News round-up

A round-up of planning news…

Bath Rugby submits ground planning application 

Bath Rugby has submitted a planning application to Bath & North East Somerset Council for a new stadium at the Recreation Ground. 

The plans also include regeneration of the riverside of the city, which intends to create significant sporting and community benefits for all. 

The planning application includes: 

• 18,000-capacity stadium with significantly enhanced accessibility provisions. 
• Contemporary and sensitive design. 
• New hybrid pitch increasing community and amateur use. 
• Regenerated riverside including the new Spring Gardens Walk. 
• Retention of mature trees, as well as further landscaping and bio-diversity measures. 
• A host of sustainability measures to support a target of net zero operational carbon. 
• Riverside café/restaurant, club shop, and museum for non-matchday use. 

Barnsley housing plans approved 

Housebuilder Honey has been granted planning permission by Barnsley Council to deliver 95 two, three, and four-bedroom homes on an eight-acre site off Barnburgh Lane, near Barnsley, South Yorkshire. 

Called Iris, the £23.5 million development is Sheffield-based Honey’s second development and the first in its home county of Yorkshire since launching last October. 

It will feature 16 types of homes which Honey says have all been specifically designed to combine “style, substance and sustainability” for the benefit of buyers. 

Work is due to start in October with the first residents expected to move into their new homes in summer 2024. 

Redrow submits land plans in Formby 

Homebuilder Redrow has submitted plans to develop around 14 acres of land in Freshfield, Formby. 

Located either side of West Lane, Freshfield, the planning application includes proposals for 87 homes and several properties to be constructed by Redrow and transferred to charity and care provider Nugent, the current landowner. 

Redrow is proposing to build 80 private sale homes, including 24 two-bedroom apartments, 42 three-bedroom houses, five four-bedroom properties, and nine five-bedroom houses, alongside seven affordable homes. 

The developer will also construct four maisonette apartments and a six-bedroom house on Nugent’s behalf, extending the charity’s offering to provide care to more people. 

If plans are approved, Redrow will acquire around nine acres of the land in total, with Nugent retaining approximately five acres to the west, which includes existing sports pitches. The planning application also includes proposals for a 300-square-metre sports pavilion on the western parcel, to be constructed by Nugent. 

LDA Design appointed to Fort Cumberland masterplan 

Historic England has appointed LDA Design to lead a team to prepare a masterplan for Fort Cumberland, located on Eastney Point in the south-east corner of Portsea Island. 

Fort Cumberland is an 18th-century pentagonal-shaped bastion fort in England. The fort’s story tells of the changes in defensive warfare over more than 250 years, from its Georgian origins to the Second World War and the late 20th-century conflicts. 

It now faces very different existential threats from climate change, including rising sea levels and the conservation challenges arising from ageing buildings and structures across two-and-a-half centuries. 

Old Broadmoor Hospital site to be sold 

West London NHS Trust is bringing to market the old Broadmoor Hospital site in Crowthorne, Berkshire. 

The trust is being advised by planning and development consultancy Montagu Evans. 

The site is allocated in Bracknell Forest Council’s local plan, providing an opportunity to deliver a residential-led development. This is underpinned by a masterplan created by BDP in 2011 that includes 210 new-build homes, 60 apartments for later/supported living, a 60-bed care home and 4,200 square metres for a research and development facility. 

Also, it features around 60 acres within the former secure perimeter wall including approximately 100,000 square feet of grade II listed buildings and 32 acres outside of the secure perimeter to be allocated for Suitable Alternative Natural Greenspaces (SANGs). 

Homebuilder acquires regeneration site in Midlands 

Keepmoat has announced that it has completed the acquisition of a parcel of land on Thane Road in Nottingham. 

The brownfield site lies in the 286-acre Boots site, which is part of the Nottingham Enterprise Zone. 

The large-scale regeneration project will see Keepmoat deliver more than 600 high-quality, multi-tenure homes over a period of six years. Of the 604 new homes, more than half will be delivered on behalf of Platform Housing for affordable rent and shared ownership. 

Construction is expected to be completed in 2029. 

MP launches MMC factory 

Foreign secretary James Cleverly has launched ‘Horizon’, a £45 million build offsite MMC factory in Braintree, Essex. 

It was built by British Offsite, part of volume housebuilder Weston Group plc. 

It is expected that the factory will deliver 4,000 new homes a year. Building components will be provided to both Weston Homes, the group’s volume housebuilding division and also sold on the open market to builders and contractors in the construction sector, including local and regional housebuilders. 

Laura Edgar and Prithvi Pandya 
3 October 2023 

Our planning news is published in association with The Planner, the official magazine of the Royal Town Planning Institute.