It's a crime ... I can't make a killing from my planning deal, says gangster film star

By Mark Anstead
Updated: 13:51 BST, 14 September 2009

Terry Stone found consent to build two homes on his Berkshire plot did not increase its value.

During the boom years, a sure way of adding value to a house on a decent-sized plot was to gain planning consent to build something bigger. With the first hurdle of planning permission cleared, developers would snap up such properties as they chased tempting profits.

But last year's steep dive in land values, which have fallen far further than the value of most residential property, means that today there is little wisdom in this approach - as actor and gangster-flick producer Terry Stone is discovering.

Last year Terry gained consent to demolish a six-bedroom Edwardian house and three-bedroom cottage on a 1.5-acre plot near Sunningdale, Berkshire, and build two luxury homes in their place.

Best-laid plans: Buyers are more interested in the house as it stands

Having begun the application in early 2007 he assumed it would add value to the property whenever he came to sell, even if the market had slowed. Little did he know about the financial crisis round the corner - or how hard it would hit developers.

According to Knight Frank's most recent land development review, land prices in the South East have since fallen by as much as 50 per cent. Although Terry's plot is ideally located just a few minutes' walk from a railway station, so far no developer has emerged prepared to pay more for the site than a buyer would pay for the existing property.

'I thought getting planning permission might help us stand out from the crowd,' says Terry, 38. 'I even lined up a builder who said he would take it off our hands when the permission came through, but last year he found he couldn't raise the finance and it all fell through. So we put the site on the market six months ago at £2.5 million, but only had silly offers coming through from bargainhunters wanting to slash the price to £1.8million.'

It took Terry, who has carved out his own niche playing tough gangsters and bent cops in a range of low-budget and very violent British films, more than six months to prepare the plans and submit the drawings to Windsor and Maidenhead Council. Now he has to concede that he may have been wasting his time.

'It seemed the effort and expense of sorting out the planning permission had been for nothing and I withdrew it from sale.'

But now Terry is marketing the property again. Encouraged by a rise in transactions in the area since the spring, he is hoping the shortage of stock reported by most local agents will finally bring a serious buyer to his door.

'I still think building two large houses on this plot might make it worth quite a lot of money in a few years,' he says. 'It could be a really good prospect for someone brave enough to take on a project, but I'll also sell to someone who just wants to update the house and keep it as it is.'

In fact, Terry and his 31-year-old wife Maxine own only half the property. The rest belongs to Maxine's parents, Joyce, 60, and Alfred Page, 73, who have lived there for nearly 30 years.

Family man: Terry and Maxine Stone with Alfie and Harrison

In 2006, Terry and Maxine bought a half-share of the house, moving in with their two boys, Alfie, six, and Harrison, two. Terry and Maxine, meanwhile, sold their five-bedroom house in Ascot for £1.3million. And they plan to continue living with Maxine's parents even after the property is sold. They want to use the proceeds of the sale to buy another, larger home in the area, which they will also own jointly.

'Joyce and Alfred were thinking of downsizing and we wanted to move to a bigger house,' explains Terry. 'We thought, "Why not club together?" We have always got on well and it would mean not having to pay two sets of stamp duty or two sets of renovation costs.

'And since I am away a lot filming, Maxine likes having Joyce on hand to help with the boys.

'When I sold my home in Ascot I used the money to buy a half-share in this house so that Joyce and Alfred were able to release some capital. We now want to find a place with living arrangements that suit us all.'

Until 2002, Terry, who started his acting career with occasional appearances in East-Enders, The Bill and My Family, used to be a rave organiser (going under the name of Terry Turbo). His One Nation events were renowned for the hundreds of bouncers he hired to fend off trouble from gangs and muggers carrying guns and knives.

Grand designs: Terry's plans for two luxury homes on the 1.5-acre Berkshire plot

He sold his business, partly to remove his family from any prospect of danger, soon after Maxine became pregnant with Alfie. As luck would have it, he had just been offered a small part in a film by Dave Courtney called Hell To Pay (playing a psychotic bouncer), and on the strength of it won parts in other films.

Using money from the sale of his business, Terry also began to get involved in film production, which is a handy way to ensure he has the pick of supporting roles in the films he finances. He has since acted alongside-established names such as Jason Flemyng and Danny Dyer.

He has been able to put the experience he gained during his Terry Turbo days to good use. 'When I was organising raves I came into contact with the worst elements of society,' he says.

'During the last year alone I had a gun pulled on me three times - criminals had started targeting raves and mugging people. I deliberately try to bring some of that very gritty realism into my acting.'

As the films Terry has been involved in became more successful, so his desire to move up the housing ladder grew stronger. He says last year's Rise Of The Footsoldier was the biggest-selling British film on DVD and he is now closely involved with Bafta award-winning Noel Clarke and director Julian Gilbey developing projects for next year. In the meantime, he is hoping to secure a sale of the Sunningdale house.

However, it still looks unlikely that the expense and time it took to obtain planning permission will pay off.

Value: The six-bedroom Edwardian house features a bright sitting room

Knight Frank's Hugo Sattaford, says that even brownfield sites in the South East (where opportunities are still rare) have seen prices fall since the peak of market by 35 per cent.

'People were desperate for land in 2007,' says Hugo, 'and so with planning consent you could often sell your property for more than it was worth. But as the final projected value of build projects began to fall, developers needed to impose higher profit margins on new projects to cope with the slow-down in sales. And that squeezed the prices they could pay for land.

'There is still funding available for developers with solid track records and sensible schemes - land sales are being agreed.

'And there are circumstances where a proposed scheme will always add value - several new houses replacing a bungalow on a large plot, for example, is going to be worth significantly more than current use. But those cases are fewer now.'

According to Richard Cracknell, director of Edmunds & Eliott estate agents, two quality houses built to a high standard on Terry's plot could be worth as much as £3million each when finished. But he agrees that the amount developers are willing to advance has fallen dramatically.

'As a rough guide, in a rising market you might reasonably expect to sell land at 45 per cent of the final estimated value of the permitted project,' say Richard.

'That would add a few hundred thousand pounds to Terry's price, but in a more cautious market developers will pay only a maximum of 35 per cent, which in Terry's case is less than he can achieve on the open market today.

'The property needs updating, but it's still a nice pre-war house on three levels and I believe it could be worth more to someone as a single home than as a redevelopment site. We have had twice as many enquiries from buyers this year compared with last year and prices are beginning to nudge up. Our biggest problem is that stock levels are too low.'

Reckoning Day, a film Terry Stone has produced with Julian Gilbey, is released on DVD tomorrow. reckoningdaydvd.com

KEY FACTS

PRICE: £2.5million.

BEDROOMS: Six in main house, three in cottage.

BATHROOMS: Four in main house, plus cloakroom, one in cottage plus cloakroom.

RECEPTION ROOMS: Dining room, sitting room, breakfast room, drawing room and two conservatories in the main house. One reception room in cottage.

GARDEN: Gardens of 1.5 acres and security gates.

AGENT: Edwards Elliott, 01344 876363.

Family man: Terry and Maxine Stone with Alfie and Harrison. Left: The bright sitting room in the main house