The building of a seven-bedroom ‘mega mansion’ has turned to chaos, leaving its owner wanting an ‘easy life’ and his neighbours wanting the whole thing torn down.

More than 100 residents have formally complained about the very-nearly-completed home in Bath, which they claim is higher, larger and in a different position from the plans that were originally approved.

Around 70 people turned up to a recent meeting at the site, so feelings are running a little stronger than your average hedge dispute.

The property has been ‘topped out’, meaning its full height and scale can now be seen.

A retrospective application by the owner has since been submitted to Bath and North East Somerset Council seeking approval for changes made during construction.

Neighbour Tavis Hamilton, 48, reckons that the property could well be worth in excess of £3million by the time the build is finished. He said its footprint was large enough to accommodate around 24 of the cottages surrounding it.

‘It is enormous and dwarfs all the cottages,’ he said. ‘It has been built for the last three years but it has now been topped out so you can see the full height and scale.’

The house was initially approved as a low-lying, single-storey building set into a hillside. Residents claim builders struck groundwater during excavation and filled part of the hole with hardcore and concrete, leaving the property sitting higher than planned.

Tavis says that its roofline now rises well above a neighbouring Grade II-listed church.

He also claimed the home had been built with a larger footprint and a different orientation, making it rather harder to blend discreetly into the landscape.

‘You can see the impact and size and how it sits with the plot as soon as you come down the lane,’ he said. ‘It is hugely overbearing on the access and completely changes the character of the lane and the listed church.’

The site’s changed hands three times since 2007 and been through a number of planning applications.

According to locals in the area, successive proposals have made the building more prominent, while the number of bedrooms has risen from five to seven.

Tavis accused those behind the project of adopting a ‘gung-ho approach’ to the approved plans. He said the uncertainty over what would eventually be built had caused years of stress for his family.

‘It seems if you put the wrong guttering on your house or use the incorrect glazing, the council jump on you for enforcement,’ he said. ‘But you can build this enormous structure without the right planning permission and no enforcement is carried out until it’s too late.’

Some neighbours believe the mansion should be demolished, although Tavis acknowledged that that would be a rather extreme outcome. His preference is for it to be altered so it matches the original approved design.

‘It would be lovely to see it just built as it should have been,’ he said. ‘Lack of enforcement has just let it go too far.’

Ward councillor Joanna Wright has backed the residents and accused wealthy developers of knowing how to ‘play the game’. She also said that other homeowners had been refused extensions because of the area’s heritage, while this much larger building had continued to take shape and grow ever bigger.

‘It is a game they play. But the way the developers have behaved is outrageous,’ she said. ‘They should be made to tear it down. Why are they getting away with it?’

The applicant’s planning agent said that the site had been bought with permission and technical plans already in place. Changes were required, it argued, because parts of the original design weren’t practical or safe to build on the unstable, waterlogged ground.

Those alterations now include new basement areas, changes to the roof and windows and wider access.

Despite the number and severity of residents’ concerns, the applicant maintains that the house’s size and its appearance above ground have hardly changed from the approved scheme.

‘We have tried to keep the building as low as we could and we feel that the overall height of the building is similar to the approved plans,’ the application said.

It added that the original foundation design wouldn’t have been stable on the ground encountered during construction.

Owner Thomas Worrall denied deliberately manipulating the planning process. He said there had been ‘a few mistakes on site’, but insisted that it was due to complications underground that had forced the builders to make changes.

‘The neighbours all seem to think I have screwed the system and been sneaky. But I am not,’ he said. ‘I just want an easy life. I want to get my house finished and move my family into it.’

Mr Worrall said that he’d already lost plans for a swimming pool because the builders couldn’t excavate deeply enough. At one point, he even tried to sell the unfinished property but said that nobody wanted to buy it in its existing state.

‘I am not the baddie everyone seems to think I am,’ he added. ‘I am sorry to everyone for the inconvenience of it all. But I want to be a good neighbour.’

Work has stopped while the retrospective application is being considered. Mr Worrall said that nobody would return to the site until planners were ‘100% happy’.

Bath and North East Somerset Council said: ‘The retrospective planning application is currently being determined. Only if the application is refused will the council consider formal enforcement action.’

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