Peer can keep unauthorised tennis court in Welsh countryside after retrospective approval

Twm Owen, Local Democracy Reporter

A peer connected to King Charles who built a tennis court beside his countryside home in southeast Wales without planning permission will be allowed to keep it. 

Lord Anthony St John of Bletso, one of 90 hereditary peers who remained in the House of Lords following reforms in the late 1990s, had the court with artificial grass that can also be used for paddle built on land next to his plush pad in the Monmouthshire countryside. 

The peer’s home and the tennis court are around 250 metres from the nearest neighbouring property, in Llanishen in the Wye Valley Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, and Monmouthsire council’s planning department said there is no impact on neighbouring properties. 

The court was built following a landslide in January 2019 and completed by August that year but Lord St John only made an application for retrospective permission in March this year after it was realised planning consent was required. 

The county council’s planning department has approved the application for change of use of the land from agricultural to domestic and to keep the tennis/paddle court, its mesh fence and associated ground works. 

Environmental body Natural Resources Wales and the council’s ecologist said further information on plants and their species that will form part of a hedge would be required, which have since been provided to the council. 

Planning officer David Wong stated in a report, which allowed the application, it wouldn’t be approved just because the work has taken place and the tennis court is in place but said that made it “possible to assess the application in situ”. 

He said while planning policy normally doesn’t allow new builds in the open countryside they can be approved in exceptional circumstances and there will be “no significant adverse visual impact on the landscape” with the hedge in place. 

Lord St John is an independent or cross bench peer and according to his profile on The Marque website, that manages profiles for prominent people, is an extra lord in waiting to King Charles, having also served his mother the late Queen Elizabeth II in the same role. 

He has been a member of the House of Lords since 1978 and was educated in South Africa and his special Parliamentary interests include financial technology, known as fintech, education, Southern Africa, wildlife conservation and the environment.