Kate Middleton's sister and brother-in-law asked to demolish car park - The News International

Kate Middleton’s sister Pippa Middleton and her husband James Mattews have been ordered to demolish an unauthorised car park constructed on a meadow at their country estate in the Berkshire village of Kintbury.

According to The Times, the couple purchased the 145-acre Barton Court property, formerly owned by Sir Terence Conran, for £15.5million in 2022.

The couple reportedly laid 400 square metres of agricultural hard standing across a former paddock without obtaining planning consent.

According to council documents seen by The Times, local parishioners said they were "shocked" to discover that a section of meadowland on the approach road into their village had been converted into a private car park for anglers using the estate's fishing facilities.

Residents wrote to the council raising concerns that no consultation had taken place before the work was carried out.

Planning inspectors concluded that the development was "directly harming the rural landscape," finding that it had "introduced a visually intrusive and urbanised feature into an otherwise open meadow."

The ruling stated that the hard standing had "eroded a measure of the open and undeveloped rural character" of the North Wessex Downs.

Representatives of the Barton Court estate sought to justify the development through a retrospective planning application submitted in November last year. 

They argued that fishing rights along the river represented "a significant income stream which supports the wider upkeep of the land," making the car park a necessity for visiting anglers.

West Berkshire Council was unconvinced, refusing permission in February. The estate subsequently lodged an appeal, which a government-appointed inspector dismissed in July.