Cumberland set to rule on 500 homes

Story Homes, Northern Trust and John Swift Homes are among the property firms hoping for success at the council’s planning committee meeting on 27 May.

Along with a 13Mw solar farm in Maryport and the £16m Cumberland Sports Village in Workington, the meeting will be asked to consider a number of residential pitches, with approval recommended by officers in all cases.

John Swift Homes, 70 homes, Whitehaven (reference 4/25/2307/0F1)

Zeroing in on a 20-acre site to the south-west of Summergrove Park, JSH has approval recommended, pending approval from the council’s arboricultural officer and a commitment to 10% affordable homes.

Twenty two two-bed homes are proposed, and 48 three-beds.

The greenfield site in Goose Butts is currently used for grazing, and comes in two plots, between the Summergrove Park residential scheme to the north and West Lakes Science Park to the south. Footway links to both are proposed.

As reported by Place last year, the application is made up a combined pair of outline consents.

Story Homes, 219 houses, Brampton (reference 25/0533)

Cumbrian residential powerhouse Story lodged its plans for a 25-acre neighbourhood on land south of Carlisle Roads in October last year.

Approval is recommended for a project mapped out as offering 65 affordable homes, with a contribution of around £740,000 for education the most notable element of the Section 106 agreement.

The site is immediately adjacent to an earlier Story development, the 106-home Winchester Place. Townfoot Industrial Estate is also a neighbour.

The scheme as a whole would include two- to six-bedroomed properties, with the affordable homes breaking down as 23 two-beds and nine three-beds for RSL rental, and 17 two-beds and 16 three-beds for discounted sale.

Northern Trust, 180 homes in Carlisle (reference 25/0207)

Outline permission is sought for up to 180 homes at land off Garlands Road and Cumwhinton Road, north of Speckled Wood – a plot that sits within the St Cuthberts Garden Village masterplan area, in the Carleton designation.

Savills is working with Northern Trust as planning advisor.

The 18.6-acre application site, known locally as Bob Bell’s Field, is greenfield land within the urban fringes of Carlisle. The site is bounded by Garlands Road to the west, Creighton Rugby Club and playing fields to the north and east, and Cumwhinton Road to the south.

Existing residential development lies beyond Garlands Road to the west and on the opposite side of Cumwhinton Road to the south, extending up to Sewell Lane.

The St Cuthberts Garden Village Local Plan was submitted for examination in October last year, with the first formal examination meeting inked in for 22 June. This application represents a milestone as the first Carleton project to advance to committee.

Approval is recommended, subject to agreeing a 20% minimum of affordable homes.

Currock Avenue Ltd, land at Currock Yard, Carlisle (reference 21/0744)

A proposal for 92 homes off South Western Terrace, approved in 2022, returns for a further hearing after the agent Peterloo Estates said that the scheme is not viable with all the Section 106 contributions attached.

Following the contact from the agent, the council engaged viability consultant CPV to carry out an assessment.

CPV agrees with the applicant. The main finding of the firm’s modelling is that the scheme does not meet the expected viability threshold, even when the affordable housing and S106 planning policies are removed.

Officers said: “It is therefore unviable to the extent where there is a strong justification for the council to remove its planning policy requirements in order to give the scheme the best chance of being delivered.

“Given the high viability pressure here CPV stress that there is a risk that the scheme (in its current form) cannot be delivered.”

CPV’s view is that the only ways it could be deliverable are the applicant or a future developer securing grant funding, and/or the developer significantly reducing their expectation on profit, below even the minimum requirement as suggested within the planning practice guidance.

What is now suggested is the S106 is amended to include only conditions relating to providing four bungalows and open space at the site, parking management and the inclusion of a review mechanism so the council could potentially recover some obligations should market conditions improve significantly.