Transcript

Good evening everybody. Welcome to tonight's planning committee of West Lindsay District Council. My name is Matt Bowles. I'm chairman of the committee. To my right, I've got Councillor Jimmy Snee, vice-chairman, and our legal and democratic officers. To my left, we've got the planning officers who will be dealing with tonight's application. This meeting is being webcast, so please speak clearly into the microphone after pressing the button to switch it on after the chair has turned off their microphone. The locations of the toilets are back out of the exit and at the top of the stairs where you came in. And similar to the exits, back out the way you came in, just follow the exit signs. In the event of a fire alarm being activated, please evacuate the building in an orderly manner through the nearest door and follow the fire exit signs. The assembly point is a fountain in front of the gild all adjacent to Costa Coffee. If you do leave the meeting before the end of the meeting, if you could ask you just to sign out so officers do know that everybody is accounted for. Thank you. First item on the agenda is apologies for absence. Do we have any apologies please, Maisie? Thank you, chairman. We've received apologies from Councillor Dobie. Seeing no others. Item 2, public participation period. Do we have any public participation, Maisie? We have no speakers this evening, chairman. Thank you. Next item is minutes of the committee meeting held on the 22nd of May. Do we have any questions or issues? Councillor Fleetwood? Not issues, just proposing. Thank you. Do we have a second? Councillor Morris. All those in favour? Any against? Abstentions? Those are carried. We'll sign those during the meeting. Declarations of interest. Members may make any declarations of interest at this point but may also make them at any point during the course of the meeting. I will start and in the only application for the night I've been informed that as I wasn't at the original committee meeting in May and I didn't attend the site visit due to holidays, I'm unable to chair the meeting so I will leave the meeting and Councillor Snehe will take over and chair for that agenda item. Do we have any other? Councillor Haig? Yeah, I did not attend the site visit and I wasn't at the previous meeting so I will not be voting on that application. Councillor Smith. Thank you, chairman. My declarations are that I was a former resident of various Camden and a connection to its previous use but I have not, as a Royal Air Force base, but I have not discussed the application with anybody, did attend the site visit and was at the previous meeting and have an open mind so I will be voting on the item. Councillor Fleabod. It's not a declaration, it's just a question really. Councillor Snehe, your vice chairman, didn't attend the site visit. Does that mean that he is able to chair that item or not? Yes, he is. He was here at present at the May meeting so he can chair the meeting. Thank you, chairman. Okay, any other declarations of interest? No. Okay, we will move on to the main agenda item and I will pass over to Councillor Snehe and leave the room. Okay, thank you. We will continue with item 147639 which is land off North London Avenue and Westmoreland, Scampton. I will hand you it to the case officer. Thank you, Ian. Yes, thank you. Just a quick update, so I have checked the application records today. We have received some further comments from neighbours. The only new consideration we received in relation to residential amenity based on that the new dwellings would be on high ground and would view straight into the front ground and first floor windows of the existing dwellings. Just like to remind members, this is an outline plan application straight 9 dwellings with access to be considered and not reserved for subsequent application scale, appearance, layout and landscaping are reserved matters. So we will go through the presentation. So this is showing the location plan. This is the existing site plan that was visited by the members. The second existing site plan. So this is the indicative site plan. So just showing what potentially could be going on the site and again, this is just indicative. It shows the nine dwellings and the access points onto Westmoreland Avenue and Northumberland Avenue. And then just some site photos. So that's in the West or looking to the West. I think that's it. Thank you. Thank you in. We have one speaker tonight and that is Mr Marcus Tams, sir. If you'd like to step forward, you have five minutes. Bones in the middle. Okay. Okay. Good evening, chair and committee. Thank you for your time. My name is Marcus Tams. I'm here to represent the applicant and obviously, as you know, the site was brought to committee previously and you decided that you want to do a site visit to make a determination on this. There are a number of issues raised at that committee and questions asked, some of which are quite pertinent to planning issues, some of which were to do more with the site and how it operated as an infrastructure in the buildings and housing around. So I just want to address those points quite briefly. The first one would be ownership. There's a question over it. Quite clearly, the entire area is within the red line application boundaries owned by the applicant in terms of trees. There was questions asked of that, but a comprehensive tree condition survey was submitted the application, which determined that the small number of trees were removed. These are the ones running east-west on the site. We're not of high quality and have no significant amenity value. There are, however, and you can see on the plan there, a considerable amount of trees being retained along the western boundary. And these will be enhanced with new trees, hedgerows and planting within the site. All of these will align with the biodiversity net gain matrix, which achieves 11% and which is in excess of national requirements. Of other points that were raised, one was highways. Now all the roads surrounding the application site are privately owned and they're maintained by a management company. The defining share is by Annington, the applicant, but all of the homeowners in that area pay into that pot and that infrastructure effectively looks after the upkeep of roads, footpaths, street lighting, stormwater and open spaces. If we look at the addition to that, we have drainage and we also submitted a drainage strategy document with the application showing an indicative layout of how both the foul and surface water drainage could be successfully incorporated into the existing site-wide structure. The third point that was mentioned and discussed was about the existing housing stock. Now the applicant has recently completed a minor refurbishment of 61 empty residential units. Of these houses, there are currently in the process of being sold on the open market, 24 have legally completed and moved into the site. This is within the Scampton airfield site, with a further 18 being reserved. So the point that we're making here is that you have a management company that looks after the majority of the infrastructure for the site here, so if you have more housing, whether it's these nine units or others on site, that's more money into the pot. What I'd also finally like to say is actually a year to the day is when we first submitted this scheme to the Council. It was put in as a pre-app on the 12th of June, 2023, and obviously we received feedback from the planning committee, or sorry, from the planning officers in that pre-app. We've taken on board all of their suggestions and recommendations, changed the scheme, changed the approach, but in what we're putting in front of you today, and it is just an indicative layout, we've addressed all the design principles, the policy principles, and importantly the technical issues that were put in front of us at the time. Thank you. Thank you very much for that. Any members wishing to comment? Councillor Smith. Thank you, Chairman. Firstly, I'd like to thank the applicants, technically if they wish to, they could have gone for non-determinations, we'd timed out, so it is appreciative that they were cooperative in allowing us to get to where we are. Ian, you want, sorry, I put my foot in it there. They have agreed an extension till Friday, so it is in time at the moment. And that's very much appreciative, because I know that's not a given, it's at their discretion to do that, so it's very much appreciative. I understand the points made and the concerns made at the last meeting, Chairman. The only thing I would say on the management company, which is not a planning matter, but it's something to bear in mind for potential future applications, is the Ministry of Defence are currently in a legal dispute with Addington around the, which won't apply to this site, but may apply to other sites, their former stock holdings. So what that would mean for any management companies on sites such as Irish Scampton, I can't say, I'm not, I haven't got a crystal ball in front of me, which isn't a matter for now, but it's just something that we may wish to bear in mind later on in future. Having gone to the site visit, Chairman, as much as this will disappoint residents, and having known most of that site, I didn't know that area, but I knew most of it, at the indicative stage we are at at outline, I can't find a reason to refuse the application, and I know from my previous conversations at the last meeting it was going to come back here for reserve, which should be very much welcome because I think some of the concerns raised by residents, we can't address at this precise moment in time or we can look to when it comes back at reserve, but at this stage, Chairman, I can't find a reason to refuse it, so I'll have to go with the recommendation, which is to grant outline. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Smith. Councillor Barrett. Thank you, Chair. Yes, I am a bit of a twitcher, and at the last meeting, if you remember, red kites were mentioned, so I did go up on my own with this one, with my bird twitching binoculars at a quiet period, and I didn't see any red kites, I did see blue tits, black birds and pigeons, but no sign of red kites, and the trees, in my opinion, are too small anyway to have nest sites for red kites, so that one's off the menu, I'm afraid, as far as I'm concerned, and I agree with Councillor Smith. Ian. I'll just say on that that you have to remember that they have submitted a professional ecology survey with this application, they've had a professionally qualified person go to the site, they've looked at it, they provide measures in terms of making sure that any works that happen on that site or particular works don't happen during the bird breeding season, or the site is looked at by a professional ecology before they do any works to make sure there's nothing there that can be disturbed. Thank you. Any more comments from anybody? Looking around the table. No, so Councillor Smith was yours proposal? It was, Chairman. Councillor Bell was your seconder? Yes, I was seconder. OK, we'll move forward then, if that's the case, then all those in favour? Any against? Any abstentions? OK. That is carried. Thank you very much. And that, I conclude, is the end of the meeting tonight. Thank you very much for your attendance. Oh, do apologise.