Wife of billionaire ex-Harrods boss Mohamed Al-Fayed loses High Court battle

 

The wife of billionaire former Harrods owner Mohamed Al-Fayed has a High Court to stop construction of a huge crematorium and memorial garden 800 meters (800 m) from the couple’s luxurious Surrey mansion application was rejected.

Heini Wathen-Fayed built a burial ground with crematorium, a 120-seat ceremonial hall, a memorial area, memorial gardens and an attached car park on the greenbelt near her court at Barrow Green, a 17th-century mound. I am filing a lawsuit against a plan to build.

Her lawyer said the government’s decision to approve the project near Octed, Surrey, took into account important factors such as the danger of flooding in the area and the proximity of the memorial garden’s ashes to the nearest residence.

They claimed that the planned site for the memorial gardens was only 200 meters from “neighboring houses” and 50 meters from the nearest road ban.

Former actress girlfriend Heini Wathen-Fayed is leading a legal battle to stop a large funeral home from being built near her £4.6m mansion. Other locals have also opposed the proposal, which was approved by the Tandridge District Council in 2021.

However, developer Horizon Cremation Ltd argued that there was no violation as it was prohibited to scatter ashes directly on the ground at the site and cremated remains would be stored in “safe Cairns”.

Now, Timothy Mold KC Judge of the High Court of London has dismissed Ms Wathen-Fayed’s application and upheld the government’s decision to allow the construction of a funeral parlor.

93-year-old girlfriend Al-Fayed, who has owned a Grade II listed building since the 1970s, says the couple enjoys the peace and quiet of a rural oasis.

In 1985 she married Mr Al-Fayed, her Wathen-Fayed Harrods and she is the mother of her four children by the former owner of Fulham FC.

Dodi Al Fayed, who died in a car accident with Princess Diana in 1997, was born to Mr. Al Fayed’s first wife, Samira Khashoggi.

The ultra-rich couple is reportedly worth over £1.2 billion. They own a compelling real estate portfolio that includes castles and estates in Scotland, apartments in New York, and buildings overlooking Hyde Park.

Wathen-Fayed was embroiled in a legal battle after leading a challenge by the 2,500-strong Oxted and Limpsfield Residents Group to overturn a government inspector’s September 2021 decision to grant planning permits.

Government inspectors overruled a decision to block construction of the Tandridge County Council on the grounds of “the existing and growing community need for cremation facilities.”

The Finnish-born model and actress, 67, told the court she was suing to protect her local environment from development and to maintain the “peaceful” 12-hectare site.

The planning permit was originally denied by the council in October 2020, but Horizon subsequently appealed to the Secretary of State for Upgrading, Housing and Communities, and the planning inspector decided to approve it on the council in September 2021. rejected.

The case has already taken a toll on the economy and Horizon director Stephen Byfield said at a hearing last year that undertakers had already spent around £500,000 to get the green light for the crematorium. Estimated. The plan is intended to settle the fields adjacent to the A25 and Barrow Green Road, which the opposition claims should be protected from any development.

Lawyers for Wathen-Fayed and other activists noted that the land is in a protected greenbelt, on the edge of an “area of ​​outstanding beauty” overlooking the hills of Surrey.

They also said the government’s decision to approve the proposal ignored guidance on potential flood hazards and whether alternative sites should be used. Planning Inspector Jonathan Pryce, who ruled that the has determined that the need for land is so urgent that an exception must be made to allow development of greenbelt land.

All existing burial grounds around Tandridge are operating “above their actual capacity,” he noted.

In his ruling against Ms. Wathen-Fayed, Judge Mold ruled that the planning inspector’s approach was “legal” and that “nothing within 200 meters of the adjoining residence would interfere with the proposed site of the memorial garden. No,’ he said.

He rejected the allegation that the plan had not been approved because it violated the rule that he should be more than 200 meters from the nearest house where the crematorium facility was.

“My estimate is that, based on the evidence before the Inspector, the proposed use of the memorial gardens and arrangements for the closed storage of cremated remains pending their removal from the site were part of the process. It was fair to conclude that there was no human corpse cremated in this crematorium,” he decided.

Originally published at https://businessdor.com on January 24, 2023.