A couple who claim they lost everything after plans for a bypass wrecked their retirement dream are renewing their legal battle for compensation.

Maurice Balchin, 68, and his wife Audrey, 66, have spent 15 years waiting for a payout in a row over a bypass near their former Norfok home.

The fight has dominated their lives during the past decade but Mr Balchin says he remains determined.

The couple say plans for the bypass just 20ft from from their home in Wroxeter have been to blame.

I had made a sweetheart's promise that one day we would own a house there

Maurice Balchin

Mr Balchin said: "It has been a nightmare. It seems to have been going on forever."

"Our solicitor is optimistic. But it is not for myself I am fighting, but for my wife.

"She fell in love with Wroxham the minute she saw it and I made a sweetheart's promise that one day we would own a house there.

"It was a dream I was fortunate enough to make come true but it was taken away."

The couple say their nightmare began when plans were released for a bypass on an embankment just 20ft from the bedroom window of their dream home on the Norfolk Broads.

The value of their �435,000 house then plummeted.

Audrey and Maurice Balchin were left jobless and penniless

When banks learned of the road scheme, loans secured on the house were called in and Mr Balchin had to close his chartered surveyors' business.

The couple were left jobless and penniless, said Mr Balchin.

The bypass plan was cancelled by Norfolk County Council in 1996, but potential house buyers remained nervous that it would be resurrected.

Three years ago the property was sold for �220,000 shortly before it was due to be repossessed.

Treated 'disgracefully'

The plight of the couple, who now live in Fressingfield, Suffolk, has twice been considered by the Parliamentary Ombudsman.

Twice his decisions acquitting the Department of Transport of any maladministration have been overturned by the High Court.

But In a third ruling last September, the Ombudsman held there had been maladministration by Government officials.

The ruling found government officers had not informed Norfolk County Council of its powers to buy the house, or compensate the couple.

On Monday the Balchins' lawyers will ask High Court judge Mr Justice Harrison to rule that the Ombudsman was wrong to say the council would have refused to help them.

Damaging precedent

Their hopes have been boosted by a senior judge who gave them permission to bring a fresh legal action and branded their treatment by officials as a "disgrace" and "a mess".

Mr Justice Moses, who said the Balchins could seek a judicial review, said it was "strongly arguable" that the Ombudsman had made yet another mistake.

He called the case "quite incredible", adding that the council seemed to have been "hell-bent from the start on not paying compensation".

It gave "bogus" reasons, including that to pay compensation would set a damaging precedent, and showed a "gross misunderstanding" of its powers, said the judge.

Central and local government officials had shown "woeful ignorance" of the law and had not bothered to ascertain what the law was, he added.

Norfolk County Council, which has always denied that it acted unreasonably, said it would keep a watching brief on the case.