HOLLY Willoughby has thanked health staff on the pandemic frontline by putting a flag on top of her ‘castle house’ saying: “NHS – We thank you.”
The kind-hearted gesture is sure to go down better with her posh neighbours than when the TV star paraded a Union Jack flag outside her £3 million home, who claimed it lowered the tone.
The 40-year-old star lives in a six-bedroom house in south London, which she purchased in 2011, and its overriding feature is a huge tower in the middle of the property.
The stone folly dates back to the 1800s, with Holly and husband Dan Baldwin adding a flag and flagpole.
This Morning presenter Holly has interviewed NHS staff and those hit by Covid on the daytime show with the flag a symbol of her appreciation for the health service.
Yet Holly and Dan haven’t always seen eye-to-eye with local residents in their street, who complained about the Union Jack and a series of building works.
One neighbour said of the flag: ‘We don’t hang the Union Jack or St George flag outside our properties, so why should she?
“It’s in one of the most desirable streets in south London, we’re either Conservatives or Liberal Democrats in this area traditionally, not BNP.
“It’s not really becoming of the area. The Tower house is one of the oldest in the neighbourhood, and has a very prominent tower, but it’s never had a Union Jack on it before. It’s always remained without one.”
In September 2016, she had a planning application for a two-storey building attached to the main house refused after residents complained. Holly only needed the extension because of previous botched renovations.
Next-door neighbours Dr Christina Atchison and Kirsty Brown wrote: “The justification made by the applicants regarding using the proposed alterations to remove out of context flat roof ground floor extensions, is flawed.
Another resident Kirsty Brown added: “Firstly, it was the present applicants who made these unsympathetic extensions in 2012.
“Secondly, it would set a bad precedent and send the wrong message that house owners can exploit their previous poor developments as a justification for further development.”
Local Julie Halstead also pointed out that the couple had caused chaos on the roads in 2013 with two house renovations – a ground floor extension and swimming pool.
She says: “I understand that when this property was extended three years ago – the road was often blocked with large lorries, with neighbours often being disturbed 6 days a week from early in the morning, which was a nuisance especially on a Saturday.”
In November 2016, Holly got the green light from her local council for a ‘super basement’ despite a property collapsing on the street, which was the former home of Welsh singer Duffy.
It collapsed like a ‘tower of cards’ after it had undergone extensive excavation work to extend under the house.
At the same time as all this building work, a local resident sent an anonymous letter through the family’s door accusing them of keeping fellow residents up all night with their ‘drunken behaviour’.
The note irked Dan so much that he emailed 50 residents, saying: “The letter was extremely rude and overly aggressive (I’ll save you the gory details). It wrongly accused us of keeping the whole neighbourhood up last night with drunken behaviour.”
NHS worker David Moss, who lives near the couple, told the Evening Standard at the time: “We have been shocked by this vicious, intrusive email, in which they makes themselves out to be good neighbours, when we have had enormous trucks blocking the pavement six days a week.
“They think that they are decent neighbours but at no point have they apologised for the disruption. Just when we thought it was nearly finished, they have got planning permission to build a big pool in their garden.”
