A government planning inspector has sided with developers in the battle over controversial apartments that now look set to be built on one of the last empty patches of land on the Newcastle Quayside.
The contentious Plot 12 was the subject of a public inquiry in March, where neighbours claimed that £40m proposals for a 14-storey block would “devastate” their living conditions and destroy views to and from a historic church. But the 289 flats will now be given the green light, after Newcastle City Council’s 11-1 decision to reject them last year was overturned.
Planning inspector Claire Searson has ruled in favour of appellants Packaged Living and Robertson Property to develop the Homes England-owned site, which has lain vacant for decades. In a verdict issued to the local authority last Friday, Mrs Searson said she was satisfied that the block “would not appear clumsy or out of keeping along the Quayside”, despite it being labelled “monolithic” and “painfully poor” by critics.
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