Ref. Lisle-Mainwaring & Anor v Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea [2015] EWHC 2105
A property owner who painted her estimated £15m house in Kensington with red and white stripes, has become the subject of a s. 215 notice and will be forced by Hammersmith Magistrates Court to return it to plain white.
The owner – Zipporah Lisle-Mainwaring – refuted allegations that the paint was a form of revenge against neighbours who had resisted her previous plans to rebuild the property. Instead, she appeared in court reputedly wearing a long multi-coloured robe and claimed that the council’s response was “a response to a press campaignâ€.
She added that a neighbor had “waded into†the dispute:
“I have had a neighbour who has certainly waded in as if they are St George on the dragon; perhaps the dragon rather than St Georgeâ€
Interestingly, this is not Lisle-Mainwaring’s first high-profile legal case. The case of Lisle-Mainwaring & Anor v Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea [2015] (referenced at the beginning of this article) concerned her battle in the High Court to challenge The Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea on their basement policy. Alongside a basement conversion company, she argued that the new policy violated permitted development rights and did not consider a reasonable alternative – the case-by-case approach.
She lost that legal challenge as well, with Cllr Timothy Coleridge noting:
“Our policy brings some much-needed sanity to the mega-basement mania and finds the proper balance between subterranean development and the right of the rest of the community to the peaceful enjoyment of their homesâ€.
With regards to the incident of the striped house, a spokesman for the council said:
“We are very pleased that the court has agreed that painting a property in red and white stripes has a harmful impact on the Kensington Square Conservation Area and that issuing a section 215 Notice was within the Royal Borough’s power as the local planning authority.
“Of course we would have preferred to resolve this matter without resort to the courts but in the end this was not possible. We expect that this property will now be painted in a more suitable manner.â€
*Back to January 2016 Newsletter*
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