Housing approved despite football club's objection
GooglePlans for up to 130 new homes have been approved despite objections from a football club.
Gateshead Council's planning and development committee approved plans for a new housing development on now vacant land at Church Place in Felling.
Gateshead Football Club opposed the plans due to the loss of open space and sporting opportunities, according to council documents.
However, a council report said the club did not submit a "detailed or deliverable" alternative proposal for the land and the housing plan was unanimously approved by the planning committee.
Multiple sites
The report said the club had said it could "secure the site for community use" and its submission "highlights the potential social, health and community benefits that such an alternative use could deliver", according to the Local Democracy Reporting Service.
However, the report said this was submitted only as a "potential future aspiration".
The scheme forms part of other Gateshead Regeneration Partnership (GRP) projects which aim to tackle the housing need in the area.
The site will include a mixture of one, two, three and four-bedroom houses.
Four of those houses, or 3.1% of all the proposed units, will be classed as affordable.
While this is under the usual 15% required for a scheme of this size, other projects from GRP will make up the difference across multiple sites including Brandling, Beacon Lough, Dixon Street and Elizabethville.
The scheme would deliver 81 dwellings with three or more bedrooms, representing about 63% of the development, and therefore a significant proportion of family housing.