Property News: Plum tree stops underground development at Boris Johnson's former home

Published: 16 June 2011
by DAN CARRIER

A PURPLE plum tree that a cast shade over the childhood garden of London Mayor Tory Boris Johnson has now provided protection of another sort.

The plum tree has emerged as the unlikely hero for people in Primrose Hill who are trying to stop wealthy neighbours carving giant entertainment areas from beneath their homes.

On Thursday, at a council planning meeting, a scheme to dig out a basement beneath the garden in Mr Johnson’s former home was blocked after a neighbour claimed the construction could kill his mature plum tree, which borders the site. Retired businessman Imre Lake, who lives next door to the home, claimed that the council officers’ reports on the scheme failed to mention it in their reports, and the potential effect any building work would have on it.

He said: “Somehow they managed to simply ignore a 20-year-old, 30-foot tree.”

He claimed the tree would suffer if a massive basement featuring cinema and gym was built. 

He added: “It is either gross inefficiency or they are just leaning over backwards to allow people to build what they want.”

And it was the tree that persuaded councillors to go against officers’ advice and throw out the plans on the grounds it could damage a mature tree and would therefore be detrimental to the conservation area. 

Twenty other neighbours also objected, leaving the homeowners pondering what their next move is. Mr Lake has been so incensed by the application, he is in the process of establishing a pressure group calling for stronger planning laws to cover basements, to provide, he says, a focal point for “all those concerned at the increasing number of extra excavations which are taking place under existing buildings”.

The house was owned by Boris Johnson’s father Stanley, and after the Johnsons moved to Islington, it was bought by a City businessman. Neighbours say he put the home on the market at the start of the recession and moved from Primrose Hill to a second home they already owned in the country. That sale was completed a year ago. The house had first been put on the market for £5.8m, but according to neighbours, the price was reduced to around £5.2m before it was finally sold after being on the market for 12 months. 

It is still empty as builders wait to start work.

The new owners, the Morris family, have yet to move in and have been drawing up plans to convert the Victorian property in a luxury home. The plans include an above-ground extension stretching up the back of the house to the third storey, a side extension and then a new basement stretching out across the garden.

Mr Lake said the hydrology report submitted by the owners’ agents had been taken at face value by officers and had not been independently verified.

Mr Lake added: “I warned them if they make a decision in favour it would be unsafe in law and I would challenge their decision. I was surprised to discover the officers working on this seemed to be bending over backwards in favour of the scheme despite Camden issuing guidelines and councillors have spoken out against this. It is time to ask them to either re-state the guidelines or change them.”

Mr Lake added that the officers should never have approved the scheme, considering the council’s own guidelines regarding building basements. He said: “We are not talking about building Centrepoint – it shouldn’t have been so hard to make a decision, considering the guidelines.”

Other objectors included the Primrose Hill conservation area advisory committee. They said the above-ground extension would be visible from the street, while they also attacked the plans for the new basement.

They added: “It would turn the garden into a form of roof terrace consisting of a concrete trough roofing the underground bunker. 

“It is a significant element of the conservation area that rear gardens are real gardens with large trees: this garden would never be able to have a large tree in it in the future.”

Planning consultants Metropolitan Planning and Design, who worked on the scheme, said their client did not wish to comment. 

They are expected to lodge an appeal against the dec­ision soon. 

• The Campaign Against Added Basements can be contacted at i.lake@btinternet.com.