Planning Committee - Tall Trees, Yarm

My first planning committee earlier this week and a familiar name on the agenda - Tall Trees Hotel, Yarm.

As you will have seen in the press, planning permission was granted for the construction of 62 executive homes and 81 apartments on the land immediately adjacent to the hotel (much of which is currently parking).  The committee accepted that the benefits the linked renovation and expansion of the hotel would bring to the area outweighed the fact that the development was outside the limits of development.

Whilst some residents may have greeted this news with dismay, it is still far from certain however the approved development will ever take place.

The applicant states that the development of the hotel is reliant on the funds generated by the planned housing.  In accepting this argument the committee imposed a number of planning conditions to ensure that the development of the hotel and housing proceeds hand-in-hand.  In addition, contributions of £100,000 and £154,000 were demanded towards the costs of providing long-stay parking in Yarm and for providing a footpath and cycle lane from the site to Yarm Station respectively.

However, the applicant stated during the committee hearing that the conditions imposed designed to ensure the phased development of the site in fact serve to make the plans economically unviable.  With such stringent conditions imposed the applicant felt that he would not be able to proceed with the development and as a consequence, with the hotel like many others currently running at a substantial loss, he may have no option but to close the hotel.

This results in something of a quandry.  Whilst a substantial number of objections to the development were received, the thought of Tall Trees being closed is not a happy one.  A mothballed Tall Trees would almost certainly act as a magnet for vandals and rogues of all sorts, and could well end up becoming an unsightly blight on the edge of town.  You can bet your bottom dollar that it wouldn't then take much of an upturn in the market of the vultures to start circling and piecemeal plans for development of the site to be submitted.

It's well known that it is impossible to please all of the people all of the time, but I worry this situation could well deteriorate to the point of displeasing all of the people for a very long time to come.