FED-UP Sedgley residents are calling for action aS their communal garden is regularly being ripped up by badgers.

The council tenants living in the block of flats in Viewfield Crescent, say they watch a family of five badgers in their garden most evenings as they make their way from the fields at the back of their homes.

Resident Thomas Huntington, said: “It is getting ridiculous now. They have dug under the fence at the bottom which separates our garden with the fields and they are just tearing up our lawn and plants.

“Most nights you can see them wandering around the garden and then every morning you look out more holes have appeared and they are big holes as well.”

Thomas, who is disabled, even pays for a gardener to come and maintain the lawns as the tenants in the block are all elderly, but the hard work is often in vain as the badgers, which are a protected species, are digging up everything in sight, including a newly planted Acer tree which was only put in in June.

Thomas added: “You can see where they are coming from as there are clear tracks coming over the fields, which lead under our fences.

“And now they are starting to dig up our front garden as well, but we just keep getting told there is nothing that can be done.”

The residents are now calling for Dudley Council to install special badger fencing at the bottom of their garden, which is designed to keep the badgers out with a wire mesh barrier system.

Councillor Khurshid Ahmed , cabinet member for housing, said: “The housing manager has been made aware of the situation and is liaising with our nature conservation officers to see if there is there is any action we can take, taking into consideration the fact that badgers are a legally protected species.”

All badgers and their setts are protected under the Protection of Badgers Act 1992, which makes it illegal to kill, injure or remove badgers or to interfere with a sett.