A Northumberland estate which was the focal part of a major planning row is back on the market, four years on from the collapse of its former developers.
The Dissington Estate, based between Ponteland and Stamfordham, was first put up for sale with a £27.5m price tag back in 2019, following a failed bid by developer Lugano to create a garden village on the land, with more than 2,000 homes and a host of other other facilities.
The Dissington Garden Village proposals had been set for planning approval, but when the Conservatives formed the new administration at Northumberland County Council in May 2017, they called for a reassessment of the scheme.
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At the time, Lugano made accusations against the local authority and writs were issued in the High Court that autumn. But in January 2019 the application was withdrawn from planning committee agendas with days to spare, and two months later the legal claims were dropped as it was revealed that the estate was no longer in the ownership of Lugano Property Group.
The leaseholder of Dissington Estate – Lugano Dissington Estate Ltd – has been in the hands of administrators since 2019, and now new attempts are being made to sell the huge estate, which extends to 2,523-acres of land, farms and residential properties. Companies House documents reveal how joint administrators at David Rubin & Partners – which has since become part of the Begbies Traynor group – were appointed to Lugano Dissington Estate Ltd in September 2019.
The firm had sustained heavy losses while it invested in promoting the garden village development and its only source of revenue was rental income from the estate, which was relatively small in comparison to the sums expended. The company borrowed more than £27m in a bid to shore up its finances, but administrators were later called in.
Property agents from Cushman & Wakefield made initial attempts to sell the estate, but despite receiving interest from more than 50 parties, no sale took place and it was withdrawn from the market. At one point administrators were in talks with an interested third party that was keen to to create a joint venture and develop the estate, but this also did not progress.
Now Watling Real Estate has been appointed as receivers of the estate, which is said to be one of the UK’s largest ever receivership appointments.
The estate includes three large farms, three farm smallholdings, neighbouring woodland, a fishing pond and a number of residential properties, with more than 1,884 acres of arable land and 469 acres of pasture. The estate also contains a fishing pond let to a local angling club, various let residential properties, plus some 151 acres of in-hand woodland dispersed around the estate.
The residential dwellings have a total area of 27,233 sq ft and come with a wide assortment of neighbouring barns, stables, workshops, storage rooms and other outbuildings totalling another 115,000 sq ft across the estate.
Andrew Foster, joint receiver and managing director at Watling Real Estate’s Leeds office, said: “The Dissington Estate extends to a total of some 2,523 acres, which is one of the largest ever – if not the largest ever – receivership appointments ever to have been made in the UK. We will now be taking control of the land and undertaking a detailed fact-finding operation, assessing all disposal options and implementing the optimum strategy to realise best value.
“This could be an outright sale of the whole property, or we may well end up splitting the estate into various lots to maximise its value. What we’re seeing across the property marketplace is a fall of some 25% in capital values since June last year, a situation exacerbated by challenges in the UK’s macro economy with large interest rate rises. As a result, we’re experiencing a sudden climb in distressed case as lenders take a more proactive approach to dealing with challenged loans.”
