ASL submits huge Durham application
AINSCOUGH Strategic Land (ASL) has submitted an outline planning application for 616 homes on the outskirts of Bishop Auckland, County Durham.
If granted planning consent, the 48-acre scheme will also include around 6,500 sq ft of commercial floor space and community facilities as well as providing a new link between the town of Bishop Auckland and neighbouring Coundon Grange.
The application is the largest made by the Leigh-based company to date.
Development surveyor Andrew Hodgson, said: “This application is the culmination of two years’ of master-planning and community consultation.
“We have actively engaged with local residents and key stakeholders and the final scheme has, where possible, taken on board their comments. We have particularly benefited from a close working relationship with the local authority who have been proactive and pro-growth in their future vision of Bishop Auckland.
“Whilst this is an outline application, we are committed to ensuring the design is sympathetic to the area and creates an attractive new community in which people will choose to live.”
ASL was set up by Martin Ainscough in 2007 following the £255m sale of his family’s crane business. The company specialises in the acquisition, masterplanning and promotion of land for development throughout the UK.
It recently gained planning to convert a 15-acre site that had previously contained at Ski yoghurt factory at Cuddington, Cheshire, into 156 homes and then sold the land on to developer Taylor Wimpey for an undisclosed sum.
The company currently has ten sites nationwide and said it it is in advanced negotiations to buy more. It is also developing planning applications for sites in the Midlands and Yorkshire.
