The Duke of Westminster’s family property company is embroiled in a “right to light” row with Belgravia residents over a £500 million development they claim will block out the sun.
Grosvenor has applied for consent to knock down five blocks of Fifties-built flats at Cundy Street — where the future Duchess of Cornwall had a flat where she would meet up with Prince Charles in the early Seventies — as well as Westminster council-run Walden House.
They would be replaced with a “high-quality new neighbourhood” of buildings up to 42 metres high.
However, about a dozen owners of homes in Grade I listed Mozart Terrace opposite the scheme — known as the Cundy Street Quarter — fear the six-storey blocks nearest them will block out much of the light, particularly in winter.
An independent report commissioned by residents from speciality surveyor Kaivin Wong suggests the worst hit home will suffer a “total (100 per cent) loss of winter sunlight” with all the windows on the lower ground, ground and first floor levels recording “zero sunlight on the winter solstice”.
The owner, former ITN editor Dame Sue Tinson, 77, has lived in Mozart Terrace for 20 years. She said: “It’s been terribly stressful and interfering with my sleep for six months since Grosvenor submitted the proposals… I will lose 100 per cent of my sunlight in winter. I will have to keep my lights on all the time and live like a mole.
It is a small house but it is frequently flooded with light and all the sun comes through the front. I can’t believe Grosvenor can impose these restrictions on law-abiding citizens who live in these beautiful early Georgian buildings.” The terrace is named after the composer as he stayed there aged eight when his family visited London in 1764.
Mr Wong was critical of “flawed and arbitrary” assumptions in a report conducted by chartered surveyors GIA to support Grosvenor’s application.
Its modelling found only four properties in Mozart Terrace and some at Coleshill Flats would suffer “moderate adverse” loss of light. The report concluded “the changes in daylight and sunlight do not cause unacceptable harm” . It said the loss of sunlight at Ms Tinson’s home was “unavoidable given the setback nature of the property”.
Grosvenor’s project director Fergus Evans said the new buildings would be at least seven to eight metres closer to Mozart Terrace because of the decision to “reinstate the historic street pattern”.
He added: “The analysis we’ve done look at what is the retained levels of light rather than the percentage loss. If you have a basement window that is going from one per cent to zero per cent that is a 100 per cent loss but it doesn’t tell the whole story.” The application is due to go before Westminster’s planning committee this month.
