BILLIE Shepherd has revealed that she is no longer on speaking terms with her neighbours after her excessive plans for her £1.4 million mansion were denied.
The former TOWIE star says that the dispute got a “bit silly” and that the development would have only made her neighbour’s home look BETTER.
She had intended to turn house she bought with her husband Greg last January, into their dream home with an eye-watering renovation that included a two-storey extension, gym, games room and huge walk-in wardrobe, was refused planning permission amid uproar from the neighbours who claimed the works were “excessive” and not in keeping with other properties on the street.
Billie and Greg went away and modified the plans, which were then approved (the work begins later this month and is expected to continue all year), but the experience has left a sour taste on both sides as the fallout made the papers.
Have bridges since been built with those angry neighbours?
“No, actually,” says Billie, frankly. “We don’t go there much, to be honest, so we’ve not seen anyone. But it’s just not a great start, is it?
“The house is so old, whoever was going to buy it was going to have to renovate.
"There’s only one neighbour to the side of us and he had a lot of reasons as to why he didn’t want us to go ahead, but it was getting a bit silly in the end.
“Before he did his report on why we shouldn’t do the build, he actually asked us if he could cut part of a bush [between the two properties] down and we’re so easy we said: ‘Yeah, sure’. Because we wouldn’t want to make anyone’s life more difficult.
“What was annoying was that we’re only going to make this house look nicer but there has been a lot of toing and froing that I don’t know how [the atmosphere] is going to be when we move in there.”
For now, Billie is looking ahead and hopes to be in by Christmas. Mum Suzie is planning to move into their current house when they vacate it.
“We’ve had the new place for a year now, so it’s been a long, drawn out process,” she says a little wearily.
“But we were never going to give up, we just can’t believe how much time things take.
"So it’s been a very long journey already and it’s about to get even more pressurised once the builders start work.”
The renovations will be documented on Billie’s homes account on Instagram as well as the hugely popular Mummy Diaries reality show, which is filming its ninth series following the day-to-day lives of the sisters and their families.
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