Raising the roof lands Kate Garraway with a £100,000 bill

As a glamorous presenter on breakfast TV, Kate Garraway is used to having her diva demands satisfied.

But when it came to getting her own way on home improvements, her well-heeled neighbours were decidedly less compliant.

So after her requests to keep a nursery built in the loft of her three-storey Georgian house in North London were repeatedly thrown out, Miss Garraway has reluctantly agreed to demolish her roof and start again - at double the original cost of the project.

The 39-year-old GMTV presenter built a £50,000 nursery for her daughter Darcey, now 18 months old, before she had been granted planning permission.

Her furious neighbours complained it flouted conservation guidelines and blocked their view. Miss Garraway's attempts to put in a retrospective planning application failed to appease them.

Now the TV anchorwoman and her husband Derek Draper, 37, a psychotherapist and former Labour spin doctor, have agreed to scale down their extension at an estimated cost of £50,000, doubling the total outlay to around £100,000.

Salah Kattani from Islington Council's planning department, which threw out their applications, said: "The roof will have to come down. It will be rebuilt with more of a slope, angled away and at a reduced height.

"We have received architects' drawings of the new plans and we are happy with the changes. We are now waiting for the formal planning application before informing local residents."

While it means Miss Garraway can keep a version of the nursery, it was not the outcome she was hoping for.

The row over her plans became so heated that she reportedly flew into a rage at a council meeting and shouted at councillors, prompting them to threaten to throw her out.

Although Miss Garraway and her husband paid £550,000 for their home three years ago, the current value is thought to be nearer £1million.

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Her battle began when she and her husband put in a bid to build the nursery in December 2005 but were refused permission.

Planners who later visited were taken aback to discover she had started building regardless.

When the work had been completed, the couple put in a retrospective second planning application in November 2006.

Arlington Association residents' group complained it was "out of scale with existing buildings" - an accusation which had Miss Garraway "almost screaming at councillors to give her a chance to speak" at a hearing in March, according to onlookers.

Her bid to keep the single-storey extension was thrown out in July and the couple were told the only way they could save it was by scaling it down.

Miss Garraway and her husband this month duly agreed to put in more modest plans, which are expected to be approved as they now meet conservation guidelines.

They will be rubber-stamped at a council meeting later this year.

Mr Draper said last night: "This was never us versus the neighbours. It was simply about common sense.

"We have worked closely with the council to come to a compromise that is amenable to everyone. Our proposal was always 98 per cent invisible and now it is 99 per cent invisible."