The glamorous wife of a Russian tycoon has been ordered to demolish two designer sheds at her £4.5million west London townhouse – after neighbours complained the structures had turned their exclusive postcode into a ‘shanty town’.
Mila Dolman, 41, enraged neighbours in affluent Chelsea after erecting a summerhouse and children’s playhouse in the garden of her Grade-II listed home without planning permission.
Residents of one of the capital’s most prestigious streets said the mother-of-three’s homemade sheds made her garden look more like a fairground than a prime London enclave.
Ms Dolman bought her five-storey, six-bedroom home with her insurance broker husband Andrey Dolgopolov for £4.5million in 2019.
But after building the outside structures, complaints from neighbours in May 2023 triggered an investigation by Kensington and Chelsea Council.
One neighbour told the Daily Mail: ‘It’s a shanty town – they’re listed houses, you can’t even paint anything without permission.
‘They’re 70 ft gardens and it just looks s***. It’s two wooden huts. It’s like something out of Winter Wonderland.’
Another said: ‘All the neighbours complained because it takes up a lot of the garden – and because no one else has been allowed to build things, it sets a precedent. We were certainly turned down.
‘They have very strict planning laws here because of overbuilding. They should’ve asked for planning permission.
‘When I first asked, they said it was temporary – but you can see quite clearly it’s not.
Mila Dolman, 41, (pictured) enraged neighbours in affluent Chelsea after erecting a summerhouse and children’s playhouse in the garden of her Grade-II listed home
Pictured: The two light green structures built without planning permission
Residents of one of the capital’s most prestigious streets said the mother-of-three’s homemade sheds made her garden look more like a fairground than a prime London enclave
‘This area was known for orchards. It’s very green and you want to keep that feel. Too much building ruins the grove.’
The neighbour added: ‘It’s been dragging on for quite a while and it’s not fair on all the other residents who have all stuck to the rules.
‘What’s the point of buying here if you don’t stick to the rules of the area?’
Born in Moscow in 1984 to parents whose families were exiled to Tajikistan during Stalin’s Great Purge, Ms Dolman later trained as both a journalist and artist.
She earned a degree in ceramics from the Stroganov Moscow State University of Arts and a master’s in TV journalism from Moscow State University.
Ms Dolman writes on her website how she left Russia after realising there was ‘no creative and political freedom left’.
She had celebrated the construction of her shed online, sharing progress of the build with her followers.
Born in Moscow in 1984 to parents whose families were exiled to Tajikistan during Stalin’s Great Purge, Ms Dolman later trained as both a journalist and artist. Pictured: Ms Dolman preparing her garden for the sheds
Pictured: Ms Dolman building the summer house in her garden, she documented her journey on Facebook
Ms Dolman has cultivated a taste for the high life – sharing photographs on Facebook from globe-trotting trips to France, Egypt, India, Venice, Mauritius, Dubai and Tunisia over the past two years alone
Posting pictures on Facebook in her native Russian, she wrote: ‘Taking advantage of the good weather, we went outside.
‘And instead of finishing the renovations inside, we began to build a shed, a summer house and a treehouse for [our daughter].
‘She now comes to us from kindergarten and is delighted, especially if we throw her a pile of sand to play with.
‘Neighbours have ripe cherries, dahlias are blooming here. The weather is wonderful, I want to get in the pool, pull a hammock nearby, and mix Aperol.
‘Even in London it’s not bad when the sun is shining.’
Alongside her artistic career, Ms Dolman has cultivated a taste for the high life – sharing photographs on Facebook from globe-trotting trips to France, Egypt, India, Venice, Mauritius, Dubai and Tunisia over the past two years alone.
In one post about a trip to Portugal, she joked about swapping private jets for budget airlines.
She wrote in a translated post: ‘That’s actually the essence of my life: brilliant brilliance, super yachts and the best hotels, then…you’re standing in the crowd of half-drunk teenagers from outside of Manchester at the check-in for a cattle carrier.
She also joked about needing to fly private ‘often enough not to feel poor’, while trying not to leave too large a carbon footprint during her ‘whims’.
Planning officers later carried out site visits from neighbouring properties and concluded the two outbuildings were of ‘excessive size and bulk’ and appeared as ‘dominant and incongruous features’ in the rear garden.
In official documents, the council said the structures created ‘visual clutter’ and harmed the ‘special architectural and historic interest’ of the local conservation area.
They also criticised the summerhouse’s light green colour as ‘contrived’ and ‘out of character’, adding that the materials used were of ‘questionable’ quality.
An enforcement notice was issued in May 2024 ordering both structures to be removed in their entirety.
Ms Dolman appealed, arguing the children’s playhouse should be allowed to stay while the summerhouse could be reduced. She also told council officials that builders had ‘mistakenly constructed’ the outbuildings larger than specified.
However, the independent Planning Inspectorate this month backed the council, giving her two months to remove both structures and clear the debris.
Inspector Jason Whitfield concluded: ‘Any steps that stop short of removing both buildings would fail to remedy the breach of planning control.’
When the Daily Mail visited the area this week, demolition work already appeared to be underway.
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