Dales district among easiest for planning
Richmondshire is one of the simplest places in the country to get planning permission, new research has found. Jayne Dowle finds out more about the situation.
THE historic district of Richmondshire, encompassing the picturesque north Yorkshire areas of Wensleydale and Swaledale, and stretching up to the boundary of Darlington, County Durham, with the traditional market town of Richmond at its heart, turns out to be one of the easiest places in the UK to achieve planning permission.
“Richmondshire has emerged as one of the easiest places in England to gain planning permission approval, according to our latest research,” says Colby Short, CEO and co-founder of estate agent comparison site GetAgent.
“This is due to the fact that the area will likely have fewer area-specific building regulations, planning constraints and development targets in comparison to some other areas around the nation, meaning it’s easier for homeowners to carry out their own renovation work on properties they own.”
This crown may come as a surprise to casual observers, who might imagine that reworking an existing property or building a new house – or a whole development – in ravishing Richmondshire to be a tall order.
Richmondshire had its own local authority, Richmondshire District Council abolished in April 2023, with functions transferred to a new unitary authority named North Yorkshire in April this year, so there are some caveats to this new research on planning permission hotspots.
However, a precedent has been set. Whilst rural Copeland in Western Cumbria tops the ‘easiest’ list, with 99.65 per cent of planning projects receiving the green light to go ahead, Richmondshire comes in a close second, with a 98.68 per cent approval rate, followed by NorthWest Devon at 98.67 per cent.
Get Agent property experts analysed official planning permission application data from the Department of Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, to achieve their findings, collecting information on the number of planning permissions and the number of applications approved for the period of October 1, 2021-September 30, 2022, for 315 districts within the UK.
Bottom of the list is Barking and Dagenham in east London, with a 66.07 per cent approval rate. All top 10 of the most difficult-to-achieve areas, including Watford in Hertfordshire and Epping Forest, Essex, are in London and the surrounding Home Counties.
“We’ve seen a lot of recent positive development in Richmondshire,” says Ben Pridden, director of north Yorkshire and Cumbria estate agency Hewetson and Johnson. “We sold two plots in recent weeks, both bought by good local developers, one attracted significant multiple bids, one sold within the week. They favour Richmondshire because they have confidence in the ability to sell the product.
“Richmondshire has taken on the obligation to provide housing, there
is a real demand between £400,000 and £600,000 and they’re selling. A lot of good operators are developing these sites, confident there is a decent market.”
As Pridden points out, Richmond itself, “is a fabulous town, a good, thriving market town, pretty, wellstocked with local amenities, close to train stations, relatively close by is the A1 and the A66 allows you to hop across the country.”
However, not all locals are happy
with the area’s planning popularity. Plans submitted in August this year by DEB Town Planning and Development Ltd on behalf of Langlands Developments Ltd for 28 new homes, including two to fivebedroomed apartments, bungalows, semi-detached, detached and town houses, on land east of Bolton Avenue in Richmond town centre, have been met with furious objections from residents.
Complaints centre on the potential impact on wildlife and nature and an increase in traffic. The plans say that eight properties would be allocated as affordable homes with four properties being offered at reduced purchase price and four properties for affordable rent.
In terms of self-build, architect Lynsey Elliott, a director and cofounder of Hexham-based architectural firm Elliott Architects, recently completed Hushh House in a Richmondshire village, winning a RIBA National Award in 2023, one of only two National Awards given to projects in the North of England.
The RIBA judges praised Hushh House for the way it slotted neatly into the streetscape of the surrounding village – “an unassuming, modest approach leads to a sophisticated building of surprising scale and complexity”, highlighting the careful use of natural building materials such as sandstone and Cumbrian slate.
“I don’t know if it’s easy [to achieve planning permission in Richmondshire],” Elliott says. “But I would like to think from our side, we design really sensitively. We recently did Catterick racecourse [the Dales Stand] in Richmondshire, and that required a great deal of care.”