Southern Planning Committee - Wednesday, 5th June, 2024 10.00 am
June 5, 2024 View on council website Watch video of meetingTranscript
and so we'll make a start and we are being recorded or published at this moment. So good morning everyone and welcome to the meeting of Southern Planning. I'm Councillor Joy Braberton, Chair for today's meeting. In addition to the members of the Southern Planning Committee, also present are the following officers who are here to advise regarding the items on the agenda.
To my right I have Richard Taylor, who is the Principal Planning Officer, Andrew Gallagher, the Highways Officer and Andrew Poynton, Planning and Highways Lawyer and to my left I have Rachel Graves, Democratic Services Officer.
So I'll now briefly explain how the committee operates. The Planning Officer will introduce the item, show slides, photos and plans regarding the site. I will then invite any registered public speakers to address the committee.
If anything the public speaker has said was unclear, I may allow members to ask questions of clarification. The Planning Officer will respond to any issues raised by the public speaker and then members will be able to ask the Planning Officer questions before moving to the debate.
When the debate moves to a close I'll check whether the officers have any final advice to give that the terms of the resolution and so on which will have been moved and seconded are clear to all.
A vote will be taken and the result of the vote will be reported to the meeting. Please note that there is a test of the fire alarm expected at 11.
Also note that the meeting is being audio webcast and recorded and the recording will be uploaded onto the Council's website after the meeting.
So if that's clear I'll move to item 1 and ask for any apologies for absence please.
Yes Chair, we've got apologies from Councillor John Byrd, Councillor Rod Fletcher, Councillor Roger Morris and Councillor Mike Muldoon. We have substitutes Councillor Garnet Marshall, Councillor Janet Clowes and Councillor Anthony Harrison.
Thank you and welcome to the subs who are here today.
Item 2, declarations of interest. Has anybody got any declarations on the items on the agenda?
I will make a declaration as I did the last time the item on Middlewich Street came before us.
It is very close to the back of the house where I reside but it is not going to affect my property in any way and I am not predetermined in the decision one way or the other.
Anybody else? No? Okay, that's fine. So we'll move on to item 3 which is the minutes of the previous meeting.
These fall on pages 3 to 6 of your agenda pack. Can I take it that you have all read them and ask if somebody can move them as a correct record please?
So Councillor Crane, do we have a seconder? Councillor Gage. Thank you. So all those in favour of those as a correct record please show.
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6.
Any against? Any abstentions?
Okay, thank you.
Okay, so we will move on and we'll come to item number 4 which is an explanation again of the public speaking.
There is a total period of 5 minutes allocated to each of the planning applications for the following people.
Ward councillors who are not members of the planning committee and the relevant town and parish council.
There is a total period of 3 minutes allocated for each of the planning applications for the following.
Members who are not members of the planning committee and are not the ward member, objectors, supporters, applicants.
I think that's clear to all. So we will move on now to item number 5.
Item number 5 is land at the rear of 203 and 205 Middlewich Street and we have had this item before us in the past and we deferred it for further reports.
So I'll hand over now to Mr Taylor to take us through.
Thank you, Chair. Yes, just as the Chair was saying, this is deferred from the March meeting of the planning committee and it was to enable a site visit by the public risk officer and the centre of the ward drainage issues to be addressed.
In terms of the site, just a reminder of where we are looking at. The site is to the south of Ruddock Close, which is here, and that's access to Middlewich Street. Access to the sites between these houses here through an existing driveway arrangement into a car park here.
The site, which will accommodate a couple of houses, 10% of the houses is here in the red. The blue edge is the land ownership from 203 Middlewich or 205 Middlewich Street and effectively it's former garden land has become overgrown and as you can see from the plan, it's surrounded by residential properties on the wrong side.
Again, just a photograph broadly just to show the general context of the site, as I said before, the access coming in, there's the small car park, access coming in here, existing property surrounding it, you can see the overgrown nature of the site.
And just the existing site plan just shows the issues are raised already, you can see the garden land is here, the existing properties surrounding it, the access here.
Site plan, again the access coming in, the siting with a pair of semi-detached houses here, parking area opposite and a large turning area provided within the site.
Just to say that there are significant separation distances between the properties to the front and the rear and also there's a relationship there offset with the existing properties 14 and 15 levels up close.
This is the drainage layout, I'm just going into a little bit of detail about this because clearly this is one of the main issues which I've actually raised in terms of the deferral of this application.
So for the risk officer, as carried out a site visit as requested, soak away tests were carried out by the applicant to see if infiltration was possible.
The tests however confirmed that the soakaways would not have been soaked full because the nature of the ground conditions is quite clayey and a detailed drainage design was then submitted for consideration by the footprint officer.
In terms of the main features, you can see the blue lines here, this takes all the water from roof slopes, gutters etc, all coming in also from the parking area into the channel here, all the way down into what's there, a storage tank.
Which then brings up there's a public sewer which runs downwards up close and connects into that.
It's a combined sewer existing and effectively surface water discharges from this tank when it fills at a reduced rate so that it attenuates and you don't cause an issue further down the line, I think it's 2 litres per second that it discharges at.
It's just enough to stop blockages or just above rebuild rate of discharge so it's not particularly hard coming off the side.
The flood risk officer assessed this particular plan, has considered it acceptable, looked at the drainage strategy, there's a drainage layout as you can see and also accompanying surface water calculations which are entirely appropriate for this site.
So no flood risk or drainage issues data now but of course the flood risk officer can resolve it.
Moving on, this is what we're looking at in terms of the elevations of the properties, they're quite simple, quite small scale, you can see the existing property have brought it close, this is gable here on this right side, you can see it's reasonably consistent with that in terms of form and scale.
Again similar to some of the few there.
It shows the levels are reasonably flat.
This is just to show the nature of the accommodation, the reason here is it just complied with the national spacing standards in terms of housing standards.
And again just a few photographs just reminding them of the context of the site, you can see this is the nature of the access coming into the site, the small car park at the back.
It's the fence and the car park where the site will be accessed, you can see the nature of the site behind.
The site itself, you can see how overgrown it's become.
And again just views, this is from the 205 side of the slide and the gardens, 205 Middlewick Street, 203 Middlewick Street, so forth.
So in summary, clearly the site is within the crew settlement boundary.
Sustainable urban site and the principle of residential development as acceptable.
The proposals as stated in the presentation will achieve regional separation distance of the existing properties.
And overall we're not having an adverse impact on amenity.
She's an acceptable standard design, respecting the character and form of the existing area, including the sit close.
And so the application is recommended for approval because the condition is listed, but I just want to mention chair, there's the two conditions for drainage at the end.
Well the old condition has been made in 2016, it's recommended that that condition is amended to one condition, which refers to the details of the drainage which have been submitted.
So basically development even to take it in according to the drainage strategy.
Thank you. Okay members, we have one public speaker who is registered for today and that is the agent for the applicant, Sarah Foster.
Ms Foster, you have three minutes in your own time.
Thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak to you today. I was just concerned about the agent on the application.
Members will also be aware that this is actually the third time that this application has come to committee.
Concerns were raised at previous meetings about the potential for these two dwellings to affect local employment drainage, which you just heard about.
As you've seen on the presentation, significant investigations have been undertaken to a level of detail much greater than would normally be provided at application stage, more at condition discharge stage, hence the change to the conditions.
Council's flood risk officer has also visited the site to robustly assess conditions on the ground against the submitted data.
The consequence of this is that we have the detailed drainage and surface water risk analysis with 32 by officers, and that concludes there is no additional risk of increased flooding in the local area as a result of this small scale application.
Because infiltration rates are slow on this place up straight, a holding tank is proposed, as you've seen, that will prevent surface water entering the local sewer network at a rate greater than two litres per second.
That's the one in 100 year flood, plus a 45% climate change factor, so it's huge, pretty effectively.
As a result, there are no objections from United Utilities or from the council's flood risk team.
Overall, therefore, there remain no technical objections to this application.
As set out in the reports, it fully complies with development plan policy.
National guidance advises that the supply of new homes shouldn't be boosted, and where development proposals accord with an up-to-date development plan, as this does, then the development should be approved without delay.
We're noting that this minor application is now being under consideration for 12 months.
Approving it in accordance with the development plan will allow two new homes to be brought forward in a very sustainable location.
Thank you for your time.
Are there any questions from members for Ms Foster at all?
No? Oh, thank you.
Can I just remind you that the questions for the speaker are for clarification of what has been said.
Okay, I just had a quick question, were you actually going to have access to the property in my life to ask for that?
In one of the statements written by one of the local residences, they raised all that access and, obviously, an easement with restrictions on it.
How are you planning to carry out this development without, obviously, impacting the local residents negatively and without, obviously, infringing that?
As far as I'm aware, it's obviously a civil matter in terms of being able to access and right of access and so on.
The applicant has retained the right of access to the site, and so it's between the parties.
The owners, both owners and the applicant have actually come up with a satisfactory solution.
As I said, it's in terms of material considerations, it's a civil matter, but it is confident that he has right of access to that land and that they can transfer it to each other.
Okay, any further questions? No? Thank you very much.
Mr Tabor, do you want to add anything? Briefly, the question that was raised by the Councillor, it should also be noted that the applicants also serve notice in terms of land ownership,
in terms of all the people who may have an interest within the access, which is, of course, planning legislation.
From a planning point of view, they discharge all their necessary responsibilities. As the agent said, we play this matter of negotiation in, should there be issues between them, and it's ultimately a civil matter between the parties.
Okay, and continuing on from that, are there any member's questions to the officer?
Councillor Cocker?
Thank you, Chair. This application was referred for drainage and flood risk assessment, so I'm just going to speak on that.
I note in the report that the tank is designed for a 1 in 100 year return period with a 45% climate change factor.
A 1 in 100 years, that's a zone 2, I believe, a zone 2 flood risk. Would we normally build on a flow of zone 2 flood risk?
Right, well it's not a zone 2 flood risk area, a zone 1 flood risk area, it's a small site, so it oddly doesn't actually come within the normal flood risk. We ordinarily need a flood risk assessment for this particular site.
What we've done here is come up with a drainage design, which is very typically common for a site like this, where you've got no other means of draining the site.
There's no sustainable drainage system you can employ, there's no water course you can go to. You can't do it in a so-called way because the ground conditions are poor.
So broadly speaking you are a little restricted and it's basically linking into this domain sewage network.
And the reason why you took a 1 in 100 and so forth is to make sure this tank is future-proof, so if there are storms and a lot of water coming all the way, the tank has sufficient size to accommodate it.
And then the attenuation of it means that it's really affected, the attenuating bit of it means that the flow rate from it doesn't then cause a problem, it's limited, so it can cause a problem down onto the network, further down in those conditions.
So it's quite technical, but broadly speaking, as the editor said, it's been future-proof and designed to affect in 1 year storm conditions.
Can I just scrutinise that a little bit further? We've been told by residents that the site is almost permanently waterlogged.
And this tank is designed to alleviate that problem, but the size of the tank gives a 1% chance of overflow and flooding, does it not? Is that how I'm reading it?
And so, in the life of the property, 100 years, it's almost certain to overflow at some point and flood the house. Am I looking at this correctly?
You are. And as part of that particular data, they looked at those scenarios and modelled those scenarios and within the flood risk strategy, the drainage strategy, you look at a situation where you've got a flood exceedance plan, so it's affecting where your storage tank reaches capacity, what happens then, and what they've identified within the site.
There are certain low points that they will devise within the site which will affect you in that thing, and likely eventuality that water then would be stored within the confines of the site without necessarily then draining onto other people's properties.
But bear in mind that the houses properties are also reasonably affected by some change of value. So overall, this is not an untypical situation. It's something which is extremely common and it's probably the Bassamujara properties, certainly Bassamujara urban sites, will need to be drained now on these sort of systems.
Okay. Any further questions for the officer before we move to the debate?
Okay, so looking around, I think I'm probably the closest, sorry, I'm probably the closest counsellor to this particular development.
So the only thing I'm going to say, because obviously I am conscious that it has been before us twice before, this is the third time, but I personally feel completely justified that we asked for this to be looked at, the drainage situation.
We're on clay. It's always a problem in Cottonhall. So I'm just saying as a committee, I feel that we are justified for having that. And it seems a very, very good piece of work that the flood risk officer has done.
So, I'll open it up to anybody else, please. Councillor Gage.
Thank you, Chair. You're incorrect. All the other issues in the refinement last time was just the drainage. I said I couldn't support it. It was felt bad detail and then the main concern there was for the existing residents and they wouldn't be actually impacted by this.
And what I've seen today, in both one of the 110, has a 45% climate change factor, which I don't think I've seen come to this committee, simply for a small development like this. So I'm 100% satisfied with this. I'm happy with those that we accept approval of this, Chair.
Thank you. Is Councillor Gage have a seconder for that?
Councillor Black has a take. Right, Councillor Craig. Well, basically, I'll go second it, but in terms of reading through the notes and previous applications for this, I don't think any of the material where it was formed is now, and I would concur with your appraisal, that it was right to get this kind of review.
That's really important. And I think the other question I need to ask, what else would happen with this really quite unusual site, which is sort of landlocked as it were, which is only going to be an area of overgrowth and quite good for nature, but it's got to be used for something, so I think this is a good option in that context, so I'm happy to support it.
Thank you. Any more questions? Anybody want to say more in the debate, or can we move to the vote now? Okay. So, we have it moved, we have it set and did, that we accept the application with the revised condition.
Yeah, I'm just about to say that. With the revised condition, as printed in front of us. So, could all those in favour please show?
All those against? Any abstentions? One abstention. Okay, thank you. So that is carried. Thank you members.
Okay, we come on to the second application today, Yew Tree Farm, Clay Lane, Haslington. This was called in by Councillor Edgar, and we have had a site visit out there, so again I shall ask Mr Taylor to lead off on this please.
Okay, thank you. As I just said, it's a retrospective application, it's for a B8 storage and distribution use at Yew Tree Farm, it's a new warehouse. It was constructed in 2023, and the site lies in open countryside.
The site is implicated in red on this location plan, the rest of the ownership's in blue, but Yew Tree Farm and existing forest uses live in the air, built in from here.
You can see the main features, clay layers here, the access into the site there, and the Haslington bypass from here, and the overhead power lines and the very large pylon across the site here.
In terms of some context, it would be useful just to show the site pre-construction, just sort of show what was used at that particular time. So we think this is pre-2023, probably 2022, I'm not quite sure, but it doesn't really matter.
It just shows broadly the nature of the operation, so you can see the existing forest buildings, the collection of former agricultural buildings as part of the new, so the existing forest use of the site has been operating on the site for some time, especially 40 years.
And you can see the trailers and so forth from the hard areas and hard standing. You can also make out the site about here, and so there's some storage here.
But just moving on, you can now see, as we are today, more or less, you can see the building in the white has just been constructed within that area, just beyond the road.
Traders are shown on there, you can see the existing buildings, which have just been slightly removed in the meantime.
And broadly, as you can see, this is an active site, and the new building is required to support the existing use.
It's currently in storage use as members saw on the site visit, and is required to support the expansion of the applicant's existing activities within the site, such as providing additional security to secure storage, preventing the new from any external storage.
And again, you can see the access from Clayway, which isn't changing, that's the main access, and there's a circulatory route to the other side.
There is another application at the moment, I should just add, that there's a hard sounding to the south of the building, which is this area here, separate to a subject, subject to a separate application for storage of vehicles that have yet to be turned in.
And moving on, again, this is the proposed site plan, you can see the access coming to the site, you can see the circulation areas, the area in grey, the existing, and the brown of the existing area, the retrospective buildings, and that's the permission.
And again, the green area is what I'll refer to for the separate application.
Again, the elevations are pretty typical for a building of this kind, they're needed for warehouse operations, so it's about 11 and a half metres tall, on the smaller side for these sort of buildings, but that's about the minimum in terms of the V8 warehouse use.
Again, big open footprint, hard on the storage.
Again, just an interesting one, this is taken from Google, but it's because the, and obviously I'll end at the moment for the site, for the photographs, the hedges along Clay Lane have grown a bit over the years, and members had kind of done the difficulty of viewing the site from now, I certainly did the other day.
So, we just got a look at this, now this is interesting, because this is 2023, before the building was built, and you can see the nature of the storage, the nature of the trailer and things on this particular site.
So it supports the argument for, if you like, the central need for the building, which is either pylons or the usual features.
And again, and again, this is since the building was built, and it's been just, I'm sorry about the slide, it's been just about making out between the trees, the intervening trees and hedges, and again, the relationship between the existing buildings and the pylons and so forth.
So it gives you an idea of the sort of context that we're dealing with, and then again, remember from seeing this, this is on the site itself proper, you can see the nature of the existing uses here, and the new buildings over here.
And again, another shot, nice one of the cables.
So, broadly, in summary, it's important to note that the site is within the urban countryside, where development that is essential to the expansion of an existing building is acceptable in principle.
So it represents an exception to the normal policy of restraint under policy PD6 and local plan of strategy.
In terms of visual impact, we saw from the photographs, you can see the intervening dual hedgerows, trees, sort of filter the views of the building to a degree.
And again, views into the site are framed by the existing college buildings that you can see, and power lines, and the other hard standing trailers, etc.
So for those set on the urban countryside, the building is adjacent to this cluster of industrial buildings, and consequently, the visual impact on the landscape and amenities of the area is considered acceptable.
The report does mention that a condition is recommended in relation to the colour of the buildings, at the moment it's sort of light grey and white.
And I think the landscape officer has taken the view that it perhaps should be green to match the colours of the family with this construction site, so it's not quite as obvious, if you like, in relation to the landscape perspective.
So it's up to members whether they want colour they want, but we can impose a condition, we can have a discussion of what some members can discuss, whether that's required, and what sort of colour is necessary.
The highway impact is also considered acceptable, as we've said, it's existing access from Clay Lane, it filters from the Passington bypass from this significant junction arrangement, and onsite parking division and access to the belt that is therefore considered acceptable.
And as set out in the report, it's not considered being harm to residential amenity, trees or ecology, and matters of flood risk and drainage are controlled through recommended conditions.
So overall, the development is considered to be in compliance with the Development Plan and therefore recommended for approval subject to the conditions it's doing for.
Thank you.
Right, we have no members of the public to speak on this, so we can go straight on to members' questions for officers.
Councillor Kleins.
Yeah, I noticed that the flood officer's response came in on the 3rd of June, is that right?
Because again, he's got quite a lot of things that he wants to say about this and concerns about what needs to be done before we can offer approval.
I just wondered if Mr Taylor could give us some clarity on that, because obviously the strategy that the applicant has submitted was made up on the last week.
Yes, I think it might just be an issue when it was indexed.
I think the comments that you can see on the website and the consultation response are included within the report and the LFO officer is purely recommending conditions within the conditions which are listed.
So the usual things about full details of the drainage scheme and additional issues about pecking intercept and being provided and so forth.
So, and those conditions are retrospective, clearly one of those done within a relatively short time space detail can be submitted, approved and implemented within a time scale to a job, etc.
Did you want to come back on that Councillor Taylor?
No, just double checking that they were one and the other, I suppose the only other thing is, whilst we have to deal with every application on its own merits,
and we're looking at this particular one, I'm a little bit perturbed that the officer has mentioned this other one that is coming forward.
It is quite clearly when you talk about a hard standing area, that is something that also has been done already.
And so this would be another retrospective application, which effectively doubles the size of the whole site in total.
And I just wondered at what point it's expanding the site for legitimate business reasons, going over and above what is acceptable and what is a greenfield area.
Yes, it's always problematic, isn't it? But clearly in this case, we're going to deal with what's in front of us in this particular application, any issues arising from the additional hard standing.
Clearly I've not made any judgement on it because I've not made that recommendation yet, but it needs to be considered in terms of the essential operation of that business.
So we'll be doing a similar assessment in terms of open countryside policy for that application as we have the analysis of this particular application.
So it's very careful about how you judge what's essential for the expansion of an existing business within it to justify its development in the open countryside and to positively reduce it.
Thank you very much for that clarification. And also, as you quite rightly said, Ms O'Connor has already commented on access and has said that the area available at the moment is acceptable to accommodate this building.
So, yeah, I'll leave it like that for the moment.
Councillor Martin. The application is for a temporary structure, and I know that Mr Taylorstone, when we went down Friday, said that he would treat it as a permanent structure.
If you look at the building, really established hard standing and the walls are definitely permanent. However, the roof is a temporary structure.
It's not made of anything substantial. It's actually a kind of tarpaulin. I'm wondering if we ought to be putting some kind of condition that if that's ever damaged in any way, it should be repaired instantly so as not to be a blot on the landscape.
If you can see what I mean. Yes, you're right. I think that we've taken the view that, like you say, the amount of infrastructure that that's done.
There's this stairway in the operation to get this building onto the site. It's quite a substantial building. It requires a lot of infrastructure to get in and out of the building.
You can see on the plans and the site, there's a lot of that to be put together.
The roof is, I was having a look at myself, it is quite lightweight. I have seen roofs like this. It's not untypical. It's quite robust in terms of the nature of the material.
The general appearance of the building is a permanent building. It would be very difficult for us to report and say, Let's remove it in ten years time.
It's been there for ten years. It's very difficult for a reasonable condition to then start enforcing it, except building what we probably would get as an application at best to retain it.
On the basis of a necessary and enforceable condition, there doesn't appear to be a need to do that.
In terms of long-term maintenance, I'm afraid there has to be a matter for the applicant. It's not really a matter for the committee to take the view in my view in terms of securing that through a planning condition.
I think overall, it's probably, viewing the application as seen, taking a view that it's permanent and substantial construction and there's no need to believe that it can't be kept in a reasonably tight condition.
Can I just ask the question of the colour, which I don't find particularly obtrusive to the area at all.
How would you go about enforcing the occupier, the owner, to actually physically change the colour of it now?
Because if that is only a canvas come tarpaulin type roof, that would probably need a whole new roof putting up, which you're not going to do because of the cost.
You can't paint it. I mean, you can paint the side walls, I think, but I'm just thinking it's quite a big undertaking.
From a practicality point of view, this suggestion came from our landscape officer who was taking a view point, an overall view point, and looking at it in terms of the family of buildings and took the view that it might be less prominent if it was of a darker colour.
Now, clearly, the roof's going to be a challenge to change the colour. I think what we were referring to was to try and minimise the impact a bit slightly further by just looking at the walls and maybe the ends of the building to try and mitigate it.
But it's really a matter for members, really, to determine whether that condition is actually necessary and whether you're, bearing in mind, we've already looked at it as seen and we don't think it's a particularly significant feature and it does relate reasonably well to this particular site.
So, I think it's the condition that's necessary.
That's a fun.
That's quite an interesting one. It reminds me of an application we had in Colton for warehousing, just off the bypass, that Councillor Colker remembers this one, where we actually looked at it and accepted, I mean, you can see it here, that the roof blends into certain kinds of cloud cover.
What actually needs to be determined is that doing the sides and the label ends was sufficient so that if you were actually on the ground, it would be more accommodating within the context of the other buildings.
But actually from a distance, or if you were at a higher elevation, it would probably still settle into the landscape and the skyscraper better.
So I'm quite happy, you know, just painting the sides and the ends are similar greens than the others. I wouldn't bother trying to touch the roof at all.
I don't know if that's a proposal or an acceptable suggestion, but that's what we decided on that one and it seems to have worked quite well.
Yeah, okay. Okay, so we have a proposal before us. Have you any further points to make? No? Okay. Does anybody want to say anything else within the debate?
No, it's all right.
Sorry, are we within the debate?
We are now within the debate, yes.
Well, coming back to the colouring, I went on the side of it and I didn't think it stuck out like a sore thumb at all.
It would be quite an element, so to say, that sort of gentleman said, a pretty humorous thing to do to change the colour of that building.
You might as well lock it down and put it in the building. You wouldn't be able to paint those steel sheets on the side and it would flake off and so on and so on.
I think that's practical an idea and I think it would be easily challenged to appeal if that condition is on.
If I were the applicant, and certainly appeal against that condition, it makes it impractical to use the building and all those things.
So I'm quite happy to approve of the application I set out in the report, which I do propose now, with the proposal that we removed and the condition about changing the colour.
I don't see it's really necessary. There are lots of industrial buildings around that colour.
The photograph there doesn't stand out. I think the darker buildings stand out worse, to be honest.
You look at that and you see a grey sky and a grey building and these black block sheets are buildings.
So I don't think it's practical, reasonable or necessary and I think it would be easily challenged if that's an appeal.
So you're moving that? You're moving acceptance? Yes, with the deletion of that, I don't think it's necessary.
Do we have anyone who wants to second it first of all? I've got speakers so I'll call you in. Do we have a seconder?
Councillor Colker? Yeah, I'll second Councillor Rae's proposal.
Thank you and I'll call you back in after Councillor Crane because you're on the list.
So, Councillor Crane? I was basically going to propose that. Happy to second it but it's already been seconded.
I was expecting us nearest ward Councillors to be called up first. Sorry, sorry, yeah.
It's alright, I can virtually see it on my background.
Okay, thank you. Okay, so Councillor Colker, you've seconded it. Anything you want to say on it?
No, I can't speak anyway. Oh no.
Just to say that in my opinion it builds the requirements of PG6, it's the expansion of a legitimate business in the urban countryside and so I'm very happy to report.
We have gone down the speakers so we have to wait a moment. We might have to switch them off and switch them back on.
Of course I'm the only one who's got speakers working again.
Are they okay now? Okay, right. So, Councillor Burton, did you want to come back in or was it just because you wanted to second as well?
I wanted to second it, sorry.
So many people wanting to second it. Okay, that's great. Right, so we are in a position where we've had the application approved as it stands with the exemption of that provider of painting it and colouring it.
So, let's move to the vote then. So all those in favour of accepting the application as it is?
One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine.
Okay, any against?
Abstention.
Any against? Do we have an abstention?
Thank you.
Okay, so that concludes the meeting.
I'm going to have some more like that. So thank you all for your attendance here. I'm sure you have all got other things that you could be doing so I will release you all into the ether again.
So thank you very much and we'll see you all next time.
Summary
The meeting focused on two main planning applications: a residential development on Middlewich Street and a storage facility at Yew Tree Farm. Both applications were approved after detailed discussions on drainage and flood risk for the former and visual impact and compliance with countryside policies for the latter.
Middlewich Street Development
The committee revisited the application for residential development on land at the rear of 203 and 205 Middlewich Street. This application had been deferred from a previous meeting to address drainage issues. Principal Planning Officer Richard Taylor presented the updated drainage strategy, which included a holding tank to manage surface water runoff. The council's flood risk officer had assessed the new plan and found it acceptable. The agent for the applicant, Sarah Foster, emphasized that the detailed drainage analysis showed no increased flood risk. The committee approved the application with revised drainage conditions.
Yew Tree Farm Storage Facility
The second application was a retrospective one for a B8 storage and distribution use at Yew Tree Farm, Clay Lane, Haslington. This new warehouse, constructed in 2023, was discussed in terms of its compliance with open countryside policies. Richard Taylor explained that the building was essential for the expansion of the existing business and had minimal visual impact due to surrounding hedgerows and trees. The committee debated the necessity of changing the building's color to green to blend in better with the landscape. Ultimately, they decided that the color change was not necessary and approved the application as it stood.
Other Items
- Apologies for absence were received from Councillors John Byrd, Rod Fletcher, Roger Morris, and Mike Muldoon. Substitutes included Councillors Garnet Marshall, Janet Clowes, and Anthony Harrison.
- Councillor Joy Braberton declared an interest in the Middlewich Street item due to its proximity to her residence but stated it would not affect her decision-making.
- The minutes of the previous meeting were approved without objections.
- Public speaking rules were reiterated, allocating specific time limits for different categories of speakers.
The meeting concluded with the approval of both planning applications, allowing the developments to proceed with specific conditions in place.