Neighbours see red over Chris Evans’s Green Belt homes bid

Radio 2 Breakfast Show presenter Chris Evans was earning £1.6 million a year at the BBC before he decided to jump ship to Virgin Radio for a reported £2 million.

Now he appears destined to enjoy a Christmas windfall of many millions thanks to a canny proposed property development in ascot.

When, in 2010, Evans bought a nine- bedroom mansion in the Berkshire town for £3.5 million, he shrewdly retained ownership of his previous home, the neighbouring eight-bedroom Beechgrove, standing on nine acres of Green Belt land less than a mile from ascot’s worldrenowned race course.

it’s on this prime spot that developer Millgate has applied, with Evans’s agreement, for permission to demolish Beechgrove and, in its place, erect no fewer than 15 dwellings — ‘a building accommodating 12 apartments’, plus underground

parking, and three detached houses, ‘with triple garages’.

While Evans might be commended for easing an acute housing shortage, the scheme fails to find unanimous favour with locals, with one objector categorising it as ‘a massive overdevelopment’.

The Society for the Protection of Ascot and Environs argues that it will ‘more than triple the volume of vehicle movements along [the lane]’, and Sunninghill and Ascot Parish Council describes the proposed flats as ‘inappropriate for Green Belt and out of character with surrounding properties’. Evans’s spokesman declined to comment.

At least the DJ won’t be bothered by building noise. The 52-year-old, now lives six miles north- east of Ascot in a third property with third wife Natasha Shishmanian, and no doubt hopes that Windsor & Maidenhead Council approves the plans in December.

Perhaps Evans will then sanction development at the other Ascot mansion, which he continues to own.