Castle Howard land-sale plan moves forward

A scheme to fund more than 20m of vital repairs to some of Castle Howard’s most important buildings by selling land to house-builders in outlying villages has cleared a hurdle.

The North Yorkshire stately home’s conservation management plan highlighted a 20m deficit in the upkeep of its 300-year-old buildings, plus another 15m needed to bring certain buildings back into economic use.

The next stage is to persuade planners that measures to deal with the shortfall should be written into the new Local Development Framework.

Ryedale Council agreed at a meeting on Tuesday night to start consultations on granting the estate villages service village status, meaning that land could be brought forward for development.

Henry Rayment, the estate’s Agent, said it was a very positive step. Castle Howard wanted to be acknowledged as a special case – where development was targeted at the upkeep of its historic buildings, rather than for profit.

He said: “Everything is 300 years old here. So we have a whole lot of buildings reaching the end of natural life.”

He underlined any development would be relatively low scale, only 10 homes in many cases, and would include a big element of affordable housing.