Transcript

Secondly, could you please either mute or turn your mobile phones off. Right, before I get into the agenda, have all members had a chance to read the update paper? Yes? Thank you. Right, Item 1, apologies. I have apologies from Councillors Donnelly and Boori, Councillor. Any apologies from the floor? I do have apologies from Councillor Boori, Councillor. Okay, if he gets here before the presentation he can take part, thank you. Agenda item 2, public participation, there are a number of speakers, they have all been briefed. Agenda item 3, declarations of interest. No? Thank you. Agenda item 4, urgent items. No, none Mr Chairman. Agenda item 5, minutes of the previous meeting, can I have a proposal please? Councillor Neill and seconded Councillor Anderson, thank you. I'll sign, all those in favour? I'll sign those in a minute. Item 6, information notes which are included in this document. I think that there are so many members of the public here are taking through what pay this is going to operate, apart from the vote obviously. The officer will make a presentation, members will then ask questions, will then have the speakers, members can then ask questions of the speakers and then after that they may then ask questions of the officers again. Then we go into debate, each member can speak once in debate, however they can only ask as many questions as they wish. Okay, right. Agenda item 7, the blacks are on High Street, Munston. Ms Jones, if you'd like to present. Thank you Chairman. As Chairman said, there is an update made before this application which sets out a review account of the place yesterday. There is also an additional statement that has been submitted quite carefully and that sets out on section 2. Section 3 sets out some additional work locations that have been received and there is a plan that can be seen in section 4 to confirm the recommendation and there is no change to that. Let's move on to the questions now. The first one will go around the outside. There is the front elevation, that's one. This gives you enough access to the side and to the side elevation there at the building is where works are closed and there is an interview report. I'm just going to the court right now and see the road that goes to the left-hand side of the access and just hang around here to give you an idea of the courtyard. Just moving down to the back. The rear garden is on the left-hand side, behind the fence that's on the left of the photograph. This is the rear elevation of the property. We're going to move into the property now. We're going to start at the original part of this building. Just looking at the front door there, this is the door that opens up onto Munston High Street. Just walk around the ground floor here and take a look at the addition. This is a room that would be converted into an utility room. This room was all the kitchen and the library. We've got the same room. The same room we're looking across to the other side of the timber as you can see on the right-hand side. The left-hand side of the property is sort of a commercial bridge and the stairs are quite hard to use. Just going up the stairs now. This is the building by the back door. We know it's within the flat roof of the main part of the property. Just going across the middle of some of the other rooms of the first floor building, which would be bedrooms. Up down the ground floor now, this is the link between the single-story rear wing of the building and the original building behind me in this photograph. This is the rear part of the building. This is being occupied by the architects at the time. Just pan around and see how it's been occupied at this time. The layout of this will remain the same, but obviously converted to the rest of the use. I would like to just stream that. Thank you, Sharon. Could you possibly run through the photos again? Let me do the presentation and then come to the portion you'll take part. Thank you. Questions for the officers. Just one question, really. The answer we have from Thomas, who wants to invite you, is that a good thought? How much weight can you put on that letter? Well, we set out in the main agenda report and the update paper, but we have seen that as a way, in our consideration of the application, we have taken advice and we consider that that was a reasonable offer. We also set out the update paper that we don't have in mind but it's information to confirm how we provide the use of that construction. It's just a fact that can't be made viable. So the way that that's given is part of the review. Any further questions? No? In that case, we have the speaker. Can I have Mr Corian of Buncombe Parish Council, please? I think you've been briefed. You've got three minutes and good. Good afternoon. My name is Hugh Corian, and I'm a 12-year resident of Muncombe, and I would like to object to this application for change of use and conversion of a black swan pub to a residential dwelling for the following week. Firstly, in the work that we are doing on the change of use of the black swan pub, the applicants need to show that it is no longer needed for fire. Essentially, to this, the applicants have marketed the pub with a value of 300,000 pounds, but this price is not the actual and current market value of the pub, and it does not look like a cost of £350,000 to repair the pub to make an operational event. A recent independent provider by colleagues estimated a similar part of the status in good repair in a village like Muncombe to be valued between 300 and 400 pounds an hour. So after some basic facts, that means that when Andrew Ball occupied the pub for £70,000, that represented a real value of £420,000 for a pub he can operate in. I think you've all seen the offer made by Mr Ball, which includes adequate business funds and a clear business plan to run the black swan pub. As such, there is a real and credible offer on the table, and the pub remains private. This means that the marketing exercise to sell the pub for £300,000 was fundamentally flawed from the outset. The offer made by Mr Ball was in fact a fair reflection, a reasonable reflection of the value of the property, and evidence is that Muncombe still wants its pub. There is not just an offer to purchase the pub, but a viable business plan and adequate underlying funds to make the pub accessible and operational again. Secondly, by rejecting this application for change of use, he would avoid all of the other unfortunate effects on change of use, including any fundamental and harmful change to the character of the building, any erosion of the character and appearance of the historic village of Munston in a conservation area, any loss of public benefit and the key services that would contribute to its sense of placement and its ability to understand Mr Munston, i.e. a long way of saying not being able to have a fight together. Lastly, I urge you please to reconsider the applicability of the numerous abstract and hypothetical evaluations, reports and studies provided by the applicants to try to evidence that the pub is not viable to mention it. It may be true that it may have been made possible for our closing for any number of reasons, mostly as a result of being tied to an annual plan, but in the actual village of Munston, there are still many Munstons that believe that it remains viable. We think that it is worth keeping as a pub in fact funds and the initiative to make viable again. Thank you, that's well done, three minutes. Any questions? Councillor Borshneil. Has the council considered purchasing as an interesting community building? The council, with a number of other people at one stage, considered it, but no one enough funds in the village to make it happen at that time. So, historically, there have been a number of goes for this, this has been happening now for seven years and one of the people was just tired of having it finished. But now the circumstances are different, now that there are other factors involved, people miss having the funds, making up, having the time, the initiative, so it's something you can picture now, and then it wasn't before. But at that time, people didn't have funds, they wanted to, but didn't have funds to do it. It was not a question of viability, it was a question of money. Thanks for Anderson. Good evening. I would like to ask the question of what really makes you think that it would be viable for this pub to land? As you mentioned, there are stable pubs absolutely shutting down and can't afford to keep it going. We do have a big council that's very far away from us, so why would you think this is really viable to keep at that point? Well, if you live in mustard, you would probably know of that company and bought, and you know that they basically make things happen. They own others in Australia, in our village, and they can make us happen, they can make us happen. So, they're very influential, they're great entrepreneurs, and I know that they will be able to make us happen. But it's been closed since 2016, so why hasn't something been put forward? As I said, to your colleagues, you shouldn't just put forward an offer, it's a circumstantial thing. So, at one stage in one year, you think, oh, you don't have money behind the time, another year you say, actually, we do have money behind the time, we have the initiative, let's do it. And then it happens, but those things are very circumstantial. [Inaudible] Councillor Brooks, the same question, Councillor Lashbrook P. [Inaudible] Thank you. Any further questions? Thank you, Mr. Crewe. Could I have Mr. Paul Bench, please? [Inaudible] [Inaudible] [Inaudible] [Inaudible] [Inaudible] Thank you. Any questions for Mr. Bench? Well, I have one, Mr. Bench. You mentioned Car Park. It's my understanding that's no longer part of the pub building. [Inaudible] Right. Thank you. Any further questions? Councillor Anderson, can you speak out for Councillor Anderson? Because we're recording it. [Inaudible] Any further questions? No. Thank you very much, Mr. Bench. Can I have Mr. Bacon, please? [Inaudible] Hold on a second. Would you like to put your little microphone on? [Inaudible] [Inaudible] [Inaudible] [Inaudible] [Inaudible] [Inaudible] Thank you, Mr. Bacon. [Applause] Mr. Bacon, just remain there just in case members have any questions. Anyone have any questions for Mr. Bacon? No? Looks as if you've gone away with it. Right. Could I have Mr. Greenwood and Mrs. English, please? Now you have a combined three minutes between yourselves. [Inaudible] On to the update paper, I know that it talks about the new survey on pubs closing, 66.56% increase in closure of pubs in the first quarter of 2021. And just this month, I'm told, the seemingly popular George and Drago, just 15 minutes away, has bought Terrence. They have a good menu, eight boutique hotel rooms, a 20 space car park, and more, finally closed in June. So good pubs are really suffering and closing because of sick competition from other pubs, high energy, food costs, staffing problems, significant tax burdens, changed consumer spending behaviour. People just might go to the pub, and if they are, they're drinking less and eating less. So middle to major, they've been marketing to the pub for £300,000 for 18 months, a value agreed with two other commercial RCS agents, Sydney Phillips and Colliers. So there have been two very low offers at £50,000 and £70,000. They were made last year and they were immediately rejected. Although the proposal of the £70,000 offer has written to you directly at a very late stage, those words in no way guarantee the pub will never reopen and be viable. Without a fully costly three or five year business plan and an operational closure, any offer is virtually meaningless and this person's had 18 months to get it out together. At this very late stage, the offer should be disregarded. I'm probably being submitted as an attempt to undermine the fairly delayed business termination tonight. So in conclusion, from your panic cycle planning over, this proposal will introduce a long term sustainable within the residential years. It will say it's important to run down the security. This is the best and only way forward to participate in this matter. I just wanted to introduce Chris and I. I'm a nurse, a teacher, and a teacher. We've got two young children. We work long term off week, beginning with a lot of them are safe after the work and we obviously respect every class member. Thank you, Mrs English. Sorry, we're running out of time. [Applause] Last, the clause is nice. I would like to proceed with the meeting. Any questions for Councillor Neill? [Inaudible] Any further questions? No, thank you very much. Councillor Flood, you have five minutes. Thank you, Chairman. First of all, I'd just like to say that my colleague, board councillor, Susanne Hassell, can't be here tonight, so I'm reading a statement. That's her statement, but I'm not sure I made my own comments. So she says that Luxemount was an important community in the past, promoting community cohesion, and it's clear from the opposite report that a change of use and conversion to a private way would severely erode the communal value of the listed building and harm the character and appearance of the conservation area. Ultimately, however, the officers have concluded that a conversion to a private way is the best means of securing the long-term future of the building, and this property has just fallen into disrepair and requires urgent protection. She says, Clearly, policy comp 14 is at the heart of this application, and it has to be proven that the public is no longer or cannot be made commercially viable. Our proposal is now being received, and I hope the committee will take this opportunity to carefully consider it. In her report, section 5.1, planning policy, the officer has already provided set questions for consideration, including the reasonableness and the basis of the press offer for this commercial building in its current state and an interest in operating this site for a community use. I do hope that the committee will be able to find a way to help the community to serve this important community facility. And these are the words of councillor Susanne Hassell. So, moving on to my own comments, I begin speaking, as I usually do, on why I'm called applications and applications for this committee. I first called in the platform applications in 2019, five years ago, so planning is a sensitive area of local authority work. And particularly in this case, can engender, as in the past, strong emotions felt by those supporting or opposing development proposals. It is particularly important, therefore, that the planning process is conducted in a fair, open and even-handed way, and hence my calling for these applications to be designed by councillors in a public forum. The issues involved in planning applications with this nature are rarely straightforward. There are almost two sides, every case, and many shades of opinion in between. I am sad that these applications are proved to be so divisive within an incident community, and further afield, I mean, sadder, than it seems that some residents have felt that straying and divorcing their views, or whatever they may be. Chairman, councillors, we know this committee is required to act in a public interest for the work of the public. In this context, it includes the applicant, council teams, those affected by the proposals, local interest groups, a larger community, the whole district, and regional and national priorities. And in determining by matters, there are two principal parties, the applicant and the council. Everyone else is a third party. Third party views are very important, and must be, and I know will be considered carefully, but they are only one of the things to be considered. The local opposition or support proposal is not in itself a ground for refusing or granting issue, unless it is founded on valid and planning reasons that can be substantiated with evidence. In law, for council, this planning committee is required to make decisions on planning applications in accordance with the development matter where it applies, unless other material considerations indicate timelines. Whatever this planning decision, I very much hope, or whatever this planning committee decision, I very much hope that the community can move forward with regard to this application, and that this democratic process is acknowledged and respected by all, as I'm sure it will be. Councillors, over to you. Thank you, Councillor Flood. Councillor Borshane. Thank you, Councillor Fredman. I think it was mentioned by one of the early speakers, and I'm sorry I didn't want to go too general, so I don't want to verify, but from memory, some work was done to bring it up to standard, applied by the young, before it came to house. Were you involved in that? [inaudible] Any further questions for Councillor Flood? No? Thank you very much, Councillor Flood. Right, any questions for the officers, Councillor Ball-Shield? [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] Any further questions for Councillor Anderson? I will tell you. [inaudible] [inaudible] Any further questions? Before I put the motion on the table, I have to remind Councillor Sandler and Gillies, you will not be able to take part in item 7, you will be able to take part in item 8. Right, the proposal is for permission. Can I have a seconder, please? Councillor Brooks, we are now in debate. Councillor Lashbrook, please. [inaudible] Councillor Neill? Sorry, Councillor Neill. [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] I'm very disappointed in the fact that the place was allowed to get to a state that is now, but that's the case. I will have to agree with the offices and the other members who have spoken. [inaudible] I think that I have to agree with the offices that doing residential groups is the best and most viable way of retaining that beautiful building as an asset. I hope that you will do things like keep the name on the building, keep it sort of up, sort of things like that, that will make it, even though it's a house, have that general appearance in the history in terms of what it was in its history. [inaudible] Councillor Anderson. [inaudible] Councillor Walsh. [inaudible] So I'm also a member of Council at the campaign for relabeling local committee and one of the things that we do is try to save pubs and I have to tell you that we're on our current register and we have about six pubs which are considered in danger, but they do not include the Black Swan which I find very hopeful for covering this. It was lost some long while ago and it actually dropped off the bottom of the camera list. [inaudible] Councillor North. [inaudible] [inaudible] Is there any further debate? [inaudible] [inaudible] Is there any further debate? No. I'll therefore put the motion on the table. Those in favour of commission please show. Okay. Anyone against? Any abstentions? Permission is granted. [applause] Right. We now move on to Item 8 which is basically the works of the building. Ms Jones yet again. Do the members want to go through the photos? I think we've actually seen them haven't we? [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] Any questions? No. We have registered speakers for this. I'm not sure if they want to come back up again. [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] Thank you. Any further debate? No. In that case then I would like your vote. The proposal is for permission. Can I have your vote for permission please? That is unanimous. Thank you very much. That question is granted. That is the end of the meeting. Thank you. [applause] We're still recording. 15 seconds. [inaudible]