

Members of South Lakeland District Council’s planning committee issued an enforcement notice on the couple as the tree house sits in a mature oak protected by a preservation order.

A spokesperson for SLDC said: “We appreciate this is sad for the children and the family that they have been told to take it down but because the tree is subject to a preservation order it is not possible to build in it.”

But Mrs Heseltine believes the tree is in a far healthier state now than when they bought their property on Cherry Hill as it was covered in barbed wire and ivy.

Mr Heseltine spent two weeks building the tree house with his 11-year-old son Ben around two years ago when he was home from leave from the merchant navy.

“I just built it as somewhere for our children and others in the village to play away from the road,” he said. “We were just trying to do something nice. It’s just such a killjoy spirit.”

SLDC enforcement officers began their investigation in March after a tree preservation officer noticed the structure during a six monthly check.

But the way the council conducted its inquiries has further outraged the couple as officers visited their garden and photographed the tree house without contacting them first.

A spokesman for the council said enforcement officers were legally allowed to enter properties and on that occasion had left a card to say they had called.

Hincaster villagers are also backing the campaign to keep the tree house and SLDC planners received 17 letters in support of it remaining.

Villager Grant Bramwell said: “We used to have a tree house in the middle of the village but it blew down and here we’ve got people who want to do something for the good of the community and they are being penalised for it.

"When you think of all the money and time the council have wasted on this, it’s outrageous.”

MP for Westmorland and Lonsdale Tim Farron has lent his support to the couple.

He has written to chief executive of SLDC Lawrence Conway asking them withdraw the order so a more comprehensive consultation can be carried out.