The New Age travellers who won a fierce four-year battle to build a caravan site next to Martin Clunes’s home have put the boot in again – by selling part of their land for an SAS training site and ‘survival school’.
Theo Langton and Ruth McGill were last month given permission to turn their mobile home site into a permanent one by Dorset Council – despite the Doc Martin star having drafted in expensive lawyers and planning experts to fight the idea.
Now the actor faces more woes at his 130-acre farm as the couple have sold some of their land to a friend to use as a base to teach survival skills to the special services and others wanting to learn Bear Grylls-style techniques to live off the land.
A local source told me: ‘Theo and Ruth were put through the wringer by Martin and his wife Philippa – and it cost a fortune to defend all the accusations.
‘While they didn’t need to sell the land when this opportunity came along, it seemed right. It certainly did no harm for Theo to cash in on the land, although he’s hardly broke.’
Langton moved out of an imposing family home to live off-grid on the site in 2003, and it was his mother – garden designer Georgia Langton – who sold the neighbouring farm to Clunes for £3million in 2007.
Dozens of locals supported the couple in their planning battle over a barn being used as workshop, a mobile home, a touring caravan and a mobile van.
Clunes – who plays disgraced newsreader Huw Edwards in a controversial Channel 5 drama on Tuesday – did not respond to a request for comment.
The Doc Martin star has long fought the plans, drafting in expensive lawyers and planning experts to fight the idea
An aerial view showing Martin Clunes’ house at the bottom and Theo Langton’s woodland travellers site at the middle, directly above
Theo Langton and Ruth McGill were granted permission to make their encampment a permanent site and add two spaces for travelling caravans so family and friends can visit
Seeing double at the tequila party
I recently revealed that both Lady Lola Bute and Lila Moss had broken up with their respective boyfriends – so I’m glad to see that the doppelganger friends were out on the town together last week.
Kate Moss’s daughter Lila, 23, also left, whom 26-year-old Lola calls ‘Little Sis’, ended her long-term relationship with Yoni Helbitz, while Lady Lola, the daughter of the late Marquess of Bute, is ‘taking a break’ from the Dutch model Parker Van Noord.
Lila and Lola were sandwiched between man of the hour Jean Cigrang at a dinner party celebrating his Mexican spirit brand, Row Tequila. Salud!
Lady Lola Bute (left) and Lila Moss (right) spent a night out together after both breaking up with their respective boyfriends
Racing to find a cure
Hats off to actor James Norton, who, despite his type 1 diabetes, is running the London Marathon next month.
The Happy Valley actor, who previously dated Oscar-winner Jessie Buckley, is not letting the 15 daily insulin injections he needs stop him. Norton, 40, said: ‘The notion of running 26 miles in one go has always seemed like a mad idea. It still does.’
He’s already raised £12,000 for Breakthrough T1D’s efforts to find a cure for type 1 diabetes.
Happy Valley star Norton (pictured) will be running the London Marathon next month and is raising money for Breakthrough T1D
When Camilla did cattle class
Horse-mad Queen Camilla recently confessed she slept in Plumpton Racecourse’s ‘weighing room’ – which jockeys use to get changed – while attending Pony Club in her youth.
Her story raised eyebrows among those who knew what the room was like back in the day. ‘It was pretty basic,’ a source says.
‘A bit above cattle shed, but not much.’
Queen Camilla recently confessed she slept in Plumpton Racecourse’s ‘weighing room’ – the jockey changing room
GC x DC?
TOWIE star Gemma Collins says she has the hots for Lord [David] Cameron after their meet in the Royal Box at Cheltenham.
‘Oh my God, what a handsome man,’ she gushed to me at Sky’s Up Next showcase.
‘I didn’t think there was a man more handsome than my Rami [Hawash, her fiance] but… well… David.’
She said she told the former PM how she liked Kemi Badenoch ‘and he told me he’s been mentoring her!
Who knows, they could be signing me up for the party!’ Could it be GC for PM?
Gemma pictured having a cracking time at the Cheltenham Festival this year
Socialite Sabine Getty caused quite the stir at the Oscars, though not in the way she would have hoped.
The 41-year-old – who in 2015 married Joseph Getty, heir to Getty Images – got her long silk ballgown trapped in the escalator.
‘I expected hectic but nowhere near escalator-near-death-dress-massacre hectic,’ she said.
Turns out she wasn’t the only victim. Fashion designer Susie Cave, wife of musician Nick Cave, revealed: ‘I got stuck, too, and Nick had to rescue me.’
Socialite Sabine pictured causing quite the stir at the Oscars this month
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