Nik Hoexter – a retired minerals economist – has lived in Chelsea for 50 years. Today, he calls out RBKC Council for allowing his neighbour, Nicholas Halbritter, to let his house become derelict and blight a section of Ifield Road in SW10. 

The issue will be discussed at a meeting of the Planning Committee at the Town Hall in Kensington on Thursday evening (16th April). Mr Hoexter and MP Ben Coleman, who is supporting residents, hope to address the committee to demand decisive action.

In this article, Mr Hoexter lays bare the miserable story of “The Neighbour From Hell” who is inexplicably never held to account.

Your readers will have followed the tortuous path to salvation for residents where a derelict house is such a blight that 48 of them signed a petition to get the Council to take action.

Thanks largely to the fine efforts of The Chelsea Citizen, it was fully covered by several national newspapers last November and the petition was presented to a council meeting in the same month.

Things are coming to a crunch when a meeting of the Planning Committee will consider taking action. The issue is relatively simple: the owner was served with a ‘Section 215 Notice’ in 2016, ordering him to carry out works to his garden and rotting house. The Council must now finally enforce this notice.

The terraced house in question is a wreck and a disgrace. Its disused basement has become a wild-life reserve for foxes and rats and the garden is infested with giant knotweed growing to over 12 feet. The last human occupant to rent the basement flat died there. His decomposing remains were only discovered after the stench of decay filled the immediate area.

When the owner of the house ignored the Section 215 and all subsequent enforcement letters, he was taken to court by RBKC and convicted in 2017. Residents expected things to happen, but nothing did. He continued to ignore all communications with complete disdain for his neighbours. 

Residents have battled this man – The Neighbour From Hell, as he might be called – for nine years now, gaining the support of local MP Ben Coleman and help from Marie-Therese Rossi, the local councillor. There have been regular visits from council officers, but they simply took photos, shook heads, sucked in cheeks, then walked away. No effort has been made to gain access to the property – even though the Council has a right to do so.

Residents were then put through the hoops of the Council’s complaints  procedures: not surprisingly, it was referred back to the department about which they were complaining, which – in turn – tried every obstruction and delay.

Read The Citizen’s previous report about this situation HERE

We then had to appeal  to the Information Commissioner to obtain evidence the Council had used in an open court to secure the original conviction – which they had tried to withhold on the grounds of data protection.

Finally, at the end of this exhausting and fruitless process, Mr Stanford Francis – Executive Director for Environment & Neighbourhoods – announced in an email (rather grandly) that he had made his “last communication on the matter”. We have been left high and dry ever since wondering what it will take to resolve this unacceptable situation.

Section 215 gives the council the powers but not the duty to act in situations such as this, ie: action is discretionary. By serving the notice and obtaining a conviction they had already demonstrated that they had exercised their discretionary powers. Despite this, RBKC’s Press Office continued to field questions from journalists covering the story last November by claiming “the Council is powerless to act”.

Planning officers have produced a report for the up-coming Planning Committee meeting that reveals only a tenuous grasp of veracity and consistency. They are recommending that no Section 215 Notice should be issued  – whilst the petition actually requests that the existing Section 215 Notice should be enforced. 

There is confusion and numerous contradictions in the endless correspondence that has evolved from this deplorable situation between residents and the Council. I won’t bore you all with the blow-by-blow, but the knotweed issue is a good example of the tangle the Council finds itself in.

The Senior Solicitor made it clear to the owner that he was not to dispose of it himself. He was ordered to contract a specialist eradication company which would then validate the work. Regardless, Mr Halbritter did it himself and thereby increased the infestation.

In their current recommendation, the planning department then claimed that the knotweed had been cleared at that point. In their report they also claim that “the presence of knotweed remains unconfirmed”. Yet their own officer – Ms Goddard – wrote to me in 2024 to say their arborologist confirmed that the growth was indeed knotweed and that she had ‘advised’ the owner to get it professionally eradicated. 

As regards the other works, they picked up on Page One of an email to me by their officer Martin Perrigo that the owner had done some of the requirements, but omitted to read on Page Two in which he also said that if the owner failed to do the remaining works it could be subject to a further prosecution. Does the left hand know what the right one is doing?

It is curious to note – although it may, of course, be entirely irrelevant – that Mr Halbritter is a former Conservative councillor who was actually a member of the Council’s Planning Committee. In 2022 he was given a Mayor’s Award for distributing poppies for the British Legion.

Elections are coming. The Planning Committee meeting is a chance for councillors to demonstrate that there is no “them and us”.

 

SUGGESTED SOLUTION: The time has gone for 215. The council must now issue a 219 Notice. This will give them the legal right to go into the property and complete all necessary works – then charge the home owner. This is the only way this matter can now be sorted out. Nik Hoexter.

 

Scenes form the horror house on Ifield Road