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BBC News
12-07-2025
- Business
- BBC News
Al Fayed-owned Mayfair penthouse has ‘leaky roofs and noisy lifts', BBC reveals
The owner of a multi-million pound penthouse on Park Lane, central London, has been in an eight-year legal battle with companies owned by the late Mohamed Al Fayed and his family, the BBC has dispute began as a wrangle over a legal agreement relating to the installation of a new lift more than 20 years then, it has escalated into a row alleging leaky roofs, botched refurbishments and claims that a noisy lift was "maliciously" run at night to disturb the penthouse owner's for both parties declined to row at the exclusive Mayfair address - documented in High Court filings - shines a light on the way some business dealings were conducted in Mohamed Al Fayed's empire in the years before he his life, he was known for his combative approach, frequently resorting to legal action to resolve disagreements. The luxury penthouse at the centre of this dispute is owned by Alan and Rosaleen Hodson. He is a property developer whose company has built thousands of homes in south-east is on the top floor of 55 Park Lane, known as "Hyde Park Residence", a large apartment building in a prime spot - right next to the exclusive Dorchester Hotel. The building's website promises "an atmosphere of warmth and calm with the best of London living". A four-bedroom apartment is currently on sale for £8.5m. In 2003, the Mail on Sunday described the address as having "sensational" views across Hyde Park and a "marble entrance foyer [that] has to be seen to be believed".However, walking past the building gives a different impression. Some might consider it a little shabby for such a premium location, with peeling paint and a missing sign above the Park Residence has been owned by the Fayed family since the 1980s, through Prestige Properties (PP), a company based in has been "under the control and held for the benefit of" Mohamed Al Fayed's estate and family since his death in 2023, according to the accounts of a subsidiary company filed in the UK. Al Fayed's widow Heini Wathen-Fayed is a director of this subsidiary called Hyde Park Residence Ltd, which manages some of the apartments. Al Fayed's son Dodi, who died in a car crash alongside Princess Diana in 1997, reportedly used to have a flat Mohamed Al Fayed owned Harrods, he would sometimes let managers and directors live in the block, and the neighbouring building, 60 Park Lane, which he also 2024, the BBC spoke to 13 women who said Fayed sexually assaulted them at 60 Park Lane. Four of them said they were raped. Leaky roofs The first issue emerged soon after Mr Hodson bought the penthouse in 2004, according to court documents seen by the Hodson made extensive improvements to the apartment when he moved in - modifying the kitchen, upgrading the roof terraces, and putting in a new lift so he wouldn't have to use a flight of stairs to access the agreement giving him legal ownership of his new lift - by updating his lease - wasn't honoured by Liechtenstein-based PP, Mr Hodson many large buildings, the ownership of Hyde Park Residence is complicated. The freeholder of the building is the Grosvenor Estate, which has extensive landholdings in central London. The Al Fayed family's company PP has the right to use it for the next 110 years. This leasehold arrangement, though time-limited, is considered a form of should have been asked for permission before these improvements were started. But permission was not requested - although it agreed in 2006 to grant permission retrospectively for a payment of £100,000, which Prestige Properties in 2014, Mr Hodson began to be bothered by noise from two of the buildings' lifts. Despite his complaints, the noise grew worse, he argued, until in 2015 the building managers agreed to suspend use of one of the troublesome lifts at in 2016, the two parties fell out further. PP demanded that Mr Hodson contribute £80,000 towards the money paid to the Grosvenor Estate, some years earlier. The following year, the Hodson's took PP and two other Fayed-controlled companies to the High Court asking for a list of grievances to be met and damages the issues, Mr Hodson said that he had wanted to extend the flat, adding a floor. He had spent £180,000 developing a plan, but PP denied him permission to build it, despite initially encouraging the plan – his lawyers lawyers argued the company hadn't given Mr Hodson permission to extend his property. They said that, as a property developer, he should have known that he wouldn't get permission without paying PP, as the landlord, millions of Hodson said that as a result of this dispute, PP allowed people to start using a noisy lift again, disturbing his sleep, which he thought was a "malicious and deliberate" response to a letter of complaint. He said on one night the lift was used 23 times between midnight and 02: also complained of poor repair work, which he said left him with a leaky roof and damage to his roof dispute still hasn't been resolved. In March this year, there was another court filing from Mr Hodson claiming "the roof is still leaking. The lift is still making excessive noise… The corridors and lobby have never been finished following refurbishment."Lawyers for PP argue in reply that the noise from the lift is at "acceptable levels" and deny that it was restarted maliciously. They admit water leaked but say their clients have taken all reasonable steps to stop is counterclaiming £344,000 in ground rent, plus another £286,000 of interest and sums are trivial compared to Mohamed Al Fayed's wealth, estimated at £1.7bn at the time of his death. And it is remarkable that a dispute of this kind should have dragged on for so Al Fayed was known for never giving an inch to those he fell out with - and that approach seems to be continuing even after his Hodson, Heini Wathen-Fayed, PP, and Grosvenor Estate declined to comment.
Daily Mail
11-07-2025
- Daily Mail
Welcome to London... Bailiffs tearing down a migrant 'shanty town', a fatal stabbing in Knightsbridge, and the rich fleeing. Another week in our tried, tarnished and dangerous capital
Six o'clock yesterday morning and the quiet of London 's Park Lane was shattered. More than 50 bailiffs had arrived to break up the sprawling migrant camp that had taken root over recent months in one of the world's most exclusive postcodes. A scraggy array of tents had been occupying the road's grassy central reservation, just a couple of hundred yards from a previous encampment that had been dismantled. Once again, washing lines flapped with tired-looking underwear, pots and pans were piled high, and men sat in the sun gambling huge piles of cash. But just after dawn it was all over. Amid angry exchanges and threatening words, the 30-odd migrants, men and women, started packing up their belongings into M&S shopping trolleys and wheeling them slowly towards Marble Arch as the clean-up team swooped and the open-top tourist buses started to rumble past. This was not the only alarming and unsettling scene to mar this expensive area of the capital. Only two days before, Blue Stevens, a 24-year-old dad from Hampshire, was killed on a nearby Knightsbridge street corner by a masked mugger. He was just outside the Nusr-Et Steakhouse, where a wagyu tomahawk steak costs £630, with his partner Tayla when the robber swung up on a bike. Some reports suggest that they tried to snatch his watch but police are looking at all possible motives. Mr Stevens resisted, was stabbed in the chest and collapsed as Tayla, hysterical, screamed 'Oh my God! Oh my God!' Desperate efforts were made to revive him, but he bled out on the pavement and the mugger fled. All in broad daylight. Welcome to London. Our wonderful capital city lately seems to have been in the news for all the wrong reasons. Endless stories report that the city is increasingly lawless, dirty and dangerous, with an epidemic of violent stabbings, muggings and robberies by organised moped gangs known as 'Rolex Rippers' in posh, and what used to feel like safe, bits of London, swooping on anything that glitters and glistens; watches (ideally Rolexes), designer bags, jewellery, cars. That its restaurants are closing in droves. That there has been an exodus of firms listing on the London Stock Exchange. That the top-end property markets are wobbling and its glossy draw and international cachet are fading. And that those with money are leaving en masse thanks to a combination of spiralling security issues and Labour's crazily punitive taxes aimed at the city's non-doms – wealthy foreigners who were not born here, but are often the only ones who can afford to live in Belgravia, Knightsbridge and Mayfair townhouses and the £200 million apartments in One Hyde Park. Fleeing in record numbers, to Milan, Geneva, Dubai, Portugal. Anywhere, frankly, but here. According to a recent report on global wealth by Henley & Partners, in 2024 the UK lost more millionaire residents than any city in the world except for Moscow – with 9,500 high-net-worth individuals departing in just 12 months. The trigger was apparently Labour's controversial inheritance tax law, which means that, for the first time, all global assets (instead of just UK ones) owned by non-doms are subject to 40 per cent tax after ten years in the UK. Everything. Regardless of whether it was inherited, generated or held outside the UK. 'The stupidity of this is beyond comprehension,' says Trevor Abrahamson of Glentree Estates. 'If you want them to pay tax, they will pay tax. But not on everything.' Two of his clients – Lakshmi Mittal, the Indian steel magnate, and Norwegian shipping magnate, John Fredriksen – both great Anglophiles, have already left for Dubai. 'They're wealth creators,' says Mr Abrahamson. 'Which idiotic country would create an environment so they leave?' The issue is not that they should not be taxed. Of course they should. But the way it's been done. Because these people are sophisticated and supremely mobile they are simply upping sticks to avoid payment. And taking with them their families, staff, money, cars, planes and, perhaps most importantly for the future of London, their buying power. Because while we might not all love the global super-rich – and, let's face it, from a distance there is much to dislike, particularly the flashy types with the supercars, private jets and ostentatiously lavish lifestyles – they do like to spend, spend, spend. Which means that their mass exodus is having an unwelcome impact on our once brilliant capital city. Right now, London should be deep in its summer season. Throbbing with the buzz of tourists, Wimbledon finals, outdoor concerts, opera in the park, money being splashed. You don't have to look very hard to see the fallout. Let's start with Eaton Square in Belgravia – traditionally one of the preferred postcodes of the uber-rich, where a four-bedroom stuccoed townhouse could cost £25 million and a two-bedroom flat, maybe £7 million. It's always been subdued, but this week it felt completely abandoned. The streets were deserted, as were the pristine communal gardens – locked and empty on a hot, sunny day. I had never seen so many empty parking spaces in central London and the blinds were down and curtains drawn at most of the windows. The only life was provided by the odd builder, cleaner and a car valet, hard at it buffing an already shiny black Porsche. 'We come and clean cars here every week, just in case they fly back into town,' he said. 'They don't like it dusty, but they're not coming back so much now. Many houses are for sale.' It's the same scene in nearby Chester Square, once home to Baroness Thatcher. Empty and lifeless, with more than 20 luxury properties on the market – some lingering despite huge price cuts. Across in Knightsbridge's Montpelier Square – a quick pop to Harrods and round the corner from Wednesday's dreadful attack – at least nine houses are for sale. The same in Kensington where prices are down to 2014 levels. And over in Mayfair, there is plenty to buy in the multi-millionaire and billionaire bracket with some prices down as much as 26 per cent. But according to expert Jo Eccles, managing director of the property consultancy firm Eccord, just six per cent of the houses available are under offer. Because the uber-rich might have gone, but they don't need to sell – particularly not at a loss. 'They're mostly wealthy enough to be complacent about it,' she says. So they just sit empty. For weeks. Months, sometimes at a time. With just a property agent popping in every week or so to validate the insurance. Camilla Dell's company Black Brick provides this service. 'It's by far the fastest growing bit of my business,' she says. 'None of them want to go. The UK used to be a welcoming place for wealthy people to live and raise their family and work. This is no longer the case. It has definitely lost its status a bit.' Of course, all this hasn't all happened in the past few months. The exodus has been building slowly since the 2008 recession, economic uncertainty after Brexit and a gradual erosion of the protected status of non-doms in the UK under both Conservative and Labour governments. After Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine in 2022, London's wealthy Russians evaporated. And the sense of unbridled crime is deeply off-putting, particular to the rich. 'Security is definitely a consideration,' says Jo Eccles. 'You need to be more streetwise than you ever had to be. So you don't wear a big watch in London. Many bring their own security.' It is tricky tracking the super-rich, because their finances are so complex and they have so many homes, and Henley & Partners' figures have attracted some criticism. But can it be a coincidence that so many restaurants closed in London this year? And that, while there are still plenty of great places, crammed and buzzing, there are also a lot of alarmingly empty dining rooms. A friend tells me that, a couple of weeks ago, he dined at Dinner at the Mandarin Oriental (where the tasting menu is £170 for five courses). For their entire sitting, theirs was the only table occupied. The same week, a single table of late lunchers were the sole diners at Langan's Brasserie in Mayfair until the early evening. And last month, a colleague was invited to lunch in the wonderfully opulent dining room at The Dorchester on Park Lane where, for 90 minutes, her party were the only diners in the restaurant. 'It was dead. That's the truth. And we had the staff coming to our table of four with desperation in their eyes,' my colleague said. It didn't help the luxurious ambience that, last month, before they were evicted and moved further up Park Lane, the migrant campers were right outside the hotel. The whole of Mayfair, once so impossibly glossy and exclusive, feels a bit forlorn. Shisha bars and glitzy cake shops have popped up. Bins are left out on the street in Berkeley Square. Beggars all over. Scott's on Mount Street – where, not so long ago, it was almost impossible to get a table – has availability every day this week. And the really posh shops there – Jimmy Choo, Balmain, Oscar de la Renta – were all empty when I visited this week. In Lanvin the doorman looks like he has not moved for hours and in the huge Bentley garage in Berkeley Square, a clutch of staff lounge on the counter chatting, untroubled by any customers. The daft thing is that Britain has spent decades courting the super-rich to stimulate its economy. They've been flocking to London since the 1970s. First the Greeks, then the Iranians, the Arabs, Nigerians, Indians – attracted like bees to the honeypot of the city's financial stability, safer lifestyle, green spaces but, most of all, our very warm financial welcome. As a result, large chunks of central London sprung up to service them. Swanky bars and restaurants. Supercar dealers. Madly over-the-top luxury accommodation, such as 60 Curzon, an uber-luxe development in Mayfair which had all manner of flats available to buy when I popped my head in this week. And One Hyde Park – barely 100 yards from where Blue Stevens was killed. Developed by the Candy brothers, it is a totally ridiculous glass craziness of flats that cost up to £200 million with amazing views of Hyde Park and amenities include everything from bulletproof glass to a 21-metre ozone pool and room service from the five-star Mandarin Oriental next door. Oh yes, and their own Rolex shop downstairs, though I'm not sure business will be booming there right now. Of course, the non-doms are not our only wealthy residents. Some experts claim that the plummeting property prices will finally reopen some markets – particularly Kensington and Knightsbridge – to domestic buyers, shifting families (albeit very wealthy ones who can weather the next round of taxes) back into the middle of town. And with the re-election of Trump, Americans are flocking over – mostly to Kensington, Notting Hill and St John's Wood. 'The Trump effect is huge,' says Jo Eccles. 'I had clients calling on the day of the election to buy in London and they keep coming.' But it seems that they're coming to a rather diminished London. A city that feels tired and tarnished, where migrants put tent villages outside five-star hotels and, where some neighbourhoods, are completely deserted. And, most worryingly, as the dreadful events of Wednesday evening outside the Nusr-Et Steakhouse proved, is also now alarmingly dangerous.
BBC News
04-07-2025
- Climate
- BBC News
Crews battle to keep fire from spreading to Harlow flats
Fire crews worked through the night to prevent a blaze at a derelict building spreading to a nearby block of fire broke out shortly after 00:30 BST just off Park Lane in Fire and Rescue Service said the "quick actions" of crews first on the scene "prevented the fire from spreading, protecting the block of flats nearby".The roof of the building collapsed and a crew remained at the scene to damp down the area, it added. Hertfordshire firefighters and crews from a number of stations in Essex were involved, and residents living near the scene were warned to keep doors and windows closed because of the large amount of aerial ladder platform and a drone were used by crews, and the fire was almost out by about 04:00, they Police set up a cordon and said an investigation into the cause of the fire would take place later. Follow Essex news on BBC Sounds, Facebook, Instagram and X.
Yahoo
30-06-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
Canvey Island sign former Southend United defender
FORMER Southend United left-back Olu Shobowale will be looking to experience first team football after being snapped up by Canvey Island. The 19-year-old left-back failed to make a senior appearance while with Southend but will now be looking to become a key part of Peter Taylor's new look squad at Park Lane. Advertisement The Gulls have also brought in right back Tyler Forbes, centre-back Callum Morris and midfielder Jed Brown-Johnson this summer. Elliot Ronto has also agreed to stay with Canvey and will skipper the side this season. Boss Taylor said: 'I am delighted he has chosen us and he knows he is a big part of what we are trying to build at the club.'
Yahoo
08-06-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Detached four-bedroom house on the market for £1.4 million
A detached four-bedroom house is on the market for nearly £1.4 million. The home on Park Lane in Milford on Sea is just a stone's throw from the beaches and village centre. According to the listing, it is a "spacious character property" with two garages, set on a large plot with private gardens. There is also the potential to create an annex within the grounds, subject to planning permission. The house features well-planned living spaces, with sea views to the front. Living room (Image: Spencers of the New Forest - Lymington) Living areas include a lounge, conservatory, dining area and a farmhouse-style kitchen with an Aga. The entrance hallway leads to a triple-aspect living room with an open fireplace, French doors to the garden and another set of doors to the conservatory. The kitchen/breakfast room has a gas-fired Aga and wooden storage cupboards. There is also a cloakroom with space for a washing machine. Upstairs, the landing has a ladder leading to the attic room and the principal bedroom is dual aspect with built-in wardrobes and an en suite shower room. Conservatory (Image: Spencers of the New Forest - Lymington) The attic room is dual aspect with power and lighting and there are three further bedrooms, all with built-in storage. The family bathroom has a bath with shower attachment and there is a separate toilet. The property is accessed via two sets of five-bar wooden gates, leading to a paved driveway and two single garages. There are sea views from the front garden, which is bordered by mature hedges. The rear garden is mainly laid to lawn, with outbuildings including a wooden summer house, a greenhouse and a vegetable garden. There is also a storage room and another garage, which could potentially be converted into a self-contained annex or dwelling, subject to planning permissions. The property is freehold and the council tax band is G. It is connected to mains gas, electricity, water and drainage and has gas central heating. Superfast broadband is available at the property. The EPC rating is D, with a current score of 58 and a potential score of 74.
