Rose Leslie and Kit Harington face new blow in barn conversion

Vigil star Rose Leslie has been rebuked yet again by the council for plans to convert a 15th century barn into a ‘guest house’, which will disturb bats and there’s issues over contaminated land.

The actress and her husband, Games of Thrones star Kit Harington, have been locked in a year-long tussle with Babergh District Council over plans to transform their Grade II listed £1.75M home, which boasts a swimming pool, stables, tennis court and croquet lawn.

The pair want to restore the barn to provide guest accommodation, a games room, and also install new gates and other landscaping features at the historic Tudor house in Brettenham.

But ecological experts Place Services, drafted in from Essex County Council, objected as a bat survey report revealed there were 39 common pipistrelle bats sightings on three separate occasions in 2022, with bats falling under protected species laws.

The report had also noted one satellite roost, four day roosts, four hibernation roosts and one feeding roosts of various bats.

Now Place Services have sent in another complaint saying they’re not satisfied with just a ‘bat scoping assessment memo’ and it’s not ’sufficient ecological information’.

There should be ‘at least one bat emergence survey during the period May to September and an automated bat detector survey to monitor its use by bats for at least 10 days’, states their complaint, dated November 12.

More details also haven’t been forthcoming on their strategy to mitigate and compensate for the bat roosts removal to another area with Place Services recommending that another open barn to the east ‘may be used to provide suitable alternative roosting opportunities’.

Babergh District Council’s environmental team are also unhappy and say that issues regarding land contamination haven’t been answered - and its objection remains saying that ‘as things currently stand we would not be able to support the change of use’.

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Rose Leslie and Kit Harington locked in row over plans turning their 15th century barn into guest bedrooms over fears work would disturb BATS

They’ve asked for a ‘desk study undertaken by an appropriately qualified Geo-environmental consultant’ which will investigate ‘potentially contaminated sites’ The famous pair’s planning team had only completed ‘a simplified report’ and ‘Land Contamination Questionnaire’, which ‘is not considered appropriate for a development of this nature as this is not a greenfield site.’

It adds: ‘This report should comprise of an overview of previous uses of the site as well as current site conditions as demonstrated through a site walkover and an assessment of risk by a technically competent person.’ They also want new wooden gates located between another onsite barn and a cart lodge.

It comes after the celebrity couple lodged plans to build new gates at their country residence to stop people peering in.

They said their privacy and security had been ‘continuously breached’ since they moved into the farmhouse in 2017.