City planners dig in over BBC's £70,000 upwardly mobile garden

A hydraulic platform may not spring to mind as the ultimate garden accessory, but Mark Gribben was quite thrilled with the BBC's unorthodox take on horticulture.

On Wednesday he proudly displayed the £70,000 transformation of his garden by Home Front guru Diarmuid Gavin – an outside patio that, at the flick of a switch, rises seven feet to reveal a secret room.

His neighbours, however, were not so impressed. And when one complained to the council, the small matter of a lack of planning permission reared its ugly head. The BBC, having invested thousands of pounds of licence-payers' money – not to mention a month of hard labour – in the tiny garden, was yesterday served with a planning contravention notice by Birmingham City Council.

The makeover of the 12ft-by-40ft plot behind Mr Gribben's terraced house is due to feature on the BBC2 programme on 3 October. It now boasts a patio with a concealed hot tub surrounded by exotic pot plants.

A switch, concealed in a Victorian brick shed, activates a hydraulic platform that lifts the patio to reveal a room equipped with a fibre-optic sculpture and subtle lighting.

Mr Gribben, a 36-year-old florist, declared the transformation "a work of art" and dubbed it "the Hanging Gardens of Harborne". His joy, however, may be short-lived.

"A planning contravention notice has been issued to the owner and the BBC," a council spokeswoman said yesterday. Mr Gribben and the corporation can apply for retrospective permission but, if the application fails, the platform will have to be pulled down.

"The garden looks wonderful, and I would not want to change it in any way," Mr Gribben said yesterday. The BBC was equally reluctant to give up on its creation. "We always aim to build within planning guidelines. If there are any planning issues, we will obviously discuss them fully with the local authority to agree what is the most sensible way forward," a spokesman said.