Ambassador’s diplomat army joins Battle of the Basement
Five countries back French envoy’s bid to sink Foxtons tycoon’s plan to build ‘iceberg’ home in London
A NEIGHBOURS’ back garden spat in a small, but well-heeled, part of London has blown up into a full-scale diplomatic incident involving international alliances and cross-border conventions.
Faced with the prospect of a multistorey mega-basement being excavated next to her official residence, the French ambassador Sylvie Bermann took legal action against the property magnate behind the scheme.
Miss Bermann, 62, lost the initial hearing at the High Court in November and has decided to take her case against Jon Hunt, the multi-millionaire founder of Foxtons estate agents, to the Court of Appeal.
Now, in an unexpected move, a grand alliance of fellow diplomats has weighed in to support her opposition to a scheme by Mr Hunt and his wife Lois to build a vast basement at the rear of their Grade II-listed home in Kensington Palace Gardens.
Invoking, of all things, the Vienna Convention, diplomats from France, Saudi Arabia, Japan, India, Russia and Lebanon – who live on the same leafy road – have written in protest to the Crown Estate, the property company owned by the Queen and the freeholder of the mansion in question.
The letter, copied to Buckingham Palace and to the Foreign Office, calls on the Crown Estate to “protect the integrity of our residences” and cited diplomatic rights guaranteed under the 1961 convention.
The diplomats invoked Article 22 of the convention, which obliges the host state to protect the premises of diplomats against “intrusion or damage” and to prevent “disturbance of the peace of the mission or impairment of its dignity”.
Mr Hunt’s proposals include a giant rotating carousel in the basement on which he would display his collection of vintage and classic cars, plus an infinity pool on the basement’s roof.
A spokesman for the French Embassy, which has rented the ambassador’s residence – designed by Philip Hardwick in 1846, the site of the former Russian embassy and once home to the Duke of Marlborough - since 1946, said: “The scale of the underground work planned is such that, were work to proceed, it could jeopardise diplomatic activities.”
Miss Bermann, a graduate of the elite Sciences Po (Paris Institute of Political Studies), is a career diplomat who was France’s first female ambassador to China, from 2011 until 2014.
The case is the latest in a series of disputes over so-called “iceberg” basement extensions that have pitted wealthy, and ambitious, home owners against their disgruntled neighbours.
In October last year the owner of the Monsoon clothing stores chain fell out with his neighbours over his project for a huge basement beneath his west London home.
Peter Simon – who owns the Accessorize shops chain – also won planning permission to knock five houses into one in order to build a palatial family home on his street.
Beneath the new house, Mr Simon plans to incorporate an underground swimming pool, gym, wine cellar plus two apartments.
In response to the increasing number of applications to build such basements – often replete with cinemas, swimming pools, wine caves and fitness facilities – a number of inner London councils, including Kensington and Westminster, have tightened up their rules to restrict the size of any development allowed.
Mr Hunt, 62, is among owners who obtained permission for a development before the regulations were changed. The number of basement extension applications in the Kensington and Chelsea council area more than doubled in 2014, as home-owners scrambled to gain permission under the provisions of the old rules.
Mr Hunt, who has already begun work on his scheme, made millions from selling his string of Foxtons estate agents.
He started in Woking, Surrey, in 1981, after he borrowed a £100 deposit to purchase a one-bedroom conversion home for £4,500. He sold Foxtons to private equity firm BC Partners for £370 million in 2007, just weeks before the financial crisis hit.
The sports car fan also owns Heveningham Hall, an 18th-century Palladian house in Suffolk, where he hosts an annual country fair and supports local community charities from its proceeds.
Mr Hunt has declined to comment on the basement row.
‘The scale of the work planned is such that should it proceed it could jeopardise diplomatic activities’