Developer reveals plans to build almost 400 homes and create country park

Miller Homes proposes to build 376 homes at Mount Leven with a “public open space and country park which will contain raised flower beds, exercise trim trail equipment, walking routes and benches”.

The plans also include a local farm shop, padel courts, a bus loop and improvements to footpath and cycle connections, with a map also showing a care home.

It wants to build two to five-bedroom homes, 48 per cent of which will be bungalows. In a leaflet sent to residents, it says 60 per cent of the homes will be accessible or adaptable to meet the needs of older people or those with reduced mobility, while 20 per cent will be affordable homes, for sale or rent at discounted rates for people whose needs are not met by the private market.

The proposals come at a busy and contentious time for development in the Yarm area.

Taylor Wimpey has submitted outline plans for up to 600 homes on land east of Holdenfields Farm, Green Lane, which have now racked up more than 480 comments in objection, while VB Turnbull recently finished an online consultation on proposals to build up to 255 homes near Aislaby Road, Eaglescliffe.

Miller Homes, meanwhile, has not yet submitted any plans to Stockton Council.

The developer says it wants to “engage with the community and help inform a future planning application”, with a public drop-in event to be held at Worsall Village Hall, Church Lane, Yarm from 3 to 7pm on Tuesday, September 2.

Development in the Mount Leven area has attracted controversy in recent years. A plan for a retirement village with 332 homes, a 68-bed nursing home and facilities including a tennis court, bowling green, community hall and convenience store across seven villages was approved in 2016, but no homes or facilities, only a roundabout, have since been delivered.

Plans from Mandale Homes to build 215 homes and a 68-bed care home on fields at Mount Leven Farm, Leven Bank Road were refused by the council last year. An appeal against the refusal of one plan was dismissed by a government-appointed inspector in 2023.

In its leaflet, Miller Homes says: “The site is allocated for residential development in the Stockton Local Plan. There have been several planning applications submitted over the past decade for the development of the site, none of which relate to Miller Homes.

“Some have been approved and some have been refused. A planning inspector has confirmed that a lawful start has been made on implementing an approved planning permission to retirement housing. This could therefore still be built out.”

A map of the “proposed block masterplan” shows two-storey and single-storey housing “zones”, the country park, proposed roads and footpath links, drainage locations, a care home, local farm shop, padel courts, bus stops, and an area of “potential additional residential development”.

The leaflet states Taylor Wimpey wants to create “a better place where people will make friends, enjoy family life and take pride in their neighbourhoods… building exceptional homes, in sustainable communities”.

The development has a website, but this will not be available until the start of the drop-in event next Tuesday.

People have also been invited to provide comments to [email protected] or to Lichfields, The St Nicholas Building, St Nicholas Street, Newcastle, NE1 1RF by Friday, September 19.