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Highgate Village: neighbours' spat - 19/06/02

Terry Gilliam, of Monty Python fame and director of films like Time Bandits and Brazil, has got into a spot of bother with his neighbours. Mr Gilliam, currently on your small screens with his creations the World Cup Nike ads, wants to build a modernist extension on the roof of his Highgate Village home.

But some of his neighbours, including John Sorrell, designer of the BA tail fins that Mrs Thatcher so publicly hated, are not happy. Along with another dozen Highgate Village residents, Mr Sorrell has written to Camden Council to object to the plans, saying that the proposed extension would spoil the Highgate Village skyline and views of the Grade II-listed St Michael's Church. Mr Sorrell also believes that the extension would allow Gilliam to look straight into his home.

And Mr Sorrell's home is not just any old north London Victorian pile. He lives in The Lawns, a modernist glass and steel conversion which nearly won the Royal Institute of British Architects' prestigious Stirling Award last year. Sorrell sold the last home he converted, in Primrose Hill, to Jude Law and Sadie Frost for £1.1 million. Mr Gilliam, himself passionate about architecture, has previously lectured at RIBA.

Speaking to the Evening Standard, Mr Sorrell said: "The main objections are to do with building an extra storey on top of the existing Victorian building. I think a number of people would be very effected by the development."

Mr Gilliam's architect, Mark Reeves, apparently anxious to pour oil on troubled waters, said: "I don't think there's any more of a spat developing than there would normally be in this situation. I think there are people who like both what the Sorrells have done and like what we have managed as well."

Camden Council seizes home - 08/01/02

Camden Council has carried out its first ever forfeiture order against a leaseholder, seizing a £350,000, three bedroom flat in Hampstead's Belsize Park Gardens. In forfeiture cases the leaseholder loses their home but still has to pay any outstanding mortgage.

The Council acted after the leaseholder, Aziza Anbaoui, persistently failed to pay the service charges on the property. No service charges had been paid on the property since 1997 resulting in arrears of £1,266.38.

The house, which had been bought from the Council under the right-to-buy scheme, was taken into Council ownership just before Christmas. Camden say that they will now use the property to accommodate homeless people.

Martin Green, Camden's Head of Home Ownership Services, said, "It is a pity that the homeowner has lost such a valuable asset, but the Council has a duty to act in order to protect the interests of other leaseholders and rent-paying tenants."