Robbie Williams has issued a public apology to his neighbour Jimmy Page for suggesting that he had a mental illness amid a row over the renovation of the former’s London mansion.

In May, Williams’ builders were fined nearly £5,000 for making too much noise during the building work. He said: “Jimmy has been sitting in his car outside our house, four hours at a time. He’s recording the workmen to see if they’re making too much noise. The builders came in and he was asleep in his garden waiting. It’s like a mental illness.”

Now, Williams has issued a statement via his Public Relations team, which reads: “I would like to offer my sincere apologies to Jimmy Page, my neighbour, for my comments made before Christmas about him in relation to my recent building works, in which I likened alleged behaviour on his part to suffering from a mental illness.

“Jimmy Page has explained to me that certain specific factual assertions which I made were in fact not true and I am happy to accept what Jimmy Page says.”

The statement adds: “I understand why Jimmy Page will have found my comments offensive and I apologise for any hurt that they have caused him and his family as a result. I did not intend my comments – which, so far as I am concerned, were made privately – ever to be published. I regret that the press went on to report them and I hope that the press will now remove them.”