Council Orders Pippa Middleton to Dig Up "Unsightly" Car Park at Berkshire Estate

West Berkshire Council has ordered Pippa Middleton to tear up a car park she built without permission on the grounds of her £15 million Berkshire estate, after planners dismissed her appeal last month.

Middleton, 42 — the younger sister of the Princess of Wales — and her husband James Matthews constructed the car park at Barton Court, their 145-acre, 32-room mansion in Kintbury, without seeking planning consent first. They later submitted a retrospective application, arguing the new parking area would move "unsightly parking out of sight of the applicants on entry to the Barton Court estate" (The Telegraph).

The council rejected it. Planners called the car park a "visually intrusive and urbanised feature" in an otherwise open meadow, and said it failed to fit with the "beauty, landscape, character, or rural setting" of the area (Hello!). They also raised concerns about potential interference with the nearby River Kennet, a chalk stream of the kind protected for its rare ecological value.

An appeal to overturn the ruling was dismissed in July, according to The Telegraph (Hello!). The council's enforcement notice means the hardstanding must now be removed.

Barton Court sits on the Wessex Downs, designated one of the UK's National Landscapes — areas recognised for their natural beauty and given special planning protections. The application stated the car park would be used only "seasonally" from Monday to Thursday, but that condition was not enough to satisfy councillors.

The car park dispute is the second clash between the household and its neighbours. Middleton and Matthews bought the estate in 2022, and within months of arriving they erected "private" and "no trespassing" signs around the perimeter (Hello!).

The signage touched off a separate, ongoing fight over Mill Lane, a track that runs through the estate. The previous owner, the late Sir Terence Conran, reportedly allowed locals to walk it freely. Middleton and Matthews denied that a public footpath had ever legally existed across their land, and a spokesperson told The Telegraph that the area in question "has always been private property for as long as records exist" (Hello!).

In response, 35 residents backed by the Ramblers Association applied to the council to have Mill Lane registered as a public right of way. An inquiry into the claim opened in May (Hello!).

Middleton and Matthews raise their three children — Arthur, 7, Grace, 5, and Rose, 4 — at the estate. Middleton was last seen in public in July, joining her mother Carole for a day at Wimbledon (Hello!).

The council's enforcement notice leaves the household with the cost and labour of restoring the meadow to its previous condition — a straightforward planning outcome applied to a piece of land whose owners happen to sit in the public eye.