Prune that! Robbie told off over hazardous hedge
ROBBIE WILLIAMS hoped for a quiet life when he bought a sprawling country estate in a bucolic corner of Wiltshire — but he’s become embroiled in yet another dispute with locals.
A yew hedge the singer installed along the boundary of his 71-acre estate to protect his privacy has become so overgrown that it has become a hazard to motorists. Mindful of the danger to Robbie’s neighbours, who include millionaire comedian Michael McIntyre, the parish council has ordered the former Take That star to lop two metres off the hedge, because its branches overhang the road.
According to planning documents filed in Robbie’s name, councillors recently wrote to the singer asking him to carry out the tree surgery, because ‘vehicles have been hitting some branches’. The parish council previously said it had ‘no objection to improved privacy and security’ at Robbie’s lavishly restored mansion in Compton Bassett, near Marlborough. But it blocked his plans to erect a two-metre timber fence around his property last year, because it would obstruct the view of the Grade I-listed village church.
Parish clerk Diane Zeitzen said: ‘It is felt the fence would look like the perimeter of a building site, so a yew hedge is much more in keeping with the area.’
Robbie, who is married to actress Ayda Field ( right), bought his pile, complete with full-size football pitch and helicopter hangar, for £8.1 million in 2009. But his idyll was marred by the stench from a nearby landfill site, which locals described as ‘more obnoxious than rotten eggs’. Robbie has tried to sell up in recent years, but the smell has put off buyers — despite a £2.6 million price drop to £5. 5 million. He’s also been embroiled in a long-running skirmish with his neighbour in London, Led Zeppelin rocker Jimmy Page, who objected furiously to Robbie’s plans to renovate the £17.5 million mansion he bought from Michael Winner. Robbie Williams and the parish council declined to comment.