Durham county council is having to rethink its growth agenda after a planning inspector rejected its County Durham Plan for being too ambitious.
The growth-friendly document promised 31,400 new houses and 1,200 acres of new employment land by 2030 and a county economy refocused on Durham and its university, the obvious engine of growth. But it also ate into green belt – where 4,000 of Durham’s 5,000 new homes would be built, and potentially compromised the World Heritage status of Durham’s castle and cathedral, while lacking key evidence.
The inspector, Harold Stephens, took an adverse view of the council’s plan and rejected it.
Last month, the story took another turn when the high court finally kicked the inspector’s report into the long grass. A new draft County Durham Plan is now being prepared for scrutiny by a new inspector. If all goes well, a new inquiry could be sitting by June 2016, with adoption pencilled-in for Christmas 2016.
The fate of the old plan – and prospects for the new one – turn in part on the case made for the 30-acre Aykley Heads site, north of Durham city centre.
According to Tom Baker, associate in the planning team at Bilfinger GVA in Newcastle, the council has a hill to climb. “Durham has vision – but the plan was a lot of vision, and not much concrete on what was needed – or when, and how, it would be developed,” he says.
“It is not enough just to have a vision in a sensitive location like Durham.”
The £100m Aykley Heads plan will see development of a site of more than 30 acres, which includes county hall, the Durham City Registry Office, the local police HQ and Durham Trinity School and Sports College – as well as a museum, restaurants and the Aykley Heads business park. The civic parts of the site will be replaced by a phased 750,000 sq ft office scheme.
