Stadium housing plans given green light by council
Sunderland City CouncilPlans to build hundreds of houses near a football stadium have been approved by councillors.
The proposals to build homes at the Sheepfolds Industrial Estate near Sunderland's Stadium of Light were revised after they received hundreds of objections, including from the Premier League club.
Sunderland City Council planning officers said the development would provide "significant positive benefits" to the city including delivering about 450 homes on "under-utilised" brownfield land and boosting its economy.
The application will now be referred to the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government to agree the next steps.
Phased demolition of industrial units has already been taking place and last year the council submitted initial proposals for up to 600 homes, plus new commercial and community spaces, according to the Local Democracy Reporting Service.
However, the plans saw hundreds of public objections and a formal objection from Sunderland AFC following concerns from chairman Kyril Louis-Dreyfus about the potential "catastrophic operational consequences" for the club and the stadium.
Earlier this year, the club and council confirmed a revised plan for about 450 homes had been submitted, with a larger "buffer zone" around the stadium.
Planning officers also said the plans would improve the site's surface water drainage.
Sewerage concerns
Bob Latimer, who has campaigned for decades over issues around sewage discharges into the sea off the South Tyneside and Sunderland coast, raised concerns about sewage discharges into the "already overloaded sewerage system".
He asked councillors to defer their decision or add conditions to the planning permission to ensure it is "independently verified that the sewerage system can take the flows".
However, a council report said Northumbrian Water, the Environment Agency, and the council's flood authority had not objected to the Sheepfolds plan.
It said councillors "must be mindful of the cost implications associated with refusing a planning application where there is no reasonable evidence to do so in land use planning terms, and where planning decisions should assume that other regulatory regimes are operating effectively".
After being put to vote, the planning and highways committee unanimously backed the plans.
