PLANS for 77 new homes in a prominent Hexham location have been approved by councillors.

The proposal to transform the historic Hexham workhouse site on Corbridge Road, into 34 homes and a separate application for 43 flats for over-60s were approved at the Tynedale Local Area Council meeting on Tuesday.

Site owners HMC Group will develop the former workhouse by building 26 two-bedroom flats, six three-bedroom flats and two two-bedroom houses.

HMC Group will also be working with retirement housebuilder McCarthy and Stone on the project, which will redevelop the site’s car park into a three-storey block for retirement living accommodation.

Hexham town councillor and former mayor, Tom Gillanders, said the council believed the two proposals would substantially improve the area.

Hexham East councillor, Cath Homer, added: “It’s taken four years to get to this point and I welcome the fact that this site, which has been deteriorating for a long period of time, is being brought back to life.”

The site closed as a workhouse in 1939, before becoming the administration block of Hexham General Hospital on the founding of the National Health Service in 1948. HMC Group purchased the site in 2004.

Despite the separate application for the retirement living accommodation being reduced from four stories to three, the town council raised concerns over the appearance of the building and the impact it would have on the privacy of residents of nearby Peth Head street.

And although they welcomed the overall development, Coun. Trevor Cessford said the designs for the three-storey building made the building look like a ‘prison block’, while Coun. Karen Quinn said it looked like the ‘Berlin Wall’.

“I’m very happy that it’s going to be built and there’s been a change of size on the application,” Coun. Cessford said. “But there’s no sensitivity to the character of the area and it’s not visually attractive.”

However, Coun. Gillanders said the plans were a ‘positive’ for the town.