Grand Designs viewers all have the same complaint over ‘control freak’s’ plan for ‘family home’

GRAND Designs viewers were all left with the same complaint after a "control freak" property owner showcased his uniquely built home.

After spending four long years looking for a property, Dorran and his wife Vereuschka took the plunge and built a sunken spaceship-like home in a Kentish quarry to house their young crew.

Tired of scouring the busy Canterbury housing market the couple, who have been renting with their three children, spent £375,000 on a historic hillside plot.

On the latest episode of this 23rd series of Grand Designs, presenter and self-build guru Kevin McCloud met the ambitious pair who took a voyage into the unknown.

“It is daring, demanding and difficult,” says McCloud, who questions how this pair of well-organised, sensible professionals will cope with the chaos and lunacy of a building site.

He added: “So far they have spent £400,000 on half a buried concrete structure.

“They were seduced by a hi-tech design but building it themselves was never part of the plan.”

In 2022, when McCloud returned, he described the finished home as a “concrete submarine that has breached the surface of a wildflower meadow.”

Viewers at home, however, were left ridiculing the property and its owner, with many labelling Dorran as a "control freak".

Taking to Twitter, one person questioned: "Why does everyone on Grand Designs seem to think because they’ve sold their fancy home and have some cash that they have to build a grotesquely huge megastructure?

"That’s not a family home, it’s an out-of-town shopping centre!"

Another added: "Control freaks don’t know much they spent on their hip information centre, pull the other one #granddesigns."

A third remarked: "He's a control freak and that house looks like a cowshed. Enough said."

Meanwhile a fourth tweeted: "How often do we see this on Grand Designs. Build a building way too big for what they need, then run out of money. Just build smaller!"

The new series of Grand Designs airs on Channel 4 on Wednesdays at 9pm.