EDEN CONFIDENTIAL: David and Samantha Cameron ditch plan to install swimming pool at their Cotswolds home – to protect their next-door neighbours’ ‘human rights’
Having a former prime minister living nearby has many advantages, not least the 24-hour security and prospect of spotting famous visitors.
So when David and Samantha Cameron decided to install a swimming pool at their country home in the Cotswolds, neighbours might have been delighted and hope for an invite to take a dip on a summer’s day.
Instead, some of them were enraged by the £50,000 plans, even claiming their human rights would be harmed. So the Camerons have now abandoned their proposals.
David and Samantha Cameron have enraged their neighbours with plans for a swimming pool at the Cotswolds home, and even faced claims their human rights would be harmed
The Camerons have now abandoned their proposals for the £50,000 development at the family home in Dean, Oxfordshire
Mark and Katherine Smith, in their objections to the 46ft heated outdoor pool in a paddock bordering their Grade II-listed property, said that the development by their next-door neighbour — who used to be the area’s MP — would adversely affect the way they live.
The Smiths submitted 12 pages of objections, even citing the Human Rights Act, noting a person ‘has the right to peaceful enjoyment of all their possessions’, which ‘includes the home and other land’.
They added: ‘As an immediate neighbour to the site of the proposed development, we are of the view it will have a serious negative impact on our standard of living. The development erodes the natural beauty of the area and the countryside.’
Mark and Katherine Smith, in their objections to the 46ft heated outdoor pool in a paddock bordering their Grade II-listed property, said that the development by their next-door neighbour would adversely affect the way they live
At 14 metres long and four metres wide, the pool has a sloping floor, giving it a depth of 1.5 metres at its shallowest falling to 2 metres at its deepest
Cameron, 54, lives at the £1.5 million farmhouse with his wife Samantha, 49, and their son and two daughters.
The pool would have had a black or grey tiled interior, and eight small underwater lights. It was to be built in an extended part of the garden that has until now been ‘left as meadow grass’, planning documents showed.
He had a wool-insulated shepherd’s hut built on the property in 2017, where he wrote his memoirs. It features a wood-burning stove and can be moved on wheels, making it an ideal place to warm up after a swim.
His spokesman declines to comment.
The Smiths submitted 12 pages of objections, even citing the Human Rights Act, noting a person ‘has the right to peaceful enjoyment of all their possessions’, which ‘includes the home and other land’