Artist News

Robbie Williams granted planning permission, despite neighbour Jimmy Page’s objections

By Andy Malt | Published on Monday 13 July 2015

Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page has lost his battle to block Robbie Williams from renovating his West London home.

As previously reported, Williams applied for planning permission to make various modifications to the garden and main building of his neoclassical Victorian mansion in Holland Park, previously owned by Michael Winner. In an objection to Kensington & Chelsea Council, his rock star neighbour Page said that while its previous owner had made many internal changes to the house, “most of the exterior of the original building remains intact and should therefore be considered sacrosanct”.

Page added that he also feared that vibrations from building work could damage his own adjacent Grade I listed home, Tower House, which was once saved from demolition by John Betjeman. After Page’s objection in January, Williams withdrew his application and submitted new plans, which were approved by the council’s planning committee last week, following a consultation with Historic England, despite further concerns over vibrations raised by Page.

Some elements of Williams’ plans were not allowed to proceed, with a number of amendments to the plans made “in order to safeguard the special architectural or historic interest and heritage significance of the building”. Protection orders have also been placed on a number of trees on and around the property.

Williams will be required to install vibration monitoring equipment, to ensure that there is no risk of damage to Page’s house, and some tasks will have to be carried out using hand tools rather than mechanical equipment in order to further reduce risk.