By SARAH DEAN FOR MAILONLINE

Anger on Princess Diana’s favorite paradise island as residents oppose $250m plans by Robert De Niro and James Packer to re-open Barbuda K Club where she took Wills and Harry

• Princess Diana holidayed at the K Club on the island of Barbuda in the nineties 
• The luxury resort closed in 2004 and has fallen into disrepair 
• In November 2014 plans for a £204 million mega-resort were unveiled 
• Robert De Niro and Australian billionaire James Packer are behind the project
• But 300 of the island’s 1,500 inhabitants have signed a petition against it  

It was Princess Diana’s piece of paradise but since her death the luxury K Club resort on Barbuda island has become a sore subject for locals.

It has lain derelict for 12 years on a stunning stretch of white sand at Coco Point in Barbuda – Antigua’s smaller, lesser-known neighbour, in the eastern Caribbean.

But in November 2014 plans for a £204 million mega-resort on the idyllic spot were unveiled by Hollywood star Robert De Niro and Australian billionaire James Packer.

In 2015, local people voted to support the plans. Under Barbudan law, the island’s land is owned in common by the people – giving them the right to decide.

Princess Diana’s favourite holiday spot looked set for a revival.

However, some voiced their disapproval of the lavish plans and now that movement has grown.

Mackenzie Frank, who is leading a protest group against the development, in March 2014 sought a judicial review to quash the outcome of the ballot held at the village meeting.

Court documents, seen by MailOnline, show his concerns were centred on people not ‘being provided with details of the proposal’. Without the full details, he suggested, there could be no informed consent by the people.

His appeal was denied by the High Court and the government responded by passing the ‘Paradise Found Bill’.

Residents claimed the new legislation, which was passed with a small majority, will affect the rights of an elected council to consider other developments.

Now it’s emerged more than 300 of the island’s 1,500 residents have signed a petition in a bid to block the development.

Mr Frank told the Daily Telegraph: ‘No one objects to the K Club being re-opened, but they want so much extra land. There are an awful lot of issues at stake.’

Criticising the government’s amendment of the Barbuda Land Act, to change the maximum number of years that a lease can be granted from 50 to 99, he told the Antigua Observer in July: ‘I feel it is a travesty, a very serious travesty of justice, because the people of Barbuda for over 100 years at least since 1904 have enjoyed the rights to the land over here.

‘Because a law was actually put into force, it was called the 1901 ordinance and they amended it in 1904. Over 100 years ago the people of Barbuda got specific rights to residential, to cultivation and to raising lands here in Barbuda.’

De Niro and Packer are reportedly asking for an extra 300 acres surrounding the site to develop the Paradise Found resort over 10 years.

The resort will feature 50 villas and cottages, each with a private pool.

There are also plans to build six overwater villas, a jetty with a dock for resort arrivals on Princess Diana Beach and individual docks at the end of each villa.

Meanwhile, it wouldn’t be a Packer resort without a casino… there will reportedly be one built as part of the main complex.

At a press conference in Barbuda, Robert De Niro said: ‘I have been coming to Antigua and Barbuda since I was in my early twenties. It’s about the location and the people.’

He thanked the Prime Minister for his help and said he hoped he could make the resort ‘very, very special’.

‘That’s why we have to curate it and make sure it’s done in the right way. I wouldn’t do it if I didn’t feel that’s the only way it can be done, and that I have input to make it happen that way,’ De Niro said.

‘It’s the classic struggle between what it’s going to cost, how long it will take and then the aesthetic, which has to at the end of the day be the most important element in order for people to feel that this is special and they want to visit. The people of Barbuda are special and I am very optimistic about this whole project.’

IMAGES:
Princess Diana and Victoria Mendham are pictured here on holiday in Barbuda in 1996
The K Club resort in Barbuda, pictured here in 1995, closed down in 2004 but now Robert De Niro and James Packer have proposed a multi-million dollar redevelopment
Robert De Niro said he has been visiting Antigua and Barbuda since his early twenties
Princess Diana visited the eastern Caribbean island with her family in 1996
De Niro and Packer’s luxury resort will include 50 villas and cottages, each with a private pool
An interior shot of the K-Club hotel shows it as it was in 1995 around the time Diana visited

For more on this story and video go to: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4070960/Anger-Princess-Diana-s-favourite-paradise-island-residents-oppose-204m-plans-Robert-Niro-James-Packer-open-expand-K-Club-took-William-Harry.html#ixzz4UEwH1Zqa