The saga over a controversial housing development on the Newcastle Quayside will now go to the High Court, it has emerged.
City council bosses have decided to mount a new legal challenge in a bid to stop almost 300 new riverside flats being built on the infamous Plot 12 site. The local authority had rejected proposals for a 14-storey apartment complex on the long-vacant patch of land in 2021, but saw that decision overturned by a Government planning inspector following a public inquiry earlier this year.
In a verdict issued in early May, inspector Claire Searson ruled in favour of applicants Packaged Living and Robertson Property building on the Homes England-owned site. That decision came as a major shock to neighbours who had vociferously opposed the £40m scheme, complaining that it would “devastate” living conditions of residents in the St Ann’s Quay building next door and destroy views to and from the historic St Ann’s Church.
