David and Victoria Beckham have been embroiled in a months long battle for their privacy at their £12 million Cotswolds home, regarding an upgrade that would grant the family some peace from crowds buzzing around the nearby trendy Soho Farmhouse.
Members of the local community reportedly "strongly object" to the improvement, which involved building a new access road to the Beckham family's home. However, it seems that their complaints have been overruled, as the billionaire couple have been given the go-ahead to make the transformation, according to The Sun.
The parents of Brooklyn, Romeo, Cruz and Harper have been seeking to turn a farm track into a second access road that leads directly to their house, and faced some issues with the local council when they tried to do so without planning permission.
Planners have now finally given the family permission for a "change of use" of the track, and retrospectively given consent for the extension, to turn it into an 800-feet-long (243 metres) driveway. The Beckhams had initially faced some backlash from the local council when they began the development without planning permission.
David and Victoria Beckham's privacy battle
The former footballer and his Spice Girl wife have had a history of planning applications that haven't pleased the locals in their area. With this specific development, they aimed to avoid the crowds of people on the roads who would frequent the nearby Soho Farmhouse.
They applied to the West Oxfordshire District Council for permission to extend and build over an existing agricultural track to connect it to their existing driveway, and improve dropped kerb access, according to a report in the Daily Mail, which also states that they claimed the existing access to their road is 'problematic' because it is a single-use cul-de-sac that cannot handle the volume of traffic that it currently must support.
Residents of the local community spoke to the publication, expressing their frustration. One said that they "strongly object" to the proposal, elaborating: "The house has already got a perfectly serviceable access road, so why is another stretch of tarmac laid through the woods deemed a good idea?"
In their planning documents, per the report, a representative of the Beckhams described the proposed changes as a "modest, sensitively designed conversion", claiming that the development would "modestly upgrade the existing crossover and gates" on the road for "safe residential use".
It was also written that: "The works respond to operational, safety and amenity needs, while being carefully designed to conserve the rural, heritage and landscape character of the area," adding that "an agricultural, low-key character" would remain, and any lighting, if required at a later point, would be "minimal".