Prime Minister Keir Starmer has criticized the ‘nimbys’ for hindering progress in Britain. However, it seems that Justine Thornton, the wife of Energy Minister Ed Miliband, has not been influenced by this perspective.
For it has emerged she has joined a neighbourhood campaign against a small block of flats being built near their £3m Victorian home.
Adding to the dilemma for Mr. Miliband, one of the main concerns of Thornton and her fellow campaigners is the installation of multiple ‘noisy’ air source heat pumps on the exterior of a controversial development.
Despite the criticism, the Energy Secretary advocates for the mandatory installation of such heat pumps in ALL new constructions. Critics argue that these pumps are significantly more expensive than gas boilers, which are facing potential prohibition.
The dispute has hit the conservation area of Dartmouth Park in liberal north London, where Turkish property developer Dicle Guntas Girman, 36, four years ago bought a 1930s detached house for £1.7m.
It lies close to the elegant villa occupied by former Labour leader Mr Miliband, wife Dame Justine, 54, a high court judge, and their two sons – which previously found them accused of living a life beyond the dreams of their electorate when they were revealed to have two kitchens.
Energy Secretary and ‘Net Zero’ Tsar Ed Miliband’s government says ‘Yes In My Back Yard’ to new homes – but his wife Justine Thornton is not keen on flats near their London mansion
The owner of this £1.7m 1930s house in Camden’s Dartmouth Park conservation area, lying close to the Milibands’ £3m residence, wants to replace it was a block of flats
The development of a block of six flats over six stories including a basement – shown in an architect’s drawing – is opposed by neighbours in north London’s Dartmouth Park including Ed Miliband’s wife
Ms Girman and her company HGG London Limited have now applied to demolish the £1.7m house, and replace it with a block of flats containing six flats over as many storeys, collectively worth more than £6m.
Well-heeled neighbours including actor Benedict Cumberbatch are up in arms – and so is Mr Miliband’s wife.
Perhaps mindful of her husband’s governmental commitment to building 1.5m homes by 2030, however, her formal letter of objection to the plan insists she is not against ALL developments.
It’s just this one to which she is saying ‘Not In My Back Yard’.
Dame Justine wrote to the council: ‘No objection to the principle of redevelopment into flats particularly in the context of the need for more housing.
‘However, the proposed design appears to be too tall, too bulky and too dense for its plot given the context of the surrounding houses and the wider conservation area.
‘The nearby Highgate Newtown residential development is a brilliant example of thoughtful design in harmony with neighbouring properties.
‘This application presents another opportunity for the Council to demonstrate its commitment to the provision of sympathetically designed housing by acknowledging the benefit of redevelopment whilst rejecting this particular design.’
Ed Miliband and wife Dame Justine Thornton pose outside their £3m Victorian home in Dartmouth Park with sons Daniel and Samuel a decade ago, after he resigned as Labour leader
Opponents say the proposed block of flats near the Miliband family home – shown here in an architect’s drawing – would loom over Victorian houses like a ‘Mediterranean hotel’
Earlier this year Mr Starmer declared he would put ‘the country’s future prosperity ahead of the whims of nimbys who have been holding us back for too long’, and said he himself was a ‘Yimby’ – Yes In My Back Yard.
The developers of the flats say they could ‘deliver new housing on a brownfield site in line with national and local planning policy objectives’.
And Labour, in its drive to enable the building of those 1.5m houses, says it its new Planning Policy Framework redevelopment of brownfield sites ‘should be approved unless substantial harm would be caused’.
Mr Miliband’s wife certainly has dozens of fellow opponents however, with arguments demolishing a decent house to replace it does not constitute a brownfield site, and that the block of flats would tower over the Victorian conservation area ‘like a Mediterranean hotel complex’.
But many are particularly vexed by the six external air source heat pumps planned for the block – just a fraction of the millions Mr Miliband, 55, wants across Britain.
Neighbour Karla de Montbel objects to the development’s ‘increased noise as the heat pumps (6!!) are inadequate for the size and also located too close to neighbours’.
And Ruth Liebling says: ‘The positioning of 6 heat pumps in an enclosure at ground level would cause constant noise pollution to nearby properties as they are so near to them.’
Ed Miliband with wife Justine Thornton ten years ago
Speaking in his Government role – but perhaps not over the table in either of his kitchens – Mr Miliband has vowed to ‘take on the blockers, the delayers, the obstructionists’ impeding his ‘Net Zero’ drive to stop Britons using fossil fuels.
Shadow housing secretary Kevin Hollinrake told the Times: ‘Red Ed joins the not-at-all exclusive club of 14 other serving cabinet ministers who have objected to housing developments in their areas.’
