Happy ending to "Cowboy" campaign

Friday 31 October 2014

Creating a landmark to get your message across could be a new sign of the times – well it’s worked for one Jersey couple anyway.

In June Tim and Peta Clayton put up a huge sign in their garden, built a website and turned to social media to try to get the attention of a company they were in dispute with over their home improvements.

The couple invested more than £23,000 in their conservatory from Everest but said that what they actually got was literally falling down on them.

The company argued that all of their attempts to sort things out were knocked back by the family – even when they said that they’d pay for an independent inspection and carry out any recommendations made.

But Mr Clayton argued that the conservatory was so badly built that one falling panel narrowly missed his head as he sat at his desk, and that they had to spend £8,000 getting the whole conservatory roof replaced by another company.

Four months on and both parties have settled their differences, and the dispute has been resolved.

In a statement Everest said: "We can confirm that we have reached an agreement with Mr Clayton and the matter is settled."

Mr Clayton confirmed that the matter had been settled and that they were very grateful for the public's support - now he's now calling for more support for consumers from Jersey Trading Standards who he says had failed to help them.

“I’m afraid that we strongly feel let down by Jersey Trading Standards who were not at all interested and only offered the advice of writing a 'line in the sand' letter," said Mr Clayton, who says his family are looking forward to getting back to normal and enjoying the unobstructed view from their garden again.

"We believe this will likely only be more time wasted for consumers.

“An explanation of the role of the Trading Standards department in Jersey would be greatly appreciated, as we know that similar Trading Standards departments in the UK will intervene. It seems sensible to us that Jersey should be following this example.”

One last thing - if anyone else is planning to stick up a sign over a dispute with builders, Mr Clayton has a few words of advice. He says you need to make sure it’s no more than 2 x 2 metres to meet regulations, or you'll end up with Planning on your back too.