Villagers have voiced their anger after a Russian tycoon won a planning war to build an ‘ugly’ six-foot metal fence around his £2,900,000 country estate.
Disgruntled residents have compared the fence Alexander Mosionzhik intends to erect in the village of Marley Bottom in Buckinghamshire to something you might see around a prison.
They told Buckinghamshire Council it would ruin their countryside walks and harm wildlife and urged it to block the scheme, reports MailOnline.
But, to their dismay, the plans were given the green light.
Mr Mosionzhik said the fencing is needed to protect the 30 acre property from anti-social behaviour, such as vandalism.
But one resident said anti-social behaviour wasn’t an issue in the upmarket village.
They added: ‘There is no vandalism, there is hardly anybody there.’
Mr Mosionzhik made his fortune in business and was once chairman on the board of directors at a Russian oil trading company called Nafta Moskva.
The country pile, which he purchased recently, boasts eight bedrooms, four reception rooms, an outdoor swimming pool and 30 acres of land.
There’s also a secondary lodge with two bedrooms and two reception rooms as well as garages, stables and a barn.
Mr Mosionzhik submitted plans for a six-foot metal palisade security fence but after 26 objections from residents, changed it to a chain-link fence.
The businessman reportedly stated that ‘the fence will be installed on the inner side of hedges set back further within the property than previously’ planned.
But resident Julie Sparks lodged a further objection after the revised plans were submitted on December 28.
She said there had already been a ‘shocking and hideous’ decimation of that area of natural beauty, and claimed the fence would cause ‘further devastation’.
She told MailOnline: ‘All the locals walk up there. It literally feels like being in the middle of nowhere. You are just lost in the countryside.’
Richard Sherwin, the chairman of Save Marlow’s Green Belt, a community group, said the oligarch wasn’t building a small fence around a garden, but a 30-acre fence on green belt land.
He added that the fence would stop wildlife in the area from roaming as normal and expressed disappointment at the council’s decision.
In a decision notice, Steve Bambrick, service director for planning and environment at Buckinghamshire Council, said the authority was satisfied that, provided the development was carried out ‘strictly in accordance with the details’ shown in the plans, the fence could be built.
A representative of Alexander Mosionzhik said he ‘regretted the controversy’ surround his plans to renew a ‘dilapidated fence’.
They added a number of local residents have supported plans to restore and maintain the property and land.
The style of fencing to be used will be similar to others found local and appropriate for a rural setting and would not block any public right of way, they said.
In October a group of neighbours expressed their anger furious after a resident redeveloped a small bungalow into what they described as an ‘alien spaceship’.
Residents in Sandgate, Kent said it looked a bit like a ‘shed on steroids’ and ‘sticks out like a sore thumb’ next to the surrounding homes.
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