As a former competitive figure skater, Emma McGuinness had to get used to the freezing conditions.
But that doesn’t make the bitter cold she faces in her upscale Surrey neighborhood any easier to manage during an 18-month court planning battle now awaiting a judge’s decision. It’s like she’s frozen.
“Let’s just say it’s all come as a shock – and, of course, it’s disappointing, but we’ll just have to wait and see what happens,” Ms McGuinness said, speaking exclusively to the Mail outside her door. four bedroom apartment. , £1.5million home in Oxshott, Surrey, while her two young children and the family dog get busy on a sunny summer afternoon.
The ‘see what happens’ part will be a defining moment for Oxshott landlords, estate agents and property developers, all keen to cash in on the village’s notorious wealth.
It’s wealth fueled in part by wealthy footballers and their wives, who have gravitated here for a decade and love nothing better than to buy a lavish home, tear it down and build a new one. other: bigger, better, more impetuous.
Emma McGuiness, 41 (left) and her husband Terry, 45, want to demolish their home in Surrey to build two new ones.
Ms McGuinness, 41, and her soft-spoken husband Terry, 45, who runs a catering business near Heathrow Airport with his brother, are not in the financial premier league – but they want demolish their home in The Ridgeway, a sought-after neighborhood. -after a private road about 200 yards from the main street of Oxshott.
What’s more, they have planning permission to do so and replace it with two houses on the same corner lot – one for the McGuinnesses and one for Mrs. McGuinness’s parents.
But Ridgeway Oxshott Management Ltd (ROML), which owns the enclave’s roads and shoulders and is made up of Ridgeway residents, is seeking an injunction to stop them on the grounds that the McGuinnesses signed a deed stating that they only had the right to use the road and services for a house.
In court, ROML argued that failure to comply with the deed would result in a carriage and horses sticking to the agreement drafted in the 1930s – when The Ridgeway homes were built – which specified that he not had to be only one house on each of the 48 plots. .
“I’m totally against it,” says Alan Couzens, who has lived near the McGuinness home for 20 years. “It’s all about planners not protecting the character and integrity of an estate with contractual clauses – simply because the council wants to meet its targets for new homes. »
The McGuinnesses want to build two houses so Mrs. McGuinness can look after her parents.
“Due to an accident of my father, we would like them to be here so that we can watch over them and help them,” says Emma, who is now a hot yoga and Pilates instructor in five nearby locations.
But that doesn’t agree with neighbours, one of whom said it amounted to ‘tosh’.
Emma McGuiness (pictured) and her husband moved ten years ago to The Ridgeway, a sought after private road about 200 yards from the main street of Oxshott
The fallout was divisive and shone a light on daily life in leafy Oxshott, around 40 minutes from London.
In his statement to Central London County Court, Mr McGuinness said he and his wife, who moved to The Ridgeway ten years ago, had been ‘shunned and ostracized’ and ‘lost touch’ with their neighbors during two “extremely difficult” years.
We participated in Christmas and summer gatherings with all our neighbours. This has since ceased, we have not been invited to any other events organized by them,’ Mr McGuinness told judge Simon Monty.
“What I’m talking about is things like Emma not being part of the wine society anymore and not mixing like she used to – not having conversations at the door and not having picnics of been with people. »
Indeed, a neighbor declares: “Whatever happens, Emma will not be allowed to rejoin the wine company. That’s how seriously we take this matter.
Another fumed: “Never mind the wine, we wouldn’t accept it at Pimm’s. We’re not Nimbies, we just don’t want all that noise and dust. We won’t allow it.
It’s a sore point for Emma: “The wine club is a WhatsApp group and we used to meet in the pub to chat and chat,” she says.
The stakes are high. If Judge Monty rules in favor of the injunction, the McGuinnesses’ planning consent will be worth nothing, but the amount they will have to pay in legal fees will be enormous.
A source told the Mail they could end up with a £300,000 bill if they had to pay the ROML fee – and would have to live with the idea that they might have just had to build a large house and put Mrs. McGuinness’s parents in a connected wing or annex rather than expecting two separate accommodations.
Even if the judge rejects the injunction and 21 months of building work begins, ROML will demand some £80,000 from the McGuinnesses in compensation for the disruption it will cause.
The couple’s neighbors seek an injunction to stop Terry and Emma McGuiness from demolishing their home.
Either way, it looks like Ms McGuinness won’t be passing around Chardonnay around her glass with her neighbors for some time to come.
But at least she and her husband will be welcome at the Oxshott Social Club (founded in 1907), of which Mr McGuinness is a full ‘playing member’, earning £35 a year, meaning he can use the two life-size billiards. tables and enjoy a pint for less than five dollars.
He will always be welcome here,” says Sarah Goodheart, social club manager. “It’s supposed to be a green belt and so there are often discussions about building more houses. Look at the plot next to us. Before there was one house there, now there are three.
The Ridgeway is downright humble compared to the gated Crown Estate of Oxshott. Here, mock Tudor, mock Georgia, Edwardian, and Victorian mansions poke fun at the cost of living crisis.
With or without twin Doric columned porticoes, houses in this estate start at around £6million and head north from there. Last year a developer called Stately Homes (‘let us discover your dream’) put Hampton Hall, with 70 potential bedrooms, on the market for £29million – promising as it has yet to be built .
The Crown Estate is where former England footballers John Terry and Jamie Redknapp and Wimbledon winner Sir Andy Murray lived, and where Cheryl Cole dumped her ‘love rat’ husband Ashley (a teammate of Terry’s) for having played outside.
This is where Max Clifford, the go-between who kisses and tells, lived until he moved in as a guest of Her Majesty at Littlehey Gaol, Cambridgeshire, after being recognized guilty of indecent assault against young women.
There’s another reason the stakes are so high as to the outcome of the McGuinness trial. At the cul-de-sac of the estate is a house called Willow Cottage, which was bought by a developer and is currently rented out. The developer is the same Stately Homes that hopes to move Hampton Hall.
It looks like Ms McGuinness won’t be passing Chardonnay around her glass with her neighbors again for some time to come.
The company has planning permission to build five houses on the land of Willow Cottage, plus a brand new side road to the cul-de-sac.
Mr. Couzens lives opposite with his wife and two children and he is not happy.
“These will be cheap shoeboxes, totally out of step with the rest of the estate – but there’s no way they’ll continue if our injunction on the McGuinness house is successful. A lot depends on that,” says Couzens, who works for National Roads.
Ms McGuinness’s father, Simon Barnett, submitted his own statement to the court, giving his address in Cap d’Antibes, in the south of France.
“If he has a house there, he could probably afford to buy one here and still be close to his daughter,” says a resident of Ridgeway.
Mr Barnett’s arguments began by saying that he “previously worked for (HM) King Charles at his current home in Highgrove, dating back to when he was married to HRH Princess Diana”.
He continues: “Surgery in 2012 after a historic stomach tumor left me in intensive care for ten days and close to death. »
And then, in 2020, shortly after obtaining planning permission for both houses, Mr Barnett suffered what he calls “a catastrophic life-altering injury after a fall”. . . which left me permanently disabled and in need of permanent care.
“It made the accommodation offered all the more important to my wife and me. . . this would allow us to incorporate things like a stairlift and other specialized facilities.
It remains to be seen whether this will convince the judge. As things stand, the mood at Ridgeway is tense.
Ms. McGuinness remains cheerful. Her composure under pressure could be due in part to her composure as an ice skater.
Residents’ solicitor Andrew Olins, a partner at IBB Law LLP, told the Mail that the McGuinnesses have in fact been invited to attend various parties in recent times, including those to celebrate the Platinum Jubilee and Coronation.
But, says Mr. Olins, “given that 82 percent of the Ridgeways are opposed to violating the ‘one-plot-one-house’ policy, some of them would have very strong feelings about what Mr. and Mrs. McGuinness want to do”.
Ms. McGuinness remains cheerful. Her composure under pressure could be partly due to her composure as an ice skater, something she gave up while still in school – and long before she got into hot yoga. .
She and her husband are currently feeling the heat without the aid of a 40-degree studio.
What’s happening now isn’t part of their gift, but one can’t help but hope that those invitations will start coming their way again.
Maybe one day she can even raise her glass to the wine company and realize that the past really can be over.
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