Plans for new 37-property housing development rejected over concerns about rare butterfly

Northumberland Estates has been refused permission to build 37 more homes on land at the Backworth Business Park. North Tyneside Council’s planning committee voted unanimously against the proposals on Wednesday evening, saying that builders could not be allowed to “bulldoze” through wildlife habitats.

The property firm, which is the Duke of Northumberland’s development arm, previously won approval on appeal for a neighbouring 57-home scheme which is now under construction. But committee members were told at a hearing that that project was only allowed to go ahead on the promise of providing environmental enhancements on the land now in question.

Council planning officers claimed that building on the Eccleston Close plot would mean the loss of 5,000sqm previously-approved ecological mitigation and the dingy skipper butterfly being removed from the site, adding that 16 homes would have to be cut from the designs for them to be deemed acceptable.

Northumberland Estates’ plans for eight bungalows and 29 houses, would also require the demolition of the Keenan’s vegetable processing factory and the two-storey Prosperous House offices. In response to the council’s concerns, the developer had already cut six homes from its original plans for the land.

It argued in its submissions that “most of the existing woodland corridors within the site are retained and enhanced” and that extra tree planting would “create attractive green spaces for residents and other users of the site”.

But Monkseaton councillor Davey Drummond told the planning committee that developers cannot be allowed to “bulldoze” their way through habitats. Fellow Labour councillor Steve Cox said that North Tyneside “desperately” needs more houses to be built, but that the public would question why the loss of green space was being allowed if this went ahead.

A council report stated that the development would “make a small, but valuable contribution in terms of providing much needed housing and affordable housing”, but that harm to the biodiversity of the site would “significantly and demonstrably outweigh the benefits of the proposal”.