A RENT now, buy later affordable housing development for a former pit village has won planning permission despite opposition.

Prince Bishop Homes, a specially-created subsidiary of the social housing provider Derwentside Homes, runs a scheme that helps people struggling to obtain a mortgage post credit-crunch to get a foot on the property ladder.

Tenants pay a market rent and get the option of buying their home after four years’ tenure, putting their share of any increase in the property’s value towards the deposit.

Durham County Council’s Central and East area planning committee has approved plans to build 30 such homes on the site of the former Coxhoe Pottery in Front Street, Coxhoe.

The scheme entails demolishing a derelict house, building a water pumping station required by Northumbrian Water and clearing asbestos contamination and Japanese Knotweed from the land.

Keith Tallentire, from the housing provider, told councillors that the development was aimed at people in work with good incomes who were prevented from buying their first home by the tighter lending criteria used by lenders since 2008.

The site already has outline planning permission for a 24-home development.

But councillors heard that some residents objected on a number of grounds.

These included the loss of views and privacy of neighbours, extra traffic, the strain on facilities such as schools and surgeries, access issues, the removal of a boundary hedge, the look of the houses, and the density of the development.

Scheme opponent Karen Fisher told the committee that the homes were not well designed and would not fit in with other buildings nearby.

Some letters of objection expressed concern that social housing was proposed, councillors heard.

Coxhoe Parish Council also objected, citing the poor design of the homes, the “adverse impact on amenities of new and existing residents”and its conflict with the parish plan.

Local councillor Jan Blakey told fellow councillors there had been an increase in accidents on a nearby main road and that the local school was “nearly at capacity” and facing the prospect of admitting children from other housing developments that had already been approved.

Principal planning officer Tim Burnham told the committee that the homes, nearly all terraced and semi-detached, were of “modest design”.

He said officers considered that the scheme was acceptable and that drawbacks of the scheme were outweighed by the fact that it would help people to own their home.