Work starts on major 260-home development in Morpeth

This follows planning approval from Northumberland County Council for a reserved matters application relating to appearance, landscaping, layout, scale and infrastructure.

The scheme sits within a much larger site which has outline planning permission, secured by Homes England, for up to 875 houses, a local centre, restaurant/public house and associated open space.

The 260-home site – bounded by the new St George’s Hopsital to the east, residential buildings to the south east and the King Edward VI school to the south west – will consist of two, three, four and five-bedroom energy efficient homes.

It will be split between Barratt Homes and David Wilson Homes brands, with the Barratt properties to be named Laurel Chase at Cottingwood and the David Wilson properties to be named The Paddocks at Cottingwood.

As well as work getting underway on site, the announcement stated that the show homes are expected to be available to view from this summer and the new homes on sale from September this year.

Carl Sobolewski, managing director of Barratt and David Wilson Homes North East, said: “Our brand new Morpeth development is a completely new concept of designated areas that completely connects to our values of building ecological, energy-efficient and high-quality housing, and we’re so pleased to finally have the work commence at this development.”

Set within its attractive landscape, the development will feature tree planting, swales, SUDs basins and play-along-the-way features.

In addition, Barratt and David Wilson Homes North East will be providing a community contribution of more than £1.6million. This will include £1.5million dedicated to school contributions and £180,000 to support public transport in the local area.

The reserved matters application was approved by the council under delegated powers and the officer report included the following.

“The on-site affordable housing provision has previously been established as part of the outline/hybrid application, with 15% of the proposed dwellings required to be affordable.

“Applying this on a pro-rata basis to the 260 dwellings proposed as part of this reserved matters application, at least 39 of the homes would have to be affordable.

“The submitted details demonstrate 39 affordable properties across the site via 26 affordable rent homes and 13 shared ownership properties.”