Transcript

Good evening ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for coming. Welcome to the East Buckingham Shear Planning Committee. Before we start I'd like to point out that we're here for the second application number PL 223845, the land to the rear of 8 Rookery Med or Homer Green has been withdrawn and will not be discussed this evening, but I don't think it's going to affect anybody in the room. I have a couple of housekeeping items. This meeting is being webcast. If members of the public do not wish to have the room captured please advise the committee clerk and we will help you sit in a place where you won't be filmed. Fire exits are located at the back of the chamber. Did you want to say something Liz about which direction people go? Yes, so fire escape, go through the doors at the end of the chamber there, down the stairs through the main door, turn left and we meet. There's a space just over the bridge, over the stream and we'll meet there. Thank you very much. And so we move to agenda item number one, appointment of the vice chairman. I'm very pleased to announce that I've asked Councillor Isabel Darby to be vice chairman of this committee. Thank you for accepting Isabel and if you'd like to join us at the top table. Thank you very much. Apologies for absence. Thank you chairman, yes we have apologies from Councillors Burchley, McBean, Rush and Wallace. Thank you. And I'd also like to make a special thanks to Councillor Wilson for changing his plans to be here this evening, it's very much appreciated. I'm moving on to the minutes of the previous meeting. Are there any comments on the previous minutes? No. Is there a chair, Councillor Darby? Chairman, I wasn't in the room but I believe that Councillor Rush was not able to vote and that's not been recorded as far as I'm concerned. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I can't see. Okay. What was it? I saw it, didn't I? Can we note that point? If it could just be recorded in these minutes please. Absolutely. Thank you. I'll make sure they're recorded. Right, okay. Apart from that is everyone happy to agree the minutes? Thank you very much. I will sign the minutes after the meeting so you don't have to wait around any longer. Which brings us to the application, PL21-1309FA. The Aldi Supermarket London Road West Amersham. I will now pass over to Mike, yes? Thank you. Thank you, Chair. Members will be aware that this application was considered at the previous planning committee on the 30th of April with the decision being deferred to consider the following issues which were just summarised on a slide. So to investigate amending the elevational treatments of the proposed building, to revisit the condition which stipulates delivery operating hours to see if the evening hours can be reduced by one hour, to consider a condition which restricts HGV movements within the site and further consideration of the access arrangements with a potential left turn only for vehicles leaving the site. So I'll come back to those in a second but just a few updates to the report since the previous committee meeting and since this report has been published. We've received two further neutral letters received including one from the Amersham Society commenting that members should ensure that the new building pays homage to the vernacular architecture and materials in the area. We've received two further letters of support commenting that it will provide jobs as a good addition to the local area and a good use of a brownfield site. One further letter of objection received on behalf of Tesco Stores commenting that the sequential report has not been fully updated and that is addressed in the report. And also a letter received from the Amersham District's Residents Association commenting that the revised elevations do show more brickwork but they raise some concerns that the change is relatively small. I'll go through those in a second on the plans. It's also worth pointing out some of the objections relate to conservation area issues but just to clarify again the site is not in the conservation area. So I'll combine going through the plans with the update. So just a quick reminder of the site plans. So the aerial photo, obviously the site is just there showing the existing building. The location plan to show an existing building within the site. That's the proposed site plan which obviously you saw last time. And those were the previously proposed elevations. So if I start by talking about the differences in the materials, members previously stated the form and the scale of the building was acceptable but raised specific concerns about the elevational treatments. So that was the previous elevations. That's the amended elevations and it's basically those areas which are new brickwork which weren't on the previous scheme. So the applicants amended the scheme to introduce those larger areas of brickwork especially to those two elevations which are prominent from the public realm, so that's the front and the eastern side. There's also a couple of CGI's as well. That's the elevations again. And a CGI just showing what it would look like within the street scene. I've just blown up that a little bit just to show the store. So before it was just this sort of rectangular block visible from the front which was the area of brickwork now it's going across the whole of the frontage and down this side as well. So it is on the most prominent elevations that the changes have occurred. And also in addition the remaining areas of render which are largely now to the rear are proposed to be a sort of off-white cream colour rather than the bright white that was previously proposed. The exact brickwork is proposed to be approved by condition as is normal procedure. So in general terms an applicant will not have sourced the specific bricks at the planning application stage. I know there was a query raised about this. So as part of a subsequent condition submission officers will of course ensure that the bricks reflect the local vernacular in the area. So just looking at the other issues in terms of the delivery hours and condition 21 some concerns were raised at the previous meeting in relation to these hours specifically in relation to potential noise and impact on neighbouring residential properties. Just to recap it currently restricts deliveries Monday to Saturday 7 a.m. to 11 p.m. and Sunday 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. This has been discussed with environmental health officers again and as noted in the report they consider the hours of reasonable and indeed standard and they don't support altering them. Fundamental to that decision is the actual nature and layout of the site which I've just shown another slide. So the delivery bay just to reiterate is the sort of where I put the red rectangle at the rear lorries actually back into it. It's also an internal delivery bay so it's not external lorries actually back into the building to actually transfer goods inside. So you've got the entire building the store between that and the nearest neighbouring properties which themselves are 80 metres away anyway. So there's a really effective sound shield in terms of the existing building and of course the delivery bay being internal helps a huge amount because you're not getting external noisy deliveries taking place. So environmental health don't support changing that condition simply because of where it is and the distances involved and without their support in the event of an appeal and against that condition we just couldn't defend that. In terms of the highway matters so just to recap that's the proposed site layout just at the front of the site with the new access and one of the existing ones closed. In terms of restricting HGV movements within the site again highway officers we've gone back to them they don't support that because satisfactory vehicle tracking information was previously presented. It's also very difficult to enforce the types of vehicles able to use the site from an enforceability point of view. However as a way forward and in order to alleviate any concerns regarding the servicing of the store it's considered that an additional condition requiring the approval of a service delivery management plan could be attached and that would also encompass any noise related activities associated with deliveries so that's the new condition 29 on page 20 of the report. In relation to the consideration of a left-hand turn restriction at the site entrance officers would emphasise that the relevant traffic survey submitted with the application didn't raise any issues with regards to highway safety. Again the highway officers revisited the options of restricting vehicle movements but they're really quite against that idea because they reiterate there are no adverse safety issues which would make such restrictions necessary, it's very difficult to enforce and in actual fact in planning terms a condition restricting no right-hand turns in effect is not enforceable because it relates to land outside the site. Importantly highways officers also advise as I've shown on this next slide just diagrammatically if all traffic turn left on exit onto London Road West this is likely to result in greater highway safety issues from all the necessary U-turn manoeuvres at the mini roundabout at the bottom of Station Road just indicated with the red line and they think that will create a worse situation in highway terms not an improvement. So the recommendation remains to defer to approve subject to the conditions with the additional condition about the service management plan condition 29 and the prior completion of a legal agreement relating to financial contributions towards the upgrading of bus stops and the travel plan monitoring fees. Thank you. Thank you Mike. I'm not sure the procedure now we haven't got any speakers so do we do technical questions or do we just go straight to debate? Has anybody got any questions for Mike Shires? Councillor Harris then Councillor Wilson. You mentioned that the cladding on the rear part of the building the two-storey it's very difficult to determine what that colour will be like from the from what I've seen on the web from what you've shown tonight. Do we have any samples you know are there any better indications of what it's going to be like? So I was just looking at the relevant condition no I mean the only details we've got are what I've shown it's described as a cream slash off white colour as opposed to the sort of bright white that was previously proposed but it is covered and conditioned to basically requires details of all the materials to be used for the external construction of the building not only included in the building actually all the parking turning areas and boundary treatments so it includes details of the brickwork and also the render including the colour and texture of the smooth render. It would have been nice to have seen a sample tonight because so much is left to delegated authority and then that just gets swept by one side so not entirely happy with that but we'll see where we go. Councillor Wilson. Thank you obviously one of the concerns last time around was around highway safety and you've come back and talked about that and I thought it was quite interesting just reading back through the materials that under the paragraph 115 of the MPPF it is highway matters could only be considered if there's an unacceptable impact on highway safety. The concern I had previously expressed and continue to have is that there's a series of assumptions here that have been accepted by highways that are in a sense those assumptions are driving the consideration of highway safety and that is the fact that at the peak demand times at the weekend peak when demand is greater than capacity as it says it can be expected that the high turnover of spaces will limit the time period of any occurrence of insufficient capacity and that would not only require a high turnover of spaces but stacking space and people turning and leaving because they can't go shopping. Having spent 30 years in the grocery industry at weekend peaks actually people don't nip in and out because it's a weekend peak. There are greater queues at the checkouts it takes you longer to go round the store so I think there's a significant assumption there that there will be a high turnover of spaces at weekend peaks because the reality of weekend peak shopping is it's slower than it is the rest of the time because it's harder to get round the store because it's busier by its very definition. So I start from the premise of I think there's a fundamental assumption here that I think is erroneous based on my experience of shopping. Coupled with the fact that we are already seeing a shortfall of 42 spaces versus our own parking standard and either our parking standard is so wrong on the assumption or the evidential base is so right and there is clearly also a heavy reliance on the evidential base of the applicant based on the two stores that have been provided. So I then come to a third element of our parking standard which is this base size because the base size will determine how easy it is for people to park and therefore what is the effective capacity as opposed to the notional capacity. And the parking dimensions as I think as we discussed last time are 2.5 metres not the 2.8 metres that is in the Bucks parking standard and then we spoke last time you weren't here but we spoke last time about the Bucks parking standard so I've been back to read the Bucks parking standard and the parking standards have two levels an optimum standard and a flexible standard and we talked about flexible standards which I find an interesting term in its own way last time and it says if I read from the parking standard it says the minimum base size must be used unless developer evidence suggests otherwise. So my question is do we have the developer evidence that would allow us to come from the optimum standard to the flexible standard of the base size because that was an initial question of highways and then that sort of fell away into nowhere. I appreciate your comments Councillor Wilson but that was part of the deferment we discussed it at length. My point is it's about highway safety. So if the premise of the deferred matter is highway safety and highway safety is determined about vehicles coming in and out of the junction and being stuck and backing up. So I am relating it back to the deferred matter which is highway safety. Highway safety is about and the point I'm trying to make is at weekend peak when the demand is above capacity as it says in the report there is an assumption based on highways that there will be a high turnover of spaces. I'm saying that is not what happens at weekend peaks because people can't high turnover because the store is full. So I'm questioning the assumptions. Next assumption is about the effective capacity as opposed to the notional capacity because the effective capacity will be impacted by the bay width and the bay width then is determined by the parking standards and what I'm saying is I haven't seen the evidence from the applicant on the bay width. So what I'm saying is the shortfall of 42 spaces may be greater and therefore there may be an impact on highway safety. So what I'm checking as a technical question is working bottom up back up to the highway safety point is are we satisfied that we have the evidence because I have a concern on highway safety that this will be a lot busier and there will be fewer parking spaces than the application indicates and the only justification for deviating from our own parking standard is developer evidence to suggest otherwise that would allow us to come off optimum standards to that coupled with the fact that we raised this point last time and again it has a bearing on the effective capacity and therefore a highway safety issue of staff parking versus employee shopper customer parking. So I just want to be satisfied that we have the evidence provided that would give us confidence. I know what highways position is but they're not here and we have to make that decision that we've satisfied those requirements. So I'm just checking that we're just kicking the tires if I maybe use that metaphor that we are satisfied that we have the evidence before us on the parking standards to be able to shift from an optimum standard which is a must be used versus a flexible standard. My recollection was we went over this with highways in quite great detail at the last meeting if anyone else wants to comment on that Mike you weren't here but we did we did have a highways representative here going over all these points so and the one that came back was the road the road layout as the point of deferment not the other ones so yes although yeah obviously I was missing from last meeting but I have watched it all I did watch it at the time actually so I mean in terms of many highway issues I mean that there are assumptions to be made you know by professional highway officers you know whether that's in relation to traffic movements or based on their standard tricks database for example so I think that's sort of more of a generic issue as well but I mean honing in specifically on the parking spaces I did do a bit of research on this I was hoping it wasn't going to crop up because I know it wasn't one of the issues it was deferred for directly but I think everyone's familiar with the multi-storey car park in Amersham so you've got the old section of the car park all the spaces there are 2.4 meters wide people generally don't have any problems parking in every single space but the new section of the multi-storey car park just to highlight the space width there and I measured them in there this time last week when I was had to park there they're all 2.5 meters wide and quite honestly it's one of most spacious car parks I've ever parked in so the average width of an SUV in this country is 1.9 meters the average car width in general is 1.8 meters so a 2.5 meter space would have 60 to 70 centimeters between cars even the biggest cars so these are not narrow spaces by any stretch of the imagination I mean yes they are slightly short of our newer standards you know it says 2.8 meters but they are incredibly generously sized the standard there and what you have to bear in mind is if it went to appeal you know wooden inspector yes I appreciate the wording of you know the SPD and the parking standards wouldn't expect to go along with that would they say would you know all the space is adequate in practical terms and yes it's my strong view they are and indeed power as officer you know confirmed the same last time Councillor Darby first then come back to student thank you chairman it's not going to change the decision we make tonight but I felt that at the previous meeting we were kind of told that these these were substandard and what I'm hearing from from Mike is that it's okay so my question then is why have we got a standard that is above and beyond what's needed because surely that isn't fair and equitable to anybody so you could have an applicant who comes along or singing or dancing to this committee and says I've got all your standard size parking spaces and we've just heard that they don't really need them so I just believe that somewhere along the line we have to we have to have a definition of what is acceptable and what isn't it's not going to change tonight but I feel that we've got a bit of a fluffy area that should be clarified a similar point really in that whatever decision we reach tonight if that sets some form of precedent for retail development in the area we're basically saying it's okay to have two thirds of the number of parking spaces compared to our Bucks parking standard and it's okay if they're ten percent narrower than they're expected to have which I just find if we've got an SPD and that SPD says the minimum bay size must be used unless a developer evidence suggests otherwise so I appreciate Mike you've got to measured up all the car parks in Amersham knowing that I'd probably ask the question but that's not what the SPD says it doesn't say the planning officer must go and measure it up it says the applicant must provide evidence to deviate from the standard so I would echo Isabel's point we appear to have a set of parking standards that we're about to deviate from substantially and I think that sets precedence for other applications I think as we point out as a point of debate rather than a technical question so come back to that why are we deviating from our SPD to if I'm putting into a question why are we deviating from an SPD that you know we are supposed to follow our planning policies well I suppose I'd reiterate the points I made earlier that I would not be at all confident that an appeal inspector would go along with the width of the parking spaces that we've got in the SPD for this type of car park I mean you have to bear in mind knows the width and dimensions of those spaces do cover all parking scenarios so if we're asking somebody to provide X number of spaces on a front driveway we always ask them to be you know the 2.8 by 5 meters where maneuvering can be sometimes tighter so there's a bit of sort of a degree of looking at what type of parking spaces you're you're looking at in terms of whether it's a car park without a quick maneuverability or whether there's the maneuverability is worse and therefore they really need to stick to the 2.8 meters in width I mean this to be honest it's the same as any planning issues and if something doesn't comply with the precise you know element of wordings our policy or guidance and SPD or something in the MPPF it's a balance between the things that does comply with as I say I just don't believe that the amount this is deficient by it would be sufficient to refuse it I mean yes of course if they were 2.2 meters you know they really struggled to park in them and I can see half of them would be empty but at 2.5 I just don't believe that's the case. So the SPD does differentiate by class of use or class of application so that is very clear effectively what you're saying which is kind of what I started off by saying is the Bucks parking standard wrong. Any other questions for Mike specifically? Open the floor up to debate if anybody else has any other comments to make? I think we're ready to put the proposal to the floor to I will propose that we accept the deferred report statements as is I think we take the points on the parking SPD that maybe for another day or maybe we can get more clarity on that particularly and the proposed list to accept the did you say in page 29 the extra the extra condition like was that the actual condition in the so the proposed list to accept the deferred application with the provision of the extra provision so all those in favor sorry I need a seconder first for the proposal Councillor Darby thank you all those in favor against to any abstentions okay so that's passed thank you very much so the only other item on the agenda is the date of the next meeting Tuesday the 23rd July 6 30 see you all here then hopefully. Thank you very much everybody.