Artist and tech boss in 17-year battle over ‘stolen garden’

A MILLIONAIRE inventor has been accused of stealing part of his neighbour’s garden to increase the value of his property while the man was abroad.

William Savage, 45, a banker-turned multimedia artist, claims his neighbour in the basement Richard Bankart, an eco-tech CEO, “dug out” part of the garden at the front of his flat in Stockwell Park Road, in south London, and built a sunken patio on it while Mr Savage was living in Paris and Dublin.

He accuses Mr Bankart, 59, the boss of green energy tech firm Solar Skin, of carrying out a “high-handed land grab”.

Mr Savage owns a flat on the ground and first floors and the front garden.

Mr Bankart owns the £1million basement flat and the property’s freehold.

The pair have been battling over the patio since 2003 and the artist’s barrister Lina Mattsson told Central London County Court that their “relationship has gone from bad to worse since”.

Mr Savage wants an injunction barring Mr Bankart from “his continued trespass and use of his front garden” – or up to £60,000 in compensation.

Mr Bankart insists the lightwell at the heart of the dispute is a “common part” and that he had an “enforceable agreement” made with the previous owner of Mr Savage’s flat to extend it.

“Moreover, he states that he has not acted wrongly, as Mr Savage has been consulted on, and consented to, all of the works to the property,” his barrister, Michael Walsh, told the court.

The row began in 2003, Ms Mattsson said. She claimed Mr Bankart began trespassing on Mr Savage’s garden while he was living in Paris and studying in Dublin, excavating a “narrow lightwell” to create a larger “sunken terrace”. Mr Bankart sent his neighbour a bill for £3,533 for the works, which he refused to pay, she said.

The neighbours then had an “acrimonious” clash over service charges in a tribunal in 2009 and, in 2016, the artist instructed solicitors to “demand reinstatement of the original lightwell or compensation” from Mr Bankart.

But in 2017, Mr Bankart launched a fresh phase of building works, the court heard, making his patio twotiered and deeper so he could install French windows, she told the judge.

The judge will give his ruling on the case at a later date.