Our village is under threat from ‘Rave King's' plan to save his £2.5m mansion – we don't want celebs partying next door

Scottish Sun

23-07-2025

The music promoter wants to build homes to restore his Dorset mansion
PARTY PAD Our village is under threat from 'Rave King's' plan to save his £2.5m mansion – we don't want celebs partying next door
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A MUSIC promoter is planning to build 85 homes to save his £2.5m mansion leaving local residents furious.
Music promoter, James Perkins, is renovating his 16th-century home dubbed the "Buckingham Palace of Dorset" after it was destroyed by a fire eight years ago.
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Music promoter, James Perkins, is planning to build homes to restore his £2.5 million Dorset mansion
Credit: BNPS
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Perkins has dubbed the stately home the 'Buckingham Palace of Dorset'
Credit: Rex
Perkins bought the Grade-1 listed Parnham House for £2.5 million in 2020.
Scaffolding bills have soared to £1.7 million, the snooker room roof is falling in and the walls are crumbling.
To fund the renovations, Perkins intends to construct 85 homes on 25 acres of the estate's fields subject to planning approval from Dorset Council.
If successful, the mansion could host weddings, parties and overnight guests in sixty bedrooms.
But residents, who were already furious with the council granting the venue a 24-hour alcohol license, have formed a group against the application.
They told The Times that it would "destroy" local wildlife and the Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty and remove centuries-old footpaths.
Locals also say that the site plan drawn up four years ago, which originally proposed 20 homes, has ballooned into proposals for dozens of dwellings across the green space.
One resident also added that Perkins stood to benefit from a large capital increase on his private property while the council and villagers lost out.
The previous alcohol license application faced so much backlash that the council meeting was forced to run for two days with the local Conservative MP saying it was not appropriate for the estate.
But Perkins hopes he will be granted permission to build under "enabled development" laws.
Our pretty town has become a ghetto plagued by machete-wielding yobs
This means permission will be granted if the project generates funds that outweigh the harm caused by the development.
He is confident that he has brought Historic England onside with the plans which initially stated it would not support the application but they are now due to advise the council committee.
The application alone has cost approximately £1.5 million to submit.
Celebrities such as Noel Gallagher, Kate Moss, Madonna and Bono have all attended lavish gatherings at Perkins' former property, Aynhoe Park.
The wild parties at the stately home on the Northamptonshire-Oxfordshire border cemented Perkins reputation as the "rave king".
Perkins was just 15 when he began staging home parties in his home town of Cheltenham.
He went on to establish the rave music promoter Fantazia and in 1992, aged 22, he attracted nearly 30,000 people to a rave in Castle Donington.
Parts of Parnham House date back to the mid-1500s when it was owned by the Strode family who lived at the property for more than 200 years.
Over the centuries it has been used as a private home, nursing home, country club and woodwork school.
During the Second World War, it was used by the US army as the headquarters for General Patton before the D-Day landings.
A spokesman for Parnham House said: 'Through intensive planning and design work involving many consultants, including extensive talks with Dorset council, Historic England, and their subsidiaries, it was acknowledged that Enabling Development is the only solution to save this nationally important Grade 1-listed treasure.
'The enabling development application will raise the equity needed to save and restore the building to the minimum required factor and once again make Parnham something our neighbours and Dorset can be proud of.'
The spokesman added that the plans would "increase the biodiversity of the estate" as well as restore nature highways along the River Brit and reopen the original drive and entrance.
Both Perkins and Dorset Council have been approached for comment.