Builders behaving badly: Chelsea neighbours fight back in basement wars with fines for disruptive renovations

Record numbers of Londoners are upsetting the neighbours with their home expansion plans.

Over the last 10 years, thousands of homeowners have dug out basements for cinemas, swimming pools, wine cellars or extra living space.

Residents are fed up with being woken early and having their pavements turned into de facto building sites, their roads disrupted by skip parking — and in some cases receiving abuse when they complain.

Shift-working BBC weatherman Stav Danaos is among many Londoners to complain about the noise from extensive building works.

But now builders behaving badly face penalties. Kensington & Chelsea council set up a dedicated enforcement team to monitor up to 30 sites in Chelsea.

In the first two months its officers handed out 30 environmental health notices, nine planning enforcement notices and five street scene enforcement notices, all related to offences such as dumping building materials across pavements, unsafe sites, or carrying out noisy work outside regular working hours.

Failure to comply with a planning enforcement notice can result in a maximum £20,000 fine at magistrates’ court and an unlimited fine at crown court.

The council has also issued 24 fixed-penalty notices to builders — councils have the power to hit businesses with fines of up to £20,000 for antisocial behaviour.

Kensington & Chelsea has pledged that if the scheme is successful it will expand it to other parts of the borough. It seems inevitable that the idea will also be adopted by other councils, as the trend for expanding homes shows no signs of slowing.

Last year the council fined builders working for singer Robbie Williams £3,000 for disturbing his neighbour, the Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page, by taking apart a shed on a Sunday during renovation works at Williams’s Holland Park mansion.

A recent study found that in the past 10 years, planning consent was granted for 4,650 basement extensions in central London, featuring 380 swimming pools, 460 cinemas, 380 wine cellars and 1,000 gyms.

A spokesman for the Kensington Society said that the problem was far from confined to Chelsea.

“Deliveries are made before agreed times; pavements become part of the construction site; parking suspensions become private parking for the builders while residents cannot find a parking space,” he said.

“The neighbours photograph the HGVs, the skips, and construction material delivery vehicles and often are verbally abused and/or threatened. It is out of hand.”

A spokesman for the council said it was already drawing up plans to extend the pilot to parts of Kensington. Councillor Will Pascall added: “Our residents should not have to put up with unreasonable traffic congestion, noise pollution or antisocial behaviour caused by busy construction sites.”