Kate and Pippa’s club revolts over £2.5m fees

Members of the uber exclusive Hurlingham Club, where the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge take Prince George and Princess Charlotte for tennis lessons, are furious that it has ‘ wasted’ £ 2.55 million on professional fees for a redevelopment scheme which may never happen.

Feelings over a proposed £27 million redesign of the club’s Grade II-listed West Wing were already running so high that the club’s chairman, Julian Holloway, was forced to resign earlier this year.

A group of members compared his ‘dictatorial’ manner to that of North Korea’s Kim Jong Un.

Now another wave of anger has erupted after the professional fees for the scheme — buried in the newly released club accounts — were revealed in an email to members by club activist Alastair brett.

‘A huge thanks to all who voted for our “Pause and rethink” resolution over the West Wing project, which is now “On Hold”,’ he wrote.

‘I have been asked to join the Development review Group which is working out how we managed to spend £2.55 million on professional fees in relation to the West Wing without a brick being laid.’

The proposed scheme over three storeys — involving a swimming pool, sports bar and fitness studios — is at the heart of a battle for the future of Hurlingham, in Fulham, south-West London, which has a 25-year waiting list.

One member observed that the new development would look ‘like Heathrow Terminal 5 has been plonked in the middle of Parsons Green. It’s more like a David Lloyd club in essex.’

The increasingly tense atmosphere at Hurlingham, which has the Duke of edinburgh as its patron and counts the Duchess’s sister Pippa middleton, Kate Winslet, eve branson and Lord Archer among its 13,000 members, is said to be casting a shadow over the club’s 150th anniversary celebrations this year.

An open evening tonight for members to discuss the development could see some sharp exchanges.