Beckhams' neighbours take a basement cinema row to the High Court over digging 'to the centre of the earth'

Photographer Piers Calvert and former banker turned choral singer Lisa Erickson are fighting in London's High Court to block a mysterious offshore entity from excavating a basement gym and cinema room beneath the garden of their Holland Park apartment building. The pair, who are directors of the building's freehold company, argue that planning permission alone does not grant the right to dig far below the surface. The street is also home to the Beckhams' £31.5 million London residence.

The key legal question is whether the freehold company owns only the cultivatable surface of the garden, or all soil beneath it 'to the centre of the earth.'

Barrister David Nicholls argued subsoil at '20ft, 100ft or 1,000ft below the surface cannot properly be said to' fall within the garden's legal boundary.

The opposing flat owner is a secretive offshore entity whose identity has not been made public, adding intrigue to the already extraordinary dispute.