Next step for Morpeth housing project as planning application is lodged

The reserved matters bid for the erection of 260 houses at the St George’s site by Barratt David Wilson Homes North East relates to appearance, landscaping, layout, scale and infrastructure.

The site benefits from a previous hybrid planning approval in 2018 that includes outline permission (approval in principle) for up to 875 homes, a local centre, restaurant/public house and associated open space – the recent submission is phase one of this project.

More recently, a reserved matters application for site wide infrastructure and a revised masterplan have also been approved by Northumberland County Council.

The site is 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.

To the west, the site boundary runs along a fence line marking before meeting Cotting Burn and the Morpeth Northern Bypass in the north west corner. Along the northern edge, the site follows the tree line and meets the How Burn in the north east corner.

Amy Ward, planning manager at Barratt and David Wilson Homes North East, said: “We are very excited about our plans to create a brand-new development in Morpeth.

“Not only will this provide much-needed homes for a variety of buyers searching for a property in the area, but there will be significant contributions to enhance and maintain the local area, as well as its biodiversity levels too.

“We are always proud to build new homes for communities across the North East and the Morpeth development is an exciting opportunity to further expand our development portfolio within the area. We look forward to moving forward with our plans throughout 2025.”

The application sets out that, if approved, there will be a mix of house sizes – five-bedroom, four-bedroom, three-bedroom and two-bedroom.

There would be 15 per cent housing classed as affordable in accordance with the outline planning permission. This equates to 26 affordable rent houses (two-bedroom) and 13 shared ownership homes (three-bedroom).

The planning statement submitted with the bid includes the following: “The layout presents a logical and legible scheme with attractive street scenes, which achieves the necessary spacing distances between houses.

“The scheme is complemented by a high-quality landscaping scheme which seeks to retain as much existing planting as possible, whilst enhancing this through further habitat creation.

“The proposals for phase one build upon the principles of the wider masterplan, reflecting upon and enhancing these further.

“This proposal will deliver a full range of housing, both private and affordable, alongside community and environmental benefits.”

In August 2022, the county council approved the revised masterplan for the whole project and Homes England, which also submitted the initial hybrid planning application, was praised by the local authority for making “several improvements” to the masterplan following following feedback from local residents, consultees and the council itself.