Buy to Let investors and residential landlords in the north east who want to ‘go green’ could be given the opportunity following the submission of plans for an ambitious mixed-use eco-village.
Based at the former Paton & Baldwins Textile plant in Darlington the 107 acre brownfield site will have access from the A66 via a new link road that will be competed in Summer 08.
Marchday plc, a specialist developer of redundant buildings, has owned the site for 10 years. Having already transformed the business use from manufacturing and industrial to grade A office space, the company has now completed a major local consultation exercise and has submitted outline plans to Darlington Borough Council for the North East’s first and largest urban eco-village.
The flagship mixed-use ‘green’ development will deliver all of the key objectives being pursued by planners and the government:
• It is a brownfield site
• It will make extensive use of green technologies
• It will create a sustainable community, incorporating public elements including health, sport and community facilities
• The housing will include a substantial element of affordable housing
• Mixed-use development of offices, industrial space, housing and leisure will enable hundreds of people to live where they work – reducing transport requirements
• The large existing buildings – including a brick power station – will be re-used possibly as a public art space
• The viability of the project is enhanced by the size, scale and location
• There was an angry local reaction to a sign stating ‘This property is not available for any foreigners’ on a three-bedroomed house to let in the Donegall Road area of south Belfast.
The landlord is reported to have erected the sign, which was said to be illegal under the Race Relations Act, after a Romanian tenant left the house after breaking windows and setting fire to a rubbish bin.
The area is home to Asian communities and other migrant workers and after pressure from local authorities the sign was removed.
It was replaced with another that read ‘I am renting this property without prejudice to anyone in the whole wide world. But please be aware there are a number of criteria suitable candidates must pass before being eligible to rent this property.
‘I am looking for tenants, whom the neighbourhood like, who keep their noise down and will not attract attention to themselves’.
