NEIGHBOURS of a lottery couple who have walked away from plans to build a £5million mega mansion on the site of a bungalow are fuming after the family home was left abandoned for over a year.
Lisa Charters, 34, and her husband Craig, 35, upset neighbours in Edinburgh’s plush Morningside last year by seeking planning permission to knock down the humble 1950’s three-bedroom property.
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The pair wanted to replace the existing house with a “Grand Designs” style construction with zinc cladding, white brick and a sweeping paved driveway.
Award-winning architect Richard Murphy was drafted in to develop plans for the three-storey, five-bedroom, property to look out over the capital.
But almost a year after their controversial scheme was approved by Edinburgh City Council, the couple walked away last week.
They are now putting the unoccupied building up for sale for £95,000 less they paid for it, after leaving it sitting empty for over a year.
Furious neighbours lodged 63 letters of objection to the pricey plan.
And now the plans have been scrapped, one annoyed resident hit out at how the scheme left a “perfectly-good” home out of action for all that time.
They said: “None of us was best pleased with the proposed mansion – there were 63 letters of objection sent to the council.
“But we certainly expected work to have started before now.
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“It’s such a shame because it is a perfectly-good home being left empty.
“Local people now call it The Little House on the Prairie.”
Lisa Charters’ parents, David and Carol Martin, from Hawick in Roxburghshire won £33 million on the National Lottery in 2016 and gave her a share, which she used to travel the world with her hubby.
The Charters – who announced their engagement on a beach in the Bahamas – snapped up the three bed bungalow in Edinburgh in July 2021 by paying £200,000 over the asking price of £670,000.
Their initial plans were redrawn after a planning furore in 2022, agreeing to reduce the height of the building by 1.5 metres and moving it slightly away from a neighbour’s property.
We told earlier how planning officials from City of Edinburgh Council used public transport reasons as part of their case recommending the new scheme for approval.
The document states: “Lothian Bus service 15 is an approximate eight-minute walk away onto Pentland Terrace, which provides access into the city centre.
“The local centre on Comiston Road is accessible in a 16-minute walk or 13-minute bus journey via Lothian Service no.11.
“The continued residential use on-site will help support these local facilities.”
Residents fumed after they received planning permission for the luxury scheme based on access to local buses.
They told the Scottish Sun: “They’ve justified it on public transport and things that just don’t stack up.
“These guys aren’t going to take buses. We’ve all been quite shocked by it.”
They added: “We’re just disappointed with the height and that it’s gone through. There’s quite a lot of people that aren’t happy about it.
“Some people have issues with the look of it, sticking out is unusual. The height of it will have an impact on our gardens in the summer.
“We’re disappointed that given the scale of objection the sort of comments are like ‘this is great’.”
Another commented: “It’s been a long, drawn out hoo-ha for something that was going to be inevitable anyway.
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A third said: “Nobody’s very pleased. But we must think of the buses.”
The Sun approached Mr and Mrs Charters for comment.
