Why we say 'NO' to thousands of new homes at Skerningham

Skerningham covers about 490 hectares (that’s 1,300 acres or nearly two square miles or 14 times the size of South Park) of arable farmland, grassland, pasture, woodland, ponds and riverbank. The Skerne meanders along the northern edge of the site, with farmland into Ketton on the other side. Once heavily polluted, the Skerne is now clean. At present.

Landowners in Skerningham include Darlington Council – that’s you and me if you live in the borough. Over the years, Theakston Estates Limited has gradually acquired the largest share.

 In 2009 and again in 2015 the council’s Strategic Housing Land Availability Assessment deemed Skerningham unsuitable for housing. Here are some of the reasons:

​

• It’s a rural greenfield site

• Part of it is in a Flood Zone 3 (more likely to flood)

• Loss of countryside and significant visual impact

• Loss of “significant tranquillity”

• The riverside (“riparian” in council jargon) habitat must be protected

• Skerningham Plantation is a Site of Nature Conservation Interest

• There may be great crested newts and bats

• There is a medium-high archaeological potential

• There is “high risk” contamination from Barmpton landfill

• Major traffic implications would probably need a northern bypass, linking the A66(T) or A1150 to the A167

• Access from Glebe Road would not be acceptable. There is an 18 ton weight limit on the single-lane rail bridge

• There is no sewage or water infrastructure in the vicinity

• Housing supply policies would need changing

• Red listed (most “at risk”) and amber-listed (not quite as “at risk”) birds abound.

​

In 2017, the year that Ben Houchen was elected as Tees Valley Mayor, Darlington Council made a U-turn and declared that Skerningham was fit for housing after all. Earlier that year, the Government had announced it would support 14 new “garden villages”. So thousands of houses are now scheduled for Skerningham, despite nothing having changed there since 2015.

​

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Big house, small family

​​

It’s vital that new developments do not overload water treatment plants because, if they do, human waste, containing nutrients such as nitrates and phosphates will enter rivers like the Skerne, cause further pollution and threaten sensitive ecosystems, like Skerningham’s. There is a standard “nutrient neutrality” test, based on the number of extra people putting pressure on water treatment works. This is where Darlington Council contradicts itself, as follows.

Every council’s 20-year Local Plan must predict housing needs using a standard Government formula  – “unless exceptional circumstances justify an alternative approach which also reflects current and future demographic trends and market signals”. Darlington unearthed some “exceptional circumstances”.               It commissioned a report from a company called Opinion Research Services that stated the Government calculations were flawed and that if the borough created 7,000 new jobs, we may need to build 10,000 new homes to accommodate all the workers.

A SWAG Freedom of Information request revealed that the standard Government formula had predicted the town’s 20-year needs were only 3,540 new homes. But the council REALLY, REALLY wants as many homes as possible because more homes means more Council Tax.

BUT on the other hand, when calculating nutrient neutrality, the council said each house will be occupied by only 1.1 people, on average. Luckily for them, that figure means the scheme passes the test. The Government, by the way, says the average UK house is home to 2.4 people but our council says: “Ah, but most of the new Skerningham inhabitants will have moved there from within the town, so the amount of extra ‘poisonous’  nutrients will be tiny.”

So most of the 7,000 new workers, should they ever be needed, are supposed to be living here already. So why the need to build a huge new estate of, mainly three bedrooms and more, on gorgeous countryside?

Darlington’s Stressholme Waste Water Treatment plant currently has to cope with double its original load as the town’s population has increased from 50,000 to more than 100,000 since it was built in 1939. A request to Northumbrian Water in February, 2024, revealed that it has reached 96 percent of its ability to cope in dry weather, like this summer. The remaining four percent capacity could only cope with an extra 2,500 houses. In the 18 months since then, thousands of new homes have already been connected to Stressholme -- and building is yet to start at Skerningham.

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

Health and safety

​

SWAG members paid for an in-depth ecology survey by Verde Consultancy. It concluded that Skerningham, though small, is rich in biodiversity. As well as being home to a number of rare species, it is also the home to a variety of animals including deer, badgers and foxes.

Darlington Council’s Rights of Way Improvement Plan refers to Skerningham as high-quality countryside. It says:  “This attractive area of open access woodland has seen a rapid increase in its use.” But, the Skerningham masterplan includes a local “distributor” road which divides the residents from the woods and open countryside. This would significantly reduce the quality and accessibility of the countryside that remains.

Worse still, in a major development this August, Tees Valley Mayor Baron Houchen of High Leven told BBC radio that Darlington Council had “signed off” on a plan to take the much-needed Northern Link Road road south of the woods. That’s where the garden village road will run. Thus the quiet, rural road would, instead, become the busy new bypass, with all the dangers to residents and wildlife that implies. At the time of writing, Darlington Council had yet to confirm or deny the Mayor’s surprising statement.

In either case, increased litter, urban noise, light pollution and pollution from vehicles would further erode the natural environment, making it less attractive, less healthy and less hospitable to local wildlife. The garden village would be a car-dependent environment that feels busier, noisier and less tranquil -- conditions that are particularly discouraging for families, older residents and those with impaired abilities who may otherwise benefit most from accessible green space.

As a result, residents are likely to be less inclined to spend meaningful time outdoors, which directly undermines opportunities for exercise, relaxation and social interaction. This would have negative consequences for both mental and physical health and well-being.”

The council’s Local Plan itself refers to the Government’s public health strategy, “Healthy Lives, Healthy People”, which says that planning policy must include health considerations. By designing a development that fragments green space and reduces its quality through noise, pollution and severance, the Skerningham scheme contradicts national objectives.

The Darlington Open Space Strategy 2007-2017 recognises the importance of the area, “The Skerningham/Barmpton Lane area is identified as a location where a strategic countryside site could be developed, due in part to the area’s existing high landscape value, which attracts visitors from throughout the borough and beyond.”

It was in 2017 that something called the Darlington Housing and Employment Land Availability Assessment (Appendix 3) surprisingly found Skerningham to be suitable, available and achievable for housing. It appears to have been this document, rather than others which outlawed house-building, which was used to justify Skerningham Garden Village.

​

Political Football

​

It matters not for Skerningham whether Labour or the Tories run Darlington Council as both covet all that extra Council Tax that the garden village promises. That doesn’t stop them from playing a long, long political football match with the SGV. Labour kicked off with the Local Plan in 2017 which included the potential development of Skerningham into a garden village. The Conservatives fought back, saying they would rewrite it if they won the 2019 elections because it over-inflated the Government’s housing need predictions They won and ran the council for four years but they broke their promise. When Labour regained control in the 2023 return match those over-inflated predictions still remained, as they do today.

​

 

 

 

 

 

 

Site of Nature Conservation Interest

 

Sites that have “substantive local nature conservation and geological value”, SNCIs tend to be selected because of particular wildlife habitats or if they support scarce or rare species outside their natural habitats. Darlington Council’s website describes Skerningham Community Woodland thus: “Many people come to this large nature reserve to go on walks. It is in Harrowgate Hill, at Ketton Hall Farms. You can park at the top of Glebe Road to reach Skerningham but there is a one-mile walk to the woods. There is a pond and amphitheatre to find.”

The 12,000-plus trees planted in Skerningham Community Woodland were funded by public money from both the forestry commission and landfill tax grants.  There are rare Black poplars there, grown from cuttings and planted with the help of local schoolchildren in the hope they would be enjoyed by future generations. An unknown number of human burials have taken place there.  The older woodlands at either end date back to the last part of the 19th Century. 

The Darlington Rights of Way Improvement Plan, talks of providing a raft of benefits
that comes with improved countryside access. “These benefits include the value of green
exercise to mental and physical health as well as helping increase the public’s perception
of the value and importance of the natural world. This in turn encourages people’s support
for action and use of resources to improve the green environment. In addition, there is a
need to help reverse the process of an increasing gulf between the urban population and
the people in the rural areas.”

Darlington’s Rights of Way Improvement Plan (ROWIP) can be found on Darlington Borough
Council’s website.

​

In addition, the National Planning Policy Framework says: “Access to a network of high quality open spaces and opportunities for sport and physical activity is important for the health and well-being of communities.” And also:  “Existing open space, sports and recreational buildings and land, including playing fields, should not be built on unless:
a) an assessment has been undertaken which has clearly shown the open space, buildings
or land to be surplus to requirements, or

b) the loss resulting from the proposed development would be replaced by equivalent or
better provision in terms of quantity and quality in a suitable location…”

​

​

​

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

If you build it, will they come?

​

We are looking at losing vast areas of greenfield, farmland and countryside to low-density, urban expansions, pushing the boundaries of Darlington further out from the town centre. Most of this allocated land is rich in habitat and biodiversity, forms a “carbon sink” and is essential to the UK’s targets for combating climate change.

Darlington Green Party, through fundraising, paid for Blue Kayak an environmental
consultancy, to scrutinise and comment on the Local Plan. Jo Ellis of Blue Kayak found
many problematic issues, in particular that Darlington is already building way beyond its projected housing need.

​

She found many flaws, miscalculations, double-counting and “aspirations” that became “predictions”. In particular, a Government planning officer, Susan Hunt, said that Darlington is building nearly four times (382 percent) the number of houses that the Government says it needs. In fact, we already have a 17-year supply of houses. Not small, affordable ones, though; we only build 150 a year of those. The Census results also show Darlington's population is ageing and we need more bungalows and smaller homes so that residents can “downsize”, which would release more family homes onto the housing market.

So, is Darlington’s growth way ahead of the rest of Tees Valley? The 2021 Census showed Darlington’s population had only increased by 2.1 per cent, from around 105,600 residents in 2011 to 107,800 in 2021 -- that’s 200 a year for ten years -- and the Government’s figures for the borough were correct.

​

​

​

Climate Change? What’s that?

​

Councils’ Local Plans are legally required to contain policies in line with the Climate Change Act. At present, the Act dictates an 80 percent UK reduction in CO2 emissions by 2050. This is likely to be upgraded to full carbon neutrality. Local plans which don't include suitably robust policies are legally challengeable under section 19(1A) of the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004. There is also a legal obligation under the Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) regulations to assess planning policy consistency with wider climate change objectives. The Town & Country Planning Association conducted a survey of local authorities that revealed the vast majority (83 percent) do not have either the knowledge or resources to comply.

To comply with the Act, Local Plans should deliver higher densities of housing, on the most accessible sites that do not rely heavily on vehicles. Darlington’s Local Plan has allocated vast swathes of greenfield, open countryside sites, knowing that large urban expansion helps access to government funding for new roads.  Especially in the north of the town, people living in the new urban extensions will cause more  traffic congestion and more emissions, contributing to climate change and global warming.

We see little evidence that the Darlington Local Plan has been audited for its effect on climate change or the Government’s carbon net zero 2050 targets.  A climate change addendum had been added to the Local Plan examination document portal only once the inspector’s examination had started.

​

The missing page

​

In 2022 the Council appointed DesigNE Ltd to run a consultation for the Draft
Design Code SPD for Skerningham Garden Village.  Workshops were held at local venues with the aim being to consult and work with local people, though there were complaints about lack of publicity. When the Draft Design Code was finalised and put out for comment, it was discovered that a page was missing. We have a recording of the project lead from DesigNE Ltd admitting this. The page, which still had to be written, would show how a planning application would pass or fail -- crucial information. A request to withhold the Draft Design Code until the missing page was included and a few other errors rectified was denied.

​

The Garden Communities prospectus says the local community must have a
meaningful say from design to delivery. That important missing page prevented SWAG and many others from making fully-informed comments during the statutory public consultation. 

​

The disruption to the area and the wildlife will be immense if this project proceeds. Added to this biodiversity loss, which cannot be replaced, is the current emergency of climate collapse, we believe this is unacceptable. There are already more than enough homes being built in Darlington for its Government-assessed, projected growth.

​

What we believe

We believe that given the biodiverse value of the area and the overwhelming community objection to this development that Skerningham Garden Village development plans should be withdrawn. We also believe that local democracy should not only be done, it should be SEEN to be done.