Way finally cleared for 45-home Daresbury Hall redevelopment

Consent has been established for the restoration of the fire-damaged 1750s building in a project that also includes new-build housing in the 17-acre grounds.

A decision notice and sealed Section 106 agreement have been issued this month for the restoration project, which was considered by Halton Council’s development management committee in early March last year.

In all, 45 homes are proposed, all market housing. Eight apartments will be developed in the hall building, and 37 houses added elsewhere. Ninety parking spaces will be added.

Pegasus Group has driven the planning application on behalf of Law of Property Act receivers representing Kroll Advisory, and mortgagee Together Commercial Finance.

Mason Gillibrand is the architect for the scheme, which has also required a listed building consent.

The Green Belt application followed extensive pre-application discussions with Halton officers and Historic England.

The grade two-listed hall, a short distance from the village of the same name, was most recently used as a care home, from 1955, but has been mostly disused since the 1990s.

Since the 2016 fire it has been made structurally secure, but remains on HE’s Heritage at Risk register.

Although Pegasus warns that some parts of the main hall building are unrecoverable, due to fire damage and previous unsympathetic alterations, the plan is for eight two- and three-bedroom apartments to be created. According to Mason Gillibrand’s design & access statement, all floors and roofs were destroyed in the fire.

Various ancillary buildings are in line for demolition, as is a recent “unsympathetic” addition to the coach house – once this is removed, the coach house will be redeveloped to offer six homes. A further six homes will be developed to replace the Lewis Carroll building in the walled garden area.

On the eastern part of the site, the previous manager’s accommodation and garden will be removed, and housing built across two areas: nine homes within Home Farm – at the site’s boundary, and to be typified by generous plots – and six at The Cottages, which will see more dense development.

The remainder of the homes are five almshouses, along with three individually named units and two gatehouse-style dwellings.

The new housing is described in Pegasus’ planning statement as “enabling development” in that it is necessary to fund the restoration part of the scheme. Previous bids to develop at the site have also featured a mix of redevelopment and new-build.

A Savills valuation report for high-end Cheshire housebuilder Lister Carter Homes, included in the documents pack, valued the asset as of 2023 at minus £5.26m.

Kroll officials have been receivers of the site since 2021.

All documents relating to the project can be seen on Halton’s planning portal, reference 24/00086/FUL.