The case of the wrong tiles - row rumbles on over Northumberland development

A planning row over the wrong tiles is rumbling on, while a bid for new holiday lodges has been put forward for a nearby site.
Watch more of our videos on Shots! 
and live on Freeview channel 276
Visit Shots! now

An appeal has now been submitted after councillors unanimously rejected a retrospective bid to use concrete tiles instead of slate on a small development near Rennington.

Both the original application, approved in March 2017, and the subsequent discharge of conditions relating to four properties on land west of the former Mason’s Arms in Stamford referred to slate roof tiles, however, the bungalows have been built using concrete, slate-look tiles.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

2019’s variation bid sought to regularise this and was recommended for approval when it went before the North Northumberland Local Area Council in October,

A photo of the bungalows provided as part of the planning application.A photo of the bungalows provided as part of the planning application.
A photo of the bungalows provided as part of the planning application.

The applicant’s agent, Russell Edwards, said an error had been made and the plan was always to use the concrete tiles.

He added there were a number of other properties in Rennington without slate roofs and these bungalows were not in a prominent location, for example, visible from the B1340.

But the committee voted to refuse the application.

The chairman, Coun Trevor Thorne, said at the time: “We probably will lose this at appeal, because the concrete is very similar, but we have to be asking applicants to stick to planning conditions.”

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

Meanwhile, plans have been lodged for seven holiday lodges on the site to the east of the former Mason’s Arms, which, along with other redundant buildings to the north, has been converted into five homes.

The development would feature six two-bedroom lodges and one three-bedroom lodge, all of which would be single-storey with external veranda areas.

The site would be accessed from the B1340 to the south via the shared drive into the homes immediately to the west. It would be widened to six metres as part of the proposed works.

The application site was previously the subject of proposals for seven self-build plots, lodged in May 2018, that were refused two months later as it is outside the settlement boundary and would result in ‘an obtrusive development in the rural landscape’.

Before that, a scheme for nine homes on the site was refused in June 2017.

 

Related topics: