We HATE our neighbour’s £725k ‘fortress’ home – it’s intrusive & looks like a Travelodge… we’re making them tear it down
RESIDENTS fuming with their neighbour’s £725k “fortress” home have slammed it for looking like a Travelodge.
Disgruntled locals in Norfolk, say the timber-clad house is “intrusive” and was built without permission.
The property, built for Adam Spiegel, 54, and his wife, Charlotte, 52, was deemed an unauthorised build after North Norfolk Council agreed with residents.
But West End theatre producer Spiegel has fought the decision for nearly four years in a desperate attempt to keep ‘Arcady’ standing.
The couple have now been told they must demolish it by October 18 next year, although they are allowed to keep an annexe and their swimming pool.
The decision to reject the appeal was welcomed by villagers, who blasted the “eyesore” building.
Trish Chapman, 76, told The Times: “The house looks just awful. I don’t know how it got through the planning process and building regulations.
“You would have thought that it should have been built to the plans which were approved — but it was built far too big.
“I feel sorry for the family who own it because they have settled in and it is their home. The council have not handled it very well at all.”
Godfrey Sayers, 81, a local artist who is chairman of the Friends of North Norfolk, said: “They had permission for a certain size and they went beyond that.
“There are a lot of old buildings in the area but this house looks like an annexe to a hospital or a university building.”
Planning permission to replace a bungalow was granted by the council to Spiegel on the grounds that the new building was sensitive to the local environment.
But an investigation following a complaint found that there were inconsistencies between the design and build.
The council told Spiegel to halt construction until a fresh planning application could be looked a.
However, work on the expensive seaside home continued and the council served an enforcement notice.
Hairspray producer Spiegel then tried to get planning conditions amended last year to allow the house to be approved retrospectively before being turned down.
Diane Lewis, the planning inspector, said that the original planning drawings for the house were inaccurate and “did not correctly show the proposed dwelling in its proper context”.
The inspector criticised the blocks of the building for showing “little articulation and subtlety”.
A spokesman said that North Norfolk district council welcomed the decision to refuse consent for the house to stay “in what has been an important and complex case”.
Spiegel, son of the Hollywood producer Sam Spiegel, did not respond to a request for comment.
It comes after neighbours complained about an “eyesore” house next door and dubbed it a “nightmare”.
Meanwhile, locals living next to a 10ft “tower” slammed their neighbours for building it as they claim they’ve lost their privacy.