Television presenter and property expert Sarah Beeny has been ordered to demolish a £3 million house on her Somerset estate after building works were carried out without planning permission, Somerset Council said.
The authority has issued a live enforcement notice requiring the removal of the dwelling at Beeny's Stoney Stoke property and is due to carry out a site visit with specialists before determining next steps. A council spokesman said: "A site visit is due later this month or early October. The council will be attendance with the appropriate specialists and next steps will be determined after that visit has taken place."
Beeny, 53, bought the rural estate in 2018 and later sought to replace a 1970s farmhouse with a seven-bedroom house. Four years after initially agreeing to demolish the farmhouse, she carried out extensions and other works without obtaining planning permission and then submitted retrospective applications, the council said. Those retrospective applications were refused and an appeal was dismissed in March.
The works included new French doors and a first-floor balcony, according to planning records, and prompted objections from Charlton Musgrove Parish Council and local residents. The parish council raised particular concern about bats discovered in the farmhouse and requested that a roost be provided as part of any works.
Local resident Kevin Flint told The Sun that the development had "created a lot of bad feeling in the village," saying Beeny had been given permission to build the new house on the condition she knocked down the old one. "She thinks she can move down here and ride roughshod over everybody but it's not going to happen," he said.
Beeny's renovations at the estate have been filmed for her Channel 4 series New Life in the Country. The presenter previously faced a separate planning dispute over a treehouse on the same property; after a two-year fight she won permission in 2022 to retain a winter-themed treehouse built from deadwood from the former dairy farm. Other structures at the estate, including a thatched boathouse and greenhouse, were built without initial planning consent; retrospective applications led to a change of use being granted to extend her garden over former agricultural land.
In a different strand of work, Beeny last year abandoned plans to convert two barns into four new homes after local objections. Neighbours had complained that she had "blatantly ignored" an enforcement notice requiring the removal of earth banks that were constructed without permission.
Somerset Council has said it will attend the forthcoming site meeting with enforcement officers and ecological experts. The council's response follows the refusal of retrospective planning applications and the dismissal of Beeny's appeal, but the authority has not yet specified a timetable for the removal of the building.
A representative for Beeny was contacted for comment.