A PENSIONER has told of his distress at watching vintage machinery collected over a lifetime being taken away after being sold by a council.

John 'Husky' Petch lives on The Green in Dormanstown, near Redcar, where machinery he says is worth £250,000 was being removed after being sold to a scrap merchant.

Last October Mr Petch, 67, lost a long-running legal fight to save the machinery which is being stored at a Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council compound and was evicted from the property in November despite barricading himself in.

Mr Petch maintains the equipment was being taken illegally as an application for an injunction to prevent its sale and removal had been filed at the High Court in London. He also said he was applying to the Land Registry to be declared legal owner of the land.

However leading Redcar and Cleveland borough councillor Christopher Massey said the council has no knowledge of any new legal proceedings and that the council is the land owner.

Mr Petch, originally from Thornaby, said: "I have been collecting all my life, since I was a boy. There's also my personal things, letters and photographs, that they won't let me go on and take. It is all in a static caravan where I used to stay and I can't even get in. I talked to the people who say they've bought it from the council. They don't know what they've got there, they think it's just scrap but it was my museum."

Bradley Knight, a friend of Mr Petch, said he had lodged a legal application to prevent the local authority taking the vintage equipment. What appeared to be a legal document requesting an injunction has been seen by The Northern Echo.

However Cllr Christopher Massey, cabinet member for resources, said the authority had no knowledge of any new legal development. He said: "The council is the legal owner of the land in question and lawfully evicted Mr Petch in November 2014.

“We are unaware of any hearing being set for an injunction application. The contract to sell these goods was completed some time ago and the goods are being collected in accordance with that contract. The goods were sold as a result of Mr. Petch refusing to comply with a formal Notice which was served upon him indicating that if he did not remove his possessions from the site within a specified period - which has long since passed - the council would intend to sell them to clear the land."

Last year Mr Petch, a retired mechanic, lost a bid at Middlesbrough County Court to store the items on the grounds that their removal was a breach of his human rights. The council already had a court order enabling them to remove the machinery.