THE fate of Sarah Beeney’s illegally built house will be decided in the next two weeks – after a showdown meeting with the council at her “mini Downtown Abbey”.
The presenter has been ordered to completely demolish a 1970s farmhouse building at her estate, which is featured in her hit telly show, New Life in the Country.
The fate of Sarah Beeney’s illegally built house will be decided in the next two weeks
The presenter has been ordered to completely demolish a 1970s farmhouse building
But, without planning permission, she went ahead with extending the building instead.
When she applied for retrospective permission, she was refused and also lost her appeal in March.
There is currently a live enforcement notice for the home to be razed to the ground.
Now Somerset Council are due to go on site and meet up with , 53, and husband Graham Swift.
The local authority will come armed with a specialist team including enforcement officers and ecological experts.
A spokesman added: “A site visit is due later this month or early October.
“The Council will be attendance with the appropriate specialists and next steps will be determined after that visit has taken place.”
Sarah has been in a bitter six-year fight with local residents and the council to completely overhaul her rural estate in the village of Stoney Stoke which she bought for £3M in 2018.
She put in a raft of planning applications and in one local compared her to Captain Tom’s daughter.
Hannah Ingram-Moore built an illegal spa complex at her house in Marston Moretaine, , claiming it was partly being used by her late father’s charity, but the council ordered her to tear it down.
Neighbour Kevin Flint said: ‘It’s created a lot of bad feeling in the village.
“She was given permission to build the new house on condition she knocked down the old one which she extended and refurbished, it’s just not on.
“She thinks she can move down here and ride roughshod over everybody but it’s not going to happen.
“I think the fair thing would be for anything unauthorised on the site to be demolished like Captain Tom’s daughter [‘s house].”
New Life in the Country has been charting her extensive renovations.
She had previously asked to build a completely new home – this was granted as long as the old home and its outbuildings were completely demolished.
Sarah went ahead and built the new dwelling, yet didn’t get rid of the old farmhouse, and extended it, adding new French doors and a first floor balcony.
Earlier this year, she scrapped plans to turn two barns into four new homes after a furious row with locals.
Half a dozen locals objected to the proposed development and said she had “blatantly ignored” an enforcement notice ordering her to remove earth banks built without planning permission.
Sarah went ahead with extending the building without planning permission 
