A leading sports lawyer, who has represented Wayne Rooney and Sir Bradley Wiggins, and a celebrity Botox specialist have caused a rift in their South End Green neighbourhood with plans to simultaneously build two basement granny flats.

Barrister Adam Lewis QC, whose clients list also includes boxer Amir Khan and football clubs Arsenal and Chelsea, and his next door neighbour Dr Andrew Markey, a world-renowned consultant dermatologist, have both applied to Camden Council to build basements under their homes in South Hill Park.

Mr Lewis, who bought his home for £1.5million in 2003, and his family live side-by-side with Dr Markey and his family in a three-storey, semi-detached Victorian building.

Both men insist they need a basement extension to provide accommodation for elderly parents unable to climb steep stairs.

Mr Lewis also plans to build an underground sauna.

The plans, which are being considered by Camden Council this evening, have divided opinion among neighbours living in and around South Hill Park, which has seen 15 basement excavations approved by the council since 2005.

The council has received 16 letters of objection and 16 letters of support.

Broadcaster Piers Plowright, who lives in adjacent Parliament Hill, told the Ham&High: “Here we are in a strange and hilly part of London and we are digging and digging.

“It seems the houses next door to these houses start to crack and I just wonder how much more this part of London can take.”

Conservation group the Heath and Hampstead Society also raised concerns about the “potentially serious consequences of these excavations”.

Artist Fay Ballard, daughter of late novelist J.G. Ballard, who lives in South Hill Park, said it was “important to improve family houses” so they can “include visits from elderly and disabled family”.

Former South Hill Park resident Simon Nye, the comic writer behind classic British sitcom Men Behaving Badly, described the planned works as “modest and reasonable”.

Four residents living in flats next to Dr Markey, who specialises in private Botox treatments for a host of celebrity names, have also objected.

King’s College lecturer Dr Michael Ledger-Lomas said the works would jeopardise the “stability” of his building.