HYPOCRITE OR VICTIM?
Millionaire musician Jools Holland is at war with the wedding venue next door because (oh the irony!) the music’s too loud. But enraged villagers say he’s a selfish Nimby. Read his diary of misery and decide who you back
AS A musician whose career has spanned four decades and taken in everything from punk rock to jazz, there’s little that Jools Holland hasn’t heard.
But relaxing in the stunning surroundings of his country retreat — a manor house complete with its own medieval castle and moat — the sounds that have recently been assailing his ears have left much to be desired in terms of melody, pitch and just about everything else.
First there were the drunken singalongs — everything from That’s Amore to Maggie May and Brown eyed Girl. Then there were the shrieks of laughter and shouts of rage. ‘What are you f***ing doing?’ one man could be overheard yelling to another wedding goer. ‘You have ruined my day.’
And, to add insult to injury, it wasn’t only words that challenged the 60- year- old’s crenellated garden wall. On one occasion drunks were observed urinating on the imposing gates to his property while on another he claimed stones were lobbed over the top, almost hitting his elderly mother. Most mysterious of all, however, was the appearance of a single stiletto shoe on the front lawn of his property in Kent.
According to Holland, the villain of this piece, the invader of his privacy, is clear for all to see — his next- door neighbour, Cooling Castle Barn, a business dedicated to hosting weddings. Their activities, he claims, have made life intolerable for him and his wife, Christabel.
‘I’m sure people will sympathise with their predicament,’ a spokesman for the couple told the Daily Mail last week. ‘ They want to live quietly in their family home in peaceful surroundings just like anyone else.’
Holland himself added that all he wanted to do was to ‘ contain’ the noise and disturbance so that they could ‘all move forward together as good neighbours’.
Unfortunately, that now seems a distant pipe-dream.
Because Holland’s attempts to force his neighbours to change the way in which they operate has instead united the local village of Cooling against him.
Many rely on the venue for work, directly or indirectly. Others married there themselves or have relatives who did so.
And all fear that reducing the days or ways that it can open, as Holland this week attempted to persuade the local council to do, could seriously impact the well-being of the locality.
In a mass outpouring of support, they have branded him ‘ oversensitive’ and a ‘bully’ — pointing out that the venue was already up and running when the couple bought their house in 2002. They have also accused the Hollands of hypocrisy — they themselves used the venue’s facilities when they married in 2005.
Roads were closed and helicopters buzzed noisily overhead as the likes of Ringo Starr, Paul McCartney and Mick Hucknall were ferried in. The Prince of Wales, a close friend, was invited, but couldn’t make it.
FURTHER, they ask, how could a man who made a multi-million-pound fortune out of live music want to curb others enjoyment of the same?
It has been described by locals as a ‘vendetta’, one being waged by a well- connected individual against the ‘little people’ of the village.
‘I feel that the question that should now be asked is not “What more can Cooling Castle Barn do to appease one individual?”’ said ellie Adams, who has worked at the venue for the past 12 years.
‘But more “Why, Mr Holland, did you choose to move next to a fully licensed, successful and already wellestablished wedding venue?”’
While the intensity of the row has undoubtedly shocked the Hollands, it is clear that this is a dispute that has been brewing for some time.
Raised in South-east London, on leaving grammar school Holland launched his musical career, first on keyboards for the band Squeeze and then fronting his own big band.
He has since found further success as a television presenter and radio show host. His annual Hootenanny show has become a staple of New Year’s eve television.
With success has come fame, fortune and all the trappings. According to publicly available records, his company, established for the ‘exploitation of the musical talents of J. M. Holland’, made profits of almost £900,000 in 2016.
In 2002, Holland did what all good rock stars do and bought a country retreat — the manor house in Cooling. Located on the Kent marshes, the village is home to St James’s Church — the setting for Pip’s first meeting with the escaped convict Abel Magwitch at the start of Dickens’s Great expectations.
With the property came custodianship of the ruins of Cooling Castle, a scheduled ancient monument of national importance.
Completed in 1385, it started to fall into disrepair after a siege in 1554 and is now a ruin with only parts of walls and turrets remaining. The most significant section that still remains is the gate house, through which access is gained to the residential property.
DATING back to the 18th century, the house was a snip at just £77,500 but has undergone extensive renovations since Holland moved in.
These have included the construction of an entrance hall, a single-storey music room and a twostorey annexe. He also built a swimming pool and ‘ patriotic’ garden, laid out in the shape of a Union Flag. The surrounding walls contain a ‘parvis’ — a type of medieval room designed for quiet reflection.
In 2005, two years after the pianist received an OBE for services to the British music industry, he married his long-term girlfriend Christabel. She is a member of a landed Scottish family and was formerly married to the earl of Durham.
After a service in the village church, they and their guests made use of the facilities at the wedding venue. To mark the day, villagers were each presented with a piece of wedding cake.
‘Jools is a member of the village and we love him,’ said one onlooker at the time. ‘Cooling’s on the map at last.’
But in 2007 the venue began to offer overnight accommodation, its bookings steadily increasing to 320 a year. An all-in wedding package can cost up to £12,000.
The Hollands claim that over the years they have had numerous discussions with the family- run business about noise emanating from the venue. Complaints have related to amplified music, bagpipes, steel bands and string quartets as well as to communal singing.
In 2014, Holland commissioned acoustic experts to monitor levels. They concluded that ‘every song playing in Cooling Castle Barn was clearly audible and identifiable in terms of both music and lyrics’.
The Hollands also complained to Medway Council. Last summer its environmental protection team visited the property on a number of occa---
sions. In response to high levels of noise from music, guests and extractor fans, a noise abatement notice was issued against the business. A statutory nuisance notice order was also issued relating to pungent cooking odours.
The business, which is challenging both orders, was ordered to desist or face fines.
To support his case, for several months last year, Holland also kept a ‘noise’ diary. Entries referred to everything from rowdy groups disturbing him and his wife — ‘Mrs Holland finds it difficult to sleep’ to females ‘shouting and screaming’.
While accepting efforts had been taken to mitigate the noise, including £70,000 spent insulating the roof of the venue’s main barn, the Hollands claimed they had failed to have any significant effect.
As a result, they felt they had no option, but to apply to the council to review the licence under which the premises operated.
In a written submission, a number of measures were suggested. These included cutting the number of days when licensable activities such as serving alcohol and playing live music are allowed from seven days a week to just three. They also called for limitations to how outdoor areas could be used and improvements to sound insulation.
Their application was met with horror by staff and villagers.
Rebecca Collins, the venue’s director and general manager, warned that any changes would be ‘ catastrophic’ and result in members of the 80- strong staff losing their jobs.
The Barn, which was named Business of the Year at the 2017 Medway Business Awards, has an annual wage bill of about £1 million and spends about £200,000 with the Medway Registry Office.
‘It’s a very worrying time for us all,’ she said. ‘There are members of staff putting off extensions or buying a new house.’
In her written response she said she was concerned that Holland appeared ‘oversensitive to any noise which is heard’.
‘It can be seen that the majority of these complaints relate to guests talking in the garden, which I am not sure is unreasonable in the context of the nature of the premises,’ she wrote. ‘Futhermore, a number of the specific items referred to by Mr Holland . . . appear to be relatively trivial.
‘For example, he refers to being “unable to rest” at relatively early evening times and often refers to a “noisy hubbub” and “outside hubbub”. I am not quite sure what that means … my concern is that, in a number of instances, Mr Holland seems to consider that any noise is unacceptable.’
Others rallied to offer their support, also writing to the council. ‘The fact that this review is taking place, clearly because someone has a bit of money and power behind them, when he used this venue when it suited him, and knowingly bought a house next to an existing wedding venue, is absolutely ridiculous,’ wrote villager Jodie Payne, who herself married there.
Emma Thompstone, another employee, added: ‘The applicant himself enjoyed his wedding day at the barns. I wonder if he had any regard for disturbing neighbours at this point, or whether, when going ahead with closing down the village of Cooling for the day, he felt he did not need to worry about neighbours’ comfort?’
A third wrote: ‘This is one man with a vendetta against Cooling Castle Barn, and he is not even a permanent resident.’
Holland also part-owns a multimillion-pound property in Central London in the shadow of Buckingham Palace. He and his wife are listed at that address on the electoral register.
And, James Johnson, another worker, added: ‘I find it particularly ironic that a well-known musician who champions live music would like to have a complete ban on live music at the venue.’
On Tuesday, the application to review the venue’s licence reached the council’s licensing hearing panel. Forty local residents and staff attended the five-hour meeting along with Ms Collins. Holland was on a tour of Austria but his wife was present.
Audio clips of noise coming from the venue and picked up by microphones near the couple’s front door were played by their barrister Leo Charalambides.
‘This happens 320 days a year,’ he said. ‘The same songs. The same cheers, the same jeering, the same drunken fights. It starts from the deliveries in the morning and doesn’t end when the party finishes at 11 o’clock.’
Yesterday afternoon, the council’s panel handed down its ruling after three days of deliberations.
It declined to reduce the number of days on which the venue was licensed, but ordered that access to the gardens and outside areas be restricted after 10pm and that a noise management policy agreed with the council be implemented.
Whether or not that will be sufficient to satisfy the Hollands only time will tell. Plenty of which, one imagines, will also be required to rebuild relationships with many of their fellow villagers.