Hail Roger Shrimplin, Planning Inspector! You’ve saved us from a famous actor and his “green” wife

The decision by Hounslow Council to turn down an application by Libdem-supporting actor Colin Firth and his eco-enthusiast Italian wife to stick a large solar panel on their London home has been ratified by the aforementioned Mr Shrimplin, who, whatever his politics, will henceforth be regarded as a conservative hero in this house. (You can read the full story here.) The great man had this to say:


“The proposed solar panel would erode the architectural qualities of the listed host building itself and would cause actual harm to the character and appearance of the Bedford Park conservation area… I am convinced that the harm done to the historic setting and the street scene clearly outweighs the benefits of the project.”

Mr Shrimplin – I want your babies.

Norman Shaw

Edward John May

The Firths live in Bedford Park, one of the most beautiful areas of London, situated a few yards north of Turnham Green Underground Station (and a couple of hundred yards from our house). If I had £2-£4 million knocking around, I’d buy a place there myself. Started in the 1870s, and mainly consisting of Queen Anne-style houses designed by the architect Norman Shaw and his successor, Edward John May, it was the world’s first garden suburb. It became a bit of a Mecca for the better-off followers for the Arts & Crafts movement - businessmen and city types with aesthetic interests, plus quite a few genuine practitioners. When it was becoming run-down in the 1960s and property-developer jackals were starting to move in and sticking up hideous modern monstrosities, John Betjeman led a campaign to save the place from greedy vandals: it became the first area to have a mass preservation order slapped on it.

Classic Bedford Park 

Bless anyone and everyone who had anything whatsoever to do with that enlightened act, which occurred in an era when soulless philistine technocrats were in the ascendant. Thanks to Betjeman and his cohorts, we aren’t in the position of the “after-comers” in Hopkins’s poem “Binsley Poplars” who “cannot guess the beauty been”: thanks to these noble warriors (whose ranks have now been swelled by the addition of the sainted Roger Shrimplin), the beauty is still gloriously, abundantly there to gladden our hearts and feed our souls. Chiswick has many lovely spots, but Bedford Park is its true glory. I think of these Olympian heroes often as I take my daily stroll through the area's cool, peaceful, leafy streets, and as I sit in St Michael and All Angels church, which was built as part of the original development.

The 46th Bedford Park Festival (an annual event which grew out of the movement to preserve the area) takes place between 16th June and 1st July. It's a feast of classical music, poetry, art, historic walks, talks, recitals, lectures, films and plays - you can find the full programme here. If you've never visited Bedford Park, it's a good time to do so. (My more literary readers may be interested to know that Yeats's painter father, Jack, and Yeats himself lived in Bedford Park, along with many other poets, writers and artists - the club where they used to meet to perform plays and recite poetry and exhibit paintings is now a Buddhist Vihara. And the area features as Saffron Park in G.K. Chesterton's The Man Who Was Thursday.)

Mrs Firth, an eco-campaigner (yawn), tells us she's passionate about the environment – which begs the question why she and her hubby were so keen to degrade our environment just so they could feel sanctimonious. She runs Eco Age, a “lifestyle” shop in Chiswick High Road. I suggest a mass boycott (although, to be honest, this will hardly call for any great sacrifice on my part).

Anyway, the hell with rich liberals and their ridiculous feel-good fads. Thank God for regulations and bureaucrats and planning inspectors and red tape - and that's not something you’ll hear me say very often.