FORMER Spurs manager Harry Redknapp has won a furious planning row over plans to transform his £7 million home into a luxury villa.
He and wife Sandra bought a seaside property in Sandbanks, Poole, last year and applied for planning permission to bulldoze it.
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They also lodged plans for a stunning Italianate villa on the plot overlooking Dorset’s Poole Harbour.
But before local council officials could agree to their plans, the couple gave the green light for builders to roll in and flatten the old house.
It sparked a monumental planning row, with locals fearing the new gaff would have a “detrimental effect” on the area.
Alison Wheeler, who lives next door, believed the new villa would be too “overpowering”, “oppressive” and feared it would have a “major impact on our privacy”.
There were also fears it was too close to the neighbouring house and make it look like two houses from the road or sea.
The site also sits in the Sandbanks conservation area and the Sandbanks Neighbourhood Forum had objected to the Redknapps’ gaff.
Amid a backlash, the Redknapps‘ architect went back to the drawing board and narrowed the width of the villa by 1.7m, and they finally got planning.
Construction can now start on the three storey, white rendered villa that will have Palladian-style columns and four separate balconies with wrought iron railings.
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It will also boast a grand entrance hall, open-plan living/kitchen/dining room, two reception rooms, a study, boot room and five en suite bedrooms.
A double garage will have room for a gymnasium and there will also be a new boat house at the bottom of the garden and a jetty with direct access to Poole Harbour.
The planning officer also made it a condition that the flat roof of a new boat house cannot be used as a roof garden.
When finished, the Redknapps home will look more in keeping with the sun-kissed properties around Lake Como in Italy than the sleek, flat-roof mansions of Sandbanks.
The property will be worth about £12m, according to experts.
It will be the third house the Redknapps have owned on the Sandbanks peninsula.
They first owned a mock-Tudor mansion which they lived in for 12 years before selling it in 2013 for £10m.
They then moved into a modern house backing onto Sandbanks beach but sold that because they were fed up with people gawping into their property.
The couple are currently living in a mansion one mile inland in the posh suburb of Branksome Park but are said to be missing the sea.
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