Sun Inn, Cottingley, housing plan finally approved with s.106 agreement

Following the signing of a Section 106 agreement, work can begin after an almost 12 month wait at the Sun Inn pub site in Cottingley.

An application to convert the pub building into eight flats and build ten houses on the site was approved by Councillors at a Regulatory and Appeals Committee in October 2020, and it was officially approved along with the Section 106 agreement on Tuesday.

The s.106 agreement is a legal agreement between developers and the council known as planning obligations, to mitigate the impact that a development will have on the surrounding area.

A pub had stood on the site of the Sun Inn in Bradford Old Road for 400 years before it closed in 2018, with the local community’s attempts to save it for use as a pub unsuccessful.

Plans were submitted by Sun Inn Developments and despite strong opposition from nearby residents, Councillors approved the plans last year.

Residents claimed it would cause an increase in traffic and be a loss of a community asset for the village.

Councillors had to consider its worth as an asset balanced against the need for new homes in the district, with 200 needing to be built in Cottingley alone in coming years.

Mark Illingworth, of Sun Inn Developments, said the new homes will be “high quality” and that before it closed as a pub the Sun Inn was not profitable.

An artist's impression of the pub transformed into apartments

He added that it would cost over £800,000 to refurbish and reopen the pub, making its “short-term viability non-existent”.

The development will be made up of seven four-bedroom townhouses, two four-bedroom semi-detached houses with cinema and “snug” rooms, and one four-bedroom detached house, with two-bedroom and six one-bed apartments in the former pub building.

Now, the plans have been formally approved with a list of planning obligations of more than two-dozen that developers must abide by.

These include ensuring that all roads and drives are hard-surfaced, sealed and drained before anyone moves into their home, work beginning on the site within the next three years, and every home will be required to have external plugs in waterproof sockets and easily accessible to enable the charging of electric vehicles.

The site must have separate systems of drainage for foul and surface water on and off site, and work cannot begin until details of this have been provided to the council.
A hard and soft landscaping plan must also be submitted and a schedule of maintenance for these areas for the next 25 years must also be drawn up before anyone can move in to the development.

Biodiversity plans must be kept to and plans for where bat and bird boxes will be incorporated into the design of homes submitted and approved before people move in, and all protected trees must not be damaged during construction.

Developers must also check for contamination on the land and cease work immediately if any if found to be further assessed.

Any public rights of way must also be protected and maintained.