MP Backs Residents on Planning Threat to Turner House

3.15.00pm BST (GMT +0100) Mon 17th May 2004

A highly controversial development of a property on St. Margaret's Road has attracted opposition not merely from neighbours but from the Friends of the Turner House in Sandycoombe Road, which adjoins the development site (70 St. Margaret's Road).

Vincent Cable visited the house this week to support Professor Livermore, the owner, who will donate his house to the nation as a memorial to the great artist who deigned the house and lived in it. Professor Livermore and other Friends of the Turner House are furious at the way in which an unsympathetic, speculative development could permanently damage the environment of the house, which is a Grade 1 listed building in a conservation area. The planning application will be heard on May 27 and residents are concerned that planning officials are recommending approval of the development.

Vincent Cable said: "This house is an enormously important but largely unknown part of Twickenham's heritage. Britain's greatest artist not only lived and painted here for a substantial period of his life, he designed the house, as a trained architect and planted trees in the garden which survive to this day. Professor Livermore, the owner who has arranged to donate the house to the nation, is angry and rightly so that a non-resident developer, who currently maintains a rundown shed and wants to build a four storey block of flats over looking the house, appears to have the planners on his side. I have written to the council to ask them to appreciate the wider importance of this development."

Contact Gail Tait 8892 3935.