A Rochdale man has failed to prevent his neighbour extending his property after the local council's email filtering system blocked two missives containing the word "erection", the BBC reports.

Ray Kennedy, 51, of Middleton fired off three emails objecting to the construction, but only the third slipped the net, by which time permission for the extension had already been granted.

Kennedy told The Sun: "Erection is a normal term in planning. But it was stopped because of its other meaning. I was shocked. Maybe if it didn't affect me I'd find it funny. This proposal was clearly passed without my objections being heard. It is not fair."

The council agrees, and has promised to apologise to Mr Kennedy. A spokesman said: "The software that protects the council's email system from spam and other offensive material is not designed by the council and we do not control which words are blocked. We will be writing to the resident to apologise for the failure of his emails to get through." ®

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