Chester Gate new homes: next phase of Gentoo's Pennywell scheme gets go-ahead for 'blot on the landscape' site

Sunderland City Council’s Planning and Highways Committee, at a meeting this week, approved an application for hundreds of new homes on land between Chester Road and Presthope Road in the Pennywell area.

The site was historically home to a large number of houses before the area was bulldozed under plans by Sunderland Housing Group, now known as Gentoo, and the site sat empty for years with access roads remaining between parcels of land where homes once stood.

In recent years, Gentoo has been building homes on the site under the Chester Gate development, with phase one adjacent to Chester Road under way and some homes already built out and occupied.

New plans from Gentoo Group, submitted earlier this year (2025), sought permission for 294 affordable homes as part of the next phase of the housing development.

A design and access statement from Gentoo said ‘phase one’ of Chester Gate is under construction and noted the remainder of land bounded by Portslade Road, Presthope Road, Prestbury Road and Chester Road, falls under the new planning application.

Proposals are expected to deliver a mix of two-bedroom, three-bedroom and four-bedroom homes, two-bedroom bungalows and two-bedroom apartments, to help “deliver economic growth” for the city.

Gentoo, in a previous statement, said the development would be fully affordable and low carbon, with homes available for rent and shared ownership, to help households get a foot on the property ladder.

New house types were also planned to incorporate energy efficient features such as air source heat pumps, solar PV panels, electric vehicle charging points and enhanced insulation.

The plans were discussed by councillors at a Planning and Highways Committee meeting on Tuesday, April 29, 2025, at City Hall.

Sunderland City Council’s planning department recommended the housing plans for approval and said plans would “contribute towards the policy for south Sunderland by providing regeneration and renewal at Pennywell”.

Council planners added the plans would “integrate successfully with the dwelling houses currently under construction to the south east of the site and the surrounding context of two storey residential development.”

Some councillors on the Planning and Highways Committee raised concerns about viability issues linked to the housing scheme, namely the inability to secure a proportion of affordable homes “in perpetuity” as part of the formal planning process.

However, the planning panel was told there would be a ‘re-testing’ condition as part of the planning approval to see if viability has changed at “agreed intervals”, and to look at how this impacts the development.

A representative for Gentoo noted that the housing scheme was being supported by Homes England grant funding and would be fully affordable, offering shared ownership and affordable housing to rent, with the new homes managed by Gentoo as a registered provider of social housing.

This includes 80 shared ownership units and 214 affordable rent units.

Several councillors said Gentoo’s communication and policy direction had improved in recent years, and welcomed housing being brought back to the Pennywell site, which one councillor described as a “blot on the landscape”.

While some noted there would be “disappointment” that the site would not return to “proper social homes”, the Planning and Highways Committee voted unanimously to approve the plans.

Councillor Martin Haswell said: “I’m very pleased to support the application, the only bittersweet element is we won’t see a return to having proper social homes on this piece of land and there’s always going to be disappointment.

“Finally we can see it being redeveloped, not being a blot on the landscape as you enter the city going down Chester Road and providing much needed homes, I’m happy to support it.”

Councillor Iain Scott said he was “delighted” to see the application coming forward to “generate so many new homes” and bring the land back into community use.

Councillor Michael Dixon added: “I remember years and years ago accompanying the editor of a housing magazine around this site and our only company were a couple of horses grazing on the site.

“The reason he came up was to see how not to develop land, in other words, demolish council housing then do nothing about it. But that was in the past.

“I’m very very pleased to see what’s happening here now, not only the development of phase one but this varied and flexible usage of land and the housing, with shared ownership and rental units as well.

“I think it shows that Gentoo turned a corner a long time ago from the dark and distant past to some pretty progressive ideas, I’m very happy to support the application tonight.”

Updates on “detailed impacts for amenity and ecology” were presented to councillors on the Planning and Highways Committee on Tuesday, along with an update on the off-site education contribution linked to a Section 106 agreement, a legal process in planning which secures funds from developers to help mitigate the impacts of developments.

The update confirmed the council’s environmental health officer found the scheme acceptable, subject to a condition for a noise mitigation scheme, and that the scheme was acceptable in relation to ecology.

A report to councillors also said the off-site financial education contribution sought from Gentoo (from Together for Children) had “increased by nearly one million pounds between the [housing plan’s] pre-application stage and the current application”.

The report added council planning officers were “concerned that there would be difficulty securing the increased off-site financial contribution”, and that there was no “substantive evidence to justify the increase in education contribution”.

Council planning officers recommended that the planning obligation for education should secure the original off-site financial contribution sought during the pre-application period of around £408,592.

Joanne Gordon, homes and development director at Gentoo Group, previously said the firm is “committed to increasing the supply and accessibility of affordable housing by delivering high quality affordable homes in a range of tenures”.

The housing chief, speaking in January, 2025, also highlighted the national housing shortage and said there was a clear local need for affordable housing, with tens of thousands of people on Gentoo’s waiting list.

A representative for Gentoo put housing demand in a local context at Tuesday’s Planning and Highways Committee, noting that “for every vacant home in Pennywell, they’re currently averaging 450 bids per home.”

Gentoo has said it aims to deliver more than 700 additional homes to the city by 2029 through its Affordable Homes Programme to help tackle the shortage of affordable housing and help meet Sunderland City Council’s housing targets.

The submitted housing proposal for Pennywell includes a large area of open space within the centre of the site and footpaths have been incorporated to provide pedestrian access connecting to existing footpath links to residential areas and local amenities.

Gentoo also said the plans would support job creation and spend in local shops and services, along with rental income which can be invested back into existing housing stock and support services for Gentoo customers and new council tax revenue which would be spent in Sunderland.

For more information on the planning application and council decision, visit Sunderland City Council’s planning portal website and search reference: 25/00057/FUL