The restaurant and nightclub tycoon Richard Caring has been ordered to remove three windows from his £40m mansion in South Kensington, London, after losing a battle with the local council.
The 75-year-old billionaire, who owns the celebrity hotspot restaurants the Ivy, J Sheekey and Sexy Fish as well as the private members’ club Annabel’s, and his wife, Patricia, have lost an appeal against a decision by the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea.
A year ago, the council ruled that the windows in Park House were “excessive in size”, installed “without planning permission” and “fail to preserve the character and appearance” of the conservation area within which the 13,400 sq ft house sits.
Elizabeth Pleasant, a planning inspector, said she had received a “significant number” of complaints from neighbouring residents about the impact on them from the large dormer windows set into the sloping pitched roof, in particular in terms of privacy and light pollution.
She found that there was “no harm to the living conditions of neighbouring residents” but refused to grant planning permission for the “substantial” windows because of their size and design. “Their number and scale are such that they dominate the roof,” she said.
“The dormers have had a harmful effect on the overall design quality of the building and thus fail to preserve the character of the conservation area,” she concluded.
It is the latest development in a six-year battle between the Carings and their neighbours. Last year, Caring angered residents by closing a main road for two weeks to have dozens of trees planted in the grounds of his mansion.
The couple have six months to remove the windows. Pleasant rejected their claim that the period was too short and that they would need 12 months for the works.
Caring was quoted by the Daily Telegraph, which first reported the loss of the appeal, as saying: “In the future we hope we come to an agreement with the council on something that is more acceptable to the style of the house.”
In last year’s appeal, Caring’s wife said the windows were “well-designed, being appropriately proportioned and detailed to accord with the general Victorian character of the wider conservation area”.
The mansion, which is on a one-acre site close to the centre of South Kensington, replaced a 19th-century cottage previously owned by the German industrialist heir Gert-Rudolf Flick. It has six bedrooms, a swimming pool, gym and beauty treatment and steam rooms.
The Carings have been approached for comment.
