Member Article

Plans approved for £175m North East garden village which will create 800 jobs

Plans for a £175m garden village in County Durham which will create around 800 jobs have been given the green light by planners.

Around 1500 homes, shops, bases for businesses and leisure facilities will feature in the South Seaham project, being driven forward in a partnership between Gateshead developer Tolent and Newcastle housing association Home Group.

Tolent is the land owner, developer and contractor, and has been supported in this proposal by Newcastle based IDP Architects and Peacock & Smith Planning Consultants together with Prof Roy Sandbach and the Centre of Ageing at Newcastle University, and Northumbria University.

Tolent welcomed news after securing planning consent, having worked closely with Durham County Council on the scheme for more than three-and-a-half years.

Company chairman John Wood said the Garden Village has been carefully designed to create what will be a national and international exemplar, that is truly inclusive and welcoming to all parts of the community.

He said the vision has been to create a sustainable community with a mix of distinctive high quality housing that improves the quality of life for all residents in relation to health and technology.

He said: “This really will be a national exemplar creating jobs for young people and homes for a whole range of people, and I want to thank Durham County Council for their support for this vision.

“We are proposing to build 1,500 new homes, 300 of which will be for over 55s. Land for 750 of the houses will be sold to the private sector house builders and the profits from the sale will be used to subsidise the construction of a school and other community facilities in the village centre.

“We have an agreement in place with Home Group to build 750 good quality affordable houses to high design standards that will provide homes for a wide range of incomes from starter homes for young people to the retired miner.

“The price of these houses will be heavily subsidised by the profits from land sales to the private sector. This redistribution of wealth will provide good homes for everyone.”

It is anticipated the development will take 10 years to complete and will create 500 construction jobs and a further 300 in the centre of the village.

A training academy will also be established on site with the Construction Industry Training Board, giving young people apprenticeship opportunities to develop their skills to become tradesmen and other professions.

Based close to the A19, Dalton Retail Park and the Durham coast, more than half of the garden village will be managed green space, including extensive parkland, a football pitch, a bowling green, play areas and allotments, linked by a network of more than 4.75km of landscape paths and cycleways.

At the heart of the garden village will be its centre with shops and cafe, a primary school with sports facilities, a park and village square, housing for the elderly and a community hub with space for health and well-being, to include a gym. The village centre will also include a new innovation hub for business space.

The innovation hub will be used by new and existing businesses, along with the region’s universities to bring the latest research and innovation insight into the development of all aspects of the garden village.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Adel .