Neighbour in ‘nightmare’ planning spat with councillor who lives next door

By Joe Coughlan, Local Democracy Reporter

A resident is “in despair” with a series of “nightmare” works being carried out by a local councillor on a Victorian house next door.

Gavin Simpson, 53, has lived in Southend Road in Beckenham with his family for more than 20 years after falling in love with the area.

But the dad said that recent works on the house next door by a neighbour have changed living in the road entirely.

Conservative councillor Adam Jude Grant, who represents the Shortlands and Park Langley ward for Bromley council, is listed on the authority’s planning portal as the applicant behind the developments to the house.

Mr Simpson said that since the house was sold to Cllr Grant five years ago, the councillor has sent plans to convert the house into a set of 11 and nine flats, before a plan for seven was approved.

Mr Simpson said: “Adam was intent on developing it so that was when he put the plans through and it kind of all went a bit south from there.”

Mr Simpson said work on the house has been “frustrating”, and has included a lorry knocking down a stone pillar at the end of the driveway after reversing into it, as well as a digger crashing into his fence and leaving a hole in it.

He said both issues have since been repaired, and that the works began with knocking down the building’s existing extension.

The dad said: “They just knocked it down, so at one point we had probably a five metre wall that was free standing on its own, because they gutted out the whole extension.”

The resident said Cllr Grant agreed to rebuild the wall that had been knocked down but has had no response about it.

He said: “They did a lousy job and I’ve got pictures of it. A child could have built the wall. There was putty everywhere. It was a mess. We’ve fallen out a number of times but for the last five or four months, he hasn’t responded to anything.”

Mr Simpson said that once the works started nearing completion, he noticed an extra window being added to the house’s new side extension, directly facing his downstairs bathroom window.

While the glass in the extension’s window has since been frosted, the dad has tried applying to add a wooden fence above the boundary wall between his home and next door, but has encountered difficulties with the council’s planning department due to the scale of the drawings he sent.

He said: “I wonder whether if you weren’t a councillor, having experience for the last four months of trying to deal with the planning people, it’s a nightmare. It’s cost me £500 and I still can’t get this privacy screen up.”

Mr Simpson said while his family had “despaired” over the whole process, he does not wish to make enemies with Cllr Grant and understands the desire for works to be carried out on the property.

He added: “I’m more worried about what happened with us. The fact that we could have had a five metre wall fall on us. The fact that we’ve now lost the privacy that we had before and that I’m in an argument with the planning people to re-establish, at my own costs, what I had before.”

Bromley council and Cllr Grant were approached for comment but had not responded at the time of publication.

Pictured top: Gavin Simpson, 53, said the whole process with the neighbouring house has been a “nightmare” (Picture: Joe Coughlan)