IT'S JUDGEMENT day for almost 100 Locks Heath residents who are preparing to take a long-fought battle over 60cm of roof height to the top.

Today planning chiefs are set to make a site visit to a controversial new blocks of flats in Locks Road which neighbouring residents claim builders have constructed higher than they were allowed.

Residents from the Chestnuts retirement complex, Lawn Drive and Field Close have opposed the flats for three-and a half years, saying they are too high and and will cause parking and traffic problems.

They want the council to agree to getting the surplus 60cm of roof height lopped - or face a battle in court. The council unwittingly allowed Kebbell Homes the extra height and have since claimed they made a mistake.

Michael Harris, secretary of the Chestnuts Leaseholders and Residents' Association, said it's a mistake they must rectify or pay the consequences.

"It's an extremely important day for us and we will be out in force. We will go to the highest court in the land if we have to over this - we are willing to take it to the top," he said.

"In all honesty I'm not expecting the council to side with us.

"I think there is probably already some sort of agreement set up between them and Kebbell Homes. But we will be there to see what they have to say and at the meeting afterwards. We will let them know that we will take them to court if something is not done."

Council bosses confronted the company about the roof height towards the end of last year after neighbours from the Chestnuts, Lawn Drive and Field Close complained and Kebbell Homes agreed to flatten one of the blocks.

It was not good enough for nearby residents, who want each block properly reconstructed at the originally approved height.

Planning committee vice-chairman Councillor Arthur Mandry said they would only order the roofs to be lowered if, on the site visit, councillors considered they wouldn't have granted permission for them from the start.

He told the Daily Echo: "If we decide they would have been permitted anyway then we probably wouldn't take any action. What the residents are planning to do after the decision is a matter for them and not something I can comment on."