Geri Horner and her husband Christian built an outdoor pizza oven, gazebo and pergola at their Grade II listed mansion in Oxfordshire. They built them without planning permission. Their neighbours were not happy about it.
That dispute has now been resolved — and Geri and Christian won.
Planning officers granted retrospective permission for the structures on Monday after the couple agreed to reduce the height of the gazebo and the pizza oven flue. The council concluded that the structures would not harm the living conditions of neighbouring properties and that the scale and domestic nature of their use would not generate noise or activity that would cause any issues for surrounding residents.
Their neighbours had a different view throughout the process. One submitted an objection pointing out that the construction had been visible for at least four months before the council even formally reviewed it — and questioned how a thirty foot pergola had managed to go unnoticed for that long. Another described the structures as unacceptable in a conservation area and raised concerns about a sauna block that had also been built higher than the surrounding wall.
An initial planning application for the structures was refused last year after the neighbour objections were submitted. The couple reapplied, made adjustments, and this time the council said yes.
The mansion itself is valued at £9.2 million. The pizza oven at the centre of the dispute cost considerably less. The planning battle to keep it has been going on considerably longer than anyone probably expected when the first brick was laid.