Angry residents living along Richmond Terrace, Clitheroe, have blasted the move by Network Rail, which is designed to deter people from trespassing and to crackdown on railway crime.

Residents say that although they support any moves to improve safety, they are unhappy with rail bosses who went ahead with the plans without consulting them.

Mother-of-one Mrs Joanne Jackson (31), who lives opposite where the fence has been put up, said: "It looks like a prison camp. We were told by the contractors it was available in green and we should have had a letter drop about the scheme.

"We are not disputing the reasons for the new fence, but just the way it has been done!

"On a more personal note, I have a four-year-old son who is autistic and needs plenty of time to adjust to situations.

"The noise of the cutters didn't help and he refused to come out of the house to go to school."

Another resident, Fiona Tomlin, says the railings make her feel claustrophobic.

Meanwhile, Mrs Nicola Allen, who works nights at Clitheroe Hospital, added: "It looks ugly and is an eyesore. Work began early one morning with no notification and was a disturbance.

"Ribble Valley Borough Council has had no input to the fence being erected, but we called Network Rail to be told they didn't need to notify us because it was less than 6ft. tall. 'Write a letter' they said. We have written letters, but have had no response up to now.

"All we want is the fence to be painted green or some shrubs planted to hide it."

Responding, a spokesman for Network Rail said: "We are completely renewing all the fencing on the line between Blackburn and Clitheroe.
"Standard procedure is that in residential areas or areas where we know we have problems with trespassers and vandals, we put up what is called Palisade fencing, which is 1.8m. (6ft.) tall, with spikes on top and is steel fencing.

"In rural areas we just put up stockproof fencing, rather than the metal stuff.

"The reason we are doing it is that there are a lot of areas on the route where fencing is non-existent or in very poor state of repair."

He added: "We would not normally notify residents unless there were exceptional reasons, for example if work was going on overnight.

"We have around 2,000 miles of railway across the country. If we were to try to notify residents on both sides of the railway, it would be virtually impossible to do that."