David Hare’s £5m haven is threatened by basement dig

NIMBY luvvie Sir David Hare is protesting against a proposed excavation next to his £5 million leafy Hampstead home.

The celebrated playwright says that a neighbour’s plan to expand their basement will shatter the crescent’s treasured peace and tranquillity.

‘The crescent has always been a quiet residential street where people lived for 20 years or more,’ says Hare. ‘Only in the past few years has it become a square on an investor and estate agent’s Monopoly board. That’s changing its character.’

The new owners of a neighbouring property want planning consent to rebuild an extension at the back of the house and revamp the cellar.

‘Basement work of this kind is now loathed in London for very good reason,’ adds Hare. ‘This street is losing its essential charm and character to people coming in and hollowing it out for commercial profit.’

The writer has approached the Town Hall, urging planners to reject the scheme. ‘These unnecessary basements are anti- social and destructive,’ says Sir David, who is married to fashion designer and sculptor Nicole Farhi. ‘In the interests of letting the crescent retain its essential character — quiet, peaceful, neighbourly — I implore the council to reject this application.’

Architect Piers Smerin, who filed the application on behalf of the new owner, says the plan was not a large basement extension, but sought simply to expand a small cellar at the front of the house. He said: ‘While it is technically described as basement work, it is pushing it to describe it as a basement — it is making an existing cellar space a little wider and deeper.’

This is not the first time Hare has found himself in conflict with neighbours. Sir David, 70, was previously forced to move out of his glass-roofed writing studio after an illegal two-storey extension blocked out the light.

‘I have already endured the noise, dirt and constant disruption for 18 months,’ he adds. ‘At times, I had to move out.’

Sir David wrote the script for The Reader — the film that won Kate Winslet an Oscar — in his studio, as well as plays including the Olivier award-winning Skylight and Pravda.