Bromley 'despair' over local councillor's home renovations

Gavin Simpson, 53, has lived on Southend Road in Beckenham with his family for over 20 years after falling in love with the area.

However, the dad said that recent works on the house next door by a neighbour have changed living on the road entirely.

Conservative Councillor Adam Jude Grant, who represents the Shortlands and Park Langley ward for Bromley Council, is listed on the authority’s planning portal as the applicant behind the developments to the house.

Mr Simpson said that since the house was sold to Cllr Grant five years ago, the councillor has sent plans to convert the house into a set of 11 and nine flats, before a plan for seven was approved.

The view from Mr Simpson's window facing the neighbouring home

Mr Simpson told the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS): “Adam was intent on developing it so that was when he put the plans through and it kind of all went a bit south from there.”

Mr Simpson said work on the house has been “frustrating”, and has included a lorry knocking down a stone pillar at the end of the driveway after reversing into it, as well as a digger crashing into his fence and leaving a hole in it.

He said both issues have since been repaired, and that the works began with knocking down the building’s existing extension.

The collapsed pillar (photo: Gavin Simpson)

The dad said: “They just knocked it down, so at one point we had probably a five metre wall that was free standing on its own, because they gutted out the whole extension.

"So it was just this wall here and the guy that was doing project management [on our home] at the same time said if there’s a storm that could literally fall over.”

The resident said Cllr Grant agreed to rebuild the wall that had been knocked down.

He said despite the councillor suggesting to sign a written agreement on his offer to finance replacing the wall, Mr Simpson has had no response and has had to send a formal letter detailing their past communication and to say he’s assumed he’s adhered to it.

He said: “They did a lousy job and I’ve got pictures of it. A child could have built the wall. There was like putty everywhere.

"It was a mess… We’ve fallen out a number of times but for the last five or four months, he hasn’t responded to anything.”

Mr Simpson said that once the works started nearing completion, he noticed an extra window being added to the house’s new side extension, directly facing his downstairs bathroom window.

While the glass in the extension’s window has since been frosted, the dad has tried applying to add a wooden fence above the boundary wall between his home and next door, but has encountered difficulties with the council’s planning department due to the scale of the drawings he sent.

The hole in the fence (photo: Gavin Simpson)

He said: “I wonder whether if you weren’t a councillor, having experience for the last four months of trying to deal with the planning people, it’s a nightmare. It’s cost me £500 and I still can’t get this privacy screen up.”

Mr Simpson said while his family have “despaired” over the whole process, he does not wish to make enemies with Cllr Grant and understands the desire for works to be carried out on the property.

He said that while other neighbours on the road have complained about the dark paintwork added to the house, he is more intent on having the privacy of his home restored.

He said: “Some of the other neighbours have taken umbrage at the colours… The argument is the whole run of houses is 150 years old.

"All of them are white, all of them have these features, and suddenly you’ve got this anomaly in the middle.

He added: “I’m more worried about what happened with us… The fact that we could have had a five metre wall fall on us. The fact that we’ve now lost the privacy that we had before and that I’m in an argument with the planning people to reestablish, at my own costs, what I had before.”

Bromley Council and Cllr Grant were approached for comment, but had not responded at the time of publication.