News At Ten's Tom Bradby will have to live with his curtains closed
Tom Bradby, best-known for presenting the News at Ten, is outraged at a proposal to build new houses near his £1 million property in Houghton, Hampshire - and wrote to his council to complain. He called the homes an 'absolute abomination', and insisted that if they were built he would never be able to open his curtains.
His furious outburst against the proposals was written in a letter to Test Valley Borough Council's director of planning, Paul Jackson. He said he was worried about the proposal to build six houses on the site, saying it "would be tantamount to saying you can build whatever you like wherever you like, even in the heart of rural England".
He added that one of the houses would be build directly opposite his bedroom. Given that he and his wife live in a converted bungalow, the windows upstairs are low, which would give the neighbours ringside seats to everything that went on in their bedroom. He added that traffic driving to and from the new build would shine their headlights directly into the room.
According to the Daily Mail, the council weighed up all the arguments, and recommended to the planning committee that the new scheme be approved. However, Bradby said that if permission was granted, he would take his appeal to the Secretary of State, so we will have to see what happens next.
Planning issues
Bradby may be in for a bit of a battle, but he can take some comfort from the fact that he is not the only celebrity to have been embroiled in a planning row
We reported back in May that Bake Off's Sue Perkins had objected to her neighbour's plans to build a bungalow in her back garden, and then move into it. The presenter pointed out that this would kick off a free-for-all of property development on any spare bit of lawn in pricey Hampstead.
Just weeks earlier Broadchurch actress Eve Myes was ordered to tear down the seven foot fence at the front of her Cardiff home. She'd built it without realising she needed planning permission (because it is in a conservation area), and when she applied retrospectively the neighbours complained and she was ordered to demolish it.
Three years ago Bear Grylls installed a slide on a cliff face on an island he owns of the coast of North Wales. Local councillors were said to have been concerned about safety, and about the fact he didn't have permission to fix anything to the cliff face. He removed it a month later, saying he'd only put it up for the summer anyway.
In 2012, Colin Firth was refused permission to install a solar panel on his house in Chiswick, London. Apparently the council didn't feel the environmental benefits were worth the visual damage done to the listed building.
And a year earlier, Pink Floyd's Dave Gilmour was in trouble over a yellow beach hut he built in his drive in Hove, for the family to store their bikes in. The council initially demanded he demolish it, but relented when he agreed to make it lower.
