Seven golf holes can make way for up to 180 additional holiday lodges and static caravans at Percy Wood Golf and Country Retreat after an Inspector allowed a major expansion of the Northumberland holiday park.
The scheme at Swarland also includes a leisure hub, access roads, parking, drainage ponds and landscaping, alongside a reconfigured golf course.
Northumberland County Council’s landscape objections failed to convince Inspector Chris Baxter, who found that mature woodland, the landform and the relationship with existing holiday accommodation would contain the development’s effects.
Why Percy Wood won permission to expand onto the golf course
The proposal by William Harrison of Harrison Leisure UK affects the seven northernmost holes. The operator currently advertises Percy Wood with an 18-hole golf course; the permission combines the accommodation expansion with a reconfiguration of the course.
The appeal land contains fairways, greens, bunkers and tees between mature trees. Existing holiday accommodation lies to the north and west, Swarland’s homes are immediately east, and further golf-course land and woodland lie to the south.
Baxter accepted that open space would be lost. However, boundary trees and the surrounding landform would restrict wider views. Closer views would remain from some neighbouring homes and existing caravans, but the new development would sit alongside an established tourism operation.
The Inspector concluded that it:
“would be read as an extension to the existing rural tourism development”
The proposed layout, scale and density would not make Percy Wood’s expansion an overly intrusive feature or undermine the rural setting. Baxter also found that the leisure hub was well designed and would not dominate its surroundings.
A drainage pond on the eastern side would help separate the new accommodation from village homes. Additional structural planting would screen views and break up the development internally, rather than leaving one uninterrupted spread of lodges.
Residents raised traffic, flooding and village-edge concerns
The parish council and residents raised a much wider set of concerns than the landscape issue at the centre of Northumberland’s refusal. They included traffic, flooding, wildlife, noise, lighting, loss of golf-course land and pressure on local services.
Baxter considered transport, drainage, ecology, heritage and open-space assessments among a substantial body of evidence. The county council had not identified fundamental problems with those documents or considered the other issues sufficient to justify refusal.
The Inspector found that access through the existing Percy Wood holiday park would be safe, the additional traffic would not harm the surrounding network and the proposal provided sufficient parking. Although residents questioned limited local services and public transport, Baxter noted that rural holiday parks were not unusual in locations with fewer services.
Loss of open space was acknowledged, but the new buildings were not proposed on allocated protected open space. Baxter gave full weight to the Newton on the Moor and Swarland Neighbourhood Plan and found the scheme consistent with its policies on the rural economy, design and landscape.
The siting, separation and boundary treatment also persuaded the Inspector that nearby households would not suffer unacceptable effects from noise, lighting, privacy loss or other disturbance.
Coastal wildlife protection secured through the agreement
Percy Wood is within ten kilometres of the coast. The scheme’s legal agreement includes a contribution to the Coastal Mitigation Service, following an appropriate assessment agreed by Natural England and the council.
The agreement also secures on-site biodiversity work through a habitat management and monitoring plan, with a financial contribution for monitoring. The Inspector concluded that these measures would protect the integrity of the affected coastal nature-conservation sites while securing biodiversity gains on the development land.
Holiday use only, with no vehicle access from Coast View
The 31 conditions include a restriction to holiday occupation: the accommodation must not become anyone’s sole or main residence. The operator must keep an occupier register available to the council.
The leisure hub must remain ancillary to the holiday park and golf course. Vehicle access is to use the existing entrance from Leamington Lane, with no vehicular access from Coast View.
Before work starts, the operator must obtain approval for a highway scheme covering widening and associated improvements on Leamington Lane between the existing entrance and The Avenue. A construction traffic plan and later delivery and servicing arrangements are also required.
The conditions require detailed drainage arrangements, tree protection and a landscaping scheme. A noise assessment must follow within three months of the leisure hub opening, with mitigation where required, while separate limits control noise from fixed plant and machinery.
New planting must be delivered in the specified first planting season and replaced if it dies or fails within five years. Full-fibre broadband connections must also be approved and operational before occupation.
The appeal was allowed on 24th September 2026, with a three-year deadline to begin development. Percy Wood can now progress the expansion, subject to those detailed approvals and the legal agreement.
For a separate explanation of the planning issues affecting static caravans and lodges, see our caravan park planning permission guide.
Read the source: Percy Wood appeal 6010440, including all conditions. Application reference: 25/04076/FUL.
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