A farmer accused by villagers of building a controversial ‘Teletubby-style’ home bigger than planners allowed, has hit back, branding their claims ‘ridiculous’.
Defiant June Titterton-Fox, whose £800,000 new-build ‘dream property’ looms above those of her neighbours, said: ‘As much as they don’t want me looking at them, I certainly don’t want them looking at me!’
She has now accused residents in the posh village of Whitwell, Rutland – whom she previously counted as close friends and socialised with – as being ‘just vicious, horrible people.’
The saga began in 2020 when Mrs Titterton-Fox applied for permission to create a three-bedroom ‘eco-home’ home set into the hillside of a five-acre field, claiming it would be one of the most energy-efficient properties in the UK.
But the plans faced opposition from villagers who said the ‘garish Hobbit house’ looked ‘more like something from Teletubby Land’, and planners refused the application for the single-storey Field House in 2021.
June Titterton-Fox says the criticism over her new home is unwarranted in blast at neighbours
Residents opposing the property claim that what planning approved is not what has been built
The design of the house has been likened to the Teletubbies home from the hit TV show
Neighbours have complained that the partially-built eco-home (left) ‘looks nothing like’ the plans (right) they were shown when she applied for planning permission
Rutland County Council officers said the development was ‘unacceptable’ and would be ‘visually intrusive and impact adversely on the form and character of the area’.
But Mrs Titterton-Fox appealed, and Planning Inspector Dominic Young was clearly impressed by her plans.
He ruled: ‘The state-of-the-art property has been carefully and sensitively designed to the most exacting environmental standards.’
He added: ‘Given the dwelling would be built into the hillside with no part of its structure protruding above the natural topography… it would have very little impact,’ adding that the design had the ‘wow factor’.
But now residents opposing the property, who say they reluctantly conceded defeat following the appeal, claim that what was approved is not what has been built.
Rare breeds farmer Mrs Titterton-Fox, 65, said the locals’ constant grumbles and objections to council planners ‘because they are jealous of my dream home’ has led her to halting her buildings work and has only made matters worse.
She invited MailOnline to visit her impressive half-built new pad, set in six acres of farmland, which she and her second husband Andrew have owned for 20 years
The inside of the property shows how the building has still not been finished after objections
There is still plenty of work to be done before the home is finished for Mrs Titteton-Fox
A picture postcard village in Rutland has been torn apart by one woman’s bid to build a giant Teletubby-style eco building as her ‘forever home’
He fumed that the building ‘should be much lower in height’ according to original plans which saw it nestled into the hill – not changing the topography of the landscape, seen before and after construction began
As she proudly showed our team around, inside and outside, she wholeheartedly defended her controversial eco scheme.
She said: ‘My neighbours, particularly Simon and Beverley Jackson and her mother who lives in the granny annexe and are directly opposite, claim I can see into their bedrooms and bathrooms, as do others.
‘Well, I will tell them, as much as they don’t want us to be looking at and seeing them, we certainly don’t want them looking at us!
‘Complaints that our build is too high are ridiculous and in time it will be almost totally hidden from view, the house will disappear behind screening.’
The twice-wed farmer, who has two sons and a seven-year-old grandson, declared: ‘A village meeting called to discuss my project was cancelled.
‘If we had met it would have been an opportunity to offer anyone the chance to show them around the place and explain what we are doing.
‘But no, they didn’t want to know and have just been whipping this up into a frenzy again.’
She pleads with her foes: ‘Just give me a bit of time!
‘You have taken time away from us and have thrown our project back four months. If you hadn’t complained and set things back, we could have cracked on with the exterior works and then the bunding and screening.’
She added: ‘It is upsetting that my dream home has been met with all this aggravation. If I’d know this from the start, all the hassle and from my neighbours, and now over budget takes the shine off it and I wouldn’t have started it!
‘They have all soured it for me.’
Mrs Titterton-Fox admits: ‘At the moment the site looks terrible, but I will get rid of the weeds, the mounds of earth will be re-distributed for the bunding, and screening and planting will go up.
‘But it takes time and when it is done there will be nothing to moan about!
‘Working against local people makes it harder for them and for me.’
Pictured: The plans for ‘Field House’, which were initially rejected before Mrs Titterton-Fox and her husband Andrew, 60, won on appeal by convincing planning inspectors that her idea had a ‘wow factor’ that meant it should go ahead
The bitter saga began in 2020 when Mrs Titterton-Fox submitted a bold proposal for a three-bedroom bungalow (plan above) semi-submerged into the hillside of a five-acre field
Simon and Beverley Jackson have furiously watched the charming rural views from their £1.2m home become dominated by the construction of the giant new build
Mr Jackson is seen in the guest bedroom of the couple’s converted farm grain store, with the Teletubby-esque building in plain view
The farmer and former Rutland County Councillor currently lives in a five-bed detached home, across the road from her land and which is just visible.
She told how she was trying to live her dream, despite objections from her former friends, saying: ‘I always wanted to be living on the other side of the road with my animals. It has been a standing joke.
‘I do all the work, and my neighbours get the enjoyment of overlooking my fields and seeing the cows calfing and the lambs playing.
‘My dream is to see that outside my door and to have my animals close by,
‘I want to wake up in the morning, walk to the barn in the field in my pyjamas, instead of now having to get dressed and walking quarter of a mile down the road.
Showing us around with two of her four dogs in tow, labradors Bella and Willow, she said: ‘I really don’t know hat the fuss is about.
‘We have stripped back all the soil to the clay and is now piled up and stored on site’
She said it would eventually be used to make a bunding around the home – a thick earth-walled barrier – and also to help level off the ground.
She continued: ’We’ll put up trees and landscaping and the place will be totally screened, and it should appease the residents, but it takes time, and they have stopped us working.
‘Because of the neighbours’ latest complaints, we have had to halt the building while we having fresh consultations to get retrospective planning for part of the build.
The plans above show how the home was carefully designed not to infringe on locals’ views of the landscape
Grandmother Mrs Titterton-Fox was inspired to pursue the sustainable style of living by the 1970s sitcom The Good Life. Her home was supposed to become one of the most energy-efficient in the UK
Objectors Nicholas (pictured) and Alison Cato wrote to the council saying: ‘What has in fact been built and what the applicant is seeking to gain approval for retrospectively is, to borrow a word and its application from our King, an ugly carbuncle on the face of Rutland’
‘We were told we could carry on building at our own risk, but we chose to stop.
‘But we will be re-starting up again this month to September only because the decision from planning officials is not due until mid-September and then we’ll run into the wetter and harder to build months.
‘We stopped work in April having started building in April last year, and we progressed really well considering we had one of the wettest winters.
‘We are now seeking retrospective planning and have submitted a Section 73 application. The main problems have arisen because of lack of communication between the relevant authorities.
‘We are arguing over the front windows not the height of the house as that has been signed off, building control was happy with it.’
She insisted: ’The height is the same as the original plan but the south-west facing windows had to change and could not be a continuous row and attached to the roof. That is the only difference
‘Neighbours were complaining the windows were too big with too much glare, now they saying they are too small and different from the from the original plan.
Mrs Titterton-Fox added: ‘We are using beautiful stone which is in keeping with the village and which has cost a fortune.
‘I turn 66 this year and this is my dream house, a glorified bungalow all on one level which will be future proof for us and is eco-friendly.’
She told how she and husband Andrew, 60, a civil engineer with Transport for London, live in a nearby five-bed home, which is up for sale for £750,000.
She said: ‘We wanted to downscale to one level with the same size living accommodation but fewer bedrooms.
‘Our new place will have underfloor heating, one log burner in the living quarter, no radiators and the grass roof with help keep an ambient temperature.’
‘It has cost us double our budget to build and gone up from £420,000 to more than £800,000.’
The dust-strewn shell is walled, floored and partitioned into a large open space living room, diner and kitchen.
A bathroom, dressing room, master bedroom and second guest bedroom are to one side with a big office-study and utility room to the other.’
She is working and conducting business from her new office, the only room to be wired up to electricity and Wifi.
Mrs Titterton-Fox she is not from a farming background but favoured a self-sufficient lifestyle and learned the joys of farming after getting a few chickens, and was inspired by classic 1970s BBC sitcom The Good Life in which suburban couple Tom and Barbara Good, played by Richard Briers and Felicity Kendal, decide to go ‘off-grid’, raising pigs and chickens, much to the annoyance of their snooty neighbours Jerry and Margo.
Mrs Titterton-Fox now keeps rare large black pigs, Scottish belted Galloway cows and sheep.
She said: ‘We are non-chemical farming and my June’s Farm brand has won Great taste awards for pork pies and chops.’
Insurance broker neighbour Simon Jackson, 62, claims has a ‘completely different building to the one approved’ and complains it overlooks his home, particularly his and wife Beverley’s bedroom and bathroom, and said: ‘She is taking the p***.’
He added: ‘It is a bigger than permitted structure. We have been presented a fait accompli but it is full of murkiness.’
Mrs Titterton-Fox said: ‘I have lived in this beautiful village bedside Rutland Water for 24 years. I am a small holder with animals and livestock, and no one will speak to me anymore.
‘I have done nothing wrong!’