Claudia Schiffer battles planners

Model Claudia Schiffer lost her planning permission battle against a neighbour who wants to build a "suburban villa." 

 

The supermodel is married to film director Matthew Vaughan, who produced Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, and the couple has lived in Coldham Hall in Stanningfield, a 14-bedroom Tudor mansion, for 17 years.

 

Coldham Hall was built in the shape of an H in honour of Henry VIII, in 1574, and was once home to one of the conspirators in the 1605 Gunpowder Plot. 

 

Schiffer and Vaughan argued that their home would be, "adversely impacted" by their neighbour's plans for the "oversized" extension. Unfortunately they lost the planning dispute last October. Their neighbour, Hanne Pilo, believed to be related to the former owner of their estate, multimillionaire Danish businessman Jens Pilo, was given permission to build a two-storey side and rear extension on the Grade-II listed Coldham Hall Cottage. Permission was given to demolish an outbuilding and replace it with garages.

 

The celebrity couple, Schiffer and Vaughan, then challenged the planning permission ruling in the High Court, saying that the large extension to the neighbouring semi-bungalow would spoil the views across their 530-acre estate. They won their challenge in January and Ms Pilo's planning permission and listed building consent were overruled. 

 

Now, the council has said the extension can go ahead by approving Ms Pilo's new application.

 

In a letter to West Suffolk council, Schiffer and Vaughan said, "The farmstead / semi-agricultural context in which these listed buildings are experienced would be substantially eroded by the large and inappropriate footprint, bulk, scale and mass of the proposals, by making the existing bungalow appear more akin to a suburban villa than a straightforward and subservient farm worker's dwelling."

 

However, planning officers for the council deemed that the cottage was not "curtilage listed" and that there would be no impact "on the character of the surrounding area.

 

Mandy Peters Solicitors 

Lewisham