Cant start new create-react-app project, webpack issue

[happy-machine]

Is this a bug report?

(write your answer here)
Yes

Did you try recovering your dependencies?

npm 6.5.0 (upgraded from 5.6 which demonstrated original issue)
(Write your answer here.)

logging:

The react-scripts package provided by Create React App requires a dependency:

"webpack": "4.19.1"

Don't try to install it manually: your package manager does it automatically.
However, a different version of webpack was detected higher up in the tree:

/Users/danstein/node_modules/webpack (version: 4.17.1)

Have followed all steps, tried both yarn and npm. There is no webpack reference in package.json and npm ls webpack shows
(my root)/Projects/xai-marking-server
└─┬ react-scripts@2.1.2
└── webpack@4.19.1

Which terms did you search for in User Guide?

(Write your answer here if relevant.)

Environment

System:
OS: macOS High Sierra 10.13.5
CPU: x64 Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-7360U CPU @ 2.30GHz
Binaries:
Node: 8.11.3 - ~/.nvm/versions/node/v8.11.3/bin/node
Yarn: 1.7.0 - /usr/local/bin/yarn
npm: 6.5.0 - ~/.nvm/versions/node/v8.11.3/bin/npm
Browsers:
Chrome: 71.0.3578.98
Firefox: 61.0.2
Safari: 11.1.1
npmPackages:
react: ^16.7.0 => 16.7.0
react-dom: ^16.7.0 => 16.7.0
react-scripts: 2.1.2 => 2.1.2
npmGlobalPackages:
create-react-app: Not Found
(paste the output of the command here)

Steps to Reproduce

(Write your steps here:)

1. Created new project
2. Tried to run npm start, and yarn start both giving the output up above

Expected Behavior

(Write what you thought would happen.)

Actual Behavior

(Write what happened. Please add screenshots!)

There might be a problem with the project dependency tree.
It is likely not a bug in Create React App, but something you need to fix locally.

The react-scripts package provided by Create React App requires a dependency:

"webpack": "4.19.1"

Don't try to install it manually: your package manager does it automatically.
However, a different version of webpack was detected higher up in the tree:

/Users/danstein/node_modules/webpack (version: 4.17.1)

Reproducible Demo

(Paste the link to an example project and exact instructions to reproduce the issue.)

[mrmckeb]

Hi @happy-machine, can I ask why you have a node_modules folder in your user directory? If you remove it, that should solve the problem.

[happy-machine]

oh dear .. i feel very silly, apologies, all working now