NEWS

‘God loves a tryer’ so they say, or should that include the add-on ‘particularly when you employ the services of Prism Planning’?

Prism Planning are delighted to have obtained planning permission for our client, Ingleby Barwick Land & Property Developments, that will allow the one remaining unit at their ‘Saxon Local Centre’ Easington Road, Hartlepool to be occupied by a non-retail use. At their ‘virtual’ Planning Committee meeting of 19th August 2020, councillors voted unanimously to grant planning permission for the change of use of the premises from a Class A1 retail shop to a ‘drinking establishment with expanded food provision’ (Class AA). 

On two previous occasions, planning permission had been refused for the change of use of a vacant unit to a hot food takeaway. Following discussions with our client and recognising that there is no public house or restaurant near to the local centre, a change of tack was proposed. This found favour with planning officers, who were happy to recommend that the application be approved despite there being objections from local residents as all material planning considerations had been satisfied through the planning application submission.

As Chumbawamba famously sang, ‘I get knocked down but I get up again’. If you get a planning application knocked back, come and have word with Prism Planning and we’ll give you honest, no-nonsense advice of what best to do next.

After nearly two years of work, an Anaerobic Digestion Plant has been allowed at the side of North East Grains plant on the outskirts of Longhirst. The scheme will be operated by the farming consortium that own and run the adjacent grain plant and will use waste cereal grains as one of the feedstocks for the plant. In turn the AD plant will enable the Grain Store to significantly lower its carbon footprint in harvest time with heat, gas and electricity all going into the Grain Plant with surplus going into the National Grid.

What was unusual in planning terms was that the site was within the Newcastle Green Belt, within which renewable energy plants should normally not be allowed. However, Prism were able to make a convincing argument for exceptional circumstances being met with the two plants supporting and assisting each other. This case is not an easy one to make and took patient analysis and proper presentation of the relevant facts.

We wish the NE Grains farming co-operative every success with their ambitious new venture.

The redevelopment of an old joinery complex on land to the rear of Newgate, Barnard Castle was recently given the green light by Durham planners. The heritage led, innovative scheme will provide 4 live-work units, created from the conversion of existing buildings and workshops on the site. Prism Planning managed the scheme, drafting the successful Heritage Appraisal that underpinned the submission.

The scheme involves the restoration of a listed building and preserves important features of the site such as the arched opening in the boundary wall through which carriages once passed. The scheme was carefully negotiated with heritage advisors from Durham County Council although slightly bizarrely was at one point subject to an objection from Historic England, seemingly because the scheme didn’t incorporate a thatched roof! Such roofs haven’t been found in this part of Barnard Castle for several hundred years! Fortunately, further discussions resulted in the objection being withdrawn. Prism were grateful for the support of Durham County Council’s Heritage and Planning officers who took a very positive and proactive stance to assist.

The site is now on the market with Carver Commercial

Prism Planning are delighted to have eventually obtained planning permission for Ward Leisure in respect the holiday park development proposed on land at Dalton Gates, near to the Croft Motor Racing Circuit, North Yorkshire. 

The development, comprising 38 static caravans in a landscaped setting, had been under consideration by Richmondshire District Council for some time during which issues of the scale of development proposed, access arrangements, foul and surface water drainage and potential noise impact were raised and subsequently addressed.

The application had been reported to the Council’s March Planning Committee with a recommendation that the application be approved.  Our Director, Rod Hepplewhite, spoke in support of the application and a number of local residents spoke against to it. After some discussion on the merits of the proposal and issues raised by local residents, Members of the Planning Committee voted to defer the application for a site visit. Due to the subsequent imposition of Covid-19 lockdown restrictions, however, the Committee site visit was delayed until 23rd July. The application was reported back to the Planning Committee meeting of 28th July, which was held online via Zoom. After much debate, the Committee voted to granted planning permission by 8 votes to 1. 

Ward Leisure foresee an increase in the demand for all forms of ‘staycation’ holiday accommodation including static caravan parks. A lot of time and effort had gone into the preparation of the application, assisted by Wardman Brown Architectural Services and Curtins Consulting, and into subsequent discussions with the planning officers to address issues raised in order to arrive at the recommendation for approval. With this in mind and the unfortunate delay due to lockdown restrictions, the positive outcome was a great relief of both our client and ourselves. 

During the last banking crisis in 2007/8, local farmer and businessman Martin Herring, set his workers on the repair and refurbishment of old farm buildings on his farm at Aislaby West. The building project avoided the need to lay off some of his work force, and left him with a set of restored traditional buildings which had no real farming use for. In 2019 Prism Planning applied on his behalf to have the restored buildings converted into dwellings. Stockton Council refused, citing the repairs as being unauthorised and the location as being unsustainable, despite the passage of a lot of time. Their decision seemingly ignoring the fact that the central government were now encouraging the residential conversion of such buildings.

This week a government Planning Inspector has overruled the Councils decision, allowing the buildings to be converted to provide 8 new dwellings. The Inspectors decision followed an informal hearing in February where Mr Herring was again represented by Darlington based Prism Planning.

Speaking on behalf of Mr Herring, Steve Barker, Managing Director of Prism Planning accepted that the case was an unusual one- “Its not very often that a farmer seeks to restore and repair old buildings that he doesn’t have a particular use for -but in this case Mr Herring presented us with what we thought was the perfect opportunity to carry out a sensitive conversion scheme that met all government directives and requirements. The fact that he did the initial work during the last recession, and that we get the new decision in what is now undoubtedly a new recession has added poignancy and shows us that with everything going on, sometimes good news stories do emerge. It was a shame that we couldn’t convince the officers in the Council earlier in the process, but the conversion of outbuildings often challenges planning officers and this isn’t the first appeal of this nature that we have had to fight for our clients. 

Middlesbrough Council have approved the planning application for a snow & leisure centre development on land at Middlehaven, Middlesbrough, next to Middlesbrough Dock and near to Middlesbrough Football Stadium, that Prism Planning submitted on behalf of our client Subzero (Middlehaven) Ltd in December 2019.

Our Director, Rod Hepplewhite, co-ordinated the preparation and submission of the planning application and led on subsequent positive discussions with officers of the Council. He is delighted that this exciting leisure development has been given the go-ahead as it represents another step forward in the regeneration of the Middlehaven area of Middlesbrough. It should prove to be a major asset not only for Middlesbrough and the Tees Valley but also for the wider North East and North Yorkshire.

The development will provide a commercially successful, high quality, regional leisure attraction providing indoor skiing facilities (two indoor ski slopes, a nursery slope for beginners and tuition and a main slope for more accomplished skiers and snowboarders) supported by sports retail, food and beverage outlets (cafes, bars, restaurants & hot food takeaways) and other complimentary leisure uses (such as ten pin bowling, indoor karting, soft play area, family entertainment centre, high ropes, crazy golf etc).  The development will provide new sport, recreation and leisure opportunities for local people and attract visitors and business to Middlehaven/Middlesbrough from across the region.

Projects of this scale and complexity take time to develop, during which time the site increased in size and the form and orientation of the building on site altered as the detailed design of the building evolved to accommodate the range and layout of the facilities proposed. We at Prism Planning are delighted to have assisted in this development successfully progressing through the planning stages.

An article on the application is in the Northern echo click for more.

Prism has won an appeal to replace a caravan with a bungalow. After the application was made, we quickly met resistance. Firstly, the Council considered that the dwelling would result in domestication of the location and have a negative visual impact. Despite the location being isolated from footpaths and the site already being domestic in part. Secondly, it determined the application as if it were a new dwelling despite the land being in use for domestic purposes and as a location for the existing caravan which would be removed.

Sometimes when met with such strong resistance it is more time and cost efficient to seek an independent view and an appeal should be made. As no forward process could be made with the Council Prism Planning prepared the case. We also worked with third parties on legal documentation aimed at controlling the use of the site, proposing to remove existing wooden structures at the location to work with the Council. Ultimately, we were successful, winning against the Council and the reasons of refusal.

This is the second appeal we have won relating to this specific type of application and we even have had interest from other Planning Consultancies on our approach.

An established Teesside based Chemical Site is all set to undergo a multi-million pound expansion, creating around 80 jobs, following the successful grant of planning permission following an application submitted by Prism Planning.

Fine Organics have been established in Teesside since the 1970’s, moving to the present site in Seal Sands in 1984. The plant became part of the Chinese based Lianhetech Group in 2017 and the present site has been manufacturing specialist chemical for the pharmaceutical, agricultural and performance chemicals sectors.

Bucking the national trend, Lianhetech have a very positive view of the chemicals sector and have sought to extend the present site, adding new productions lines and new storage facilities at its Seal Sands base.

Prism Planning co-ordinated and submitted the planning application, and today Stockton Borough Council granted planning permission for its expansion, paving the way for work to start on site immediately.

Naturally the large scale expansion of a chemical site brings with it s host of challenges, from chemical storage, ecology, foul drainage, through to issues of flood management, and the application involved complex negotiations to get todays result.

Prism were proud to have been selected to support Lianhetech and to have played a small, but important art in the continued growth of the Tees Valley Economy. Todays result, coming hot on the heels of Teesside Mayors acquisition of SSI land, paints a promising view for our industrial and chemical sectors.

Our client had already carried out a development of 5 dormer bungalows on the edge of Dalton, and wanted to site 4 more on land immediately adjacent to his recent development. The road had already been laid out to accommodate this.

The site was on the edge of the village and had previously been the subject of an unsuccessful appeal by others, which unfortunately made the job twice as hard. 

Other challenges included nearby flooding and potential noise from the re-use of disused farm buildings.

The Council ultimately failed to determine the application and it was a challenge to engage officers in a debate about how the site could positively be brought forward. The Councils Interim Housing Policy was core to the dispute between the two sides.

Prism submitted an appeal against non-determination of the application and set out its case in a comprehensive written statement. The Inspector accepted each of the points made by the Prism team and went on to grant consent, finding that although the site lay outside current settlement limits, it was in accordance with the Councils interim housing policy, was not obtrusive in visual terms and provided useful bungalow accommodation recognised as being in short supply across the District. Naturally our client was delighted!

Prism Planning are delighted to have been selected by Addison Project and Lianhetech to submit their planning application for the refurbishment and extension of the Lianhetech plant at Seal Sands. 

Formerly known as Fine Organics, the company have been one of the leading manufacturers of specialist chemicals in Teesside and currently employ around 260 staff on their site which was set up in the 1970s.

The current planning application that has just been submitted to Stockton Borough Council will see a multi-million pound investment in the existing plant, including the establishment of new car parks, new production lines and various ancillary outbuildings. The application represents a substantial investment in the firm following its acquisition by Lianhetech. 

The application is expected to be considered by Stockton Borough Council in the future weeks.

If approved, the application will not only consolidate the existing jobs and presence of the company but will lead to a further 80 staff being employed on the site. 

It is recognised that this good news will be most welcome, following the recent announcement over the uncertainty of Ineos plant at Seal Sands.

Planning permission was sought for the demolition and replacement of a single detached house in a North Yorkshire Conservation Area. The house was not listed and had a significant array of structural issues associated with it and restricted ceiling heights at ground and first floor level. It was also subject to damp and flooding problems. The consulting engineers, having considered all the issues recommended demolition and re-build, despite the fact that parts of the house dated back to the 18th century.

Prism were called in to assist and produced a detailed Heritage Impact Assessment, for the project. Opponents to the scheme had tried to secure the listing of the building and had put forward a great deal of confused arguments claiming the building was of significant historic interest. Their case had got the ears of Historic England who took the listing case forward.

Untangling the claims took a substantial amount of time, but Prism managed to defeat the listing attempt, only to have planning officers then try to declare the building to be a locally designated asset and faced a committee report that recommended refusal of the replacement dwelling.

Steve Barker, Prism MD, spoke at the planning meeting, pointing out a series of errors in the report and incorrect interpretations of planning law in the advice given to members. Despite the same objectors also speaking at the meeting, we managed to secure the unanimous overturning of the officer recommendation with members supporting the recommendation. It’s a challenge to overturn any officer recommendation, even under the best of circumstances and to do so unanimously was unprecedented.

Dealing with a heritage matter is a tricky issue and a great deal of care is required. This case demonstrates that the team at Prism have the capability and knowledge to tackle some of the most sensitive and challenging heritage cases and we would be very pleased to talk to potential new clients about how we might be able to assist.

Prism Planning today submitted a Scoping request under the Environmental Impact Regulations for the development of an offshore marine energy park to service the burgeoning offshore wind turbine industry. The site at South Bank on the Tees involves part of the former steelworks. The project would provide a new base for the offshore sector, allowing for the import and assembly of the components used to deliver the offshore wind programme that the UK desperately needs. 

The proposal would see the development of a new 950 metre long quay along the South Bank wharf, replacing the present derelict structure. On the site, components would be stored, assembled and shipped on to new purpose-built vessels designed to deliver the new offshore programme. In order to do this, new cranes would be built, including the most powerful conventional crawler crane in the world and a new rail crane, which would be more than twice as tall as the Transporter Bridge. It has been estimated that nearly 250 jobs would be created during the construction period and thereafter 600 permanent jobs for workers and management associated with the proposal. A CGI image of how the site might look is attached below. 

Prism were very pleased to be selected to manage this project and look forward to working with Able and the Local Planning Authority to deliver this much-needed redevelopment project. Further enquiries on this matter should be directed to Steve Barker, Managing Director of Prism Planning Ltd, or Neil Etherington, Business Development Director at Able UK.   

Prism have just been successful in removing an agricultural occupancy condition attached to a client’s property - and achieved it via a most unusual route. The conventional approach usually requires the property being advertised for sale for a 1 or sometimes 2-year period, at a price that reflects the lowered value of the property. The field is often fraught with disputes over valuations and challenges to the marketing process - stamina is normally required and a number of cases simply get abandoned.

Our clients had lived at the property for a number of years and assumed that they met the occupancy criteria - indeed they had correspondence on file from the Council confirming this point.

Prism had reviewed the history of their site and formed a different view - which in due course was supported by an independent review by barristers at No 5 Chambers - the acknowledged set for planning advice in the country.

Prism then proceeded to submit an application for lawful development - based upon more than 10 years of non-compliance with the condition - a position the team were very sure about.

Fresh minds at the LPA, reviewing the back files of the case came to another unusual view - that the original occupancy condition, because of its non-standard wording was so badly drafted that it could not actually be complied with by anyone and was, in their minds completely unenforceable going forward. They invited Prism and our client to present an application to remove the condition as a consequence and then went on to grant that consent.

Naturally our client was delighted by the outcome and by the removal of the occupancy condition! The case highlights that the removal of occupancy conditions is rarely straightforward, but that it can be done, if circumstances have changed radically since the property was first built. Anyone in this position should seek expert advice from Prism Planning who have a track record of success in this very specialist field of planning. 

At long last, some 5 years since our first involvement in the project and 4½ years since the planning application was submitted, Prism Planning secured outline planning permission, backed by a S106 Legal Agreement, on 14th March 2019 in respect of a housing-led development of some 83.5 hectares (206 acres) of land at High Tunstall, Hartlepool. The development will provide up to 1,200 homes, a neighbourhood centre including a primary school, a new distributor road and amenity open space including structure planting.

We recognised from the outset that a scheme of such magnitude was never going to be straight forward and so it turned out. Through a combination of the scale of the proposed development, the site’s location and the local environment, the planning application required an Environmental Impact Assessment, a Habitats Regulation Assessment, a Transport Assessment and detailed archaeological investigation.

Prism Planning project managed the preparation of the planning application submission, preparing the supporting Planning Statement and leading on the preparation of the Environmental Statement, including over-seeing the work undertaken by a host of environmental consultancies and the architects who prepared the many iterations of the masterplan drawings and the associated Design & Access Statement. 

The application was submitted at the time that Hartlepool Borough Council were preparing of a new Local Plan (adopted May 2018). To accord with the then emerging Local Plan, the scale and land-take of the proposed development was reduced from the original 2,000 homes and 118 hectare site proposed. Rod Hepplewhite, our Director, attended the Local Plan Examination Hearings in September/October 2017 and successfully supported the Council’s proposed allocation of the High Tunstall application site as a ‘Strategic Housing Site’, a significant step forward in the ultimate approval of the planning application.

The scale of the proposed development and the proximity of the site to the A19(T) necessitated extensive negotiations with Highways England and highways engineers from Hartlepool Borough Council. Consequently, associated with the development and part financed by it, significant highway works will be undertaken, including a northern by-pass to Elwick village linking to the A19, the provision of a new grade separated junction north west of Elwick, gap closures on the A19, and improvements to aa number of junctions with Hartlepool. 

The site lies within relative proximity to the coast, which is protected under a number of ecological designations (including the Durham Coast Special Area of Conservation (SAC) and the Teesmouth and Cleveland Coast SPA and Ramsar.  As a consequence, given the scale and nature of the proposed development, there was a requirement to consider and address the potential impacts on these European sites under the Habitat Regulations. This resulted in the development being provided with larger areas of amenity and recreational open space than had been originally been proposed. 

We have dealt with many applications for residential development of various forms over the years, although it is fair to say that the High Tunstall development is our largest and most complex residential development. We have built up a good level of expertise on the subject and recognise that no two developments are the same and have learnt to be prepared for the unexpected, which held us in good stead for the High Tunstall project. 

Today Prism celebrates its latest approval in Darlington. Two large three storey buildings containing apartments and retail units were granted permission subject to a Section 106. At present Darlington is claiming in excess of 80 years of housing supply which gives it more power to refuse applications.

The application site is brownfield and located within Darlington, a number of buildings are presently located at the site. It is adjacent to a mixture of industrial and residential uses.

The application was a resubmission with a revised noise report which targeted potential impacts from the nearest industrial use, should the vacant building become occupied.  Our Planning Statement was able to make the differences between the submission and resubmission clear. During the application we also managed issues such as surface water flooding by directing them to the right specialists. The result was that the resubmission was successful and permission has been granted subject to a legal agreement.

If you are looking at developing a site and seeking advice please get in touch.

As the new year gets underway and Prism Planning has settled into its new offices on Woodland Road, we have reviewed the old website and decided to replace it. Below is a highlight of the more than ten years of news that have been made.