PLANS to build more than 200 houses next to the ancestral home of folk hero Bobby Shafto will go before councillors this week.

If it is given the go-ahead, the scheme could signal the start of a larger residential development which will include a country park on the outskirts of Spennymoor.

A consortium of developers, comprising Bellway, Persimmon and Yuill, wants to build 230 homes on the former Whitworth Colliery site to the west of Carr Lane.

The consortium had originally hoped to build 790 homes and a community park in Whitworth Park, and to make improvements to cycle links and cycle parking in the town centre.

But because of changes to Government guidelines, the proposal was withdrawn. The latest application is the first stage in a new draft, which has also been revised because of former mine shafts on the site.

The Whitworth Consortium could apply to develop the rest of the site later, through the Local Plan Review process, although house builder Barratt Homes is now also interested in using the land.

The proposals are for a mixture of detached, semi-detached and terraced properties built in clusters around a tree-lined central spine, which is a proposed bus route.

A small play facility would be provided, which Sedgefield Borough Council planning officers consider to be an appropriate size, bearing in mind nearby Jubilee Park and likely future development of the site.

The consortium says the scheme will have immediate regenerative benefits for the town and borough, and that an extra £1.75m could be spent in the town centre each year.

Sedgefield Borough Council planning officials have recommended that the plans be approved by the development control committee on Friday, in exchange for funding for environmental and highway improvements in that part of Spennymoor.

The money, the sum of which would be agreed later, would be in lieu of the absence of open space in the proposed development.

If approved, the application would be sent to the Secretary of State to decide whether it needs further investigation because it lies in the wider Whitworth site, part of which is greenfield land.