Joanie calls in the police as maskless men swarm her flat

EVEN the great and good are struggling during lockdown. I hear that Dame Joan Collins contacted the police yesterday after being confronted by the sight of scaffolders with no face coverings climbing all over her flat in London’s Belgravia.

‘Woke up to find two workmen on my balcony not wearing masks and several of them maskless all over the building putting scaffolding up,’ declared the startled Dynasty star.

Their presence was particularly alarming because of the efforts she and her husband, producer Percy Gibson, had made to self-isolate during the present lockdown restrictions.

‘ Being careful to quarantine and having no contact with people,’ she added. ‘Why should others invade my quarantine?’

Metropolitan Police officers wasted no time in heading over to the couple’s home. ‘They are talking to Joan outside now,’ said Percy as I spoke to him on the phone.

‘What is so annoying is that these works are unnecessary. Surely, they could have waited until lockdown is over. Are they really essential?

‘I can understand works taking place to repair gas mains or build houses, but not this, which is external redecoration to make a house pretty.’

The top three floors of their building have already been converted into a vast triplex apartment. Noisy building work next door drove Dame Joan and Percy out of their £3 million flat to a hotel in 2017, with the actress complaining that the work was making her life a misery. The disruption followed the collapse of her living room ceiling, caused by a water leak also blamed on building work. ‘Our quiet street resembles a building site,’ she said at the time. ‘The noise is absolutely incredible. We are surrounded by massive renovations to the buildings to our left, to our right, the four flats above us, and two directly opposite — all at the same time.

‘The work is non- stop with endless drilling, hammering and banging for months. We’ve had a flood, and our hot water, heating, electricity and internet have been cut off at various times.

‘I’ve been chased out of my own flat — the flat I have lived in for more than 20 years. I don’t begrudge the people who are moving in and making these homes their own — but not all of them are doing that.’