Ivy restaurant-owner Richard Caring launches appeal against enforcement notice ordering him to remove windows within six months
The billionaire owner of the Ivy restaurant chain has become embroiled in a row with a London council after being ordered to remove three windows from his new £40m home which were added without planning permission.
Richard Caring has launched an appeal against an enforcement notice served by the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea (RBKC) giving him six months to remove the “incongruous and dominant” dormer windows from the property, known as Park House.
The enforcement notice said that the’ ’excessive size, number and position” of the windows failed to preserve the character and appearance of the Thurloe Estate and Smiths Charity Conservation Area which surrounds the South Kensington home.
Caring, who also owns restaurant Sexy Fish and private members’ club Annabel’s, and his wife, Patricia, are arguing that the windows do not harm the conservation area as they are largely screened from public view.
They are the latest in a string of changes made to the house which were not included in the original 2019 planning consent, including the addition of a glazed roof over a central courtyard area and some roof lights.
The former was approved by an amendment to the original consent after retrospective permission was sought but two further applications submitted for the roof lights and dormer windows were withdrawn.
The two-storey property, designed by Formation Architects, occupies land between Onslow Square and Pelham Street which is almost entirely surrounded by terraced Victorian houses.
It required the demolition of a complex of buildings on the site including a pair of cottages dating to the 1840s to make way for the new scheme, which includes a huge two-storey basement.
Dormer windows had been discussed extensively in pre-application meetings between the council and the project team, but had been deemed by RBKC officers to be harmful to the conservation area as they increased the “overall bulk and visual dominance” of the building.
But the application notes that the reintroduction of the windows, which had been removed in revised designs and replaced with conservation windows, was “not dismissed as an option” by officers.
The appeal says that dormers are “built in a traditional form, and they utilise traditional materials that respect the character and Victorian appearance of the wider conservation area.”
It adds the windows are “well integrated into the composition of the elevation and roofscape of the building” and add a “degree of interest at roof level and enhance the character of the southern elevation as a composition.”
The row follows reports last month that Caring had secured permission from RBKC to close part of Onslow Square for two weeks to allow dozens of trees to be craned over neighbouring houses into the restaurant-owner’s garden.
Park House was formerly owned and occupied by entrepreneur Mark Birley and his wife, Annabel Goldsmith, who is the namesake of Annabel’s nightclub.
Caring has been contacted for comment.
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