Day clipper... Macca’s row over pruning trees at £15m home
SIR Paul McCartney has given up on a battle to cut back trees at his £15million home to let more light into his garden.
The former Beatle, 77, lodged two planning applications to prune seven protected trees at the Regency townhouse last month.
They included a request to ‘thin the crowns’ of a birch, a hornbeam and two sycamores in his back garden ‘to allow for more light’, and three lime trees in the front garden.
But after planning officials told Sir Paul he had not given them clear enough reasons for doing it and requested further information on each tree, he withdrew the application for the work in the back garden of the property in St John’s Wood, north-west London.
The council has allowed the three limes to be cut back, saying the ‘crown density’ can be thinned by 15 per cent, ‘concentrating on branch tips’.
It said the proposed works to the trees in the back garden ‘were removed from your application, as agreed with you by email’.
A neighbour said: ‘A lot of trees here are protected because the area is in a specially protected conservation area where development is carefully controlled. It has been difficult to get planning consent to even prune trees in the past in this area.’
Sir Paul bought the three-storey home in 1965 for £40,000. He moved in the following year after installing a large gate and intercom. But Beatles fans discovered its location anyway and are said to have kept a vigil outside the house for 24 hours a day, with some managing to find a way in.
A short walk from Abbey Road Studios, it often served as a base for The Beatles for meetings before or after recordings.
A decade ago, Sir Paul was involved in another planning row at his country estate in Peasmarsh, East Sussex, after he built a £1million log cabin in its grounds without permission.