Developer appeals after plans rejected for Northumberland holiday cottages

It relates to plans to demolish redundant agricultural sheds to develop four holiday cottages on land south-west of Carterside, to the south of Rothbury Golf Club and west of Whitton.

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The application, by the Northumberland Estates, was refused in February under delegated powers by Northumberland County Council planning officers.

Their report concluded that ‘by virtue of its location in the open countryside, the proposal would result in the construction of new holiday cottages in an unsustainable location and outside of any settlement’.

It added that the scheme would ‘have an unacceptable impact on the landscape and character of the immediate and wider area and would result in an obtrusive development in the rural landscape’.

However, the Estates has launched an appeal against this decision, with its statement of case concluding that the site ‘is not isolated in terms of open countryside and is well related to an existing cluster of dwellings and the nearby settlements of Whitton and Rothbury’.

It claims that the development would actually make a ‘positive contribution to the landscape and character of the surrounding area’ by replacing the existing buildings which are ‘in extensive disrepair’ with ‘dwellings in keeping with the adjacent development and rural area’.

This latest application is not the first for this site, with a previous bid for five cottages being turned down by the North Northumberland Local Area Council in December 2017.

That proposal had been supported by Whitton and Tosson Parish Council, with Cllr Alan Winlow speaking at that meeting in favour of approval.

He described it as an appropriate development which would improve ‘a run-down and dilapidated site’, adding that the parish believed it was in the interest of the rural community to support development within the curtilage of existing sites.

But Cllr Steven Bridgett, the area’s county councillor, said: “It’s clearly development in the open countryside in my view. It sets a precedent for more development towards Simonside and Lordenshaws.”

The parish did not comment on the current application.

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