‘Suburban’ BBC boss fights planning close to home for being too suburban

It was BBC director general Tim Davie‘s calling card – to distance himself from the metropolitan elite.

The one-time marketing man, brought up in Croydon on the outskirts of London, was keen to assert his modest, suburban roots, differentiating himself from the London luvvie archetype.

Mr Davie said in a Royal Television Society lecture in 2015: ‘My base wiring is Blue Peter, suburban Britain. The BBC was absolutely part of what I was.’

How times change – for it seems the £527,000-a-year corporation chief is not quite so keen on suburbia after all.

Mr Davie, 57, is fighting new homes being built next to his £4 million Oxfordshire house, decrying what he calls ‘the suburban feel’ they would bring to his village in the Chilterns Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.

BBC chief Tim Davie is fighting plans for new homes adjacent to his property in Oxfordshire

Plans for two new houses on the nextdoor site have been rejected by Oxfordshire District Council

The local council has ruled against the development, but the matter is now going to appeal.

The developer first applied for permission to build on the agricultural land 20 yards from the BBC boss’s house two years ago.

Permission was granted for a two-storey, five-bedroom home meeting tough environmental standards. But 15 months later there was a second application – requesting permission for not one but two four-bedroom houses.

That application was refused by the local council. Yet the firm concerned, family-owned builder Bentier, is pressing on with an appeal. In the meantime, it successfully made an alternative application to increase the size and height of the previously agreed single home.

The plans have upset Mr Davie and his family, who have owned their handsome Victorian farmhouse – with barn, milking parlour and stables – for two decades.

Mr Davie and his wife Anne raised their three sons there – and they want the village to retain its rural feel.

They wrote in their objection: ‘This is a quiet, small country lane already facing increased traffic, significant road damage and ongoing flooding. This new proposal goes much further to create a more suburban feel in the village.

‘We have been supportive of developing the village, but another executive house of this size in this location is a major change.’

They also point out: ‘The original planning permission was already building on untouched land. This proposal pushes this further and fundamentally changes the character of the area.

‘Both proposed houses (unlike the original proposal) now look directly into our garden, leading to a significant loss of our privacy.’

Mr Davie said he was unhappy with the siting of an environmentally friendly heat pump on his side of the property, which he said could ‘create noise’

Mr Davie, who has announced that the BBC is to become ‘net zero’ on greenhouse gas emissions by 2030, added that he was unhappy with the siting of an environmentally friendly feature of the new properties.

He and his wife wrote: ‘Additionally there is a heat pump located to our side which could create noise.’

Other locals, along with their parish and district councils, have taken a similar view – although the local authority has accepted the alternative proposal to enlarge the already approved but as yet unbuilt single house.

Last night Mr Davie did not respond to a request for further comment.