Notting Hill couple's basement wine cellar given go-ahead

A couple have been granted permission to build a 1,000 bottle wine cellar beneath their Notting Hill home despite a best-selling writer’s fears it could damage the stability of her house.

Jung Chang, whose 1991 family autobiography Wild Swans sold 20 million copies, was one of several residents to object to Chadi and Amélie Seeman’s plans to install a 10ft-deep “spiral” wine store.

Ms Chang, 65, previously said “the desire to store large amounts of alcohol” did not justify “prolonging the misery of others” and expressed fears about the effect of construction on the foundations of her own home.

But last night it took just eight minutes for Kensington and Chelsea councillors to approve the plans.

After the hearing Ms Chang said she and her husband Jon Halliday believed the plans had “not been through the proper scrutiny.”

She told the Standard: “This vast wine cellar is being built a metre from our foundations, and they don’t treat it as a basement issue so they don’t go through the investigations associated with a basement development.”

In its application, installers Spiral Cellars said the cellar would not affect the planned or existing foundations.

It states: “The level of excavation involved in the construction of the store is not significant and will be carried out in conjunction with the main front and rear basement extensions.”