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It’s Bayswater blues for Blair
GORDON Brown may not say it in public – but for residents flanking the Prime Minister’s future home in Bayswater, Tony Blair is already their neighbour from hell.
Plans to equip Mr Blair’s Grade II listed town house in Connaught Square with CCTV cameras, solar panels and a sun garden on the roof, have triggered dozens of objections.
His future neighbours claim the solar panels are “nothing but fashion accessories” and that English Heritage should have been consulted about plans to demolish parts of the historic interior.
They fear “noise and smells” from the roof terrace will disturb them.
The Blairs, expected to leave Number 10 sometime this summer, brought the £3.65 million mansion in the Bayswater Conservation Area in 2004.
But after security chiefs raised fears about having no back door escape route they purchased a mews house in Archery Close for £800,000. They plan to combine them into a single home.
The planning brief documents a “requirement” for CCTV cameras to “address the security needs of the proposed occupiers” Tony Blair and Cherie Blair.
Council officials have recommended permission be granted despite the objections. They believe the degree of alteration to the interior of the listed building is relatively small.
An official said: “It is not considered that the scheme will have a significant impact on residential amenity. The most significant alteration is the replacement of the library room. The library room is a modern addition of not historic or architectural quality. Its replacement with a glazed structure linking the two buildings is an improvement.”
The solar panels are also approved because they are to be on the roof of the unlisted mews building and screened by a low parapet.
The Blairs last year paid £800,000 for the mews house and £3.65 million for the Connaught Square house in 2004.
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