Clifftop couple’s tunnel vision sends neighbours to edge of despair

With its seaside location and its private cliff-top vantage point offering spectacular views, it’s already an enviable vacation home.

But one thing is missing as far as its owners, Richard and Karen Dance, are concerned: an underground tunnel from the house to the viewing platform.

So the wealthy couple applied for planning permission to build one, stepping into the shoes of some locals on the Isle of Wight.

With its seaside location and its private cliff-top vantage point offering spectacular views, it’s already an enviable vacation home.

But one thing is missing as far as its owners, Richard and Karen Dance, are concerned: an underground tunnel from the house to the viewing platform.

They have accused the Dances, who are in their fifties, of treating the town of Sandown, famous for its golden beaches and beautiful bay on the island’s south coast, “like a playground”. Some locals fear the ‘extravagant’ plan could damage the cliff and undermine property prices as well.

Proposals sent to planners show that Mr. Dance wants to build the “unique” 25-foot-long subterranean passageway from the basement of his single-family home, under the front lawn, and up to the deck overlooking the bay.

When the house was built in the early 20th century, a tunnel was partially dug to the platform, but access to the house was never completed. Company directors Mr and Mrs Dance, who run a number of convenience stores and live in Brockenhurst in the New Forest, Hampshire, bought their Isle of Wight holiday home for £470,000 in 2013. It is now estimated to be worth £650,000.

They want to expand their basement and build a new tunnel connecting it to the existing section. The application says that “the proposal is essentially a domestic extension” with the goal of “completing the course as originally intended in the 1920s.”

When the house was built in the early 20th century, a tunnel was partially dug to the platform, but access to the house was never completed. Company directors Mr and Mrs Dance, who live in Brockenhurst in the New Forest, Hampshire, bought their Isle of Wight holiday home for £470,000 in 2013. It is now estimated to be worth £650,000

The entrance to the old tunnel is 30 feet from the property and is not visible from any public viewpoint. You have to know it’s there to be able to see it’, the plans say.

The proposed tunnel will result in ‘an unusual feature for the occupants of the house’ and ‘there will be no physical impact on the ground other than the skylight used to provide natural lighting for the tunnel’.

It has sparked fierce debate and divided opinion in the generally calm parish.

The Isle of Wight Council, which will decide whether the tunnel can be built, received six comments against and six in support, its website showed. The public consultation ended on Friday.

Neighbor Irmgard Keen, 66, a retired care assistant who opposes it, said: “Such a project is used as a playground by people who don’t live here permanently and [could cause] harm to the community that lives here.

“They would do better to spend that money to maintain the cliff…Some people don’t know what to do with their money.” She and her husband Chris, 65, a retired computer software worker, are trying to sell her home and fear the tunnel could devalue nearby property. Mr Keen said: “It just seems like an extravagance… Like a little gamble for an unnecessary reason.”

Lake Parish Council says the tunnel could affect the stability of the cliffs and has recommended that the application be rejected.

But Dance’s structural engineering consultants Such Salinger Peters argue that the tunnel would improve the stability of the cliff as it is constructed of steel-reinforced poured concrete, bricks and waterproof membranes.

Geoff Long, a geologist who lives a few doors down, said: “Why shouldn’t someone want to do something good on their property…can’t we be a little nicer about this?”

Dance declined to comment.