Against a background of rising restoration costs, the impact of COVID-19, the climate and biodiversity emergencies, and a lack of rural housing and services, 2022 represents a watershed moment in the Estate’s long history.
There is now an exciting and nationally important opportunity to redefine the role that an Estate like Castle Howard can play in rural regeneration.
Done correctly, it has the potential to become a blueprint for others to follow with Purposeful Development acting as a catalyst to solving the challenges faced by rural communities such as sustainability, housing and community services. The plan will also respond to a range of current environmental issues by evolving the way the Estate approaches land management.
The Castle Howard Masterplan is being developed around three key purposes, Restore, Regenerate and Revive, underpinned by a significant amount of research, analysis and expertise to help ensure its successful delivery. The key purposes are summarised below:
Every pound raised by the Estate’s Purposeful Development and expanded business enterprises will be reinvested into the conservation of the buildings, land and further enhancing local communities. The ambition is to create a self-sustaining ecosystem with a cyclical economy that will endure for generations to come.
For more details about the Estate’s Purposeful Development plan please click into the flipbook below.
Castle Howard is pursuing an ambitious long-term strategy to help restore its world-famous heritage and revive local rural communities.
The reason for this is two-fold. Firstly, without decisive action the future of Castle Howard and its world-class built and natural heritage is in doubt with several of its nationally significant heritage buildings and monuments on the ‘at risk’ register. Despite having spent £40m on repairs since 1960 and receiving a range of grants and loans, there remains the requirement for ongoing investment to safeguard important heritage.
It is estimated that at least £50m will need to be spent over the next decade to conserve and restore fragile buildings and landscapes alongside ongoing repairs and maintenance. The Estate cannot generate the necessary funds to cover these costs from its existing sources of income.
Secondly, the Howard family take seriously their responsibility to contribute to sustainable rural communities and to ensure Estate villages remain vibrant. Due to its significance in heritage terms, Castle Howard is an important driver of economic opportunity in the Howardian Hills AONB - attracting visitors and creating jobs for local people. Therefore, it is vital that it is maintained for future generations to enjoy and benefit from.
In Ryedale, there is a need to address issues around affordable housing, ageing populations, access to services, jobs and transport if neighbouring villages are to thrive. By undertaking development to provide new homes and host visitors and businesses, Castle Howard will play its part in regenerating the local area and creating opportunities and homes for local people, as well as generating income to reinvest in the Estate’s heritage and landscape assets.
Developing land and property assets will enable the Estate to generate much needed income through the rent and sale of new homes, and the ability to host new and expanded business activities. Every pound raised by Estate led development will be reinvested into the conservation of the buildings, the natural environment and further enhancing local communities through better connectivity and service provision.
Crucially, Castle Howard is adopting a ‘Purposeful Development’ approach that will see Estate land and buildings developed to deliver a positive contribution to the locality, helping to address some of the issues faced by the communities who live here.
This approach will address the following:
RESTORE Castle Howard’s significant heritage assets so they can be enjoyed by generations to come.
REGENERATE the natural environment of which the Estate is custodian and optimise natural processes and the benefits they deliver.
REVIVE rural communities through the provision of sustainable housing and services, and facilitating additional enterprises, employment, and connectivity. As part of the ‘Revive’ pillar, Estate owned land and property has been appraised to determine where there are opportunities for development which has led to a series of potential development sites being identified.
Development will take two primary forms; the redevelopment of Estate owned buildings and farmyard sites, and development of new homes on Estate owned land.
Some of the proposed development projects will enable the Estate to enhance its visitor offer (primarily by creating overnight accommodation), expand other Estate run enterprises, and host other local businesses. This will be accommodated primarily through the reuse and redevelopment of redundant sites and buildings such as Coneysthorpe Estate Yard, Rye Hills Farm and the Gatehouse.
Castle Howard will also undertake a programme of phased house building on Estate owned land to provide much needed homes in the local area. This will also generate income through the rent and sale of new homes for reinvestment in the Estate with the knock-on benefits and services it provides for the local community.
At this stage, the Estate has established the principles for its approach to Purposeful Development and identified a range of sites with development potential. Considerable work has gone into looking at the landscape, ecology, hydrology and heritage to identify sites across the Estate that may be suitable for development.
Nine sites are currently under consideration and at present, only one site has any planning status.
The Balk site in Slingsby received outline planning consent for 38 new dwellings in 2020 and a full planning application will be brought forward later this year for the development of that site.
A further brownfield site in Slingsby has also been identified and a planning application will be submitted for the redevelopment of the Castle and Heights farmyards to provide around 30 additional new homes.
A further seven sites have been put forward at the invitation of Ryedale District Council (RDC) as part of the review of Ryedale’s Local Plan. Castle Howard has submitted these sites for consideration as part of the site allocation process. As yet, Ryedale District Council has not decided which sites will be allocated in the new Local Plan. More than 300 sites have been submitted and are currently under consideration by RDC.
The Castle Howard sites put forward currently have no planning status and detailed design work has not been undertaken on how the proposed sites might be developed. Castle Howard has however undertaken preliminary survey work to determine ecological impact, flood risk, landscape, heritage and highways to determine the suitability of sites put forward. This preliminary work is not obligatory at this stage of the process and goes well over and above what other landowners may have done to support their sites submitted.
Below is the list of sites currently being proposed for development by Castle Howard. Site boundary plans for those submitted to the Local Plan review can be found here.
Slingsby
Welburn
Ganthorpe
Bulmer
Easthorpe
Ryehills Farm
A Local Plan is a document owned by the Local Planning Authority, which sets out policies and specific proposals for the development and use of land in a local area and guides most day-to-day planning choices and decisions. It is a statutory requirement that Local Plans are reviewed every five years to assess how the current plan is working, and what, if any, changes need to be made to make it work better for the communities it covers.
RDC’s current Local Plan runs until 2027 and this review will put in place a new plan that will extend its lifetime to 2038. More detail on the Local Plan review process is available here. The Local Plan review considers what changes may be needed to policy, the availability of sites for development and how these align to local need.
RDC’s intention is to have a proposed new Local Plan, which will include those sites selected for allocation, completed and published for consultation by the end of January 2023. Given the upcoming changes in local government, the Plan will then be taken forward by the new North Yorkshire Council from April 2023.
Once the consultation period is completed, the next steps would be:
Therefore, if allocated, development at the sites submitted by Castle Howard would be brought forward via the normal planning process in multiple phases over 15 years.
You can leave your comments on sites submitted for inclusion in the Local Plan here. Castle Howard has made information available regarding proposed development sites via the Local Plan process and has presented to each Parish in person at open meetings. This FAQ document addresses the main matters raised during community meetings and further work regarding access, transport and flood management has been undertaken in response to community feedback. This work is ongoing and has to date demonstrated no material issues in planning terms with the sites proposed.
Yes. At this stage none of the sites submitted have any planning status. If a site is allocated by Ryedale District Council, this does not mean it has planning consent. Any future development will be subject to obtaining planning permission which will ensure that proposals brought forward by the Estate meet local needs and are in accordance with the relevant national and local planning policy.
Castle Howard has considered all land and sites in its ownership to determine which have the potential for development by meeting our principles for Purposeful Development. The proposed sites have been chosen based on a range of factors (explained below), and the sizes of the development sites which move forward from proposal stage will be informed by the site allocation process, focusing on their suitability for long-term, sustainable development that enhances the local area and provides better services for the community.
This site identification process was informed by how settlements in the locality have evolved over time, current housing and services supply, the accessibility of sites and potential for conversion of existing buildings. Studies have examined the landscape, ecology, hydrology and heritage on sites across the Estate to identify those that are suitable for development, and that meet our own commitment to the highest architectural standards, enhancing the built environment, and protecting the historic significance of settlements and the surrounding landscape.
In addition to housing and employment land put forward for allocation, development has been proposed at the Old Estate Yard in Coneysthorpe, adjacent to the Lakeside Holiday Park, which will incorporate new facilities and services for visitors to complement the core visitor offer on the Estate and proposed new short-stay accommodation.
The Coneysthorpe site has not been put forward for allocation in the local plan because allocations are only being made for housing and employment sites. Tourism sites in Ryedale will not be allocated but will come forward via the normal planning application route.
The development of houses has not been proposed in Coneysthorpe because the appraisal of available sites in the village did not identify any sites with potential for delivery.
Any smaller scale infill opportunities for development in Coneysthorpe or the surrounding villages that arise in the future will also be considered through the normal planning application route.
As part of the Local Plan review, Ryedale District Council are considering a range of sites of varying scales. Ryedale District Council state, ‘National policy requires that we do allocate a proportion (10%) of smaller sites at less than 1ha in size (20-30 dwellings). [However] smaller sites than 10 dwellings are less likely to deliver wider benefits, such as affordable housing and lots of smaller sites can become difficult to monitor delivery of and it becomes harder to demonstrate that you have a deliverable 5-year land supply of housing land, which is something we are expected to do if we are able to fully apply the policies in our Local Plan.
It is therefore likely that we will choose a range of site sizes to make sure we choose the most appropriate and suitable sites for development 1.
Ryedale's current Local Plan requirement is for 200 new homes per annum so there is an established need for new housing, including affordable homes. There is also the opportunity to revitalise villages through housing development which can deliver new service provision alongside affordable homes, new employment space and new active travel linkages.
Castle Howard as a historic landowner has been intrinsically involved in growing villages in the area from their initial dwellings, into the valued settlements they are today. Analysis of historic data suggests that, as is typical of rural settlements in England, growth at scale has occurred periodically, based upon the social and economic conditions of the time.
Historic growth patterns indicate that over the last 200 hundred years, all of the villages where development sites are proposed have increased in size, having doubled in size in one case (Bulmer) and seen growth of 306% (Slingsby), 462% (Welburn) and 486% (Terrington). The hamlet of Ganthorpe has seen only limited growth.
In the context of historical growth of these settlements, the proposals are considered to represent a reasonable, once in a generation increase in the scale of these villages.
Proposals at the hamlet of Ganthorpe amount to a more significant percentage increase on the current housing numbers, as the intention is to extend the settlement, based around the existing core and vacant farmyard. The opportunity here is to create something akin to a new village, with new services, open space and affordable housing, where none currently exist. Development at Ganthorpe would be linked to the nearby village of Terrington, which itself has seen the most significant growth of all local settlements at almost five hundred percentage over the last two hundred years and meet the development needs of the Parish.
Site submissions made by Castle Howard Estate propose development in phases, over the 15-year local plan review period.
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1https://www.ryedale.gov.uk/information/review-of-the-local-plan/our-key-priorities/
On any future housing sites which may be allocated by Ryedale District Council or brought forward by the Estate for planning consent, we are committed to meeting all affordable housing requirements written into policy.
We understand the importance of affordable accommodation which enables local people to live in the communities close to their place of work and in ensuring the long-term sustainability of rural communities. Lack of access to affordable housing impacts on the Estate – with high demand for our rental homes, and difficulty recruiting staff due to the lack of available housing options in the local area. We are committed to the provision of affordable housing and contributing to meeting the housing needs of the local communities in and around the estate. The Estate already provides more than 60 homes at below market rental rate for staff and local people. Castle Howard has secured outline planning permission for The Balk site in Slingsby, with 35% affordable housing provided on-site as required by Ryedale District Council’s current planning policies.
Affordable housing provision is a policy requirement on all sites which obtain planning consent through the Local Plan process. The number of affordable homes on any Castle Howard development site will be at least at the level required by Ryedale District Council’s policies. Housing need is a key decision driver for site allocation in the new Local Plan and the Estate is supportive of the process RDC is undertaking to determine housing need which will inform the quantum of affordable housing required on future development sites.
Affordable housing is a complex area and given higher than average house prices in rural areas, affordability linked to average house prices can still leave homes out of reach for many. Castle Howard is considering a number of models of delivery that would create affordable homes for rent and purchase and has already met with Ryedale District Council’s affordable housing officers to explore how such models might operate should sites be allocated (and on sites with planning permission).
As part of the review of Ryedale’s Local Plan, RDC are considering proposed revisions to the dispersal of future development in the district. One of the associated policies under review is the Local Needs Occupancy Condition and more detail can be found here and here.
Given that the Local Needs Occupancy Condition was initially introduced as means of controlling development dispersal, it is appropriate that this policy is reviewed in tandem to ensure that the Local Plan strategy is coherent and uses all policy levers to achieve its desired aims of ensuring available land to meet development needs in the district.
Determining the most appropriate strategy for development dispersal and supporting policy is the key aim of the Local Plan review process and as such this matter will be determined by the Local Plan making process.
Given that Castle Howard supports a more dispersed development model as a means of ensuring the viability of villages away from the main towns and service centres in Ryedale, the Estate also considers that the Local Needs Occupancy Condition (LNOC) should be reconsidered as the restrictive nature of the condition has hindered housing delivery and thus the availability of new housing, and in particular affordable housing in Ryedale.
A recognised impact of the implementation of the LNOC is to restrict house building, primarily because by reducing the possible owners of these properties the demand is reduced, and consequently the value, which means building new homes is not financially viable for developers. This restricts development of new homes which in turn reduces the number of affordable homes.
In addition to viability in costs and value terms, the majority of lenders are unwilling to provide developer finance or mortgage finance on restricted property. Therefore, even though values would in principle be lower, as the properties would not be mortgageable the houses would be inaccessible to young families and those without large assets.
Therefore, whilst the intention of the LNOC is to provide opportunities for local people to buy homes, it restricts the delivery of new homes with low levels of permissions granted and homes completed. A revision of this Clause would increase housing supply and enable the development of affordable housing through new development.
If our proposed development plans go ahead, we will look to implement a number of measures that will make the new homes we build more energy efficient and less expensive to run for tenants or owners.
This includes a commitment to ensuring that Passive House design standards are employed in the design and modelling of the new houses. These standards help to create buildings that require very little energy to achieve a comfortable temperature year-round, reducing the need for conventional heating and air conditioning systems, and using up to 90% less energy to run than a typical building.
As well as ensuring any new houses built go above and beyond the standard building regulations for energy efficiency, we have also embarked on the sale of some of the Estate’s existing vacant housing stock awaiting refurbishment in order to reinvest the proceeds into an accelerated programme of energy performance upgrades to our current housing portfolio. This will include making a series of improvements, on an accelerated schedule, that will improve the EPC rating of our current properties and make them more energy efficient and thus less expensive and more comfortable for our tenants, and of course better for the environment in the long-term.
Yes, transport connectivity is a key part of the viability of the development of new homes and employment sites in rural areas. Whilst the challenges of rural transport provision are well known, we will look at how development of new homes can be designed, planned and delivered in a way which seeks to address some of these issues, whilst contributing to wider solutions for connectivity challenges in our area. At this early planning stage there is a valuable opportunity to re-imagine transport connectivity in the countryside and improve the infrastructure for ‘active travel (cycling and walking) within and between settlements.
Alongside looking at ways to reduce the reliance on car travel, we are undertaking a range of highways assessments to determine the potential impacts and mitigations for individual sites and settlements, and these will feed into RDC’s wider consideration of the impact of proposed development in the area.
Impact on and need for development of transport infrastructure is part of the Local Plan making process and the allocation of sites will be made by RDC regarding this. Individual planning applications must satisfy the local planning authority that adequate provision is made for transport and the Community Infrastructure Levy charge ensure developers contribute to infrastructure enhancements.
The Local Plan review process will consider what essential service provision will be required aligned to the sites it chooses to allocate. This will see developers contribute to the provision of essential services through the Community Infrastructure Levy charge.
All new Estate led development, where sites are allocated, will contribute to the provision of new services. What these services are will depend on the needs of each community, based on current service provision and the demographic and needs of current and future residents.
Proposals will be developed with input from those communities whether sites are allocated or submitted for planning as standalone applications. If sites are allocated, we would expect the allocation criteria to confirm the need for service provision in conjunction with housing development. Where a subsequent planning application is brought forward on any allocated sites, the design process for the individual scheme will ensure opportunity for local people to shape those proposals.
Services may include parking, shops, land for community use for recreation or to accommodate the creation or expansion of community buildings, the provision of space to host locally owned business and to provide flexible workspace, new public green space, new and enhanced walking paths and cycle ways.
Given the size of the Estate, we have the ability to develop a connected and coordinated response to community needs. Any development across the Estate will become an inextricable part of the Estate going forward, so we obviously want to create a positive architectural, economic and environmental legacy that we can all be proud of and that will hopefully become a blueprint for other Estates to follow.
Castle Howard is committed to ensuring a positive legacy for our local communities and the wider environment. The ambition is to create sustainable communities that will endure for generations to come.
Castle Howard is proposing to develop new homes in settlements neighbouring the core Estate. This development will be guided by strong principles around design quality, environmental standards, the provision of community facilities and services. It will also ensure that a proportion of homes are affordable for local people and families, thereby encouraging a more diverse local demographic. We will create new homes to help transform villages into thriving places where people can live, work and play, and contribute to a range of benefits and services that will ensure these new homes become part of vibrant communities.
The benefits will include:
The Estate is not a conventional property developer whose primary driver is profit. We live here and have been part of the local community for 300 years. Castle Howard has purposefully and positively shaped the landscape and communities here for centuries and we aim to do so for centuries to come. We are inherently connected to this place, so development delivered by us will be mindful of the impact on the character of the place and the people who live here.
The success of the Estate is inseparable from the success of the local area and its communities. There is no vision of one being successful without the other and, together, through careful investment we can release synergies that are not able to be realised by speculative one-off, short-term profit focused developments.
The following principles will underpin all Estate led development.
Castle Howard has a long history of working with nature, and the Howard family have demonstrated a 300-year commitment to the land, underpinned by a passion for farming, woodlands, and wildlife.
The custodianship of the natural environment is one of our highest priorities and we are actively moving to a more regenerative way of managing the land which will see us review some of our agricultural and land management practices and we remain committed to farming as an important part of this.
The Estate covers 9,000 acres, and we have identified a long-term strategy to release small amounts of this land for development, thereby facilitating re investment in the Estate as a whole and securing its future. Of this, around 93 acres of agricultural land have been submitted for consideration within the local plan process for housing or employment.
We remain committed to agriculture and food production as part of a wider strategy to regenerative land management practices. This includes ongoing projects to address the challenges of climate change, manage biodiversity and adapt to the significant rate of change within farming in order to future-proof the estate's management of its land and agricultural practices for years to come.
As part of this process, we have consulted with all affected farmers and will seek to ensure alternative provision on the Estate is provided for any tenants directly impacted by the allocations
Yes, Castle Howard is committed to working with the community to understand the needs and opportunities in each settlement and to enable people to input to the process of developing detailed proposals. The first step is working with RDC to determine which of the sites identified will be allocated and then brought forward for planning applications and over what timescale. We have started talking to Parish Councils and communities and will be continuing that dialogue over the coming months.
Whilst RDC concludes its review process of all sites submitted, Castle Howard is continuing to build the evidence base around its development approach to create more detailed principles in areas such as transport connectivity, provision of services, environmental standards, scheme design and new Estate led enterprise and visitor experiences.
Opportunities to input into that thinking will be provided to the local communities through a variety of channels, informed by initial discussions with the Parish Councils.