Neighbourhood row erupts over six-metre-tall plastic elephant

A UK man has vented his frustration after a local council confiscated his six-metre tall plastic elephant. 

Trevor Robinson, a retired resident from Gillingham in Kent, rescued ‘Ellie’ the elephant from a local swimming pool earlier this year. 

The fibreglass elephant slide was scheduled to be sent to landfill after 30 years of service. 

“I was over the moon when they said I could have it, I really was,” Robinson told Kent Online. 

“It was going to be the crowning glory of all my little toys in the back garden, the centrepiece. She was going to be here on my lawn and I was going to build a little pond, so you could slide down it into the water.”

But neighbours feared the decommissioned slide was a safety hazard, and contacted the local council to intervene. 

“We couldn’t get permission for a six-foot shed in our front garden, never mind a 20-foot-long elephant,” said next-door neighbour Shirley Daniel.

Two months after Robinson parked Ellie on his driveway, Medway Council ordered it to be removed and taken to landfill. 

A spokesperson for the council said: “During our annual health and safety of The Strand [Leisure Park], the slide, which is now more than 30 years old, was not deemed to be safe so we took the decision to remove it. 

“Once we became aware a resident had the slide following complaints, we arranged for it to be picked up so it can be safely disposed of as an unsafe structure.” 

Robinson has begged the local council to return the elephant, stating he would pay “whatever it costs” to get Ellie back. 

“Landfills are bad enough, so why put a big lump of fibreglass in there when it could have stayed here with me?” he said. 

“She wasn’t doing any harm.”