Lib Dem donor upsets neighbours with plans for ‘iceberg home’ with vast …

Bhanu Choudhrie plans two-storey leisure complex under his £20m home
They include a subterranean cinema, large pool, steam and sauna rooms
Mr Choudhrie was given green light by Westminster City Council last week
But Belgravia neighbours expressed concerned over the ‘grotesque’ plans

Hannah Parry For Mailonline

Published:
12:18 GMT, 21 February 2015

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Updated:
17:10 GMT, 21 February 2015

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A Liberal Democrat donor has angered his neighbours with plans for a two-storey basement under his £20m house in Belgravia.

Bhanu Choudhrie, who with his father Sudhir Choudri has given more than £1million to the political party, was given the green light for his extensive plans last week.

They include a huge subterranean leisure complex with its own cinema and pool, as well as steam, sauna and treatment rooms- all accessed by a lift.

Bhanu Choudhrie, pictured with wife Simrin, has angered his neighbours with plans for a two-storey basement under his £20m house in Belgravia

A conservatory at the rear will also be demolished and replaced with a dining room, family room and roof terrace overlooking the mews home, which houses two employees and a gym.

The decision comes just a year after he was arrested by the serious Fraud Office in relation to an inquiry into Rolls-Royce’s overseas business practices. Both Mr Choudhrie and his father deny any wrongdoing.

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But neighbours next to the Grade II listed property are less than pleased about the ‘grotesque’ plans.

While one resident said he feared a nightmare of lorries charging up and down the street as they carried out the work.

The planned subterranean extension to Bhanu Choudhrie’s Belgravia home includes a large pool and cinema

A spokesman for the Choudhries said: ‘Planning permission has been granted and that’s that. As far as the SFO investigation goes they have not been interviewed or talked to again.’

A TRAIL OF JCBS BURIED UNDER LONDON?

The soaring popularity of underground extensions by wealthy home owners has to led claims that diggers are being left entombed across London- because they are cheaper to bury than lift to street level.

The New Statesman’s Ed Smith claimed that up to 1,000 JCBs- worth around £5 milion- had been buried under some of the capital’s most expensive houses.

But others have laughed off the claims as ‘utterly ludicrous.’

Kevin O’Connor, managing director of Cranbrook Basements, said that no professional would leave a digger under any circumstances and there was always an exit strategy for the equipment.

Basement extensions several storeys below the ground have become increasingly popular in some of the capital’s most expensive neighbourhoods as home-owners attempt to increase their living space without infringing strict planning controls.

They have led to the creation of what are known as ‘iceberg homes’, with the extra space earmarked to accommodate private cinemas, spas and swimming pools.

Applications for basement developments in Kensington and Chelsea alone, had soared in numbers- from 46 in 2001 to 450 in 2013- and size, with two and three-storey basements ‘not uncommon’.

The likes of Andrew Lloyd Webber, Roman Abramovich and Hans Rausing, heir to the Tetra Pak fortune, have all been said to have sought permission for basement extensions in the capital.

But not everyone is a fan with attress Joan Collins expressing outrage last year at her new neighbours in upmarket Belgravia – many of whom she said hardly even use their homes.

Neighbours on Chester Square have complained about the ‘grotesque’ plans with fears they will create noise, dust and construction traffic

The Dynasty actress, 80, told a residents’ magazine: ‘It’s really sad. I find it shocking that people are digging down to put in swimming pools and bowling alleys when they only live here for two or three months of the year.’

Queen guitarist Brian May also took umbrage at building work near his Kensington home. Writing online last month he said: ‘Kensington used to be a nice quiet decent place to live… now it’s becoming a hellhole’.

Mr Choudhrie, a CEO at care home company CC Alpha Group, lives with his wife Simrin, an interior designer, and their young son.

In 2011 Mrs Choudhrie posed as a penniless pregnant woman to appear on Channel 4’s Secret Millionaire, in which she donated £100,000 to a centre for vulnerable people in Sheffield.

KENSINGTON AND CHELSEA BOROUGH CRACKS DOWN ON ‘ICEBERG HOMES’

The London borough is to become the first local authority in the country to introduce restrictions on controversial subterranean developments.

Last December, a Government planning inspector gave Kensington and Chelsea council the green light to its proposals to curb the scale of subterranean development.

Basement extensions will still be permitted but the new rules restrict how far they can stretch under a garden, limit them to a single storey in most cases and ban developments under listed buildings altogether.

Council cabinet member for planning policy Tim Coleridge had called basements ‘the single greatest planning concern’ in living memory.

He said many had complained after they had experienced years of misery from noise, vibration, dust and construction traffic.

The new guidelines are set to be formally adopted this year.