Beckhams at war with angry neighbour ... who lives 9,000 miles away
Beckhams at war with angry neighbour ... who lives 9,000 miles away
Patrick SawerSat, May 9, 2026 at 6:07 PM UTC
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Sir David and his wife Lady Beckham have made many planning applications for their Cotswolds property - Icon Sportswire
The Beckhams have grown used to neighbours raising objections to their ambitious plans for their Cotswolds bolthole.
But they could not have anticipated one objector complaining despite living 9,000 miles away.
It has emerged that a number of the complaints about the redevelopment of Sir David Beckham and Lady Beckham’s £12m home in the village of Great Tew were sent not by irate next-door neighbours, but by somebody living in the city of Perth in Western Australia.
In several lengthy letters of objection sent to West Oxfordshire district council earlier this year and in 2023, a correspondent named James Worthington complained about the Beckhams’ plan to install LED lights around the man-made lake on their grade II-listed barn conversion, Maplewood Barn.
The village green in the picturesque rural Cotswold village of Great Tew, Oxfordshire - David Stares/Alamy Stock Photo
In a letter sent to the council in 2023, Mr Worthington stated: “I have a home in the area but am working away from the UK since 2019 and Covid, but still have weekly updates on what is going on in or around the Great Tew area.”
In his objection to a lodge the Beckhams were seeking to erect at their property, Mr Worthington even made reference to living in the Western Australia city, stating: “I have seen one of these tent structures here in Perth and they are permanent in the way they are formed.”
In his most recent letters, publicly available on the council’s planning website, Mr Worthington claimed the Beckhams were ruining the rural setting and polluting the skies with “suburbia-style” lighting at their estate, which is near Soho Farmhouse, a private members’ club.
He accused Sir David and Lady Beckham of doing “anything they want simply because they appear to think they can”, and of “drip-feeding” more than 30 separate applications instead of presenting a comprehensive long‑term plan for their property.
Mr Worthington wrote: “Now we come on to the lighting … if I am not amiss this pond ‘lake’ is in the countryside in a rural setting with field etc, around Maplewood Barn. Yet what is proposed is more akin to Miami or Florida NOT GREAT TEW. Festooned lighting hanging along a ‘proposed bridge’, yet where are the applications indicating the installation of this bridge or has it already been built?”
The Perth-based correspondent added: “Spotlights, is this really Great Tew or have I mistaken this area for Blackpool? I said in other objections, if the applicants want to live in suburbia, then why come to an area like Great Tew?”
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The Beckhams have argued that the lights will enhance the pond while meeting ecological safeguards. Councillors are yet to rule on the application.
Mr Worthington also criticised the Beckhams’ claim to be recreating a “classic English meadow scene” in the tradition of the 18th-century gardener and landscape architect Capability Brown.
Mr Worthington wrote: “Capability Brown would have never designed a garden, with such features as [a] huge football pitch, a spectator stand, an outdoor pool, [and] a sauna. Classic English, I don’t think so.”
Few people in Great Tew, near Chipping Norton, appeared to recognise Mr Worthington and had little knowledge about his reasons for objecting to the Beckhams’ plans.
John Mitchinson, the chairman of Great Tew’s parish meetings, told The Times: “Mr Worthington is a mystery to all of us. We have never heard of him and as far as we know he does not live in Great Tew.”
Richard Davis, 80, who has lived in Great Tew for 60 years, said: “I can tell you the names of most people who live here. This Mr Worthington character is definitely not a villager, I can guarantee that.
“We have parish meetings and his name has been brought up in the past and nobody has heard of him. We were all like, ‘Who the bloody hell is this bloke?’”
Locals told The Times that nobody in Great Tew, pictured, knew the letter’s author - John Lawrence
The estate, which the couple bought in 2016, has provided a sanctuary during a very public row with their eldest son, Brooklyn, 27, who accused his parents of being “controlling” and trying to sabotage his marriage.
In January, West Oxfordshire district council disclosed that despite objections from locals, the Beckhams had won a separate battle to build a driveway at their estate, in order to avoid sharing with visitors driving into Soho Farmhouse.
Mr Worthington could not be reached for comment. West Oxfordshire district council was approached for comment.
The Beckhams’ representatives declined to comment.
Source: “AOL Entertainment”
