Homeowner with 25ft shark sticking out of roof told he must stop using house as a £159-a-night Airbnb
12/15/2024 07:12 PM
THE owner of a house with a shark sticking out of the roof has been told he must stop using it as a £159-a-night Airbnb.
Magnus Hanson-Heine owns the 25ft beast — made from fibreglass and steel — that looks like it landed headfirst on top of the terraced property.
His journalist father Bill Heine installed it in 1986 as a protest against the US bombing of Libya and a statement against nuclear weapons.
Magnus inherited the Headington Shark Home, in Oxford, in 2019 and later began renting it out for short lets.
But the council got a complaint and banned him from doing so.
He appealed to the planning inspectorate but lost.
The lets must stop from March 11, 2025.
Magnus said that the decision would leave Oxford's tourism and accommodation sector "significantly poorer".
He previously stated: "My father always resisted giving any conclusive answer to the question what was the meaning of it.
“It was designed to make people think for themselves, and decide for themselves what is art.
"But it was anti-censorship in the form of planning laws specifically."
