Lake District to decide on 50 homes

The plans from FNS also include eight short-term holiday let units and a 16,000 sq ft community hub.

Planning officers have recommended approval of the scheme, earmarked for Wellbank, a former Ministry of Defence barracks, on an 11-acre plot off Church Lane, in the village of Bootle.

The proposals go before the Lake District Council development committee next week, on Wednesday, 3 April.

Eight of the 50 houses proposed would be classed as affordable.

According to the officer report, rather than plans being prepared for the individual homes in advance, the project is to be delivered under a design code to ensure those built are in keeping with the Lake District’s unique heritage.

This will require a mixture of mostly traditional materials to be used for the houses, and where alternatives are permitted they would need to be natural, such as timber cladding, or recessive.

Brickhouse Cottages will operate the holiday units, which will provide 15 bedrooms in total.

The planning statement put together by planning consultant Kate Bellwood Associates gives more detail about the mixed-use hub aspect of the plans.

It states the development will contain a pool and hydrotherapy pool as well as changing rooms, with a café/bar and meeting pods/workspaces all on the ground floor.

According to the plans, on the first floor there will be a gym, staff rooms, meeting rooms, sensory room, hot desk office spaces, as well as a multi-purpose space for larger community events.

The project team includes Artform Architects as designers of the project.

Landscape architect for the project is B2 Landscape Consultancy, with PSA Design as civil engineer.

Impact is handling the construction management, with Envirotech putting together the ecological appraisal.

To view the plans, search for reference number 7/2023/4052 on Lake District Council’s planning portal.