Approval tipped for scaled-down Consett resi bid

Adderstone Living wants to deliver a fully affordable development of 55 homes on the former Moorside Hotel site close to the County Durham town.

Durham County Council’s planning committee will consider the application at its meeting on 19 December. The plans are a revision of a previously refused 84-home scheme.

Adderstone is working on the Todd Hill Farm project with a professional team including Elliott Consultancy, iTransport, Hedley Planning, Southern Green, Shadbolt Group, and Blake Hopkinson Architecture & Design.

The application site amounts to 9.3 acres, made up of countryside and the cleared site of the former Moorside Hotel to the side and rear of Consett Park Terrace in Moorside, one of a series of settlements between Consett and Castleside. The site is located east of the A692.

As outlined by officers, the previously undeveloped part of the site and the countryside to the east is designated within an area of high landscape value, both for its intrinsic value and in forming the setting of the grade two-listed Hownsgill Viaduct to the east.

The new application comprises 55 two- and three-bedroom properties, made up of bungalows and houses.

There would be 100% affordable housing provision on the site, including 11 rent-to-buy and six shared ownership units meaning that 17 units are of an intermediate tenure, with the remaining 38 being rentals.

There will be 12 level-access bungalows, while 91% of the properties will be accessible-classified.

In recommending approval, officers said that the “reduction in the size of the proposal and a more considered landscaping scheme significantly improves” the issues cited in the 2022 refusal, namely scale and layout.

All documents relating to the application can be found on DCC’s planning portal at DM/23/03562/FPA