EDEN CONFIDENTIAL: Mick Jagger fronts marketing campaign in opposition to £100m web site

Sir Mick Jagger has signed up as a new frontman. Not for another rock band, but for a group of campaigners fighting against proposals for a 34-­storey tower block of flats on the banks of the Thames in south-west London.

The £100 million tower — named One Battersea Bridge — will not only loom over Battersea, it will cloud the river view from Chelsea, not least for the well-heeled folk on the opposite, north bank only a few hundred yards away.

Jagger has lived in different homes in the area since the 1960s and still has a large house there.

He has a strong affiliation with Chelsea and even lived in a flat in nearby Edith Grove with Keith Richards and Brian Jones during the earliest days of the ­Rolling Stones. 

Some of their first gigs were in a local pub.

Plans for the scheme have recently been submitted to Wandsworth council and are ultimately financed by giant global ­investors Cerberus. 

The prospect has prompted wide-scale anger among residents on both sides of the river.

The S.O.B.B Campaign (Stop One ­Battersea Bridge) has been launched with a petition by Chelsea resident Rob ­McGibbon, a journalist and local activist.

He has opened up his contacts book to bring support and the petition has garnered over 1,500 signatures in its first week, plus the backing of other famous protesters, including Eric Clapton, who has a house near the river, and longtime Chelsea resident Felicity Kendal.

‘It is fabulous news that Mick has signed and supports the campaign,’ McGibbon tells me.

‘He has a lot of affection for Chelsea and for this stretch of the river.

‘I also know that he is a keen ­connoisseur of architecture and agrees with everyone else that this development is all wrong.’

A spokesman for the development says the project will create 142 homes, 45 of which would be ‘affordable, including 20 family homes, tackling an urgent need for new, high-quality housing’.

Everest hero George Mallory’s great-granddaughter has made an emotional pilgrimage to the mountain on the centenary of his disappearance. 

It wasn’t until 1999 that Mallory’s remains were found. 

‘Fascinated by him and his adventures from a young age, and having inherited some of the Mallory spirit, I had long hoped to visit the Himalayas and see Everest for myself,’ Freja Hollow says. 

Proof that not everyone in fashion is self-obsessed: journalist Hilary Alexander left almost her entire estate to charity.

Party-loving Alexander, who died on her 77th birthday last year, left a net estate of £620,000. 

Of this, £20,000 was designated for a ‘suitable ‘wake’ in my memory’, £50,000 to her niece, £10,000 to a friend and £100,000 to various charities. 

The remaining £440,000 will go to the Graduate Fashion Foundation, a charity that encourages the next generation of talent.

Le Gavroche delighted London’s great and good for 56 years before finally serving its last dish in January. 

Now, the Mayfair restaurant’s owner, Michel Roux Jr, admits he’s been unable to ease into retirement. 

‘I’ve been very busy,’ he tells me at the National Restaurant Awards at Magazine London, where he was handed a lifetime achievement award. 

‘I haven’t found the work-life balance yet, but I’m working on it.’ 

The MasterChef: The Professionals judge, 64, adds: ‘When you’re used to working all the time, you don’t ever really stop.’

Midwife star’s Mermaid style

She sang on the West End stage this year in The King And I, but Call The Midwife star Helen George until recently had not even visited let alone performed at Glyndebourne opera house in East Sussex.

So the actress, 39, was determined to make a splash when she attended for the first time.

Helen appeared to have taken sartorial inspiration from the character Ariel in Disney’s Little Mermaid, wearing a strapless green cut-out dress. 

‘Popped my Glyndebourne cherry,’ she says of her visit.

‘A fabulous time was had watching the brilliantly colourful and irreverent Merry Widow.’