Forth Yards housing rejection upheld
An appeal related to MB European’s plans for 356 homes at the Newcastle City Heliport site on Tyneside Road has been upheld.
The plans were refused by Newcastle City Council in December last year. The Heliport site sits within Forth Yards, which is being advanced as the city’s flagship area for residential-led development into the near future.
Seeking outline permission, MB European had put forward proposals for 356 dwellings in a series of four- to seven-storey blocks with associated underground car parking, landscaping, and engineering works.
Larger plans were initially submitted in 2021, comprising 480 homes, in blocks of six to 10 storeys. Validated in 2023, the scheme has since been scaled down its present iteration.
Following the submission of outline plans, the council wrote to the applicant’s advisor, saying that due to the volume of development proposed, it would require more information on access, landscaping, layout and scale, effectively those issues covered in reserved matters.
However, reported officers to members, the applicant has declined to amend the outline nature of the application.
Refusal was recommended for eight reasons, generally relating to a lack of detail provided in these areas: safe access to the site for residents; noise mitigation relating to the nearby gas pumping station; placemaking; biodiversity; climate change impact; open space, affordable homes and sports uses; remediation strategy and drainage strategy.
The 5.1-acre site is to the western end of the Forth Yards area, sitting west of the former Calder leadworks site, where an outline consent for 1,100 homes under the name Quayside West is now established.
Homes England acquired Quayside West out of administration in February this year. On the Forth Yards plot the other side of Quayside West, Hines is bankrolling a 519-dwelling BTR project by Olympian Homes called Pottery Lane.
