A LUXURY hotel has revealed plans to finance a multimillion pound expansion by building executive homes on its green belt land.

The four-star Ramside Hall Hotel, in Durham City, was granted planning permission in March 2008 for a £17m development, which will see 44 extra bedrooms taking the total to 126, a 36-hole golf course, 700-capacity banqueting suite and extra leisure facilities including a swimming pool and spa.

However, the owners have now revealed plans to partfinance the expansion by developing 32 homes, split between two sites in the hotel grounds.

An application for outline planning permission is expected to be submitted in the summer, but the hotel has now begun a consultation exercise with neighbours.

The proposal would see two plots of land developed for housing – 19 five-bedroom detached homes on land next to the railway cutting to the west of Pittington Lane, a nineacre site currently occupied by the 25th hole of the hotel’s golf course, and 13 homes on the site of disused buildings at Hill Top Farm.

Both developments would be served by new access roads off Pittington Lane.

Supporters say the development is necessary to fund the development of the hotel, but the application is likely to prove sensitive because it goes against the existing Local Plan for Durham, in which the area is earmarked for open countryside.

Plans were outlined at a public exhibition on Wednesday night at Ramside.

Planning consultant Richard Spencer said: “There is an identified need in County Durham for executive houses, so we can attract the entrepreneurs, who we need.

“I think its important that the community has an opportunity to talk to us about what it thinks about this development, then for us to sit down with the architects and planners to see what is the best way to address those concerns. Some we may be able to address and some may be more difficult.”

Mr Spencer said the expansion would directly create 63 full-time jobs in the hotel and a further 126 indirect jobs, not including the temporary jobs created during house-building.

The proposals are expected to be outlined to Belmont Parish Council at a meeting next Thursday.