Airbnb owner ordered to tear down 40ft 'prison-camp watchtower' in neighbour row
An Airbnb owner has been ordered to tear down a massive 40ft-tall "prison-camp watchtower" following a row with neighbours.
The "monstrous" structure was built at the £5,000-a-week holiday let without planning permission with furious neighbours said it's disturbing their day-to-day lives in a seaside town. Planning permission for towering "garden room" was turned down last year.
Now neighbours are celebrating after another bid was rejected by officials who said the tower at Rhos-on-Sea, North Wales, must be removed. Nearby neighbour Nick Whitmore, 35, who lives with his partner and three young children said their "dream home" had been marred by the platform and cabin.
Nick said: "It's advertised on Airbnb year-round, bringing noise, light pollution, and worse. The impact on my partner, our three children, and our neighbours is horrendous.
"The structure dominates our house and garden, as well as our neighbours'. It looks into my daughter's bedroom." He added: "We are a local, hard-working family with three children under the age of 10.
"My partner and I worked very, very hard to buy our dream home, just up the road from the children's school, various public parks, with a bedroom for each of our children, and a nice garden for them to enjoy. This has now been taken away from us as we back onto a busy Airbnb and, since Jan 2024, a building site."
The holiday let was purchased by a Sheffield-based property owner in December 2023.Neighbours reported the structure to the council and JAM Domestic Properties Ltd submitted a planning application - which was refused. The owners had described the 'breathtaking' £700,000 four-bedroom property as 'the epitome of luxury'.
Nick said: "We alerted Conwy council who asked the company to stop work. They did, and submitted a retrospective planning application, which was refused in June 2024 after numerous neighbour objections.
"With no appeal by the 16 December 2024 deadline, we thought the council would follow through and move to enforce their own refusal. We assumed relief was near. Instead, two weeks ago, earlier in March 2025, the owner submitted a near-identical planning application.
"We've now endured over 15 months of this situation, with Conwy sitting on their hands while local families and residents suffer daily." Families living next-door are furious at the13m high 'concrete plateau' giving clear views into their properties and blighting their lives.
Work on the tower - which would provide panoramic views of the village and neighbouring Penrhyn Bay - began last year, only to be paused when a planning application was turned down.
The holiday rental - called Gardd y Llys - is a contemporary property in one of the most upmarket residential areas of Rhos-on-Sea. Neighbours Stephen and Hazel Walburn also wrote a letter of objection to the council.
"The cabin is 13m above our main living area and certainly feels to us to be out of character and overbearing," they wrote. Its scale and appearance are unlike other garden buildings in the area. It fails to enhance the local environment, commanding attention not unlike a prison camp watchtower."
They added: "It dominates the roofscape and is alien and incongruous." Conwy council said: "An enforcement notice has been served which requires the removal of the structure." The notice was served on 17 June and the developer has been given 10 weeks from that date to launch an appeal.
The application by JAM Domestic Properties read: "Views from the raised platform into neighbouring properties were recognised as being available from the initial planning consent. The proposed development is not considered to lead to an acceptable increase to this and is not considered to have a detrimental impact on privacy or residential amenity to neighbouring properties, and therefore would be acceptable on this basis."
A Conwy Council spokeswoman previously said: "Planning permission was granted in 2016 for a smaller garden structure on this site. In February 2024, it was brought to our attention that a larger outbuilding was being constructed. Following an investigation by the planning enforcement officer, the owners agreed to cease work and to submit a planning application to regularise the work.
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