John Major buys £3m riverside flat

John Major, flush with his success in the City, has spent a reported £3 million on a riverside penthouse in London.

Still under construction in Battersea, the two-storey, two-bedroom flat will be perched at the top of an apartment block with its own health club, restaurant and underground car park.

The block is protected by an "urban moat" running around the outside and is close to the Palace of Westminster and Mr Major's favourite sporting haunts: the Oval cricket ground and Chelsea's Stamford Bridge.

The former Prime Minister is believed to have bought the flat at the planning stage so he and his wife Norma can help to style its features.

His private secretary Arabella Warburton said the precise address should stay confidential. "He may be in the business where people take potshots; other people in the building are not."

The apartment will feature a 45-foot living room with windows running the whole side of the building. Both bedrooms will have ensuite bathrooms and stunning views of the Thames as well as large curved windows that look down on the living area.

Mr Major and Dame Norma already own a £500,000 four-bedroom home in Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire, and a £400,000 bungalow on the Norfolk coast. Last year, they sold their flat in St John's Wood, near Lord's cricket ground, for a reported £1.2 million. Mr Major has built a lucrative career since he stepped out of public life in 1997, earning an estimated £1 million a year from directorships and speeches.

He earns an estimated £500,000 a year as European chairman of the Carlyle Group, a US investment group of which George Bush senior is another director. He receives £100,000 as chairman of the European advisory board of the US-based Emerson Electric Co, £50,000 as an adviser to bankers Credit Suisse First Boston and £105,000 as a director of the Mayflower Corporation automotive and engineering group.

He also earned a £500,000 advance for his autobiography and can get £25,000 a time as a speaker.

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