HEATHER'S FACING COURT OVER MUCKY MARQUEE

Sunday Mirror, Aug 24, 2008 by SUSIE BONIFACE

HEATHER Mills is being threatened with court action for failing to take down a grubby marquee on her country estate.

For more than six months people living near her EUR3million mansion in Robertsbridge, East Sussex, have been asking her to remove it, saying the huge party tent is a blot on the landscape.

Heather is currently on a month-long break in New York with daughter Beatrice. But when she returns next week she will discover Rother district council have started enforcement action to get it taken away. A spokesman said: "She has now been given a compliance date of September 20 to have the structure removed. If it is not done by that time we can start legal proceedings."

Heather - nicknamed Mucca after her porn past was exposed - bought the EUR30,000 marquee for Bea's fourth birthday last October. It has central heating, a floor, six glass chandeliers and white ceiling drapes.

She was so pleased with the marquee that she kept it up for her own 40th birthday in January. Since then it has just been left in a field by woods near her home.

A friend said: "Heather has had complaints from the neighbours and letters from the council about the marquee for more than six months. She hasn't bothered to take it down and has been trying to sell it. But it's so mouldy and full of leaves no one is interested."

However, Heather has started work on a swimming pool in the grounds. Her boyfriend, DJ Jamie Walker, 36, is helping dig out the 25m pool despite fracturing his ankle water-skiing on a EUR250,000 break to the private Caribbean island of Necker two weeks ago.

Also helping out are Heather's fitness trainer Ben Amigoni and her security guard Stuart Wicks.

s.boniface@sundaymirror.co.uk