Housing estate plans to be decided at inquiry
BBCPlans to build hundreds of homes will be decided at a planning inquiry after the proposal was initially rejected by a local authority.
Last October, Sunderland City Council turned down a scheme to build 255 homes on farmland at North Road, Hetton-le-Hole, and said the estate would create "significant negative issues".
These issues included impacts on privacy, undermining the settlement break between Hetton-le-Hole and East Rainton and "high residential density" in the area near Hetton Academy.
Gladman Developments has now lodged an appeal with the secretary of state and a formal inquiry will be held near the end of the year to re-examine the plans.
At the time of the initial application, council planners said the proposed housing would be a "major incursion into the open countryside and green corridor", according to the Local Democracy Reporting Service.
They also said the plans did not include enough information about archaeology, flooding, ecology or biodiversity.
Gladman Developments asked the council to defer the matter to allow these technical issues to be addressed but the local authority denied the request, with council planning officers saying the proposal was "fundamentally unacceptable".
The Planning Inspectorate has confirmed an inquiry will begin on 1 December.
