Residents of a Kensington street have spent more than £100,000 trying to stop a proposed basement extension in what is thought to be London’s costliest neighbourhood planning row.
The owner of the £7 million, five-storey house in Strathmore Gardens won planning permission to build the two-storey basement with swimming pool, multi-level car port, gallery and gym 18 months ago.
But his neighbours appealed against the decision at a judicial review and won after claiming their lives would be made a misery by the development and their properties could be put at risk. Now the owner, described as an “intensely private” father with four young children, has been granted permission for a slightly revised development, triggering a second High Court appeal.
About 30 neighbours have lodged 100 complaints with Kensington and Chelsea council. Neighbours are concerned that the project will lead to months of disruption as lorries cart away tons of soil removed from beneath the house on a narrow cul-de-sac.
Scaffolding had to be used to shore up a house during a project in nearby Palace Gardens Terrace as properties on either side suffered subsidence and cracks. Patrick Hope-Falkner, a retired solicitor who has lived in the road for 16 years, said: “We’ve easily spent £100,000 and counting. But we have to do what we can. This is an excavation of massive dimensions, way beyond what is appropriate in a row of frail 1860s buildings.
“The house in Palace Gardens Terrace almost collapsed last month, and this development is almost three times as deep. The risk to adjacent properties is enormous.”
In a joint letter to the council neighbours described the plan as “one the of most contentious and riskiest basement projects ever proposed in the borough”. Another neighbour said: “If this development is allowed I know a number of people who say they have no choice but to move out.”
The owner has not lived in the house since he bought it through a firm based in the British Virgin Islands in July 2010. Neighbours say they have never met him, dealing instead with his solicitors and architects. A man in his forties, who is house-sitting to protect the home from squatters, told the Standard: “He’s an intensely private individual and I very much doubt he will want to comment on such a contentious issue. In London you can’t build up, you can’t build out, the only thing you can do is go down if you’re going to try to increase the value of your property. He’s bringing in the best civil engineers there is.”
