Plans unveiled for 36 new houses near historic listed building on Sutton/Skegby border

The site, spanning 26-and-a-half acres (10.77 hectares), is located off Omberley Avenue, to the west of Beck Lane. To the north, a new housing estate is part way through construction, while open farmland sits to the north and west.

To the south-east is the historic, Georgian-style Dalestorth House, which fronts on to Skegby Lane and is renowned for its special architectural and historic interest.

Built in about 1770, it was a ladies’ boarding establishment for many years before being converted in recent times into a popular bed-and-breakfast guest house and a successful garden centre. Four years ago, the three-storey property was put up for sale for just over £2 million.

The Omberley Avenue land is currently vacant and is enclosed by trees and hedgerows, but it includes a number of derelict buildings associated with a former trees and plants nursery business that occupied the site many years ago until it closed in 1988.

Ashfield District Council has received a planning application to demolish these buildings and construct the 36 homes, complete with landscaping and utilities works, from Tom Griffiths, a director of the award-winning Alfreton-based building company, Griffiths Services and Developments Ltd.

If it gets the go-ahead, Griffiths would build the properties, which would then be owned and managed by Nottingham Community Housing Association in a letting scheme run in conjunction with the council.

The plans say the properties would comprise ten three-bed homes, 22 two-bed homes and four one-bedroom flats, all with solar panels, and would be arranged around a cul-de-sac. Twenty-four would be available for social rent and 12 for shared ownership.

A planning statement prepared for Griffiths says the main body of the site has been allocated as suitable housing land in “the emerging Local Plan” for Ashfield.

Discussions with the housing team at the council had already determined that the site could “meet an identified need for affordable housing”.

Under the scheme, 72 car parking spaces would be installed and access to the new development would be created by extending the road on Omberley Avenue, which is itself a cul-de-sac of 22 dwellings.

The planning statement accepts that residents currently living near the site could be affected by the new homes, with regard to views and traffic.

But it stresses that the scheme “highlights the need to protect neighbouring properties and minimise the potential for overlooking and overbearing”.

There would be "no significant harm” to the outlook of neighbours, while any increase in vehicle usage would be “modest” and “not lead to any significant congestion”.

Furthermore, the application says the site is not a flood risk and possesses no special biodiversity, environmental or conservation features.

Some trees would need to be be felled, but some hedges would be retained and others enhanced.

Neighbours or interested residents can post their comments here on the council’s website, which also contains full details of more than 50 documents associated with the development.

The council’s planning officers are currently poring over those documents and have set a deadline date of Wednesday, March 5 next year to make a decision or recommendation.