Transcript

Welcome to the meeting of the Planning Committee of Telfand Reeking Council. Just go through several announcements firstly. No fire alarms are expected and in case of a fire the exit can be found in the chamber. Toilets are situated outside of the chamber near the lifts. This evening's meeting is held in public to ensure that all those involved or interested in the planning applications and process can see and hear how the decisions are made. It is important that the speakers are able to present their information without interruption and that the council members of the committee are able to hear and consider the material presented. Only those people who have been notified are able to speak, I would ask everyone else to remain quiet, not to interrupt the meeting and to allow the members to make their decisions. I remind everyone that council meetings can be photographed or recorded and ask all participants to recognise the importance of the planning process. Finally please could I ask that everybody put their phone either on silence or turn off their mobile phones. When indicating to speak please press the right hand button once and the green light will appear. Once the red light is showing please begin to speak. Before we start the agenda I would like to ask members to -- I would like to take this moment to remember our colleague and friend, Councillor Chris Turley who passed away recently following a period of illness. A number of us will have fond memories of Chris during his many years of service and especially on the planning committee which he was part of for many years. He was remembered as a dedicated, passionate and much loved member of our community who devoted his time to public service and I'm sure you will all join me in keeping Chris's family and friends in our thoughts during this sad and difficult time. Can I ask for a minute's silence for Chris? Thank you. We can now start the agenda for this evening's meeting. So firstly apologies for absence. We have apologies from Councillor Amrick Giroir and Councillor Steven Handley has come along to substitute for us. Thank you. Can I ask if the members have got any declarations of interest? No? Okay. Thank you. Agenda item 3, the minutes of the previous meeting which everyone has received. Can I confirm that the minutes are accurate and a true reflection of last month's meeting? Thank you. Everyone for that? Yeah? Thank you. Right, item 4, any deferred or withdrawn applications? There are none, Chair. Thank you. Item 5, site visits? There are none proposed, Chair. Okay. Right, we can go straight on to item 6, the planning applications for determination. So the first one is 6.1, which is the application TWC2023-0673, land off Hadleigh Castle Works, Hadleigh, Telford, Shropshire. Can I ask? Thanks, Chair. Okay, Mark. So by means of a brief introduction, the application seeks full planning permission for the erection of five industrial units falling within use classes B2, B8, and EG3, including ancillary office accommodation, associated car parking, gate houses, cycle shelters, attenuation pond, landscaping, all associated engineering works and highway works on the land off Hadleigh Castle Works in Hadleigh. The application is being determined by members at the request of Hadleigh and Legomery Parish Council and Councillor Gemma Offland. Thank you, Chair. Okay, thank you. Can I just remind all the people that are speaking tonight that you have three minutes at the lectern, and so can I first ask for Councillor Gemma Offland, ward Councillor for Hadleigh, to come to the lectern, please? Thank you, Chair and committee members, Councillors. I bring forward the land off Hadleigh Castle Works. We are here elected by our residents to bring forward any concerns that we have, and that's why I've brought it to the committee to be determined. Back in March, I emailed officers to see if they would meet with residents of which were elected to serve and to go through and look at mitigation, and this wasn't possible. However, this development has raised a number of concerns. We know and support the fact of development and employment within the area. That's not in question. However, it shouldn't be at the cost of residents' health, wellbeing and layout within the area. We know that GKN Thank Yous has been there for many, many years, but even that in itself came with some concerns. I wish that committee will look at further mitigation with regards to residents, so I ask that we look at deferring this item so that we can further mitigate and have them discussions with residents as we should be. I object around the layout of the bays facing onto residential properties because that will come with its own problems. Highway congestion along the way, the A442 has always been a problem within the area, not to mention all the traffic onto Hadleigh Park Road, which is a residential area. Noise and pollution that comes from site and obviously the hours of operation. There have been concerns that have been raised with regards to conservation, and obviously that needs to be taken into account as well. We can't just continue to develop in residential areas and not look at our heritage. We need to look into the fact that there were 276 objections to this planning application and further 4-1 letters at the stage. A further consultation is currently underway, and this is why I am asking the committee to defer this item and to further look at the considerations with the residents that we serve. Also within the area we have the locks, and I think further development should be put in to keep our heritage with regards to 106. When you look at the actual conditions, the 106 is actually going further down the road to Hadleigh Road and Hortonwood, 30. Can you wind up here, if you can? Members, if I can ask that you can reconsider and defer this item until further mitigation is done with regards to residents, and then we can get solutions in order to move forward. Thank you. Thank you. Can I ask for Councillor Phil Millward, Parish Councillor, to come forward? Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, chairmen, fellow councillors. We don't oppose investment, we don't oppose development and jobs for Telfer. It is this plan and this recommendation that we do oppose, that is why we're here tonight. Residents are fearful, concerned, angry that this development will have on their health, their physical and mental wellbeing. They're fearful of pollution, noise, dust, 24/7. We came here to suggest most strongly to a peaceful way of life that will be destroyed by this plan, hence over 300 objections. The material considerations that we do object to, overlooking loss of privacy, overshadowing scale, dominance, highway safety, traffic and parking issues, noise, dust, fumes, effects on buildings, conservation areas, wildlife, nature, conservation. Just to give one example of Hadleigh Park Road, it's already subject to one traffic calming measure, as implemented by the highways. The second calming measure is imminent due to the speed and anti-social behaviour. Parrish's complaints have been well documented with you and at the parish council. I'd like to talk about Parkdale. Parkdale, the residents there, will have one warehouse 10 metres from the nearest property. This will be subject to dust and noise and pollution 24/7. Are you aware that residents' complaints over the last 12 to 18 months that I've had to raise about the dust and the noise that they've had to incur with the development of this site that's ongoing as I speak? Have planning informed you of 20 years ago when the residents there took umbrage with GKN to rejoice the noise, the dust, especially at night so they could have a peaceful night? Has that, have you been informed of that? I could pull this plan apart and its recommendations for the next three hours. I only have three minutes. What we want to do is to allow the residents fears, they're concerned about their health and their welfare and they're concerned about what this plan will have on their environment. I'd like to draw your attention now to a couple of developments that took place in Milton Keynes and in Catharines in Harlow, headlines, 18-meter tall warehouse, rooms of roses in Milton Keynes. Residents are up in arms. In Harlow, Catharines residents angry at huge warehouse. This is happening in these communities, let's not this happen in our community. We then move on to jobs. The applicant claims 1850 jobs, creating millions spent in the local environment, in the local area. There is no evidence of the workforce availability, the jobs created would be low skilled, occupations group 8-9. The percentage of national workforce in this group is 14.5% and Telford, it is 25.1%. Three minutes are up. Can I just really finish? Just wind up, please. OK then, so here we go then. We are asking the members now to defer this to allow further consultation and I'll finish on this. If this development was in your ward, in your parish, what would your parishioners be saying to you? If this development was in your back garden, what would you want your parish council to do? Telford is a caring council, it's a co-operative council. Let's start showing that we care about our residents. We're asking you to defer, thank you. Right, thank you Councillor Millwood. Can I ask for both David Sellwood and Steve Bryant to come forward, please. It's just going to be me, Chair. Thanks. Chairman, Councillors, my name is David Sellwood, I'm an environmental consultant with 30 years of experience in environmental impact assessment. I have a bachelor's degree in environmental science and a master's degree in pollution control. I'm also a chartered environmentalist and a member of the institution of environmental sciences. 24/7 noise disturbance is the issue of most concern to residents. The noise consultants have assessed noise using their library of noise sources, which is not provided, described in terms of how it's produced or if it's been validated by any third party. The main assessed source of noise is HGV's. I would question the validity of the levels used, which are much lower than those in British standard BS 5228 and are thus seriously underestimated. In making your decision, should you trust an unreported library of noise sources or a British standard? The assessment assumes no other operational plant items other than HGV's and forklifts. I would expect multiple other noise sources to be present. As such, you do not know the effects of what you are permitting, so can you make that decision? There are inconsistencies with reporting of noise fence dimensions, therefore you don't know the mitigation that is proposed, so you don't know if it will be effective, so you do not have the knowledge to permit. I know that the planning officer's report kicks noise down the road as emissions cannot yet be determined. This is a tacit admission that the noise assessment is inadequate. Policy BE1 states that the council will support development which demonstrates that there are no significant adverse impact on nearby properties by noise. A lack of significant adverse impacts on noise has not been demonstrated. The application cannot therefore be determined. If as I suspect, noise levels may be much higher than predicted, they may not be controllable to acceptable levels. This could preclude a 24 hour operation and make the proposed development unviable, as happened at the similar GUPI6 development in Milton Cares. Given the mass and the height of the buildings, I would expect that visual effects on residents would be significant. Tree screening could not screen unit one at over 21 metres tall, which is four metres taller than the iron bridge. The applicant has provided photo montages from all angles except from adjacent residential areas. While the planning officer's report suggests that the strength seen will be acceptable, less attractive views from residences have been ignored and no significant adverse impact has not been demonstrated. There is little information on why the scale and orientation of unit one is as it is. The applicant states that changing the design would affect its marketability. The other units proposed are nowhere near the scale of unit one and yet must be marketable or would not be proposed. So this argument defies logic. Can I ask you to sort of wind it up, please? Thank you. Smaller non 24 hour developments would be more suitable and there is no reason why acceptable alternatives could not be proposed. Thank you. OK. Thank you. Can I now ask for Samuel Clark, the applicant, please? Hi. I'm Samuel Clark, chief executive of Mercy Real Estate. Thanks to the members and the committee chair for the opportunity to speak and thanks to the case officer and the head of planning for all the consultation that we've been through over the past 12 to 18 months through the pre-app process and the planning process. We've extensively discussed this with planning officers first at pre-application stage back in April 2023 and then prior to the application being submitted in September 2023, just over 12 months ago, which has evolved into its current form based on feedback from technical experts and stakeholders and members of the public. We've extensively aged with national highways and highway authorities to ensure that the proposal is acceptable and can be recommended for approval. The site is located as a strategic important area on the adopted Telford and Reekett local plan, as well as the emerging local plan. The site hasn't come forward previously due to a lack of investment and its historic ownership. Mercy Real Estate have prepared a planning application and have already invested over $7 million in the refurbishment of one of the existing buildings and have committed in excess of another $80 million to complete the project. Positively, we must remember that this includes the use of previously developed land, which has a long history of employment, having originally been the home of the Castle Ironworks in 1804, the Castle Carworks in 1900, where all manner of fabrications and castings were undertaken, and most latterly, the home of GKM. Economic benefit to Telford by providing modern facilities which meet the needs of occupiers and already have interest in these units, which we have very advanced discussions on for half of the new buildings. Most importantly, these are manufacturing jobs from companies already based in Telford. Job creation of approximately further 2,000 employees across the site, 1,970 to be specific. The development will recreate an economic boost for the gross direct employment of circa £150 million. We're committed to enhancing the environment and we will utilise offsite biodiversity credits to ensure no net loss in terms of biodiversity, and we're working with an external habitat bank to purchase the units that are required. The Ecological Officer is supportive of the planning application on this basis. Throughout the application, we've responded to concerns raised by reducing the height of the building height of Unit 3 and Unit 4 by 2.5 metres each. Unit 3 has been reduced in footprint and set back from residents on Warwick Way with a dense landscape buffer and green mound buffer to limit the visual impacts. We've agreed with officers to include a condition which requires the submission of a noise report for each individual unit prior to occupation to ensure its validity. This will allow the local planning authority to assess the noise impact that the individual occupiers will generate and request mitigation measures if required. We've agreed with officers in relation to proposed opening hours and to provide full details of proposed occupiers prior to occupation so that the local planning authority can assess whether specified operations undertaken by the business would be acceptable within the respective units and within the hours being applied. Can you wind it? Yeah, please. We're advancing negotiations on Section 106, committing just over half a million pounds in Section 106 obligations in its draft form, £450,000 towards highway improvements, £75,000 towards a bus stop and unmeasured sum as yet in works towards the Thomas Telford Locks. If this application is granted, we have the investment to bring this proposal forward and hope to be on site towards the end of this calendar year. Thank you for listening. Okay, thank you. Mark, if you want to come in now. Thank you, Chair. So the site extends 46 hectares and is located within Hadley, which is considered to be a highly sustainable location. Furthermore, the site is located within the strategic employment area of Hadley Park. Under Policy SP1, industrial uses such as those being proposed are part of this application. As part of this application are directed towards these designated areas, which established the principle of development within the proposed location. The application has been amended throughout the application process at the request of the local planning authority and following the submission of comments from local residents in respect to the consultation process. In regard to scale and design, officers consider that the proposal can be satisfactorily accommodated on the site without appearing as a cramped form of development. In respect to the individual units, it is acknowledged that these will be significant in form, height, and massing. However, officers consider that the scale of buildings proposed are to be expected within a designated strategic employment area and have been justified by the applicant. In respect to the occupancy of the buildings, the applicant is applied for a blanket B2, B8, and EG3 uses, as the end occupiers are not yet known. In light of this, officers have outlined that conditions would need to be imposed upon any consent requiring the applicant to submit details of the proposed occupiers, the use class they intend to operate under, a business model showing how they will operate from the site, parking levels to be provided for the unit, and proposed working hours prior to occupation. This is considered to be necessary in order to ensure that the proposed occupants and their working hours would not have a significantly detrimental impact upon the amenity of neighboring properties and to ensure that adequate parking is provided. Furthermore, prior to any unit being occupied, a noise report will also need to be submitted to identify whether any mitigation works are required to the building to mitigate against noise and odor pollution. It is acknowledged that there are a number of residential properties which extend around the site. In respect of the impact that the proposal would have on the amenity of these properties, this has been assessed extensively under paragraphs 8.45 to 8.70 within the committee report. This assessment has concluded that due to distance separations present, existing and proposed landscaping, appropriate scale and design, and the submitted shading assessments, which have demonstrated limited shading, that the proposal would not have a significantly detrimental impact upon the amenity of neighbors. The council's built heritage specialist has objected to the proposal in respect of the impact that it will have upon the listed Turnip and Hadley locks. However, it has been confirmed that this harm would be on the less than substantial scale. Officers have secured improvement works to the locks as part of this application, which include the desilting and repointing of the locks, installation of a viewing platform, and the installation of interpretation boards. When weighing the public benefits that the scheme would secure, along with the mitigation measures proposed by the applicant, such as the installation of significant landscaping bunds around the locks, the local planning authority considered that the benefits of the proposal would outweigh the less than substantial harm caused by the proposal. There have been no technical objections from the council's highways, drainage, and ecology teams. Section 106 contributions have been requested in relation to highways and travel plan monitoring. Biodiversity net gain does not apply as the application was submitted before the mandatory 10 percent gain was brought into legislation. The applicants are proposing offsite mitigation in respect of reaching neutral biodiversity net loss due to the number of units required to offset the proposal. On balance, the proposal is considered to be in accordance with national and local planning policy, and the officer recommendation remains as per the reports committee, namely to grant planning permission subject to financial contributions and conditions outlined. Thank you, Chair.

Thank you. I'll now open it up to the members. So, can I ask for Councillor Peter Scott, please? Thank you, Chair. Yeah, I think today showed the value of site visits. I have not seen this area before. I wasn't aware of it. In terms of walking around it today, I did tend to think that there's a lot of natural barrier that will help, certainly with the view from residents in terms of that. There's quite a lot of it. The canal area, I hadn't seen that before. I hadn't seen the locks before, and I think it's a good thing if they can be improved in any way, and certainly history boards or whatever, so that could become some kind of, well, I say tourist attraction almost. It needs the work doing on it. We did also notice sports area at the far end that had one and a half goal posts and a rather poor playing surface, so if and when this does get any approval, I would hope that that could be improved either with 106 or just by the developer in terms of helping the community, because it could be a very good amenity. At the moment, it isn't, so if you could bear that one in mind. As we were told, it's speculative, this whole thing. So we don't know who's coming, so I don't know how we can really assess noise either in that respect, but it's quite clear from what we see tonight in terms of the amount of people that's turned up and what we read on the application that there are still some areas that people are unhappy with. Now, the question was asked by one of the speakers, it was in your ward, what would you do? Well, personally, I would like to think that all residents' fears at least had been listened to and addressed, and I'm not quite sure they are at the moment. So whilst I think because this land is there and has already been designated for this kind of building, it will happen, I think. I really think it will happen, but I don't really want it to happen until at least most of the fears and the objections have been listened to, and from what I'm being told, they haven't yet. So I would propose that whilst most of this is, I feel, quite acceptable, until that's been addressed, we do defer this at least for one cycle so that the proper conversations could be made. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Scott. Councillor Nigel Dodmore. Yeah, I think we are now. Thank you, Chair. Yeah, I mean, it is a strategic employment area, as we've heard, and so therefore there is going to be industrial development on here. Site visit was really useful. Historic locks are absolutely fantastic, and I do hope that they're tarted up so that people can appreciate them. I mean, it is going to be difficult to find planning reasons for no development for industrial use on this site, and certainly the applicant has mitigated some of the issues, but not all. Certainly, on site one, I think that it's the wrong way round, because the loading bays are right by the residential area, I would have thought. So to my mind, it should at least be the other way round, which would make sense. The thing is, is that the size of that building, it's probably going to be in 24/7 operation, and as we've already mentioned about noise, and we don't know who's going to be there, but it's probably going to be somebody who is operating 24/7, and as we've heard from other developments and from residents that live near other industrial units, there's problems with air conditioning and refrigerated wagons. So I do think that a bit of thought needs to go into this, and to my mind, I think that this application really should be an outline one, so that when we actually know who's going to be the operator in these buildings, well, then we can start to iron out these details, because at the moment, it's all finger in the air job, and the thing is, is that these things can go ahead, and residents are not going to have any input into what happens. I've got a couple of questions for the planning officer, 6.6, £75,000 for two bus stops. I can't wait to see them. They're going to be absolutely fantastic. You know, are they going to be at airport lounges or something? And 6.12, why is RAF Shawbury a consultee? Not having an airport, are we, as well? But so I'd like to second Councillor Scott's proposal that we do defer this, because there are things that need to be addressed. As I've already mentioned, the location of at least Site 1, Site 1 building, and actually the others look a bit dodgy as well, and I do think the traffic management needs to be looked at in detail, because as we all know, the roundabout on the 442 is a nightmare at the best of times, but particularly when Houghton Wood, there's a shift change, or any time 4.30, you've got no chance at all. So I do think that a bit more thought needs to go into this application, and I don't think it should be a detailed application, because at the moment, there's too many unknowns. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. Can I ask for Councillor Jank? Thank you, Chair. We're all still getting used to the technology. I apologise. I've just got a couple of technical questions of the planning officers, if I may. From an ecological and heritage concerns with respect to the adjacent canal and locks, what environmental management plans are currently in place to specifically mitigate water pollution against water pollution and habitat destruction along the Shropshire Union canal so that members and residents can be assured this application isn't a detriment to the precious water course that is the canal? The second question is highways impacts. The significant S106 funding up to nearly £500,000 for highways, which is substantial. As always, this needs careful consideration on what is already an extremely busy area, trying to get home overnight from work, as many people do. It's a nightmare through traditional rush hour times. So this application could potentially be an additional detriment to that, with it being in such close proximity and to that end of the borough, you know, looking at it from a wider point of view. Are the highways officers confident, therefore, of being able to manage the flow of traffic adequately in an already dense industrial area? Thank you, Chair. Thank you. Mark, do you want to come in, come there? Yes, thank you, Chair. Just to kind of run through the comments that have been presented so far. Councillor Scott, in terms of the sports area and kind of the goal post that we noted, in terms of where contributions can be sought, it's not considered that it would be appropriate to seek recreation contributions for this development. The contributions sought need to relate to the development. I think that would -- I'd be more than happy to put the developer in contact with the parish council if they'd like to explore that outside of the planning process. But in terms of what we can take into account and secure through planning, it's very strict and limited. So I think that we wouldn't be able to include that within a Section 106 for contributions. In respect of comments about noise and whether the fears have been listened to, as we've noted, the development coming forward is speculative. So we, as officers, we consider the best way to kind of consider the noise impacts of that is through a noise report coming through as each unit comes forward. To kind of apply a blanket noise report as present where those details are speculative perhaps wouldn't best reflect the current state of play. So through it coming forward separately, it would allow officers to consult and consider those with the relevant technical specialists in a far better way. Councillor Doug Moore, regarding the queries about the reorientation of Unit 1, I note the consideration of the loading bays being in proximity to the residential properties. When we were on site today, we walked the properties fronting Yew Tree Meadow that would front onto the attenuation pond. And those properties for their entirety would have an outlook onto the attenuation pond. And the loading bays themselves proposed to be enclosed by a six metre high fencing to provide that noise mitigation in that location. If we were looking at reorientating the property, noting the kind of width of the loading area, if that was kind of flipped and fronted onto Hadleigh Park Road itself, then Unit 1, in order to achieve the same footprint, would actually have to come closer to those residential properties. So it could be that actually a number of those properties would have an outlook onto the building itself. So it's that kind of balance that has to be applied in terms of the visual of the building versus the proximity of the loading. Also, in terms of the visual aesthetics as you're kind of going around Hadleigh Road itself, it's from an aesthetics perspective, it's not the most attractive thing to kind of have fronting onto that kind of road where the site has an open frontage. Whereas kind of as it's proposed here, it's proposed to be enclosed by that fencing. In terms of the bus stops at 72,000 pounds, that funding is to scope the extent of the work. So what it is to ensure that those works can satisfactorily be achieved with that money, so there isn't a deficit coming from there. So I suppose it's kind of worked on a worst case basis. Moving to the consultation with the RAF, that's a statutory consultation that we have to undertake as a result of the height of the building. In terms of the traffic, which was a point picked up by both yourself, Councillor Doug Moore and Councillor Junge, the traffic and the impacts upon the highways has been interrogated by both the Local Highways Authority and Highways England. So it has gone through significant consultation in terms of both local roads and the wider highway network. There's been a full transport assessment and up-to-date modelling which has informed that opinion by both of those authorities. And then in respect of the water pollution, Councillor Duncke, there is proposed to be a condition regarding ecological construction management plan where both those matters that you raised would be considered as part of that. I think I covered everything in that. Right. Councillor Jonas Jones, please. Thank you, Chair. A lot of what I intended to say has already been covered. Sadly, I couldn't make the meeting today, the site visit, because I had other things planned. So I hear I missed out on a golden opportunity, from what I'm being told. It's a very nice place, very nice area. There seems to be a lot of speculation within this, and I think I'm going to support it being deferred until a lot of these things are sorted out. That have already been mentioned. Thank you. [Applause] Councillor Thomas Junge. Thank you, Chair. I just really wanted to make the point that I think taking this planning application as it sits now before members of all the technical issues that have been addressed, obviously it's our duty to consider this application with the information before us. However, it's my view that applications of such scale need to bring along the residents with them on those applications. When we consider 300 objections and a lot of unknowns, a lot of fear in the room, we need to consider residents' concerns, and I think I do also support deferring this application until this recent round of consultation has taken place. I think residents' voices need to be heard completely fully until that point happens. I don't think we can support the application. Thank you. [Applause] Right. Councillor Arnold England, please. Thank you, Chair. You've heard my colleagues' request to defer. I have to agree. I visited the site today. I'm a bit concerned about the loss or the effect on the local ecology, but there is some protection in particular regards to locks and enhancing them. That will be a great improvement to the area, but as a Councillor, consultation with the public, to me, is the most important thing. Listening to what they've got to say and making appropriate changes to meet their fears and demands. Can I just say that a few decades ago I worked at Sankeys. We had presses and there were complaints from the residents of Trench that during the night shift, they could hear the presses bouncing up and down, affecting where they lived and how they lived. I think we need to be reassured that there's not going to be any nighttime noise and banging and shifting. We need to protect those residents from the effects of industry, and I think, to me, that's very important. Thank you. [Applause] Thank you. Are there any other comments at all? Yes, Steve. It's the first time I've sat on this board, as you may well know. I've visited the site today and listened to all the comments. I, too, think it should be deferred. Okay, thank you. Okay, thank you. [Applause] Going on that basis, if everyone -- the consensus is that we defer -- oh, sorry, Peter. It works, good. Yeah, I think, obviously, the consensus is to defer this. I just want to impress upon Councillors Offland and Millwood that they make use of the time properly so that when this comes back to us, we're not just in the same place and that certain conversations have been made so that we are more aware of where we need to go with it. Thank you. All right, so the consensus is that we defer the application. Is everyone in agreement to that? Okay, unanimous. Okay, so it's -- Seconded. Yeah, seconder? Okay, yeah, they're all seconded. All right, so -- Can we ask why -- what members would like to see, please, what we're going to negotiate? Okay, can we ask for reasons why it's deferred and then we can relay that back to the applicant and -- Not specifically why, but more what you would want to see as part of those amendments. Okay, Janice? Can I just say there's a lot of speculation here. I mean, we should be looking in more detail perhaps at times and hours of working and things like that, so we need a lot more detail in this. Okay. But it's great to go forward, I think. Yeah. Nigel? Yeah, well, certainly the orientation of the buildings that are proposed to try and mitigate the noise problems. I mean, the officer mentioned about the visual aspect, but in the middle of the night, residents are not going to be bothered about what it looks like. They're going to be more bothered about whether or not they can get to sleep at night. [Applause] So if this is going to be a full planning, and I still think it should be an outline so that the details can be sorted out when we know who's actually going into these units, but certainly the orientation of the buildings to mitigate the residents' concerns, I think we need a full explanation as to why highways seem to think that the roundabout is going to be perfectly acceptable. Have they never been there at peak times? Because it's an absolute nightmare. [Applause] It should have part-time traffic signals, and I hate traffic signals on roundabouts, but I can't see how else you're going to mitigate it. Okay. And as I say, I do think that I'd like a bit more detail on these 35-gram bus stops. [Laughter] Councillor Graham-Cook, please. [Inaudible] And Councillor Fiona. Doran. Thank you. Most of my colleagues have mentioned the issues that I wanted to raise, but I think what we need to be specifically looking at is the needs and wants of the residents, as my colleagues have stated, the residents' concerns don't seem to have been taken into full consideration, and I think consultation needs to continue. [Applause] Happy in terms of the issues that you want us to go away and look at. Just want to be clear, though, in terms of consultation, we are bound by what our legislation sets and how we follow that. We have a statement of community engagement as well in terms of which we follow, so I just want to reassure members that we do follow those procedures. So thank you. So the recommendations have been squashed and it's going for deferral. Okay, so thank you. All right. We can go straight on now to the second application for the evening. Oh, yes, if you want to vacate. Okay. Be empty. Is that everybody? All right. Thank you. All right. The second application tonight is TWC20230714, land off Bilbois Bank, north of Silver Trees, Chiggers Bank, Colbrookdale, Telford, Shropshire. So if I can ask Andrew, yeah, if Andrew can state the case, please. Thank you, chair. This application seeks full plan permission for battery energy storage facility on a site adjacent to Jiggers Bank in Colbrookdale. The proposals include details of an access track, CCTV and light poles, car parking spaces, perimeter fencing and gates, and associated landscaping and infrastructure. The application has been called in by Little Wenlock Parish Council and the application is recommended for approval. At which point, chair, I'll hand over to the speakers. Okay. Thank you. Right. Can I ask for Councillor Gareth Thomas, please, ward Councillor, to come to the lectern? Hi, everybody. Thanks for listening to this application that I called in due to concerns primarily over safety and the environmental impacts this application has. It's not often that you see an application that has a level of environmental risk and potential impact as this one does. Storage farms come with risk and it's how we manage that risk and the level of safeguards that are put in place that will determine the viability of the application. The site proposed has limited access. The site should have two entrance and exit points. This one has one. Which means if a fire was to occur, the fire service would have one entrance and exit point. It's blocked. They're a potentially extremely dangerous situation. Putting out the fire at this site as well is extremely difficult. You've got the toxic fumes that come with the battery storage and you've got the excess amounts of water which would need to be gone to an extremely wet site already, a site that has a history of moving to put that fire out. Any runoff from the site would then run into the Lyperdingle SSSI designated area, which is directly below the field in question. The effect of waterways then run into the culvert down into the Irish Gorge, which we all know the significance of that site to the borough. The field itself is possibly in one of the most unstable areas that we have in Southampton region. A substantial amount of money and time has gone into the adjacent Lord & Jiggers Bank over the last few decades, including just previously this year. Following the completion of that work, the field next to it actually moved and there will be a photo by the resident that shows a drop of about five foot at the one end of the field. We've got an extreme element of risk here. We have a battery site which is extremely difficult to put out a fire on if that was to happen. We have limited access. We have a moving site, which means that risk is amplified dramatically. This then runs into an SSSI and downwards into the Irish Gorge. For me, there couldn't be a worse field in Southampton region that we could pick for this site to be on. If its location was a matter of metres opposite direction, then you wouldn't have the difficulties to overcome. Normally I'd come and say to myself, I've got to focus on the SSSI. I'd also like to point out that the report itself states that policy SP3 applies and that it should be taken to duration for a plan expected if it benefits the Royal community. This doesn't. There's no way of weighing up how this application would benefit the Royal community that it is in. So again, that's a planning point I'd like to raise. Just three minutes are up, Gareth, are I? Just quickly, to recap, the site falls in the SSSI area. In adequate access, a land that is unstable, leading directly to waterways, I urge the committee to reject the application. Okay, thank you. Can I ask Councillor David Cooper, the parish Councillor, please? Thank you. My name's Dave Cooper, Chair of Little Wenlock Parish Council. The objections remain as previously stated. During our interaction with the applicant, we suggested on two occasions that they need to take on board the guidelines of the National Fire Chief's Council as a baseline for safe operation of the best site. Reading through the LPA report that you have been presented with, it seems that the LPA have also made the same suggestion whilst noting that this hasn't been done and cannot be enforced by the LPA. The report also aligns with Little Wenlock Parish Council in suggesting that this site for many reasons is far from the most suitable site. Draft NFCC guidelines cited by the applicant are currently out for consultation and must not be taken into account before they are ratified and become a working document. The report seems to conclude that whilst areas of the proposal partially meet planning policy, other areas do not. The conclusion as I read it is that the LPA believes that at appeal, the applicant would be successful, this based upon the recent two solar farms being granted in Little Wenlock. The important thing here is, fear of an appeal is not a valid reason to refuse a planning application. The applicant in the LPA review suggests the fire at the Liverpool BEZ installation used technology from 2016 and as such a new installation would be safer due to technical advances. With this in mind, I'd like to share with you two articles published by the BBC over the last four days and I think both articles are relevant here. The first article is about a major fire at the Ariselle battery plant in South Korea in June of this year with 23 people losing their lives due to lithium batteries catching fire. There is actually available online an international database listing fires within BEZ sites. This year alone in 2024, there are three sites that have gone up in fire. The second article was the findings of the Grenfell tragedy, of course, today. What struck me here as being relevant is that one of the key failures identified is that the government in 2010 set out to cut regulation of businesses and to issue guidelines and not rules, guidelines that could not be enforced but could be circumnavigated by businesses and corporations. I quote from the inquiry. The inquiry found this policy so dominated thinking in government that even matters affecting the safety of life were ignored, delayed or disregarded. I would suggest to the committee that in our haste to roll out a greener network, we are not rushing into this technology without due safety for consideration for our firefighters, communities and environments. Three minutes are up. Okay. Just conclude if I can. Okay. I would like to leave you with the following comment made at the energy storage summit in March 2021, which reported on fire safety issues at best sites. This by the deputy fire safety commissioner of the London fire brigade, Charlie Pugsley, who stated, if we know some things could fail catastrophically or it could have these effects, it's going to be a difficult day if one of us is standing there in court saying we knew about it but we didn't do anything. Thank you. Thank you. Right. Can I ask for Nigel Cusson, the applicant's agent, please. Thank you, Jen. Thank you for the opportunity to speak on behalf of the applicant in support of this application. There is an urgent need to tackle climate change and reduce carbon emissions. The local plan supports renewable and low carbon energy schemes like this, helping to meet the national need for energy security, bring down bills and reach net zero. Battery storage systems balance the supply and demand for electricity from renewable sources. They store energy when there is a surplus and they provide power at the times of high demand. Significant weight should be given to the benefits of this scheme supporting the transition to net zero. Officers have recognised this context and recommended approval subject to conditions and the topics suggested in those conditions are acceptable to the applicant. We've consulted with the parish council, the local community and the fire service. We've responded to address the consultation comments made. There are no objections from technical consultees, including highways and access, drainage, ecology, conservation, land stability, environmental health and the fire service. The site has confirmed a confirmed grid connection within the application boundary, justifying why development needs to be here. The development will not result in the loss of high grade agricultural land. Revisions to the scheme have provided additional tree screening as recommended by the heritage officer. A planning condition is suggested to confirm the appropriate landscaping is provided. The heritage officer considers the scheme would cause less than substantial harm. The MPPF policy is such that harm, that such harm is acceptable when outweighed by the public benefits arising from a proposal. This is the position here. The landscape and visual impact assessment found that the site is not in a designated or valued landscape and the effects of the proposal would be highly localised and not materially harm the landscape. Officers have not questioned that report. The landscaping proposals provide enhancement and a considerable biodiversity net gain. The proposal includes the most up to date fire safety design and fire suppression measures. The scheme meets the required standards. There will be a safety strategy which will be maintained throughout the life of the scheme and the fire service have not objected and will be involved in the ongoing safety management of the site. The recommendation to approve according to the local plan policy and the MPPF which states that applications should be approved where impacts are or can be made acceptable. The direction of travel of national policy is illustrated by the Secretary of State and the appeal of the specs decisions granting renewable energy proposals. The draft changes to the MPPF states that planning decisions should be given significant weight to the proposal's contribution to renewable energy generation and the move to net zero. The renewable energy benefits of the scheme are substantial considerations and the proposal accords with policy so on the planning balance the benefits of the proposal weigh heavily in favour of granting the permission. We ask you support your officer's recommendation. Thank you. Thank you. Andrew, do you want to come in, please? Thank you, Chair. So the application proposes a battery energy storage system known as a BES on agricultural field enclosed by hedges accessed from the A4169 to the north. The site is located adjacent to Jiggers Bank to the east and Lidbrook triple A side to the southwest. The Seven Gorge Conservation Area and Ironbridge Gorge World Heritage Site are located 0.5 and 1 kilometre to the south respectively. The land is crossed by an overhead power line with a pylon situated in the south western corner of the site which would provide direct connection to the national grid. The purpose of the BES is to store excess energy to enable it to be used during times of peak demand instead of being wasted. The existing site access from the A4169 is to be improved and utilised with a new permeable internal access track constructed. This would allow vehicles to access the BES area via two internal access points. The infrastructure is proposed to be operational for 40 years. At the end of the 40-year operational life, all above ground infrastructure would be decommissioned, removed and the land returned to its original condition as an agricultural field. The key policies in determining whether the principle of development can be supported are Telfer and Riecken local plan policies SP3 and SP4. With regards to policy SP3, the site is not previously developed land and therefore fails at this aspect of the policy. The application has submitted an agricultural land classification survey which grades the land as grade 3B. The site could be accepted as having good access to infrastructure in terms of proximity to highways and the electricity pylon and the policy is met in these respects. Policy SP4 and the national planning policy framework seek planning applications to meet the policies of the development plan in order to be considered sustainable development. As the committee report details, when it comes to considering how this proposal complies with the key renewable energy policy ER1, this application is considered to partially comply with various criteria within ER1 and partially fail some criteria as follows. ER11, the proposals are considered to comply with the policy in terms of highways, ecology, drainage, archaeology and land stability subject to the mitigation and planning conditions recommended. In terms of built heritage, it may not be possible to initially fully screen the DNO metering substation with a maximum height of approximately 6.8 metres from the upper sections of Jiggers Bank and the setting of the Ironbridge Gorge World Heritage Site and 7 Gorge Conservation Area. However, to mitigate the impact, the eastern boundary were planted with heavy standard trees with a small coppice of heavy standard trees planted behind in addition to 133 metres of linear hedgerow. In respect of ER1-2, the proposals are considered to meet the requirements of the policy with regards to noise and air pollution subject to mitigation and planning conditions recommended. Electrical interference is unlikely to be an issue. However, on grounds of visual impact, the proposal may fail to fully mitigate the impact. ER1-3, the proposals include mitigation measures to minimise any environmental impacts as part of the submitted drawings and/or documents and consortees have recommended planning conditions were appropriate. Therefore, the proposals are considered to meet the requirements at this part of the policy. ER1-4, the proposals are for a designated period of 40 years and conditions require the site to be reinstated to a field when the use ceases. In addition, planning conditions require measures to ensure any enhancements in biodiversity net gain terms are not lost through the decommissioning or reinstatement process. ER1-5, when considering the social and economic benefits, a count will be taken of the degree of community participation through ownership of a scheme. Within their documentation, the applicant describes their community involvement as consisting of pre-application discussions with Little One Lock Parish Council and a drop-in session for the community held in October 2023. The applicant has indicated that they are willing to collaborate with the relevant parishes to establish a community benefit fund, although no material proposals are included as part of this planning application. As such, the proposals are found not to fully meet the requirements of this policy when considering the social and economic benefits of the scheme. Therefore, the proposals partially meet and partially conflict with ER1-1 and 2. The requirements of ER1-3 and 4 are met, with the proposals not demonstrating full compliance with ER1-5. For both ER1-1 and 2, the concerns relate to visual impact and built heritage, especially the impact on the appearance of the site and the setting to the entrance of the Seven Gorge Conservation Area and Ironbridge Gorge World Heritage Site. For these reasons, the planning application partially meets and partially conflicts with the requirements of policy SP4. Equally, it meets SP3 in part, requiring a balance of considerations. The balance for members to consider, therefore, is whether any adverse impacts would significantly and demonstrably outweigh the benefits the proposal would bring about with regards to enabling low-carbon technology on the storage of energy that might otherwise be wasted. As the proposals provided mitigation in terms of highways, drainage, ecology, land stability, and amenity/disturbance, these concerns are considered to have been addressed subject to the recommended planning conditions. A number of concerns have been raised by members of the public regarding safety considerations, and these have been addressed in the committee report. These include the 2019 Bestfire in Liverpool, the risk of thermal runaway, and a recent planning appeal in East Devon that was dismissed, with parties suggesting that these set a precedent for this application to be refused. The applicant has provided information to demonstrate that the proposed development at Jiggers Bank is not comparable to either the Liverpool container unit fire or the East Devon appeal, which was partially dismissed on the lack of information, and that the proposed cabinet design, as opposed to the shipping container design, will prevent or minimize thermal runaway. The National Fire Chief Council guidance for BEST has been updated and consulted upon, and the spacing between the units and their design reflects the revised guidance. Therefore, in summary, taking all considerations into account, it's a finely balanced judgment regarding whether any adverse impacts significantly and demonstrably outweigh the benefits. However, officers consider that there is sufficient compliance with the local plan policies and the MPPF as a whole to recommend the application for approval subject to the conditions proposed. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. Can I ask the members now, can I ask for Councillor Arnold England, please? Thank you, Chair. I do have some concerns about fire risk, pollution, and those effects on the community. Just some concerns, although the officer in his comments tried to, well, I wouldn't say tried to put them to one side, but dismissed them. My real concern is land stability. Now, I lived in Colbertdale many years ago, and we set up the Colbertdale Community Group when they wanted to build the Ironbridge Bypass close to the dale. And because of the risk of land stability, we actually had the Ironbridge Bypass moved quite a distance away, and that bypass was built on stilts sunk into the ground because of the land stability or lack of stability in that area. Now, we know that the gorge is geologically young. We know that a lot of work has taken place in the gorge to ensure some stability. We know that Jiggers Bank has virtually collapsed on more than one occasion, so there is a risk of land instability in that general area. And on that basis, I don't think it's safe to go ahead with this construction. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. Councillor Peter Scott, please. Thank you. Yeah. A bit conflicted on this one, to be fair. A couple of points, though, and it was brought up by Councillor Thomas, really. Why is there only one entrance? It should be simple enough to make sure there are two, which would make it safer in the event of a fire. So that's the first question in terms of, you know, safety. There ought to be two entrances or an entrance and an exit separately. And were other sites considered? Because it doesn't seem the best site of all, but I can understand why it's there or it's being proposed there. But I'm just wondering, are there any other sites in the borough that were considered? Thank you. Okay. Thank you, Peter. Councillor Thomas Jank. Thank you, Chair. I just want to say, I think I'm supportive in principle of this application. I think we should be supportive of energy capture systems to help mitigate CO2 emissions into the atmosphere. And on balance, I'd probably approve it. But I do have a technical question with regards to the lifecycle analysis of the battery technology itself, if it can be answered. Lithium ion batteries in particular are very volatile and cause landfill fires, releasing harmful gases into the atmosphere. I just want to know if there are any plans in place to consider the economic and environmental impact over the lifecycle of this facility, particularly where we're considering the disposal of the batteries once their approximate 15-year lifecycle comes to an end. Thank you. Thank you. Councillor Nigel Douglas, please. Yeah, thank you, Chair. Yeah, I have no problem with battery energy storage systems. We need them. And they're going to be popping up here, there and everywhere in the not too distant future. I think fire risks are going to be mitigated as the technology develops with all these new things. I think my biggest problem is that the location. The stability has already been mentioned. In 2.1, it says the land is 3B agricultural quality. And why is that? Due to wetness and gradient. So enough said. As Councillor England said, you know, there's been problems with Jiggers Bank, ongoing problems, for as long as anybody can remember. I mean, this is a 40-year installation. And how many times has Jiggers Bank been shored up or had work done to it in the last 40 years? So I think, you know, sources that are far more suitable locations within the borough. And I think we should refuse this, because it says in 9.2, it fails to comply with the E1, 3 and 5 policies and ER1, 2 and 5. So, I mean, it doesn't comply with most of the policies. So I really don't understand why it's been put forward as for approval. So it should be refused on those reasons alone. But also, as we know, the land stability issues. It's the right application in the wrong location. Thank you, Chair. Okay. Thank you. Councillor Jones-Jones, please. A lot of what I intended to say has actually already been said. I had concerns about entrance and egress. I would like an explanation as to why there's only one area of entrance and egress. Land stability and contamination should there be a landslide or a landslide of any sort. Thank you. Councillor Giles-Lute. Thank you very much. My major concerns are the visual impact on the VISTA. Completely changing the visual aspect of that particularly beautiful area. And also the fact that it only partially meets so many requirements. Rather than fully meeting all requirements. So I think, again, it's the right idea. But I think it's the wrong location. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. Andrew, do you want to come back in? All right. Thank you, Chair. So in terms of the first point about stability, sorry if I find my mouse. The council received some updated information in early February of this year. That included an updated phase 2 site investigation including mineral safeguarding report to address the concerns of the council's geotechnical specialist. There was also a meeting held and photographs of the land drainage outfall were provided. In consideration of that additional information, the council's geotechnical specialist is content with the proposal as is the council's drainage officer who is sat beside me now and may want to input in a moment. In respect of the one entrance, the national fire chief's council guidance which is advice to developers suggests that two access points is often preferable. However, it's not always required. And in this case, the applicant has undertaken a meteorological survey to ascertain the direction of the prevailing wind in most cases come from the south west and west. The proposal, the site layout has got two internal access points to the battery facility itself. That would allow the fire appliance to be sited outside the direction of any plume. The application has been -- there have been meetings where the fire and rescue service have been present and they are content with their officers wouldn't be put at undue risk from exposure to the smoke because of these two internal access points. In terms of site selection, that's determined by a number of factors. One of which is the availability of land. The second is the availability of a grid connection. And the third one is the need for the electricity in that particular region. So, once that scope and exercise is undertaken, it soon reduces the amount of available and suitable sites. And that's why the applicant has chosen to pursue this site. Just bear with me one second, Councillor Scott. To the best of my knowledge, they haven't. The reason for that is in the planning committee report, we've said that officers and -- well, members have to make a decision based on this application rather than other sites. So, to the best of my knowledge, no. And then the question regarding the economic and environmental impacts of the batteries possibly having to be recycled every 15 years. There is a government -- well, it's actually a guidance which is called health and safety and grid scale electricity -- electrical energy storage systems. That is a guide, a very comprehensive one, that's aimed at project designers. So, that includes chapters on the operation and maintenance of the batteries, the decommissioning and end of life. In terms of the specific question, all I can really say is that if the batteries do come to the end of their life before the 40 years and they have to be recycled, they have to be recycled responsibly. I don't think I have anything further to add to that, sorry. With regard to contamination and the land slip, the two potentially separate situations, but what members have to base their decision on is that we have to be content that the most -- sorry, that the credible worst case scenario has been mitigated for appropriately. We've had -- the applicant has had specialist reports produced for land stability. They've been assessed by the council's geotechnical specialist and they're content that the risk of a landslide has been minimized through the design. With regard to contamination, and this is a slightly different point, but the scheme has been designed so it's got an impermeable base, which may be clay or a membrane, then there's a gravel layer on top of that, and there's inverted pipes, so the water would -- in a normal event, if it was raining, would collect on the gravel and then it would go into the inverted pipes and it would fill up a tank, which in the event of a fire, the fire and rescue service would use to dampen the adjoining units, so what happens is it's obviously a very highly automated system, and this particular design is one cubic meter cubes of batteries. The Liverpool one was in a big shipping container. They can be about 20 meters long. They still have the same technology that monitors the risk of fire, but the computer systems are very advanced and they can detect the risk of fire before it starts. There's mechanisms that they can insert inert gas or aerosols into the particular cell, which would prevent the spread of any fire further on, so the chances of a fire spreading to the adjacent cubic unit is very minimal. If it did occur, the fire service wouldn't spray water onto the unit that was on fire itself. What they would do is they would dampen and cool the adjoining units to prevent them getting hot and going on fire, so there wouldn't be any contaminated water going into the system, and even if it did, it's a sealed system when there's a fire, so the water would go down through the gravel into the inverted pipe, back into the tank which the firefighters would use to tackle the fire, and then it's recycled. At the end of the fire occurrence, that would be tankered off and sent to a treatment plant, so there wouldn't be any contaminated water leaching into the SSSI or the watercourse. In the normal event, what would happen would be that the water would go into the gravel, it would go into the pipes, and then it would go into a crate system, which would slow the rate of runoff, and this has its own benefits in terms of the minute the water is going at a faster rate, it's carving a channel into the land, and then it's going into the SSSI and subsequent watercourses faster, so there are environmental benefits from the crating and the attenuation of the surface water, and then the final point was about visual impact. What we need to remember is that the site is located a minimum of half a kilometre from the Severn Gorge Conservation Area boundary and a minimum of one kilometre from the World Heritage boundary, so the views of the site would be looking westwards from Jiggers Bank, which isn't in the designated heritage asset. There's already a band of trees. You can see the top of the very large electricity pile-on, but what the applicant's proposing to mitigate the visual impact is, indicative, we've got a plan showing 15 heavy standard trees, these are large trees, they'd come on site between 3.5 and 4.5 metres in height. The largest infrastructure on the site is the substation, which is a maximum height of 6.8 metres, so initially what we said is that we acknowledge the trees wouldn't screen all of it, but in a very short period of time they would grow up and they would actually screen most of the development. In addition, there's 133 metres of linear hedgerow, which are to be planted. That's going to be managed at a minimum height of 4 metres, and the majority, as we listed in the start of the committee report of the infrastructure, doesn't exceed 4 metres, it's 3.75 below. It's only the substation which is above that. Sorry, chair, that was very lengthy, but I hope that was okay. Okay. Thank you, Andrew. Councillor Peter Scott, please. Thank you, yeah. I just want to say also that I am in favour of alternative forms of energy, and this kind of thing is important. A lot of it, discussion has been around fire, and I might have missed what you were saying, Andrew, and I apologise if I haven't got the full gist of it, but I didn't quite understand why there cannot be two entrances, an entrance and an exit separately into that site. You can see clearly there's the main one, the main one, but for safety's sake, it wouldn't be difficult to create a second. Okay, thank you, Andrew. To refresh my memory. Yeah, sorry, I've got you now, chair. So the applicants actually provided a response to this back in February. What they advised was that the matter of the two separate access points comes from the National Fire Chief's Council guidance, which I said before. This is guidance, as the committee report said, not planning policy or legislation. So whilst designers are advocated to follow it, what we were saying in our committee report is that if they don't, it can't be a reason for refusal. Now, in this case, we're not saying that the applicant hasn't followed that guidance. In fact, the majority of the guidance has been followed, if not all of it. The point about the two separate access points is that it's, as I said, to allow access away from any smoke plume if there was a fire. The applicant did the meteorological surveys, which demonstrated the prevailing wind at most times was from the west or southwest, which would put the approach road, the one they're proposing, upwind and a safe distance from the smoke plume. And then the additional mitigation to that is that there are, once you get into the site, there are two access points into the BESS, or the Battery Energy Storage System Facility, so that the firefighters could take up one of two defensive positions to fight the fire in the BESS. So that's the reason, that's the rationale to have two access points, but in this case, the applicants have demonstrated why they don't have to have two access points onto the highway. There is, and they're not being obstinate about it, there is an engineering way of providing the second access, but because of the levels, there'd be a significant further cut and fill exercise that would be required, and that was deemed to have a detrimental impact when it wasn't required. So if providing the second access to the highway wouldn't have resulted in any harm, I'm sure the developer would have provided it, but because it would require more cut and fill, and because you've got the meteorological data that shows it's not actually required, that's the reason why they haven't proposed it, and that's why officers are satisfied with that. Okay, thank you. So to help me with my decision anyway, are the fire service, is the fire service happy enough with the current arrangements in terms of putting out fires, should there be one? Yes, as the National Fire Chief of Council guidance recommends, the applicant has engaged with structure fire and rescue service, and just as a bit of an aside, we've got the discharge condition application for the Newark solar farm, so what we've been able to do is look at the comparatives between the two and take best practice from one and apply it to the other one. So a recent addition to this scheme was the provision of the storage tank to fight the fire. The storage tank contains the equivalent of 1900 litres per minute for two hours of water to fight the fire, and that's the best guidance that says that you should provide 1800 to 2000, so that complies with that. That's very useful, thank you. Okay. Mr. Giles, please. Just out of curiosity, in terms of the meteorological study, in terms of wind direction, how long would a meteorological study be taken? Would it be days, weeks, months, different periods of time and day so we could predict the direction of the wind? That may be a question I don't know the answer to. Give me one second and I'll have a quick look. No, I haven't got the information before me, sorry, chat. Okay. Are there any other questions or comments? Okay. The recommendation is for delegated authority to be granted to the development management service delivery manager to grant full planning permission subject to conditions and informatives. So if I put that to the panel for voting, so those that are for the application, okay. Those that are against the application, okay. And then any abstentions? Okay. So going on that basis, it's the application has failed, so we need reasons for confusion, yeah, refusal. Okay. So can we, yeah, Arnold. Yes. Known land instability. Known. Because Jiggers Bank keeps falling down and the area is geologically young and unstable. Okay. Nigel. It's in 9.2 on the conclusions. So it fails 8 policies BE1, BE3, BE5, ER1, 1 parts 1, 2 and 5. Okay. Anybody else? Now, would that cover? Anybody else? No? Would that cover? Andrew, did you get those and can you work the reason for refusal with those? Oh, hold on, Arnold. You may have to vote on the reasons for refusal. If you can just hold on a second. It's all right, yeah. There's known land stability and it's geologically young and I've missed the second word, sorry, Councillor England. You think you said geologically young and -- It keeps falling down and it is geologically young. It's known for that. I could bore you to death about the knowledge around land instability and various things. Can I just remind you, it's not just me making that up. I lived in the dale. I was a member of the iron bridge gorge museum trust board. I attended lots of lectures and I really understood about the instability of that area. And that was accepted when the iron bridge bypass was moved quite a distance away and built on stilts in the ground. The area is unstable. From a planning perspective, chair, what we have to do is present the council's geological engineer specialist who hasn't objected to the scheme. So we would struggle to substantiate a reason for refusal on that ground. In terms of stability, the applicant did actually provide some information where they looked at different alternatives, not in terms of sites. This was because they cut in some of the site from near the A4169 and filling it further down the site so they can create a level platform. What they did look at was other options in terms of benching so that it wouldn't be a level platform. But it was found that the proposal to provide the level platform was the best solution in accordance with their geological advice as confirmed by the councils. What about the failures in the policies? The policy, what officers have acknowledged is that the scheme doesn't meet every aspect of every policy. But what members need to do in the planning balance is determine whether the failure to meet those aspects significantly and demonstrably outweigh the benefits of the scheme. So what we have said is that there is harm in terms of visual amenity and subsequently to the setting of the heritage assets. Although as the applicant said, the national planning policy framework where less than substantial harm is identified to heritage assets, you have to weigh it against the benefits. So it's not a case that if there is harm that an application instantly has to be refused, you have to weigh it against the benefits. What we have also presented is that the MPPF places significant weight on the benefits of such schemes. Case law, and particularly in this borough, appreciating that they were solar farms, not buses. They have allowed two schemes where they have been in sensitive locations as well. Puts us in a difficult position, doesn't it? We can't go on those particular conditions and what have you. Nigel, sorry. There's also the impact on the entrance of the World Heritage Site as well. Right. And Arnold? Yes, can I add one more bit of information? During the '80s, I was a county councillor for South Telford. And one of the things that some of my friends used to smile about, the county council had an emergency action plan for the gorge slipping. It was known to be geologically unstable. And the council had a plan in place of what to do when it slipped. And the reason my friends treat it as funny is because part of that plan was to dynamite the blockage. And they said, oh, Arnold wants to blow up Iron Bridge. But the point is, there was a plan in place 40 years ago to deal with the slippage, right? The collapse of the gorge. So it is real. Thank you. Chair, if it helps at all just to confirm that the issue you would have obviously if you refuse against recommendation is if the matter is then appealed to the inspector, it is that the plan officer can't then change their mind. They have made a recommendation to grant. And they would have to say that any subsequent appeal, that's a difficulty you would have with going against recommendation. As you're aware, Chair, we know about the instability issues within the gorge. There is still a plan in terms of civil resilience. Should there be any failures within the gorge, that still exists. The officer that has provided technical advice with regards to stability and that has been very detailed and assessed, the officer that's involved in that has historic knowledge of matters within the gorge. He's technically and obviously qualified to give that advice. So if we're refusing on a technical matter, we need to be very clear in terms of how that can be then defended at any subsequent appeal. So our technical advice, planning officers aren't technically minded in terms of geological issues. It is a specific consultee who's provided and is now reasonably happy with the information that's been submitted and that can be conditioned. Yes, Mayor Sarnold. The borough council has a plan in place in case of slippage. Isn't that what I'm saying? We've got a plan in place because at some point it may slip and that area is unstable because it's been slipping. I mean, I don't know, for me that's it. So if members wanted to refuse, if your grounds for refusal in terms of stability, if that's what members are proposing. I voted in favour of this. I voted in favour of it because of the overriding benefits that I can see of this to the borough, the county, et cetera. What does concern me and it happened at the last planning meeting is this committee has chosen to refuse and now we're making heavy weather in my view of going with that decision. It is these people's decision, be it good or bad, they've given their reasons and I think we should accept it even though I don't like it. Okay? Thank you. So in terms of as a crafted reason for refusal would be, the local planning authority considers that the proposal by virtue of the known land instability within the area is unacceptable. Yeah? I mean, the officers have said that so it seems pointless having a planning committee we're asked what we think and then we tell you and then you try and tell us, well, no, you've got it wrong. There's no point. We might as well just go home. I've just crafted the reason for refusal for you and said that out loud and then that's up to you in terms of how you take that forward. Now, and whether there's anything in addition that you wanted within there, is that right? Is that right? It's your decision. It's your reason for refusal. 9.2. Yeah. Okay. So yeah, so we, so it's refused on the basis of land stability and -- Arnold, hold on. We've got a vote on the -- Yeah, so you need to resolve -- that it's not granted. Oh, yeah. Then you resolve that the application be refused and then -- Okay. Okay. First we've got to have a vote on the actual recommendation that it's failed to be passed, the application. So if everyone's in agreement to that first of all -- okay. Okay. And you're not. Peter's for it. So we're now talking about the reasons why it's failed. So if everyone is in agreement to that, can we have a show of hands? And those that aren't? You're abstained. Okay. Thank you, Peter. Okay. So there we go. All right. Thank you. All right. Arnold -- Take a break. Yeah, please. All right. Okay. Does anybody -- yeah, does anybody else need a break? Because we've got to wait for Arnold to come back now. Thank you for attending tonight. Okay. Thank you. All right. Yeah. Right. Okay. Final application is TWC2024-0357, the land opposite Blackbird Close, Overdale, Telford, Shropshire. So if I can ask Robin to come forward. Thank you, chair. So this application is full planning permission for phase one of the development, which comprises of a 3G artificial pitch, one 9B9 grass pitch, a sports pavilion, the new access road and associated drainage and landscaping works. The application is being presented at planning committee as the proposal involves the council as the applicant and the land owner and comprises of a development over five hectares. And the application is recommended for approval. I'll pass back to you, chair, now for the speakers. Okay. Thank you. Can I ask for Councillor Mark Boylan, please? Okay. Good evening. Speaking on the application being the first phase of a larger plan, obviously the committee will have had a background of the application, which is historically been in planning and discussion long before my time as a councillor. Obviously looking at the plans, this is a plan of the first phase that we're discussing tonight, which is phase two is coming up, which is also sort of highlighted on the plan. Having supported the application myself, obviously there's been a lot of objections against the application, so I'd like to raise these concerns with the committee when considering the application. Some of the concerns around the nature of the site and the environmental impact, in essence, losing one of the wild area. Concerns around no management plan for the site/ownership and its potential for community use, how this will be managed and allocated. Increased traffic and impact on the local area infrastructure, the old roads being around the area. Obviously since we got rid of pink skips, which has reduced the traffic and the weight on the roads, then obviously we're increasing again with more traffic into the area, potential for the little site at the top of one end of the road and down the bottom end of Waterloo Road where the old Shropshire Star site was built. Most importantly, the impact on the residents from the noise, times of use, the lighting on those residents living locally to the planned site. I didn't undertake some community engagement with residents on the application and would like these objections and concerns taken into account by the committee when considering the application and should the application be successful, these concerns being taken on board. Thank you. Thank you, Mark. Do you need to add anything else, Robin, at this stage or do you wait for comments from the member? I can add a few aspects to address Councillor Boylan. As Councillor Boylan mentioned, the application is located in urban boundary and has been long the intention to deliver sports pitches within the area. This is in line with section 106 of the lawly sustainable urban extension development. Planning consent was granted in 2014 on the land for engineering works to facilitate the creation of the sports pitches which resulted in the creation of the terraces that we saw on site today. The need for these facilities has been highlighted in the council playing pitch strategy from 2016. This highlights the growing demand for the artificial pitches and draws upon the football association's long-term ambition to provide every affiliated team with the opportunity to train once per week on a floodlit 3G surface. As we heard, public representations from neighbouring properties have raised concerns regarding noise, light, pollution, overlooking and overshadowing of the development. The council specialist environmental health officer has reviewed this proposal and submitted noise and lighting assessments and considered these to be acceptable but subject to a number of conditions controlling, for example, the number of evening matches after 8 p.m. That would be controlled to 24 per year. Controlling the light installation and the hours of use in terms of the facility as well as the use of the lighting. As members saw on site today, the topography of the site is set down from the residential development to the south in particular and is buffered to the east and west by car parking that's proposed and Waterloo road. But additional planting is proposed on the southern boundary between the 3G pitch and the site boundary in the form of 18 new trees. In terms of the management of the site, that's not -- the person taking it over isn't known at this stage and it isn't a requirement for planning so that will be conditioned as a pre-commencement condition and also there will be a pre-commencement condition for a community use agreement and that will sort of dictate how the person taking over the facility will try and reach out to specific community groups and offer them the use of this facility. So there's no technical objections from statutory consultees on the application. The local highway authority don't object to it either. There are off-site works proposed and that again will be conditioned and secured as part of a section 278 agreement. Okay. Thank you. Right. Pass it over to the members now. Councillor Peter Scott, please. My colleague on my right tells me I can go now so I will. I actually like this particular one. I think there should be more of these throughout the country. I know in my particular town we give our right arm for it. It's an excellent thing to have. The noise has been dealt with to a point because it's going to finish at 8 o'clock. They're going to go on until 10, 11 o'clock is 8 o'clock. So that's good in itself. The only real problem I've got with this is Waterloo Road itself. Because there's a dirty great long straight there and we watch today and a lot of traffic has no problem with those speed bumps whatsoever. They whip straight over it. It's a 30 mile an hour zone but a lot of them weren't doing

1. I know there's supposed to be a new crossing put in which will help. What I would like to see and I don't know if it's possible is on the long straight from outside of this development right away at the top of the bank that something is put on the road that slows them down even more. Because it is still to my mind a very worrying area. I'm not going to blame it on the football pitches. They are what they are. But if there's going to be 100 and odd parking spaces there, there's going to be 100 and odd extra cars coming down it. If people are racing because they're late for a match or whatever else, they're going to do what we normally do. We speed. So more things to slow people down on Waterloo Road would be really much appreciated, I'm sure, by the people that live there. But that aside, I could support this one happily because I think it is much needed and will help the area. And I'm worried now because you're shaking your head. But carry on. Right. Councillor Thomas Jank, please. >> Thank you, chair. I just want to say I note concerns from residents and I thank Councillor Boylan for his representations. I also appreciate that community groups are going to be engaged on this application once it goes ahead, which is encouraging. Approval of such applications do have far-reaching positive effects that do enhance the economic, social and cultural vitality of the community. So I do fully support the application on that basis. And I do move we fully support the officer's recommendations with considerations to stipulated conditions. That's all I wanted to say. Thank you. Thank you. Councillor Giles Luta. >> There we go. I'll keep it very brief. I'd just like to say how great I think it is as a borough that we see football pitches being installed rather than being taken away and removed as we see in other areas across the country. And I think it's brilliant that we have these facilities in the borough and that I think it's great to have these facilities and I think it's brilliant for children and young people to have access to these things. So I'd fully support it. Thank you. Councillor Nigel Dugmore, please. >> Thank you, chair. It's a very, very nice facility. It's been earmarked for a long time, so it's good to see it coming forward. I mean, I think I was collared when I went to my car by a resident who was mentioning about the speeding traffic which we'd seen in the afternoon. I mean, there are issues generally and particularly at school pick up and drop off as well because there are lots of vehicles on that road. So, yeah, I think that there does need to be some proper traffic calming measures put in place because this is going to create some extra traffic. I do think that the main entrance or route to the pitch should be from the Kettley end, so coming up Waterloo Road as opposed to going down it from the rock. And I do think that once it is in place, there's going to be a bar in the clubhouse and therefore -- so it needs to be taken into consideration that, you know, alcohol and perhaps a function licence going in place moving forward, that needs to be taken into consideration as well when the infrastructure is being put in and obviously to help mitigate some of the residents' concerns. Thank you, chair. Okay. Thank you. Councillor Jones, please. That's it. >> All right. Okay. Bye. I also went to a site visit today and as mentioned, the traffic down that road was very fast. What I would like to see added to this because the school was coming out as we were doing the site visit, which was probably an advantage, a bit of an eye opener to me especially, is some sort of a bridge over the road because, yes, there is a cross in there, but people do chance it. And I did notice a couple of people sort of dodging between the cars to get across the road. But I think it would have been nice to see in this a bridge of some sort going over the road so that the children in that area didn't have to cross the road. Other than that, I support it. >> Okay. Thank you. Any more comments? No? No? In that case, we'll put it to for recommendation. It's recommended that the delegated authority be granted to the development management service delivery managers grant full planning permission, subject to conditions, informatives and the applicant entering into a memorandum of understanding to secure financial contributions towards travel plan monitoring and section 106 monitoring fees. So if I put that to the vote, those that are for the recommendation. Is that unanimous? Yeah? Yeah? So, yeah, there we go. Unanimous and it's passed. So thank you. All right. And thank you for attending tonight as well. All right. [BLANK_AUDIO]