It's Wax versus Max in battle of the art barges...."Take That Li Ka-Shing!"

• Alice O'Keeffe, arts and media correspondent
• 
  
• The Observer, Sunday 11 December 2005

The tranquility of a luxury Thameside development - prized by residents who 
include Robbie Williams and Ruby Wax - has been shattered by a row between the flats' wealthy owners and a small art charity.

Wax is among a group of 25 residents of Albion Riverside in Battersea, where flats sell for up to £10 million, who have complained to Wandsworth council that the Couper Collection, whose art is housed in six barges moored outside the development, is 'ugly and spoils the views' of a riverside walk. In particular, the residents object to plans to build a ramp to help disabled people.

The owners of the gallery have been left fuming. 'It beggars belief that wealthy people like Ruby Wax can be so selfish as to want to deny others, and particularly disabled people, access to a wonderful artistic experience,' said the chairman, Nick Skeens.

The Couper Collection, which is supported by Prince Charles and Ken Livingstone, the London Mayor, has a permanent art collection, puts on performances by artists including Judi Dench and plays host to groups of local children.

The gallery has been moored at the site since the mid-Eighties when the artist Max Couper 

 


bought some disused barges
 
 and transformed them into an exhibition space. This was before property prices in Battersea soared during the Eighties boom.

The architect Norman Foster moved in, designing a 10-storey glass and concrete building. He lives in one of the flats and his company, Foster and Partners, has its offices in the block. One of China's biggest multinational companies, 
Hutchison Whampoa, 
 [Li Ka-Shing], then bought a derelict property next door and asked Foster to turn it into a luxury complex including 200 flats.

Foster's company now has planning permission to turn its ground floor offices into yet more luxury flats. However, Couper owns a 5ft wide strip of land along the bank.

Foster's firm has tried unsuccessfully to get the barges moved for several years. Opponents of the gallery include the art dealer Michael Hue-Williams and the former chairman of Railtrack, Sir Robert Horton.

But other groups of local residents and supporters of the gallery have been rallying to its defence.