Planning application for 63 homes and 16 chalets on the Northumberland coast

An outline bid for the new development at Links Quarry, at the southern tip of Newbiggin-by-the-Sea, was approved in December 2016.

Now, the applicant, Stephen Tuck, of Cast Stone North, is seeking permission for the details of the scheme, via a reserved matters application.

A mixed-use development, the housing would all have three bedrooms, with 10 detached properties, eight semi-detached dwellings and 45 homes in terraces of three.

Ten of them would be affordable under a section 106 legal agreement signed as part of the outline application.

The chalets, which would be between the residential area and the coast, would have two-bedrooms, including one with an en-suite, and an open-plan kitchen, dining and living area.

Access would be from the north, from the existing junction on the road leading past the sewage works from the B1334.

The outline scheme sparked no objections and was decided under delegated authority by a planning officer, whose report stated that the proposals ‘would provide additional households and holidaymakers close to Newbiggin-by-the-Sea whose residents and guests would contribute towards the vitality and viability of the existing shops and services on Front Street’.

‘The future residents and holidaymakers would, more generally, bring money into the area and would support the shops and service in the other nearby settlements (such as Ashington).’

It adds that it ‘could be accommodated into the local landscape in a manner that preserves the positive features’ as ‘the area has an urban fringe feel’.

The site borders an area where, in June 2019, we reported that plans for a new holiday park in the area had been lodged.

That application, for land north of the existing Sandy Bay Caravan Park, seeks permission to change the use of farmland to create a site with 102 pitches for static caravans or lodges. A decision is expected shortly.

And earlier this month, we reported that Parkdean Resorts, the owners and operators of Sandy Bay, is seeking permission to overhaul its outdoor activity and leisure facilities.

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