Wiltshire billionaire can keep ‘unauthorised' car park

Stephen Schwarzman, the financier who owns Conholt Park, a large estate on the eastern border of Wiltshire, will also be able to keep using a road across the estate after Wiltshire Council approved a retrospective planning application.

In January of this year, an applicant referred to on the planning documents submitted two applications: one for the retention of a staff car park; and one for a road on the estate.

The applications were both retrospective, meaning that both the car park and the road had been in use before they had been allowed by the council, making them ‘unauthorised’.

Mr Schwarzmann, who bought the estate in 2022 for more than £80 million, conducted a huge programme of works to regenerate the site in 2023.

Planning documents state that as part of these works, the car park and the roadway were built to temporarily facilitate the project, and were allowed subject to their removal following the works; however, they have remained in use.

In their justification for retaining the staff car park, the applicant said that it "has become clear that the number of staff required on site each day exceeded the capacity of an approved car park.

They added that the car park fulfilled several of the council’s core policies, allowed employees to get to work safely, and that its location was both already within an area of activity and the only spot where building a car park would not generate “unacceptable operational, landscape or heritage impacts.”

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Meanwhile, the applicants argued that the road was necessary to support the safe day-to-day running of the estate and to ensure operational efficiency across the wider site. Keeping the road was a key part of a one-way system that prevented “vehicle conflict” and made exiting much safer.

Both applications faced objections from Historic England, but they later responded to a letter from the applicant recognising a clear justification for the potential heritage impact on the grade 2*-listed site.

Both applications were granted by the council on April 15. In their report on the car park, the planning officer in charge of the case concluded that retention of the car park was needed.

The currently in-use car park would also result in less damage to the estate than “ad-hoc” parking or the creation of another car park.

The officer cited the possible public benefits through local employment opportunities and through the maintenance of the grade 2*-listed property.

Retention of the road was also recommended by the officer, who said there were public benefits through improved highway safety, in addition to the same justifications for the car park.

The planning victory comes around three years after the billionaire first applied to make sweeping changes to Conholt Park.

As reported by this paper at the time, the changes included the demolition of the existing modern swimming pool and enclosure and the creation of a new, three-storey extension on the site of the north-western wing.

There were also changes planned for the main house including the creation of a new external kitchen link to provide direct access from the main house to the new kitchen in the proposed extension.

In addition, the plans also requested permission for the removal of the brick toilet tower and permission to install a new energy centre to serve the house and wider estate.

A planning document from that earlier application stated: “In the 1850s Conholt Park became a shooting estate, which from 1991, was further developed to become one of the finest shooting estates in the south of England.

"Conholt was purchased by the new owners in 2022 with the intention that shooting and broader conservation should be further developed and enhanced on the estate.”