Bid for renovation works at Dissington Hall near Ponteland

The maintenance and restoration of the site near Ponteland has been carried out in person or funded by the Brown family, who have been its private owners since 1968.

It became an exclusive wedding and conference venue from 1992 to 2015 before becoming an enterprise office hub. The buildings also include the applicants’ home and a rented residential wing.

If approved, the renovation work would convert part of the site into five residential dwellings in what would be a long-term project. The current owners, Michael and Gill Brown, have written separately to the Dissington Hall office tenants to reassure them that it will be business as usual for them.

Their personal statement submitted as part of the application includes the following: “As we approach retirement, with no future generation in a position to take it on, a new plan is required.

“Having invested so much money, time, effort and dedication into maintaining and restoring the hall, it is extremely important to us that the heritage and economic future of the hall is secured.

“It could very quickly deteriorate again without a large and on-going maintenance effort (there are roofs and chimney work requiring attention), which means it must be in viable economic use.

“We feel that the best way forward for Dissington is a very sensitive division of the hall and grounds into a few discrete units, sized to be high-end dwelling houses with a careful attention to privacy, preserving all of the best original features and keeping the unique feel of the whole.”

A planning, design and access statement was also lodged and this explains that a new extension is proposed to form an annexe to one of the five proposed dwellings. This would be located on the western side of the courtyard.

The statement also says: “Internally and externally, the building would be retained in its current, beautiful form and very minimal works are required to sub-divide the building. Almost all of the proposals would be reversible.

“Permission will also be sought for some woodland estate woodland timber buildings comprising two garages and an estate forestry shed, with stables within, positioned away from the main hall and in proportion with its scale.”