Row erupts in Holland Park over pensioner's plan for wooden barricade around £3.6m home

Storm: The hoarding was put up after building work by Luz Vargas, pictured

A wealthy pensioner is locked in a bitter legal tussle with her neighbours after erecting a large wooden barricade to “protect her privacy” at her £3.6 million Georgian home.

Elspeth Pirie, 67, put up the hoarding in protest in 2014 when modernist architect Luz Vargas and her artist partner William Milroy carried out an innovative reconstruction of their 200-year-old west London mews home.

The couple’s contemporary design included three new windows and a back door, but infuriated Ms Pirie who claimed they intruded on her privacy by overlooking her back garden.

The architect and her partner are now suing Ms Pirie, claiming the wooden barricade blocks out light to their home, prevents them from using the back door, and also risks “rot and damp” in their new £100,000 basement due to trapped moisture. The couple have gone to court seeking damages and an injunction forcing Ms Pirie to take the barricade down.

Ms Pirie is fighting the legal action and counter-claiming for £50,000, saying she is owed money as her neighbours’ builders used her garden to carry out some of the renovation work.

Elspeth Pirie put up the hoarding in protest in 2014

Papers filed at Central London county court reveal that the dispute dates back to 2010 when the couple obtained planning permission to reconstruct the back of their home in Holland Park and install a new basement.

Ms Vargas wanted the basement to have light filtering down through a glass floor, a glazed back door and three new windows.

However, the feud erupted in 2014 when Ms Pirie, a property consultant, had the wooden hoarding erected to block off the windows and door.

Howard Smith, for the couple, argues they have a right to light through their new windows and also a right of access over Ms Pirie’s garden through their back door. They do not have a garden of their own so needed access to their neighbour’s garden, in an adjacent road, for the building work to be carried out.

Stephen Bickford-Smith, for Ms Pirie, said she did not object to the work initially because she “felt she should act in a neighbourly way”, but had not realised that windows overlooking her garden were being installed. He said because planning permission for new windows is not needed, she never had the chance to object to them.

“Had she been told of the proposal, she would undoubtedly have objected in the strongest terms regarding the lack of privacy the new windows would involve and the application would most likely have been refused,” he said.

“In order to protect her position, Miss Pirie erected a hoarding to obstruct the current windows and registered a light obstruction notice.”

He claimed the building work was “incredibly prolonged” and caused “chaos” in Ms Pirie’s garden, leaving behind visible damage.

He added that the pensioner would be willing to remove the wooden hoarding voluntarily if further approved work to her neighbours’ house was to be done.

Of her counterclaim, the barrister said the couple had increased the value of their home by more than £100,000 through the renovation, and because they used her garden she should be awarded “a reasonable figure based on half the enhancement in value”.

Judge Edward Bailey is due to decide what rights of light and access the architect and her husband enjoy at the back of their house, whether a light obstruction notice obtained by Ms Pirie should be cancelled, and if they are due damages over the hoarding. He will also rule if Ms Pirie should receive damages for the work done using her garden.

Ms Vargas told the Standard: “The only thing I can say to you now is that we have planning permission to do this. Obviously that is where the problem arose because we got it from planning and she is coming from another point of view.”

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