Village housing in a conservation area

The Belsay Estate has been in the continuous ownership of the Middleton family since 1263 and is centred around the Grade I listed Belsay Hall Castle and Gardens. The family approached Rural Solutions to seek consent for new housing in Belsay village which would support the vitality and longevity of this small community and deliver a capital receipt to invest back into the Estate.

Objective

The Estate had identified an area of land in the village where new housing might be suitable however achieving the appropriate quality of new housing in this prominent Conservation Area location was extremely important for the Estate.

Approach

Rural Solutions worked closely with the Estate and potential developers of the site to create designs which would be appropriate to the Conservation Area location in both architectural and landscape terms. We then submitted a pre-application enquiry to Northumberland Council, following a community consultation facilitated by the Rural Solutions team.

Plans were amended to take into account the feedback received, and the application was presented to the Planning Committee with a recommendation for approval by a majority vote.

Planning approval was granted in May 2017.