Attenborough ‘in a tit-for-tat feud with Jamie Theakston’

He COMes from a famously courteous family, but theatre producer Michael Attenborough is in no mood to turn the other cheek in his battle with his neighbour, TV and radio presenter Jamie Theakston.

Appalled by Theakston’s plans to build a four-bedroom, £2.5 million house in the extensive back garden of his home in Chiswick, West London, Attenborough has, I can disclose, retaliated — by securing permission to enlarge his own property.

Attenborough — 69-year- old son of the late film legend Lord Attenborough and nephew of conservation guru sir David — declines to discuss this decision.

But plans submitted to his local council show that he and his second wife, Karen, have been given the goahead to add a flat-roofed extension to the Victorian house where they’ve lived for 30 years. It measures approximately 20ft by 8 ft.

Two years ago, Attenborough lamented how he had spent ‘twoanda- half years fighting Jamie Theakston’s ambitions to make money’. Those ambitions became apparent soon after Theakston paid £3.85 million for his house in 2010. He and his wife sophie then proposed to demolish its existing extensions and replace them with something larger.

This was rejected, as were their plans to build a swimming pool and gym at the end of their garden right next to the Attenboroughs.

But then they were given the green light to build the four-bedroom house in the garden, despite howls of objection from locals pointing out that it was in a conservation area. Attenborough suggested that he and Karen would sell up.

‘I’ve always contended that one of the most emotional words in the english language is the word “home”,’ he reflected. ‘You put roots down. And now we have to wrench them out.’ But not, perhaps, before imitating his antagonist.

Theakston, 48, who is also director of two property companies, declines to comment.