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Brothers Alex and Thalis Vlachos |
Brothers’ new battle for Heath house
Solicitors who saw development proposal rejected in High Court set to learn fate of new bid
WHEN the High Court prevented twin brothers Alex and Thalis Vlachos from building a luxury bachelor pad on the fringes of Hampstead Heath two years ago, the decision was seen as a test case that would help secure green belt land around the country from developers.
But the pair, both solicitors who own the Garden House in the Vale of Health, have not given up on their dream.
Tonight (Thursday) they will learn whether another attempt at securing planning permission to build a new house overlooking Hampstead ponds has been successful.
The twins want to demolish their current home – a red brick two-storey property dating from the 1950s – and replace it with a modern house with a basement.
But the brothers’ opponents from their previous attempt are lined up once again to block the project. Heath managers the City of London have joined forces with the Heath and Hampstead Society, The Vale of Health Society and the Hampstead Conservation Area Advisory Committee to block the proposals.
Neighbours have also objected, with one saying the design is “more worthy of the Costa Brava, not Hampstead Heath”.
It was the Heath and Hampstead Society who forced a judicial review two years ago. It took days of deliberation to decide what the term “materially larger” meant.
Instead of simply being a case of measuring the floor space and basing the decision on that, highly paid barristers argued how to judge if one building is bigger than another and whether the area designated as Metropolitan Open Land – which enjoys the same protection as Green Belt land – would be affected by the building.
Society chairman Tony Hillier said the new scheme has similar faults to the one that was dramatically dismissed by the High Court.
He said: “The increase in size of the footprint is not as big as before but it is still 10 per cent larger. We think it is still too much.
“We also object to the design. It is wholly inappropriate to the area.”
The society has employed a leading planning QC to look over the application to draw up a legal rebuttal. This has been forwarded to council planning chiefs and the society’s president, retired law lord Lord Lenny Hoffman, has submitted a briefing note for councillors on the basis of the QC’s report. Mr Hillier added that if the scheme is passed, the brothers could face another High Court battle.
In the new application, a council planning officer states that while the new designs will lead to a “minor decrease” in the area that is designated as Metropolitan Open Land, the bigger footprint will only be “marginally apparent” from the Heath and would not “cause demonstrable harm”. It adds the original scheme has been “radically redesigned”.
“It is much smaller than before, simpler in form and only on two levels,” says the report.
Alex and Thalis Vlachos declined to comment.
Planning officers have recommended that the scheme be passed. |
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