Teesworks boss hotel plans approved despite 'negative impact' of housing

Kirklevington Hall, better known as the former Judges hotel in Yarm, is owned by Chris Musgrave

It’s been a bit of a landmark week in my life is a freelance journalist, I made my debut on the BBC World Service this week. I was on People Fixing the World reporting on how seagrass grown in Hartlepool could be leading the fight against coastal erosion in the North East. You can listen here.

Meanwhile, as always, if you want to support my work at The Teesside Lead, the easiest way to do that is by sharing it online. The next easiest way is to subscribe for free to get updates on Tees Valley news twice a week straight to your inbox. If you’re able to, an annual paid subscription is only £49.

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Leigh

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🏭 After the sale of Hartlepool’s Liberty Pipes was confirmed a couple of weeks ago, the international buyer has been announced as Corinth Pipeworks.

The Greek company was one of four companies, along with Liberty, to be awarded a share of a £4bn contract to provide pipes for the Northern Endurance Partnership carbon capture scheme which aims to capture carbon emissions from Teesside and the Humber and store them beneath the North Sea.

Corinth bought the Hartlepool business, where around 200 people are employed, for £10m.

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🗳️ Redcar and Cleveland Council is about to have its first councillor representing Restore Britain. The fledgling group - still awaiting its application to become a political party to be approved by the Electoral Commission - was started by Rupert Lowe MP after he was kicked out of Reform UK.

Since its launch the party has seen support from ethnonationalists, racists and Elon Musk.

Jack Symon, who’s represented the Wheatlands ward on the council after his election in 2023 as a Conservative, will sit as an independent until the party’s formal approval by the Electoral Commission.

Asked why he didn’t join Reform UK, he said he “did not think they had what it takes to be unpopular”.

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Better known as Judges’ hotel, now Kirklevington Hall (Image: Kirklevington Hall).

Planning permission has been granted by Stockton Council for Teesworks boss Chris Musgrave’s redevelopment of the former Judges hotel in Yarm.

Councillors voted through the Kirklevington Hall project at a planning meeting on Wednesday. That’s despite concerns raised by council officers about the need to build houses that otherwise wouldn’t be granted permission, in order to fund the scheme.

Phase 1 of the project, which is a joint venture between Musgrave and Kymel (who own Trenchers in Whitby as well as the Lord Crewe Arms in Northumberland and various other hospitality businesses across the North East), will see redevelopment of the hotel. To fund this, 26 residential self-build plots on the estate, in an “exclusive” gated community will be sold.

According to the planning application, the sale of these plots will bring in 70 percent of the c. £14.5m needed to fund the first phase. The remainder will come from private investment, presumably from Kymel.

These houses are what’s known as an “enabling development”.

In instances like this, planning guidelines state the lowest possible number of houses in an enabling development should be built.

In the council officers’ report to the meeting, it says “despite requests to be provided there are no full and detailed costings”, meaning evidence wasn’t supplied to say whether or not the 26 houses were the minimum needed to enable the hotel’s redevelopment.

The applicants also argued that without selling the land for homes they wouldn’t be able to leverage the required lending of the remaining 30 percent of capital needed to pay for the rest of the redevelopment of the hotel.

At the meeting, Conservative councillor Tony Riordan said he thought the application felt “almost back to front. The hotel should come first.”

In assessing the impact of the housing cutting up the historic estate, the report says: “The development of the houses will have a negative impact on the setting of the Hall and erode the important parkland setting.”

In conclusion, the report recognises “that there is conflict with some policies of the current Local Plan and harm will arise from the proposed housing to the landscape character of setting of the non-designed heritage asset”.

Despite this, it encourages approval of the plans because of the economic benefits the developers promise to bring, which include 200 jobs being created by the first phase.