Property tycoon Christian Candy upsets neighbours with plans for private garden
02-09-2015
Property tycoon Christian Candy has come under fire from his future neighbours over plans to create a private garden next to his £200 million home in Regents Park.
The row was triggered by the One Hyde Park developer’s £3 million purchase of a lease on a 200ft stretch of private road and pavement from the Crown Estate at the end of last year.
Mr Candy already has planning permission to convert a row of offices at Cambridge Terrace and Chester Gate into a stucco-fronted 15-bedroom family home for his wife Emily and twins Isabella and Cayman.
However, residents were angered by the latest proposal to create a new garden by the side of the house, which they say will involve more than two years of disruption. The Chester Terrace Residents’ Association also claims the work will pose a danger for cyclists and pedestrians. The group represents 40 households in a Grade I listed row of £7 million neo-classical villas which use Mr Candy’s road to reach the Outer Circular route through the park.
A spokeswoman said: “We had a meeting with Crown Estate and they said there would be hoardings in the road for more than two years while the work was ongoing.
“Then we were told about the garden proposals and it would only be for private use by Christian Candy. All the other gardens around here are for communal use and this would be the largest private garden near here.”
She added that the garden would make it difficult to get out of Chester Terrace and onto the Outer Circular,” she said.
A spokesman for Mr Candy’s company CPC said the land had been a private garden built by architect John Nash as part of the early 19th-century Regents Park master plan.
He said: “The garden was subsequently removed to make way for an extra lane of traffic and for a period was two way. The road is now reverted to a one-way street. It seems proper and fitting to replace the second lane of tarmac and to reinstate the garden. This would, with the other private gardens which feature throughout the Nash Terraces, restore Nash’s original design.”
Residents would be consulted before any decisions are taken, he said.
Work on the house is due to start this year but the garden plans need to be approved by Camden council and Crown Estate Paving Commission.