THE owners of a motel destroyed in a blaze four years ago have won planning permission to build houses on the site.

The Rainton Lodge Motel, next to the A690 near West Rainton, went up in flames in April 2001, forcing staff and guests to flee the building - including a newly-wed couple from Sunderland staying there after their marriage ceremony.

At its height, 50 firefighters were fighting the blaze, which was traced to a deep fat fryer in the kitchen, and about a third of the complex was gutted.

Now the owner, The Roseberry Group, the family firm of former Durham county cricketer Mike Roseberry, has been given outline consent for residential development on the site.

The company will have to submit a second, more detailed, application to Durham City Council before it can start building, but the development control committee has agreed to the principle of the development.

The firm maintains its scheme fits with planning policies and would not harm the surrounding area.

West Rainton Parish Council, which opposed a massive proposed housing development on nearby land a few years ago, did not object to the planning application.

But the city council received two letters of objection from villagers who contended that the development would bring more traffic into a busy area, add to difficulties getting on to the A690 and cause parking problems.

They also maintained traffic associated with the new housing would create noise that would disturb existing residents and that house price values might suffer.

Durham County Council's highways officials raised no objection to the plans and the council's planners welcomed the scheme, saying it "will bring back into use a derelict piece of land''.

The site of the former motel is outside the boundary for West Rainton set down in the city council's local plan, the framework for development throughout the district.

The city council's planning chief, David Thornborrow, said the site was "brownfield'' land - the sort of site the Government wants to be redeveloped.

As a result, the plan raised a dilemma - in balancing the protection of countryside with the need to make use of previously-developed plots.

"The site lies in a countryside location where new housing development would normally be considered to be unacceptable."

But, he said, given the current state of the site, it would be hard to argue that new housing would cause "visual harm''.

He said that planning officers felt that traffic going to and from the new development would not necessarily spoil things for existing residents, provided there was adequate access and parking.