The owner of a new beachfront house has been told to level down its garden after neighbours complained it overlooks their hot tub and pools.
Mario Bernard is halfway through knocking down and rebuilding 42 Brighton Road in Lancing, and has already raised the level of the garden overlooking the beach.
But as well as sea views, it now has views of next door’s jacuzzi and pool. Now, the council has served an enforcement notice requiring the level of the garden be lowered again.
The owners of the hot tub, Mark and Deb Kamis, teamed up with the neighbours on the other side, Sylvia Whelan and Mike Mogre, and their neighbours Valerie and Michael Gibbons, to hire planning experts to object to a proposed variation to the approved plans for the house last year.
That was submitted after work had started, and it became clear that the house being built was significantly taller than the permission granted in 2022 allowed.
The council had also imposed a condition that the ground level of the garden shouldn’t be altered until details had been submitted to and approved by its planning department. No such application was made.
Miss Whelan said that the previous house’s windows had been removed, allowing large groups of teenagers to use it as a party house for months.
She said her electricity and phone line had been cut off, and that metal sparks from angle grinders had melted her car’s paintwork.
Meanwhile, Mr Bernard and his agent Domus Architecture had been difficult to get hold of and so she no longer trusted them.
Mr Kamis said balconies overlooking their garden were built without permission.
And Mr and Mrs Gibbons, who live two doors down, said the building is an eyesore, adding: “We strongly object to the garage being any taller as it looks over our garden and pool and we now have no privacy at all.
“The flat on top of the garage with the balcony looks straight over us and has ruined our pleasure in having a pool.”
The variations were approved last summer, but with a condition that new plans showing a scheme to reduce the height of the garden should be submitted and approved before the completed house can be occupied.
The original plans suggested the garden would be between 1.3m and 1.7m lower than the wall on the boundary with the Kamis’s house.
But the wall wasn’t built as planned, and in some places the garden level was raised to the top of the wall, about 7.5m above sea level – and about 1.5m above the level of the Kamis’s garden next to the hot tub.
Some landscaping work was carried out, and an application to approve the work was submitted in October – but refused in November, with the council saying it needed to be lowered further.
The enforcement notice, which takes effect on Monday, gives Mr Bernard two months to reduce a strip of garden next to the boundary with the Kamis’s to 3.35m above sea level, and the lower garden to 2.5m above sea level.
Mr Bernard has already agreed to reduce the rest of the garden to 4.35m above sea level.
His planning agent Paul Smith of Domus Archicture said: “Further revised proposals are being prepared for submission.”
