Energy boss in more hot water for using 'wrong kind of bricks'

Energy boss who was shamed for not helping vulnerable customers lands himself in more hot water for using ‘the wrong kind of bricks’ in a ‘ghastly’ two-storey extension to his Grade II-listed £1.2MILLION Georgian home

• Gas and electricity supplier Bill Bullen’s firm Utilita has a turnover of £1billion
• Local council has launched an investigation into style of bricks used on his home
• Ofgem found Utilita failed to consider needs of 25,000 customers in December 

An energy boss shamed for failing to help vulnerable customers has now managed to upset his well-heeled neighbours as well.

Gas and electricity supplier Bill Bullen, who paid himself £500,000 last year, has been attacked for using the ‘wrong kind of bricks’ for a ‘ghastly’ extension to his Grade II-listed Georgian house.

Chief executive Mr Bullen – whose firm Utilita has a turnover of £1billion and boasts of making massive profits after energy prices soared – lives on a row of beautiful 18th century houses in a conservation area in a historic town in Hampshire.

But former occupants of his £1.25million-plus home were the first to complain when scaffolding came down to reveal his new two-storey side extension.

They wrote a public letter complaining that Mr Bullen used bricks markedly different to those of the original building. And they are laid in the modern style, not the classic 18th century ‘side-on, end-on’ pattern.

An energy boss has been attacked for using the ‘wrong kind of bricks’ for a ‘ghastly’ extension (on right) to his Grade II-listed Georgian house

Gas and electricity supplier Bill Bullen (pictured outside home) – whose firm Utilita has a turnover of £1billion and boasts of making massive profits after energy prices soared – lives on a row of beautiful 18th century houses in a conservation area in a historic town in Hampshire

Now the local council has launched an investigation, despite friends’ insistence that the work was approved, including his choice of bricks.

Mr Bullen, 61, is the founder and majority owner of Utilita, which specialises in providing prepayment meters and heats 800,000 homes. Its latest accounts boast that after fuel prices soared the firm sold excess gas and electricity wholesale for £60million – after buying it for just £21million.

In December a probe by regulator Ofgem found Utilita failed to consider the needs of 25,000 customers struggling to afford to heat their homes over winter, ‘including those with medical issues and those classed as vulnerable’. 

Utilita agreed to pay £830,000 – £20 to everyone potentially affected and £321,000 to a fund to help the poor. Now things are not running smoothly for Mr Bullen in his home town either, where he is accused of failing to consider the historical sensitivities of the area. 

Previous occupants of his house Julian and Guinevere Harvey, a former British Council executive and teacher respectively, still live nearby.

So they were appalled when Mr Bullen’s extension was revealed, complete with a contemporary garage door and what appears to be an oddly placed double-glazed window. The extension, which planning documents show contains a shower and dressing room, replaces a modern garage.

It contrasts to the original symmetrical Georgian house’s sash windows and patterned brickwork. 

Mr and Mrs Harvey wrote to the council to complain ‘in the strongest possible terms to the excrescence which has been added to [the house]’.

The local council has launched an investigation, despite friends’ insistence that the work was approved, including his choice of bricks. The original bricks are pictured left, while the extension is seen on the right

Previous occupants of his house Julian and Guinevere Harvey (pictured) were appalled when Mr Bullen’s extension was revealed

The letter read: ‘It has been an eyesore for several months under scaffolding but now the bricks are revealed and they are entirely out of keeping with the rest of the house and that of the house next door and one beyond.

‘They should have used bricks in keeping in both colour and size instead of what looks to us like industrial bricks.

‘We took a great deal of trouble when making a round raised structure in the garden to use the right bricks. They are available locally.’

Local historian Caroline Scott, 69, said: ‘Whether it is to my taste or not is irrelevant – it’s not in the keeping of a Georgian house. The bricks are not of any historical connection to the area. It looks absolutely ghastly. [The] council is normally very fussy, so I can’t believe it has allowed this.’

Rosemary Burns, who has lived on the street since 2010, said the extension was ‘so unattractive and so wrong’. Council officers had been aware of the bricks, simply instructing they should be red, not black as proposed. A spokesman initially said the materials were ‘acceptable and in line with conditions of listed building consent’.

But the authority’s planning enforcement team has since written to the Harveys announcing an investigation. When approached, Mr Bullen said he was too busy to talk. A friend pointed out the council had approved the plans.

Utilita’s accounts say it made a multi-million-pound loss on energy sales to individual customers.

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