Fresh plan for new homes at Alnwick Castle Golf Club

A full planning application for 10 detached four and five-bedroom houses on the current car park and clubhouse site, off Hope House Lane, has been lodged with Northumberland County Council.

The site already benefits from planning permission after an outline scheme, by the Northumberland Estates, was approved in December 2016.

This was followed by Lindisfarne Homes being given the go-ahead for its reserved matters application by seven votes to four at the October 2018 meeting of the North Northumberland Local Area Council.

At the previous month’s meeting, members agreed to remove a restriction on the outline approval limiting the new properties to two storeys – prompting criticism from one councillor of ‘mission creep’ by developers.

While the houses are generally all two-storey, in technical terms, one house type is considered to be three-storey by virtue of the attached garage being downslope of the main house.

The latest application is based on the existing approved layout with three new house types and an amended design of the fourth house type.

The submission explains that these are ‘minor alterations’, but planning law does not allow for the variation of conditions imposed on a reserved matters application, so the new bid seeks to replace the two previous approvals.

A planning statement suggests that ‘the development will have no adverse impact upon the character and heritage importance of the area, and therefore is a sustainable location to promote housing development’.

The golf club already has permission for a new clubhouse, with accommodation on the first floor, after proposals for an area of grassland to the north of the 12th green and east of Close Cottage on the Rugley Road were given the green light in December 2018.

And in August 2018, the local area council also approved a new greenkeepers’ store, a steel-framed shed, measuring 20 metres by 12 metres and to be painted dark green, which also has to move to free up the housing site.