Transcript

Good evening everyone and welcome to the Strategic Development Committee meeting. My name is Councillor Amin Rahman and I will be chairing this meeting. I will ask the committee to introduce themselves shortly but before I do this I would like to briefly confirm the etiquette for addressing the meeting including the virtual meeting procedure. During the meeting if you wish to speak, please indicate by raising your hand or signalling online. Please address all comments or questions through myself and wait to be invited. Please be respectful to all in the meeting and do not speak when others are addressing the meeting. I will now ask the committee members to present themselves, introduce themselves. Please can you also state any declaration of interest that you may have in the agenda items and the nature of interest. Thank you Mr Chair, good evening all. My name is Councillor Gulam Kibriya Choudhary and nothing to declare. Thank you. Thank you chair. I am Councillor Silikow Amit. I am deputising for Councillor Said. Nothing to declare. Good evening this is Councillor Iguan Hussein to present a nice body of work and I have nothing to declare, thank you. Councillor Cameron Hussein, which award? Nothing to declare. Mathida Bustin, Councillor for Island Gardens, nothing to declare. Councillor Asma Began, Councillor for Bow West. I also live in Bow West so I would just like to declare. It is not a plaquemine interest but I do live in Bow West and item number 2 on Caxton Hall is in my ward that I represent and live. Councillor Shugo Hussein, Bournemouth South and I would like to also declare that I live in Bow West. Thank you. Councillor Natalie Began, Fae Green, Councillor for Bow West. I am also a Councillor representing Bow West which is the area which one of the applications is for. Thank you all. I have nothing to declare as well. Now to apologies. Justina, have we received any apologies? Yes chair, as Councillor Silikow Amit previously stated, Councillor Said Amit has sent his apologies so Councillor Silikow Amit is representing in his place. Thank you for that. Agenda item 2 is minutes from previous meeting. Can we approve the amendment meeting of 3rd April 2024 received outside of this meeting? Yes. Agenda item 3 are the recommendation and procedure of hearing objections and meeting guidance. I will now ask Paul Beckenham to present the guidance. Thank you very much chair. Good evening. Good evening members, members of the public and officers who are joining us in the meeting this evening. So this item on the agenda sets out the standing advice for determining planning applications and including legal advice that decisions must be made in accordance with the relevant development plan policies and relevant material planning considerations. When we come to each report I will outline the description of the application and summary of the recommendation to the committee. Then we'll hear from officers who will present the report and then we'll hear from those registered to speak in objection who can address the committee for up to three minutes each. And then anyone registered to speak in support who can also address the meeting for up to three minutes each. And any councillors who are registered to speak can also address the committee for three minutes each. And the committee can ask points of clarification of the speakers once all the registered speakers have given their address. The committee will then consider the report and the recommendation including any further questions and debate and any further advice from officers. And the committee decision will be reached based on a majority vote and I'll confirm that decision back to everybody in the chamber and online. If the committee proposed to make changes to certain aspects of the officer recommendation, for example, to add or delete or amend planning conditions or obligations or indeed reasons for refusal, then the task of formalising those changes is delegated to the corporate director of housing and regeneration. And in the event that the committee do not accept the officer recommendation, they must give their planning reasons and propose and agree an alternative course of action. The committee may be adjourned briefly for further planning or legal advice. And the task of formalising the committee's alternative decision is also delegated to the corporate director. If the committee proposed to make a decision that would seem to go against the provisions of the development plan or if it could have legal implications, then the item may be adjourned for a further report from officers providing advice to the committee. There is an update report that's been circulated this evening dealing with some clarifications and corrections on Item 5.1. There's arisen since the publication of the agenda. The report's published online and copies, I think there's some copies available as well. Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Paul. Agenda item 4, deferred item, there are no deferred items for the committee to consider. Agenda item 5 are the planning application for decision. We have two applications to consider this evening. We also have two other planning matters on the agenda. Agenda item 5.1 is PA/23/01679, land forming part of Alsawaf, Lochgana Street, pages 27-74. I will now invite Paul to introduce the application. This planning application, as the Chair said, the land is part of a site known as Alsawaf off Lochgana Street. The application proposes a new pedestrian and cycle bridge across the River Lea at Alsawaf. So it will connect across the London Borough Town and grant boundary into London Borough of Newham. And there is actually concurrent planning application that's been submitted to Newham Council to determine for their part of the bridge. The recommendation to the committee this evening is to grant planning permission subject to conditions. And the reason this is being brought to the strategic development committee is because it represents a piece of strategic infrastructure in terms of the connectivity across the River Lea. There is an update report that just clarifies some certain aspects of the technical details of the bridge. But otherwise the recommendation to the committee remains the same. And Chair, the case officer, Mr. Cassidy Butler, is a little bit on well this evening. He's more than happy to present, but he's asked for permission to present online. So he's logged into the meeting and he's ready to go when you are. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Paul. Thank you, Mr. Oliver, for joining us online. I know you're not too well, but good thing you're not here because you don't want to spread the germs, I guess. Yeah, go for it. Thank you very much. Thank you, Chair. Hello and thank you all for attending tonight's strategic development committee, whether that be in person or online. This application seeks full planning permission for the construction of a new pedestrian cycle bridge across the River Lea at Alsawaf. The proposals will affect both the London Borough of Tower Hamlets and the London Borough of Newham. It should be noted that the London Borough of Newham intends to determine this application under delegated powers following the outcome of this committee meeting. It is understood by officers that Newham will be referring the application for approval subject to conditions. So the application site pertains to land situated on both the east and western banks of the River Lea. The site extends from the London Borough of Tower Hamlets on the west to Newham on the east. The subject site is not situated within a conservation area, nor does it contain any listed structures. It does, however, form part of the Lee Valley archaeological priority area. The closest building is the grade two listed Bromley Hall School, which is situated less than 70 metres to the south west of the site. Further to the north west of the site sits the Limehouse Cut conservation area and several locally listed and statutory listing buildings. Additionally, the site is a public transport accessibility level of 1B, which is poor on a scale of 0 to 6B, where 6B is the best. So the site is located within the Isle of Street site allocation within the current local plan. The image on the left shows the proposals overlaid onto images of the site as exists currently, and the image on the right shows how the proposals will sit amongst future redevelopment of the local area. On its western side, the application site sits at the most eastern point of Lochnagar Street. It forms part of the south eastern corner of the Isle of Wharf development, which is currently under construction, and the north eastern corner of the adjacent concentrated Isle of Wharf development. The bridge's landing would fall within the safeguarded land secured by way of a section 106 agreement located within the Isle of Wharf application site. Under application PA200210, the site has a resolution to grant full planning permission, subject to the finalisation of a section 106 agreement for a mixed use scheme. This scheme would provide up to 952 residential units plus 155 square metres of commercial floor space. Additionally, the Isle of Wharf site to the south has permission for an additional 133 residential units and 351 square metres of flexible commercial floor space. So the application was validated on 6 September

1. No letters of representation have been received in response to the scheme. So the proposal seat permission for the construction of the pedestrian cycle bridge, which would facilitate cross-barrow movement between Tower Hamlets and Ewan. The proposed infrastructure project would meet a recognised need as outlined within the Isle of Street site allocation as is specified within the local plan. The infrastructure project will fall within safeguarded land secured by way of a section 106 agreement, which falls part of the Isle of Wharf development site. The land was safeguarded specifically to enable the delivery of bridge infrastructure in order to properly serve the future increased residential densities, which are anticipated for the local area in accordance with policy D2 of the London Plan. The project is being subject to detailed and thorough pre-application discussions held between November 22 and July
2. As part of the pre-application process, the proposals were presented to the quality review panel on two separate occasions. They went on to provide positive feedback regarding the progression of the project. The design team has engaged positively throughout the pre-application process and responded to many of the comments and criticisms offered by both play shaping and the quality review panel. The proposed Bow String Arch Bridge will, if permitted, serve as a complementary addition to the group of existing bridges over the River Lea. The proposals represent a high standard of design, which properly takes into consideration the user experience of both pedestrians and cyclists. Officers do propose to apply conditions to secure detailed materials, finishes and colours subject to permission being granted. So the proposals will provide a permanent 33 metre wide and 3 metre high navigable channel for smaller boats to pass underneath along the River Lea. The west end of the bridge can be raised using hydraulic jacks and this will provide a 28.25 metre wide channel with a clearance of 5 metres. The proposed lifting system will raise on the Tower Hamlet side whilst keeping the Newham side fixed. The hydraulic jacks will sit within the stepped landscaping arrangement and will therefore be obscured from the public view when the bridge is lowered. This decision is welcomed by officers, given that it mitigates introducing unnecessary visual clutter to the public realm when the hydraulic jacks are not in use. Whilst the need for the bridge to be lifted and raised will be rather limited each year, officers propose to apply conditions to secure detail of an operational management plan to ensure public safety both on land and on the waterways. The proposals have been designed to promote east-west cross-barrow travel whilst also ensuring not to inhibit north-south movement along the western towpath located within Tower Hamlets. The west landing is served by step-free access in the form of a long ramp leading from Lochnadar Street. The main ramp gradient is specified to a maximum of 4.5 degrees. This ramp will be earthwork based with resin-bound gravel surfacing. This will ensure that the ramp and thus the bridge itself is accessible to all types of non-motorized users. The western landing has been designed to provide accessibility and facilitate movement for all in accordance with policy D5 of the London Plan 2021. North-south travel will be maintained on the Tower Hamlets side by the introduction of steps and ramps plus the depression of the towpath. The current proposals will provide a minimum head clearance of 2.2 meters between the bridge and the towpath. This is below what had been requested by both Tower Hamlets and Newham's Highways authorities. Instead, the proposals will provide minimum head height clearance which is compliant with the road layout design, designing for cycle traffic guidance document. Whilst this clearance height is lower than what had been requested by both Tower Hamlets and Newham's Highways teams, officers recognize that this could not be achieved without either increasing the length of the ramps leading in from either side of the bridge or by increasing the angle of entry. Given the site's limited size and the need to provide accessible access for wheelchair users and pedestrians with mobility issues, the proposed design solution is on balance and considered acceptable. Whilst officers note that the minimum head height clearance with specific regard to cyclists does raise some concern, it is considered that this can be overcome by the inclusion of appropriate signage, lighting, and traffic easing measures. Officers therefore propose to apply conditions to secure detail of appropriate signage in relation to the underpass subject to planning permission being granted. Further to the lowering of the towpath, the proposals include the raising of the river walls. The river walls have been designed so that they may meet the expected requirements to manage the risk of flooding in the area up until the year 2100 as outlined within the Thames S3 2100 plan. The proposed increase in height of the river wall will create short tunnel-like experience at the most depressed point of the towpath. The changes are/have considered necessary and will likely be delivered in future if not today. Furthermore, the introduction of large reinforced glass windows within the river wall will serve as an appropriate design solution to optimise the provision of natural light and provide views of the river. That's concluded. We are referring the application to be approved by members tonight for approval. And thank you for taking the time to listen to this presentation. I will now answer any questions that you may have. Thank you, Mr Butler. As we have no registered speaker for this application, I will now ask to move on to members' questions. Do members have any questions for the officers? So I just want to get some clarity around the head height, around the bridge. I think you kind of sped through it or probably misheard you, so it would be good if you can go back and speak about the officers' recommendations and what you are proposing. Chair, can I just before, if I could just ask, Councillor, is that the head height from where the towpath is under? Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Thanks. Yeah, so the proposed, the minimum head height under the towpath and the bridge will be a minimum of 2.2 metres. This is recognised as the minimum height at which this can be safely achieved. Ordinarily, we push for slightly increased or greater head height clearance, but working with the site's constraints. So the site itself is quite constrained, so it just limits the length at which the ramps to and from the towpath can be. And so taking into consideration the site's own constraints, the fact that it does still meet recognised minimums heights for safe travel and the benefits that it provides to the borough in terms of cross borough movement, we do take the consideration that this is on balance acceptable, especially with the application of conditions to ensure that appropriate signage, lighting and traffic easing measures are in place to just further improve safety when passing under the towpath. Councillor McPhee, there, Boston. Thank you, Chair. So I had a few questions. One of them relates to the feedback from the PLA, where they asked for a number of conditions to be put in. And I saw that a few of them were included in the report, so I don't know who I'm looking at. But I just wanted to check that all of their comments that they'd asked for conditions have been included. So there was one like, like confirming who the operator would be. The requirement about the testing of the lifting of the bridge on a monthly basis. Yeah, I don't know who'd be able to answer that. So we'll be applying a condition for an operational management plan in relation to the raising and lowering of the bridge. As part of that, it'll be sort of secured with the applicant to our handlets, and to ensure that that's carried out in a safe manner. With regard to the comments, consultee comments that have been incorporated into the wording of the conditions and informatives, at several stages, there'll be, there has been overlap between some of the concerns. And so there'll be the comments of consultees will be worded appropriately into the specific conditions, so that that's relating to anti-suicide and lifering equipment, or whether it's to do with lighting not being disruptive to biodiversity, will ensure that the comments of each consultee are sort of fed into the appropriate conditions. Thank you. Does that include the highways comments about the demarcation between pedestrian and cyclists as well? Yes, so we've applied conditions to further detail of traffic easing measures and how, like I say, about the operation of the plinth. So yeah, that will be secured by way of condition. The update report provided a sort of indicative drawing to show what those measures may look like. But ultimately, the final details will be secured by way of condition after consultation with highways officers to ensure public safety. Great, thank you. I just have one final question then, which was about the image on Figure 5 on page 40, where you've got this image of this gentleman sitting down on the bridge. And at first I was just wondering what he was looking at, but then I started to think, well actually, are people going to be, is that meant to be used as seating? And then is that going to be an issue at night time with ASB, thinking about particularly women walking across that bridge late at night? Are there any sort of anti-ASB infrastructure that's going to be put in place to prevent people hanging around and sitting on that bridge? So I think there's a few points there. The bridge has been designed to serve both as a means of travelling from town to Newham, but also as a means to enjoy the waterways and open up those water spaces for the residents of the borough and I guess wider London. The bridge has got quite a wide deck and there's part of it on the northern elevation. There is a long structure which does allow for people to sit and rest, which is then demarcated with coloured surfacing. This is quite a positive, in my opinion, in the daytime as it allows people to take a break and this is especially important for residents who are perhaps have mobility issues or tyre easily. With regards to concerns about night time, yes, we'll be applying conditions to secure detail of lighting and secure by design features, so we will consult secure by design officers from the Met in regards to those bits. So it is something that we have considered and we'll be secure about the details at a later stage. Thank you. My question again goes back to the question my colleague asked regarding the demarcation of the bridge and you mentioned about speeding measures and other things. There's issues in town, predominantly in the Isle of Dokes where there's obviously cyclists that are speeding through but at the same time Uber and delivery drivers and mopeds zing through as well. So what measures have you taken? Understand you said you've taken measures but could you maybe further elaborate on what those measures are? So there's a variety of measures in place. I think first of all is the visual demarcation of areas of the bridge that are primarily going to be used by pedestrian users, like say with the sort of coloured demarcation. On the, there will also be signage and the potential to introduce removable bollards up into the entrance on either ramp which will sort of cause that side barrier which will then slow users, particularly cyclists. Additionally on the entrance point from both Tower Hamlets and Euhem, there'll be the introduction of rumble strips which will provide sort of vibrations to the, to cyclists and sort of further provide sort of a visual stimulus as to the need to slow down and it's important to note that these rumble strips are such that they won't cause a nuisance for wheelchair users or anybody using aids at sort of slower speeds, they're mainly sort of more effective at those higher speeds. So I hope that within and then in your comment regarding moped riders, ultimately the bridge isn't designed for moped riders, it's pedestrian and cyclist bridge only. So yeah, I hope that answers your question. Yeah, so the bridges in, in other bridges in Tower Hamlets, the pedestrian bridges are not also designed for moped drivers, so it's maybe something that maybe you can think about and especially those rumble strips, how much noise have you done in tests regarding how much noise that it could produce for residents nearby maybe, or the environment? And I'm not the expert on the rumble strips, those details will be secured later at conditional, like I said, the location of them. I think they are primarily there is, there's a sort of vibrational, so how you feel it as opposed to you hearing it, it's more of a user experience when passing over those strips rather than it causing sort of an audible warning. Councillor Natalie. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Oliver, for the good presentation, it was very interesting. I have a couple of questions. So the first question is around this underpass that's being created under the bridge on the Tower Hamlets site, and I can see that there are, there's a bit of a discussion, a couple of issues that I can see potentially kind of coming up. The first is the issue around the community safety aspect of like the creating an underpass, there was a comment about there being nervousness around potential for ASB that might arise from this new underpass, and then I think there was a bit of discussion that could be mitigated with lighting. So I think that in the report there was a discussion that could be mitigated with lighting and signage, no, with lighting, but then there was a, I could foresee a, there's also discussion around the habitat impacts on the Tower Hamlets side, and the biodiversity officer specifically said that lighting could be an issue for the habitats in the area which currently, you know, there's quite important, you know, riverside habitat along that side which will be compromised in this proposal. So I'm just, so on the one hand someone says we need lighting to make sure that it's safer, and on the other hand the biodiversity officer is saying that we need to avoid lighting for habitats and for biodiversity, so I just wanted to try and understand how you've squared that circle. Also there's not a huge amount of information in the report about specifically what habitats where it will be impacted on the Tower Hamlets side especially, I think that's the main side because of the new, like hoarding, or like boards on the, or how have you, I can't, I don't know what the technical term is for the side of the river. So a bit more information about the kind of impact on the habitats would be really appreciated. And then the final thing I'd want to raise, the, the width of the bridge, how, so I think it's sort of 4.3, between 4.3 and 4.9 metres width, and I just wanted to sort of contextualise that because I haven't measured it, how does that compare to a normal road, and like how much space will there be for the different users to potentially interact and how much space will there be for people to kind of, you know, not be kind of, you know, crashing into each other. Oh yes, and there's another question, the paving on the Tower Hamlets side, I can't remember if it says in the report if that paving will be permeable or not, could you just let me know if that's the case? I think that's everything, thank you Chair. Thanks, I'll go through those all sort of individually, but I might need to just come back. That's fine yeah, sorry. With respect to the lighting, yes I think ultimately that is going to be a balancing act and that is ultimately a lot of what planning is, is weighing up the pros and cons to other aspects. At present our biodiversity officer doesn't, hasn't raised objection to the scheme, but of course it's noted that the lighting strategy will still need to be sort of agreed upon and we will have to do that in conjunction with secure by design officers from the Met to ensure safety and our biodiversity officers in order to sort of ensure that it doesn't, it's not overly disruptive to local ecosystems. I think the specific area in regards to just under the bridge, where perhaps the greater issues regarding safety are pronounced, is somewhat obscured from the public, well not from the public realm, from the Riverway just due to the inclusion of the raised river walls. But that's something that we'll have to work with, with both parties to find a mutually agreeable solution. Sorry Oliver, what do you mean by that, the river walls, what impact will they have on the ASB? Well because the river wall is heightened it will block some of the light overspill from lighting the underside of the bridge, but until we've sort of had those discussions with both the applicant and our consultees, I can't sort of come here and come out with design solutions, but historically we will sort of consult both parties and it's not going to be a case of it's okay for one party, it's just not viable for the other and then we just sort of tick box it, we will work proactively and cooperatively to try and find those solutions. So I hope that answers that aspect of the question. With respect to the width of the roads, I think it's helpful to sort of consider that if you're looking on the eastern bank, so if you're looking at Newham's pavement widths, that's their existing cycle, sort of pedestrian footpaths, so that should sort of give you an indication of the width and that both uses can be accommodated safely. I think it's also important to note that within the sort of allocated space for the bridge deck, there's also been space made for people to sit and rest, as is sort of doing our paid on the northern side with the blue composite sort of bonding on the surface of the deck. So hopefully that sort of gives you a bit more confidence that there is enough space to accommodate all those uses. From our perspective, it's quite a wide deck and it's not something that has raised those concerns. And like I say, we'd be looking to have those discussions again with our highways officers at the point of discharging conditions in relation to traffic easing measures, sort of further ensure that sort of speeds are managed just because I think that would be potentially the sort of biggest concern. And then in relation to the bonding, the bonding isn't permeable as the water needs to run off into the river, of the sort of the road on the surface. Yeah, because it doesn't look like it's going to run into the river because it's, there's the river wall in the way. Or maybe there's, so wait, did you say that the water's going to run into the road? Sorry, just looking for a bit of clarification. I guess on the Tower Hamlet side, there's also a bit of planting, so it will run into the planting, but it's quite a lot of paving there. That's what I'm... Yeah, I'd need to come back to you on that. It's not something I've got the answer, sorry. Does anyone else have any questions while Mr. Butler comes back to that answer? Councillor... Thank you for your presentation. My first question is, did you consult with neighbouring occupiers and what was their responses? First one. And second was, this proposed bridge is connecting us with New Hamburg and what was their consideration? So we respected the consultation. It was primarily navy's letters, so residents were sent letters notifying them of the proposals. Additionally, it was publicised in the local press, online, and I also put up site notices. No members of the public responded to the proposals. And then with consideration for Newham, Newham Council have been involved throughout the whole pre-application process. And there's been sort of an open dialogue with our local planning authority throughout. So Fairborough has been heavily involved in the application process. And then with respect to the query about surfacing and drainage, I do have the applicants here at present and have said that they're happy to answer that question. That would be entirely your discretion if it helps the committee to come to a view. So we have Mr McCormack who is from the council's regeneration team. But is it your discretion, Chair? Sorry, Chair, I'd really like to know the answer to whether the paving is permeable or not. So if we can get the answer today, that would be really, really great. Thanks. Would you like to come down? Where would you sit? Would you like to introduce yourself first? Sure. Hi, yes, James McCormack, regeneration project manager working clienting on this bridge project. Would you like to? Sure, yes, thank you, Chair. Just to respond to the question about the surfacing. So there's specific anti-slip criteria requirements. So the design team had to sort of balance those requirements with selecting a product that would be approved by highways teams in both councils in Newham and Tarhamlet. So they selected a sort of a bonded aggregate which has an anti-slip coating. And that will be used across the bridge. The bridge can't obviously have any permeable paving because the rainwater needs to run off. So to keep the consistency around the approach ramps, which have to be at a certain gradient, the design team have proposed this bonded aggregate finish on the approach ramps as well as the bridge. So I think that's a summary of why the material was specified. Sorry, Chair, I haven't got clarification. The specific question is, is the material that's been proposed for the area on the Tarhamlet side, not the bridge or the ramps, or, yeah, it's the ramps but it's the area specifically that I'm looking at. This is page 45. The area here where people are walking, that's on solid ground. And if there's a load of water that's going to not be permeating through that ground, you know, where's that water, surface water going to go, that's a flood risk, especially in the dip. So I'd like to have confirmation, actually, that this is permeable. Because if it isn't, then I understand it's gone to a flood risk. But just clarification that that has actually been looked at. That's the question. Thank you. Yes, happy to try to answer that. The drainage of the lower tow path area is a consideration, obviously the design team are spending the next phase of technical design stage looking more closely into how that drains. And I guess that will sort of come out in the conditions stage. But it's definitely something, the potential for pooling of rain water is definitely a consideration. The design team are currently looking into mechanisms for how to drain that back and drain it out to the river by not compromising the river wall as well. I wonder if we could put that as a condition or maybe having a condition that at least some of the area is permeable. Because it's not just a safety thing in terms of making sure that the rain water doesn't pool in the tow path. It's also about making sure that groundwater, like that serves the River Lea, is replenished. So there's also environmental aspect to it. So with all of these applications, it's really important to consider about the permeability of the paving that we're putting into the borough. So maybe there's some kind of design solution that could come to, if there's a concern about the slip, how slippery the permeable paving is, maybe a condition could be put that as much permeable paving is put in as possible in the conditions. Thank you, Chair. Just a couple of questions. In regards to the part that is linking to two boroughs together, what I want to know is when it says it's contributing towards the growth of the borough, can you describe a little bit more what kind of contribution or what kind of growth that is and how you meant this paragraph, especially? Thank you. Sure. So within the local setting, as detailed within the planning history and also the introduction of this presentation, there's two rather large development sites in which there's a lot of residential property coming through, as well as mixed-use schemes. And this piece of infrastructure will serve the people within the borough, but also it will allow for better cross- borough movement, particularly in the pedestrians and cyclists. And at the moment, it's within a portion of the borough, which is somewhat cut off and does to a degree make it a bit more dependent on cars. This place of infrastructure is vital in opening that up by providing better opportunities, especially if someone lives in perhaps one of these emerging residential locations. But if they worked in Ewing, a bridge like this, which provides safe and functional travel options, really does open up those journeys for people. So it's a piece of infrastructure that has recognised established need within the local plan and it's been safeguarded as part of the Iowa Wolf redevelopment as part of the section 106. So in the determination of that application is recognised that this land, especially on the west end, would need to be safeguarded to provide that infrastructure. And so essentially it's just, it serves the borough in a multitude of ways, but it is really important in providing the infrastructure and to meet the demands or the increased densities of the borough. And I think from a policy perspective, this does tick a lot of the boxes in both terms of sort of providing green and active travel and sort of healthier lifestyles. Yeah, I'd say that the proposed infrastructure supports the growth of the borough in a multitude of ways. Thank you. I've got one more question. Is there any other link, other pedestrian bridges around if there is how far from the current one, the proposed one? Yeah, so there's a series of bridges across the river Lee, although the sort of accessibility of a number of them, it is quite varied. This bridge would provide, if you sort of look at the screen now, hopefully it shows diagrams of at least sort of two bridges within the local area, but this bridge would provide safe ease of access for people crossing both cycling and pedestrians. But within the lower Lee area, there is a recognised need for increased sort of provision of bridges to facilitate cross borough movement. I've got one more question here. Does this project have any other project linked to it that after the bridge being built, there should be some extra road or footpath needs to be able to link with the bridge for easy access for the bikes and pedestrian? Any other project linked to it? So the bridge will adjoin directly to Loch Nagar Street, and then onto the eastern side at Newham, it adjoins straight onto the cycle path there. The bridge can sort of come forward in its own right, but there's this within the section 106 agreement, which secured the safeguarded land, there was also rights of access to this part of safeguarded land was also secured. So in essence, now the bridge can come forward and as part of the design and access statement, there are measures sort of in place for the bridge to be brought forward prior to the development or completion of the adjacent Ayla Wharf. I hope that answers your question. Thanks, Joe. I was just going to add to that. Yes, the bridge has been designed to come forward in its own right and linked to the existing network, but when the planning application for the adjacent Ayla Wharf site, the urban design strategy for that also includes a number of routes that come through the site and also, as my colleague has said, they will also join into that. So in the future when that comes forward, there will be a variety of routes that people could take to get to the entrance to the bridge. Thank you, Chair. I understand the surface of the bridge with the road marking will be divided in two parts, like pedestrian and cycling. Will there be a physical divider to stop bike overlapping to the pedestrian side? That's my first question. And second question, Chair, rather than comment, I think the sitting provision on the bridge, on the side of the bridge, will create, like my colleagues raised before, it will create an atmosphere that will attract more ASB and it's going to be a hub for those people for crimes and ASB, in my opinion. Thank you. Thank you for your question. In response to whether the various uses will be separated through physical barriers, simply no, it'll be mainly due to sort of audible, sorry, visual cues or like I say, the rumble script. We will consider the introduction of removable bollards, which will sort of slow the approach speeds of users. I think it's really important just to consider that the in barriers may be, it raises other issues for people, perhaps with their own mobility issues or wheelchair issues. So trying to keep that bridge as open and easy access for everybody is really important. That's why the proposals will rely on other sort of design solutions to try and ensure that all those uses can take place safely and enjoyably. And with respect to your comments about anti-social behaviour, I think it's important to remember that we will be securing details of lighting and secured by design measures. I think it's also really important to consider that the bridge is also, it's not being designed just simply as a means for getting from A to B, but as a way for the borough's residents to enjoy the waterways of the River Loo. I think it's a real asset within the borough, but at the moment is perhaps a little bit underused. Part of the design was to ensure that the towpath on the western side was maintained and as recognised, that's a real important asset for the borough and ensuring that provides access to the waterways. The bridge has been designed to ensure that people can stop and take a moment to enjoy it. And I think, yes, it's important to consider anti-social behaviour, but I think the fear of anti-social behaviour occurring at any stage shouldn't be a driving force to be fearful of providing an enjoyable experience for the borough's residents. Ultimately, we will have to go through the conditions stage if permission is granted to try and design our anti-social behaviour. But I think at the moment the fear of anti-social behaviour perhaps overlooks the benefits that may arise from the borough's residents being able to stop and experience and enjoy our waterways and our environment. Any more questions? I just wanted to follow up on the question that Councillor Ahmed asked earlier about linking this as a kind of transport piece of infrastructure with other schemes. I wondered if maybe Paul - sorry. I wondered if you might have some more information about the other Isla Wharf proposals and whether we could
3. I don't know what the possibilities - maybe Ian knows - but what the possibilities are of placing kind of future request, I guess, on maybe putting in segregated cycle infrastructure along Lochnagar Street to make sure that people don't come off the bridge and then they're suddenly in loads of traffic and there's no segregated infrastructure for people. Or even some kind of just like a white line on the Lochnagar Street when it - so the question is has - what are the proposals - are there residential proposals that have already gone through, have the conditions gone in already or is there still an opportunity to put some of those in? Yeah, so the status - the Isla Wharf proposals have a recommendation to grant planning permission and although the decision notice hasn't been issued yet because the 106 agreement hasn't been completed, I don't know enough about the details of those proposals. For example, whether there was, you know, what we call a section 278 highways agreement to alter Lochnagar Street in any way. So it's - I mean technically speaking because the decision hasn't been issued and looking at the two proposals in conjunction with one another, there is that relationship, but I think we'd need to - I think Ian and I would need to sort of reflect on how we would deal with that given there's already a resolution. So if it hasn't already been included, it would need the highway team's sort of input as to whether they thought that was achievable in terms of, for example, the width of the street and how it's used, et cetera. So Ian, do you have anything you'd like to add on that? I think that the Isla Wharf proposal came to committee I think it was last October and there was the resolution to grant on that occasion subject to a section 106 agreement and there were full highways comments in respect of Lochnagar Street and also the committee was well aware of the potential for this bridge coming forward because much discussion about these proposals and safeguarded land. And the intention between the Lochnagar - the Isla Wharf 106 agreement with the safeguarded land and the bridge was to ensure that connectivity and to ensure the two - I don't use expressions like this but ensure the two spoke to each other and the two matched up. The other practical difficulty we have is I think in respect to this is you're looking at the planning use of the land as a bridge. And it says in the report that the bridge will be adopted as highway. So it then becomes a publicly maintained highway and it will become the highway authorities' responsibility to sort out issues such as segregation, such as are there problems with, for example, scooters, heaven forbid and those types of issues and also do we need the retractable bollards to restrict the speeds of cyclists used to cross the bridge. So you're looking at the planning use of the land and once that is there, once the bridge is in place and once the highway authority is satisfied and I think Newham has said it's taking responsibility, I could be wrong, I could be mistaken on that, it then becomes an issue for the highway authority to sort out and not the planning authority. I know it's the same council wearing two different hats but they are two different responsibilities. Thanks, Chair. So just noted on that, I just wondered if it's possible because I know that sometimes achieved within the agreement, within the kind of the negotiations around these applications that it's possible to secure some improvements to the highways as part of the application. So I wondered if there's still an opportunity to put in requests. Basically that was the question. I would say no at this stage because the resolution to grant, that resolution to grant was on the basis that if highway works were required it was the specific highway works and it would be wrong now to go back with the begging list for more highway works. Thank you. Any more questions? Thank you, Chair. Going back to your response about the sitting arrangement, it's a good idea to create opportunity for residents to go and enjoy the water but not standing on the people's way. You need to create additional space like we have on the other bridges. So space has to be beyond those area. You need to create additional space for people to stand or sit, not creating a hubbub on the existing path that people are using for their footy or the bikes. So it can be done on the banks, creating platforms on both sides for people to enjoy the water. The idea of letting people sit on the bridge is not a good idea in my view. Thank you. I'm not going to be taking no more questions on this application. Can I ask members to share their thoughts or debate the application? I quite like this application. I think if we were to approve it, it would be a significant boon for the borough. I especially like the design. I think the orange colour is similar to the ones, the bridges which cross the same river around the Olympic Park. And that area in particular really, really needs bridges between the two boroughs. So I think I'm feeling positive about this. Thank you, Chair. I think I'm quite impressed with the plan and I think linking two boroughs together brings a lot of facilities using the both boroughs, whatever they have to offer. And for cyclists, like Councillor Iqbal said, I'm a bit concerned about the pedestrians and the cyclists that are passing through. So as long as something is safe in place, I think it's a good idea. Just a quick one. Would Ian or Paul like to share any final advice before we move to the vote? Thank you, Chair. Just to say the planning for this has gone through quite a long process. It has been reviewed by Statutory Consultees and by the Council's quality review panel who are independent panels. So it's gone through quite a lot of work through that. I think the committee members, Chair, have identified some really pertinent issues that we need to ensure are sort of taken care of if permission is granted. So I was going to suggest a couple of things. Firstly, I think there should be an additional condition requiring a drainage strategy which optimises the use of permeable materials. I think we can come up with a form of words for that condition that encompasses the comments that have been made this evening. I also noticed that we did actually consult the Metropolitan Police in terms of secure by design and safety issues, although they didn't offer any comments. So I think we need to encourage them to just sort of engage a bit more. I think members have identified a bit of a challenge around we want to design places that are inclusive and enjoyable and pleasant. At the same time, we know that there can be issues of antisocial behaviour and that sort of tension that can exist. So I think we should have an additional condition that requires a further secure by design review of those details, because I'm sure there must be a design solution for that seating area that allows it to be used properly and discourages antisocial behaviour or lingering or safety issues, particularly if people are using it after dark. So I think there are two conditions that I would recommend that we add if members are minded to grant permission. Thank you, chair. There's just the additional thing that I mentioned about the lighting, the conflict between the lighting for the underpass and the lighting for the habitats. I wonder if that could also be included. Is that or is that included in the... Chair, yes, condition number five requires a lighting strategy. It does actually specifically refer to biodiversity, so I think that's very much indicating the design of the lighting needs to be quite targeted, so it does its job in terms of safety, but it doesn't actually cause too much disturbance to the local ecosystems. Thank you, Paul. We move to the vote now. Can I see all those in favour of the application? Can I ask Paul Beckenham to confirm the Committee with the votes, please? Thank you, chair. So the Committee has voted unanimously to grant Planning Commission for the proposed pedestrian cycle bridge on the land forming parts of Aylsall Wharf and Lochnegar Street, subject to the conditions listed in item 5.1 on the agenda and also subject to two additional conditions. I don't think we need to take a vote, do we? Two additional conditions that I think members have helped us to kind of formulate around drainage strategy, permeable materials and a secure by design review of the seating area. Thank you very much. Agenda item 5.2 is PA/24/001644/A1 Caxton Hall Community Centre and adjoining land Caxton Grove E32EE, pages 75 to 124. I now invite Paul to introduce the application. Thank you very much, chairs. So, Mr. Chair, this is a planning application affecting land at Caxton Hall Community Centre and Caxton Grove. The planning application proposes the demolition of the existing building and ball court and the construction of a Part 7, Part 9 story building with a basement containing 36 dwellings and a replacement community centre, along with associated amenity areas, accessible car parking, cycle parking, refuse and cycle stores and landscape works, along with some other public realm works to Malmsbury Road and Caxton Grove. The application is made by the London Borough Tower Hamlets, but as the committee will know, the nature of the point is irrelevant to your considerations. You need to consider it on its planning merits. The recommendation is to grant planning permission subject to conditions and planning obligations. This application is being brought to your committee as the height of the proposals is just over 30 metres, so it triggers the committee's terms of reference and also we have received more than 20 objections. There's no update report, chair, but there are registered speakers for this item. Thank you. Thank you, Paul. I will now invite Daniel Jiffers, planning case officer, to present the application. >> Thank you, chair, and good evening, chair and good evening, members. So the area 4 identifies the application site was outlined in red. It is positioned between the railroad tracks to the north and south and the east of Malmsbury Road estate and Caxton Grove and Malmsbury Road. As highlighted, the site itself consists of Caxton Hall community centres to the north-east corner of the site. Immediately to the west of the community centre is the existing ball court and the remaining site consists of the Four Seasons Green. The aerial photo shows the site in relation to the main arterial roads of the A12 and the Bow Road. The site is subject to the designations of the central sub area, TFL zone of interest and the Four Seasons Green, which is designated as publicly accessible open space. So this photo is taken from Four Seasons Green, which consists of a predominantly grassed area and includes some playground equipment, which is considered to be in a post air repair. To the north of the area is the community centre and ball court. So this photo taken from the public highway shows the site in greater detail. The community centre is council-owned and leads to the Malmsbury Youth Project, which overlaps the space to Age Concern, which is the main user of the premises. This photo is taken from Caxton Grove and shows Four Seasons Green open space, further down. This photo is taken from Malmsbury Road and shows the existing ball court within the application area. So going into heritage, so the site is in close proximity to several heritage assets. The nearest conservation area would be Fairfield Road Conservation Area, which is to the south of the railroad track and is 65 metres from the existing community centre building. The nearest statuary-listed building to the community centre's Fairfield match works which is 130 metres from the eastern boundary highlighted in green in the top right hand corner of the screen. And the nearest local listed building is St Mary's Church Hall, which is located along Cat Cat Crescent and within the Fairfield Road Conservation Area. As outlined before, the proposals for a part 7 storey, part 9 storey building provide 36 self-contained residential units to the upper floors and a re-provided community centre and ground floor. The scheme is referrable to the Mayor of London as it exceeds 30 metres in height. All of the residential units would be affordable housing and social rent tenure. The scheme would also include landscaping the four-season screen, including the child play space and highway improvement works, including a raised crossover. So this is an image showing the ground floor entrance to both the residential units and the community centre. This shows the principal front elevation of the building from Kexon Grove. The height of the building exceeds 30 metres, which means it meets the definition of a tall building and is referrable to the Mayor of London. This image shows the proposal would be greater in height than the adjacent Malseby Road estate, which compromise generally four storey terraced buildings. The larger buildings in the centre area are located at the north and east of the proposed building and are six storeys in height. The design of the building includes a reduced section in height from 9 to 7 storeys along the western part of the building. This is to ensure the proposal would not prejudice future development of the adjacent site to the west along Malseby Road. The building's predominantly amazing construction includes projecting and inset balconies. This image shows the projecting windows in the west elevation, which allows outlook for future occupiers of the residential units, but also ensures it doesn't prejudice future development of this adjacent site. This is an example of the proposed layout of the units. This is the first floor and replicated on the floors above. The units meet the standards of the London Plan and are considered to be an accessible standard of accommodation for future occupiers. 38.9% would have jaw aspect, 22.2% would have aspect and free directions, and 83.5% of the rooms tested would be in full compliance with the IRA guidelines in terms of internal sunlight. It would deliver four accessible homes located to the east of the building, which would all be free bedroom units. This is the ground floor plan. It shows the residential units would be accessed at ground floor, the central doors, and also shows the roof prior to community centre highlighted in yellow, which are providing improved facilities with a dedicated office, storage and kitchen. There would be two blue badge bays associated with the development, one for the community centre and one for the proposed residential occupiers, as well as cycle and refuge storage. Both the occupiers in the community centre and the residential units would have immunity space, with future occupiers in the residential units having private immunity space in the form of inset and projected balconies, as well as access to the private communal space at the rear, in addition to the public open space at the south of the building. The application was advertised with 237 letters sent to occupiers in every property, and advertised in the local newspaper and the erection of two site notes along Caxton Grove. This resulted in 48 letters of objection being received, with the main issues being the loss of the community centre and board court, the visual appearance including the height and impact on the setting of the heritage assets, and a conflict with the toll building policy. The immunity impacts the development and the concerns about the redevelopment of the Four Seasons Green. The key considerations are identified as land use, design and heritage, immunity impacts and the environment of the development. In terms of land use, as noted previously, the proposal delivered 36 self-contained residential units, all of which would be affordable housing and social rented tenure. The provision of affordable housing is strongly supported. The scheme would provide a mix of unit sizes largely focused towards two and three bedroom units. Whilst the footprint of the proposed building were not encroached into the designated public open space of the Four Seasons Green, the proposal would include the landscape of this area with various changes, including induction of child playground equipment, relocated dog walking area and additional tree planting. Policies only allow for development within designated open spaces in exceptional circumstances, where it provides essential facilities that enhance the function and use and enjoyment of the open space. These proposed changes are considered consistent with those policies. As part of the landscape of the Four Seasons Green, the proposal would include child play space. The image above shows an example of the type of play equipment that could be incorporated in this area, a condition that's been included which causes submission of the details of the child play space, which would require an applicant to undertake community engagement to ensure it meets the needs of the users in the local area. The proposal would result in the loss of the existing Caxton Grove ball court, which is within the footprint of the development, which is shown in the image. 200 metres to the west of the application site and along with Malisbury Road, there's an existing ball court called Malisbury Road multi-use games area. It's identified on the area photograph and the council's infrastructure team have carried out assessments on these two existing ball courts and have described them as low quality. The council's infrastructure team has identified improvements to the Malisbury Road multi-use games area and therefore to mitigate the loss of the existing ball court. The application would secure improvements to this area and with consultation with the council's parks and characteristics team. From initial discussions they have identified they would scope to improve the existing ball court, which would include a replacement existing service, replacement of the existing basketball hoops and goals and play space to the west of that within the area. We would ensure these improvements would be secured and carried out prior to the occupation of the development. So as noted previously, the pros to building would be rise above the height of the adjacent Malisbury Road estate and at over 30 metres the building would meet the definition of a tall building, but the site is not within a tall building zone and is not considered to meet the exception criteria in part three of the local plan, policy D.DH6. However, it is considered that the design has diminished compliance with part one of this policy in respect to the height and scale of the building addressed to sit reasonably comfortable with its immediate site context, being adjacent to the railroad tracks away from the Malisbury Road estate, adjacent to the largest building in the area and to the north of the area of open space, which is considered to allow for this additional height. There are also material considerations including the provision of a new 100% affordable housing scheme, which is considered to make this acceptable in terms of this policy. So going on in terms of design and heritage, as noted in the report, the council's place maker offices raised concerns of the height of the proposal, including its impact on the surrounding street scene, and the application includes views from various points within the surrounding area. So this image shows that when viewed from the north the proposal would result in only top floor and parapet being visible from the street level at this location. So in terms of the heritage assets, the council's place making officers identify the most significant harm to the nearby heritage asset. It's within the Fairfield Road Conservation Area, where the nearest heritage asset of the locally listed St Mary's Church is shown, which is a long, kick-cut terrace to the south of the site, as shown in the image above. The chimney is a prominent feature of the character of the building. So the council's proposal would be visible in the backdrop of this building, resulting in the definition of these chimneys being lost. The proposal is identified as resulting in less than substantial harm to the setting of these heritage assets, however this has been identified at the lowest level of less than substantial harm. So going on to the main key impacts of the scheme. So the proposal is highlighted in blue on the image. So I think given the existing site consists of a single storey community centre, it is considered that any redevelopment of the site would result in immunity impacts on occupiers and neighbouring properties. So in terms of overlooking, the proposal would include separation distance which would exceed 18 metres, which is considered to ensure that there will be no unacceptable loss of privacy to occupiers and neighbouring properties. It is also considered that this separation distance would ensure that there would not result in a detriment impact on the outlook of these existing occupiers. So in terms of daylight/sunlight impacts, the proposal is assessed against the BRE guidelines in 2022. So in terms of the daylight, the two methods used are VSC, which is the vertical sky component, and no skyline, or daylight distribution. So in terms of the assessment whilst five of the buildings identified as being in residential use have been assessed as being experiencing transgressions from the BRE guidelines, the most impacted building is 327 to 329 Morville Street, which is located to the north of the building, and also followed by 69 Fairfield Road, which is located to the east of the building. So in the next slides it will show more detail in terms of these impacts. So as mentioned, the most impacted building is to the rear, 327, 329 Morville Street. So 39 windows tested would experience major impacts in terms of VSC, which are located across all floors, ground to fifth floor. So two of these windows are non-habitable, the remaining 16 windows serving bedrooms, two of which are secondary windows, and the remaining living rooms, or living dining kitchens. So these windows have relatively low existing VSC levels. So in terms of no skyline, daylight distribution, so 17 rooms windows tested from ground to fourth floor would have major adverse impacts. So one is non-habitable room, three relate to bedrooms, the remaining breaches relate to living, dining kitchens, so the most significant impacts relating to bedrooms at first floor result in 66% of the format value, and living areas at first and second floor would result in over 60%. So moving on to the second most impacted, which is 69 Fairfield Road to the east. So seven windows would experience major adverse impacts in terms of VSC, four of which serve bedrooms and have low existing air levels and free serving living, dining kitchen rooms. However, there is no major adverse impacts in terms of no skyline, daylight distribution, with the only ten rooms windows in breach being minor adverse impacts. So these impacts would need to be weighed in the balance against benefits of development, which include delivery of affordable housing and the landscaping of the four seasons green, and the re-provided community centre. So in terms of environment, there's a couple of corrections in the report. So paragraph 5.13 has been erroneously referred to as the local flood authority and should be the sustainability officer. And paragraph 7.244 refers to gas border systems and residential units, but actually should be the air source heat pumps. So in terms of environment, there has to be no objections raised from consultees in respect to biodiversity, energy, air quality, waste and circular economy matters, and mitigation improvements have been secured through recommended conditions. So these are the highlighted financial planning obligations. And these are the non-financial planning obligations, including identified that the 36 foldable housing were 100% social rented. So the recommendation is that the committee result a grant plan permission, subject to generation by the mayor of London, in agreement to secure the obligations and the conditions and the formatives set out in the report. That concludes my presentation. I'd be happy to answer any questions. Thank you. Thank you, Mr Jefferies. So on this application we have three objectives. However, one of the objectives is not available. So we'll go straight to Mr Jack Danmore to address the committee in objection. You have three minutes. Thank you. Hold on. Do you want to come oh, here he is. Please introduce yourself first. Good evening, everybody. I'm Jack Danmore, one of the neighbours to this development. I work for the NHS locally. I'm in charge of the Whips Cross. I worked for the NHS locally in town. Lovely to be in front of you this evening. On the members of the planning committee and fellow residents, thank you for allowing me the opportunity to speak today on behalf of 32 owners of Morville Street. My name is Jack Danmore. I'm here to express my strong objections to the proposed planning application of Caxton Hall community centre. Local residents were publicly consulted in 2021 on a six story property, more in keeping with the local neighbourhood, and engaged with the consultation process, providing insightful feedback for the applicant. Unfortunately, this did not translate within the public consultation document and would heed concern that other comments have been actively excluded. The applicant is not duly engaged with the properties most affected by the proposed development, likely due to the known controversy and issues it causes due to the adverse impact the proposal has on Morville Street properties. With both the applicant and planning authority recognising the report, the proposal sits outside of the tall building areas, causes harm to heritage areas, and causes major impact to neighbouring properties. LBTH quality review panel in October 2023 advised that a building of five to six stories would be appropriate for the local character. Following a request to Tower Hamlets local authority on March 24 to get further information on the consultation, local residents were informed that all correspondence between Tower Hamlets planning department and Tower Hamlets capital delivery team will be made available on the public register once the case has been determined and would not be released prior to determination. Not allowing local residents to see all available information, this does not promote trust or transparency in the process and raises concern over the applicant Tower Hamlets actively excluding its own design team's design review panel's advice. There are two environmental considerations that are yet to be resolved by the applicant. Firstly, loss of light. The scheme inadequately addresses the loss of light to properties on Morville Street. Many windows in our development do not meet the RE standards post proposed build. Neither the applicant nor the planning authority is proposing meaningful mitigations with many windows and furthermore roomy considerations have been overlooked or incorrect. The noise assessment for Morville Street is completed without considering a development opposite. Previously, noise dissipated on one side of the railway lines. If this development proceeds, such dissipation would no longer occur. Regrettably, no mitigations or considerations have been put forth. The adverse health effects on local residents due to both loss of daylight and increased noise are a genuine concern, requires attention and mitigation. The residents of Morville Street are sympathetic to the need to develop affordable housing. However, this cannot be at the detriment or impact to other residents. On this basis, we propose appropriate building height restrictions on the site for a maximum of a stepped five to six storey, including ground floor, greater in keeping with scheme presented to local residents and advised by Town Hamlets design review panel would be most appropriate with planning conditions on the applicant to mitigate the visual impacts of the development and loss of park views by maintaining a minimum of five metre evergreen tree canopy on the northern elevation would be most appropriate. In conclusion, I urge the planning committee to carefully consider the long term implications of this application on existing residents. Let us work together to create a vibrant and thoughtfully designed future for our community. Thank you for your attention. That's me. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. Hi, everyone. Thanks for the opportunity to speak. My name is Jack Leeming. Professionally I'm a journalist, but I'm here as a resident of Fairfield Road. What's marked in your map as 69 Fairfield Road? I think I speak for a lot of people when we feel this development is so out of keeping with the natural character of the neighbourhood and is enormous. I know it's marked as tall on your documentation. I think massive would maybe be more accurate. Nine storeys is completely out of keeping with anything nearby. Nearest properties that are anything close to that have their rises up against big, major A roads like Bow Road and Triggie and somewhere else. So they're just enormous compared to anything else around there. Like my next door neighbour, I think we're really, really appreciative that we need more social housing in Tower Hamlets, but this proposal just seems so completely out of scope in terms of lighting, in terms of loss of privacy, in terms of the character of the neighbourhood. We're not against social housing, but I don't understand why it needs to be so big. It's enormous. Thank you for your time. Thank you very much. We have someone online as I take issue. Can I invite Camilla, who is online to address the committee. In objection, you have up to three minutes as well. Thank you. Good evening and thank you for the opportunity to speak on the application. My name is Camilla Lenchner and I'm a resident of Ambrose walk on the Malmsbury estate. I wish to object to the application as presented for the following reasons. The building height is significantly out of context with the local area. In addition to this, it fails to comply with the local plan policy as mentioned D.DH6, referring to tall buildings. As a result, the building would form an unobtuse form of development, which would adversely impact on the area's character. As mentioned in the document reviewing the application, the Council's own urban design and conservation team have raised concerns about the building's height and dominance. Considering some of the more thoughtful developments being proposed for Four Seasons Green in terms of the community facilities and biodiversity, it would seem a shame to neighbour the green with such an out of proportion building. I'm not averse to the sites redevelopment in principle. As people have mentioned, the social housing is very important, but I consider that a revised proposal, which is more sympathetic to the area in general, in terms of the building's height and dominance could be put forward by the applicant, which would be more acceptable. In conclusion, the application should be refused planning permission as it does not comply with the adopted relevant planning policy and because the benefits of the scheme proposed do not outweigh the significant harms that it would lead to. I trust you will take my concerns into consideration and respectfully request that members do not accept the officer's recommendation. Instead, I would ask that members seek to refuse the application. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Okay. We have the applicant here. Would you like to introduce yourself? And you have nine minutes. Thank you. Thank you, Chair, and good evening. My name is Tim Waters and I'm speaking as the agent for the applicant in support of the officer recommendation to grant planning permission subject to conditions and planning obligations. I'm joined this evening by other members of the projects and client team who will be available to take any questions during your subsequent deliberations. The application provides an excellent opportunity to bring forward an exemplary design development that would fulfil one of the primary objectives of national, strategic and local planning policy aimed at utilising sustainably located urban brownfield land more effectively for identified development needs, including housing, where there is a substantial undersupply of genuinely affordable homes in London relative to current demand. We are all aware of the acute pressures to build more housing in Tower Hamlets. The borough has the highest ten year housebuilding target of all 32 London boroughs in the London Plan and the fastest growing population of any local authority in England and Wales, having increased by over 22% in the ten year period of 2021. Looking ahead, the borough's population is predicted to increase by a further 100,000 by 2031. Hence, the ability to optimise the housing potential and capacity of this site alongside the provision of new and improved community infrastructure would provide significant planning benefits in this respect. In short, the proposal would provide 36 dwellings all in the form of affordable housing and for social rent. Fourteen dwellings would be family sized. The dwellings would all be sized to the minimum contemporary space standards internally and externally in terms of private amenity space. Twenty-two of the dwellings would have dual aspects of which eight or family sized dwellings would have triple aspects. Eighty-three percent of rooms would also be fully compliant with BRE guidelines in terms of daylight penetration. The plans also provide for a new community centre and improved public realm and major qualitative improvements to Four Seasons Green to create a more exciting and inclusive space with the existing dog run area retained, reconfigured and marginally increased in size. Nevertheless, we are aware that the proposals weigh some concern locally in terms of height and the suitability of a tall building in this location, as well as the justification for displacing the existing ball court and amenity impacts generally. As you will have noted, the site is not located within a designated tall building zone where buildings of over 30 metres in height would normally be directed and supported as a matter of planning policy principle. In this case, the 30 metre exceedance arises on account of the rooftop plant screen. However, Council planning policy does not say that tall buildings outside of the tall building zones should be viewed as being unacceptable and incapable of being supported, hence the fact that the new building would be undeniably taller than its surroundings should not be a reason to refuse planning permission if the other defined policy criteria are met. The primary tests in this respect relate to architectural quality and sustainable building design and whether there would be any wider adverse impacts arising to the townscape and any nearby designated assets. In our view, and with the benefit of technical assessment, all these tests are met and without any unacceptable harm. It is also instructive how the London Mayor has not objected to the principle of a tall building on this site in his Stage 1 response on the application, while the Council's own Conservation and Design Advisory Panel similarly acknowledged the potential for a tall building in this location. The policy also requires the future development potential of adjoining sites, in this case the veterinary surgery to the west, to not be unreasonably compromised. Hence, the building steps down two storey heights on this boundary, with oriel windows incorporated onto the flank elevation to prevent any future overlooking. The separation distance to the existing building is also over 30 metres, and as the footprint of the existing building is broadly equivalent in size to our own, it seems unlikely that there would be any prejudicial impact here. In terms of the borecourt, there is another borecourt situated some 200 metres to the west, which will be upgraded as part of these plans to provide a substantially improved facility for the local community by way of mitigation. Finally, the plans have also sought to minimise any impacts to nearby residents, so far as reasonably and practically possible in the context of an urban development site. There would be no harmful overlooking or loss of privacy, and in terms of daylight/sunlight impacts, the BRE assessment shows a high level of overall compliance, with over 75% of surrounding habitable room windows being either fully compliant or minor impacted in terms of daylight. This increases to over 85% of habitable rooms overall. To conclude, we believe there are multiple planning benefits arising from the proposal that would justify a grant of planning permission on planning balance. The overall qualitative aspects of the development, in terms of design and architecture, the provision of 100% affordable housing, and the result of community infrastructure improvements all weigh heavily in favour of the development. The overall technical assessments undertaken of the scheme have underpinned the suitability of a tall building on this site, and in the absence of any demonstrably unacceptable harm, we very much hope you will support the officer recommendation this evening. Thank you. Thank you very much. Do members have any questions for the officers or the applicant? Thank you, chair. My question to the officer, firstly, thank you for your hard work in presenting this broad report. When your report is saying this development will result major impacts on sunlight, daylight, to other properties, and even the applicant just mentioned, 75% of those will be compliance. What will happen to the other 25%? If I'm correct, that's what I heard. And also on the public engagement, people have raised concerns, saying your daylight sunlight assessment is inaccurate. Could you please explain on that? With respect to daylight sunlight, as Dan mentioned in the report, sorry, in the presentation, we assess principally on two measures. That's the vertical sky component, which, I mean, they're both quite complicated to explain to a committee, but vertical sky component is if you can picture a window and you can picture the amount of open space within a window, if you have a new development within that window, how much of that window is the new development taking up? And then you can start to work out a percentage and a percentage loss on the basis of that. And then the other one we refer to as NSL, or daylight distribution, and that's a measure of daylight within a room. So how far into the room does the daylight penetrate? So as you said, so in terms of the amount of, so we tested five, or five residential properties were tested within the proximity, or there were transgressions recorded within five. Actually, two of those, we feel that there were transgressions that were notable in the sense that they would have on the range of between minor and major adverse impacts, principally to VSC, so the amount of like observable daylight within the window, but also to the NSL, which is the penetration of daylight within the room. So we've, as Dan set out in the presentation, there would be a range whereby some would be what we would call a minor adverse impact, which would be a 20% loss of that open daylight. Some would be moderate, which would be a 30% loss. Some would be major, which would be 40 or above. Obviously, when it starts getting above 20%, that's actually considered a failure of the BRE guidance. There is another thing called a retained value, so if they have a high retained value, that means there isn't a technical failure. It's all set out within the body of the report, but essentially what we're saying is we do acknowledge that to those two properties, so to the Morville Street property to the north and to the property to the east, the Fairfield Road property, that there are significant and oftentimes adverse impacts to the daylight at those properties, which will be noticeable for the existing residents. So they will have detriment to the amount of light that they can see from their windows and also to the amount of light that will be observable within those room spaces. Now obviously we have to bear in mind that with all kinds of development all the way across London, these kind of impacts are oftentimes, some might say, inevitable, and particularly when you have a site like this where the existing building is just a single storey building and essentially, for example, in the example of the Morville Street property, it's facing onto what some might describe as an open site. So if you're going to have any type of significant development on there, obviously this is nine storeys, but if you're going to have a large building on that site, it is going to have some impact on the daylight to the existing residents of these properties. And we are acknowledging that there would be a significant impact. Nevertheless, there are still, as you point out, a lot of property, a lot of windows and a lot of rooms that aren't affected, and there are windows and rooms within the Morville Street property that aren't affected as well, as obviously you get higher up the building. But ultimately, our conclusion is that whilst there are these impacts, the other material considerations of the scheme, which actually factor into the fact, as I mentioned earlier, that this is an open site effectively to the south and that there will inevitably be some impacts on daylight sunlight, but given that we're delivering 36 new residential units, all of which would be social housing secured at social rents, we feel that on balance, the level of harm that's going to be experienced by these existing residents is acceptable and that is the reason why we are recommending approval of the proposals. And there was a second. Oh, it was about the public consultation, wasn't it? So the applicant might be the best place to answer this one, but from our understanding, there was some miscommunication potentially. This is prior to the application going in, and this is on the basis of consultation undertaken by the applicant to the neighbouring residents, which would exclude the planning authority, so we're not actually involved in that, but it's obviously good practice that applicants do this kind of consultation. And it's been stated that at the time of that consultation, the proposals were at six storeys, but then at the time of application, it became a nine-storey proposal and that you were kind of out of the loop of that, and so I don't know if it's possible to invite the applicant team to address that. Is that all right? It should be fine. Thank you. Yeah, good evening, Chair, good evening, everyone else, councillors. We, as the capital delivery team, undertook a number of what we call non-saturated consultation processes, which were done online and face-to-face. We normally have a weekday evening and a Saturday morning. That was conducted on a few occasions throughout this process. The objective is correct. Since the last consultation, which was at six storeys, we have raised the building height to seven and nine storeys and we haven't gone back out to consultation, but what I will say is that every time we go out to consultation, we always express that this is a proposal of the council's intent, in terms of the residential development, and the building may alter in dimension, size, be it up or down, subject to technical surveys or requirements or policy compliance, which we can or cannot meet accordingly. In this particular instance, the building was raised and we felt as though that the compliance aspects of it were met accordingly. Hence why we didn't go back out to consultation. Thank you, Chair. I always support more housing and this is good news. This will give 100% more affordable housing, but nevertheless, I'm hoping this is going to be family-sized housing and a lot of children will be moving to there. In terms of play space, it's going to be reduced quite hugely, plus more people are going to move in there. In terms of that, do you have any plans to actually create more play space for the children and also during the construction period, because the community centre is part of this community and they use it quite often, so is there any plan for a temporary space for the community, because it might take one year, two years, but community space actually helps a lot, prevents ASB and stuff. Do you have any sort of plan for that? In terms of the child play space, obviously with the delivery of housing in the 36 new residential units of which a significant proportion would be family-sized units, obviously there is a significant child yield from the proposals and as per policy, we have to provide child play space to provide for those additional children. You framed it as there would be a significant loss of play space, so what's actually happening is we've got the open green space at the moment which has got a small area of play space which is outside of the community centre which is, I'm sure many of you will know who live in the area, the actual play space for the community centre is not the most amazing at the moment, so the proposals are seeking to use that area to provide the child play space which is required for the development, so improve the child play space, and then obviously given that that existing area is quite small, the actual requirement for child play space exceeds that, so it would go beyond that in terms of the provision of child play space. Now there is a slight sort of, well there is a policy issue essentially with that because you are essentially building the play space on top of open green space, nevertheless with developments of this type you will often find child play space can't actually be provided on site and arrangements have come to which are supported in policy and in the London plan whereby a financial contribution can be made to improve child play spaces elsewhere or within close proximity to the site, so this is sort of similar to that in that respect in that there is an existing child play space immediately outside the front of it and what this proposal will do is vastly improve that child play space. Now there obviously also has to be a consideration of the fact that it's an open green space and it's as Dan set out in the presentation that obviously it's public accessible and is there for the enjoyment of borough residents, but it's our view that the changes to Four Seasons Green will actually enhance the Four Seasons Green on the whole and will actually make it a place which is more widely used I think by the existing residents of the area and more attractive, so that's the view that we got to on that specific issue. And then again I forget the second question. Do you have a new plan for the temporary community substitute? Yes, so obviously you're correct to say that the proposals would demolish the existing community centre and the intention is to re-provide what we view as an improved community centre, but yes for that duration of the construction period the community centre would not function obviously. As per the proposals and what's been secured and presented to us as a planning authority, it doesn't actually include the re-provision of the space. Nevertheless I think again the applicant does have something to say in that respect. If I could come in please. First and foremost the council value the existing community uses within that building, the service providers, in fact some of them are commissioned by the council so the council wish to retain those. All I can say at this point is that my colleagues across other departments are proactively engaging with the end users at this point in time. Thank you. Thank you chair. My question is where some of the service providers but mainly towards the current organisation that's running KEX and all at the moment, when the development, if the development goes through and the development is now complete, would it be the current service provider or would it be tendered out and would it give other organisations or local organisations opportunity to maybe manage? Again I'm going to have to repeat myself here, sorry, colleagues are proactively in dialogue with the end users at the moment. I'm not qualified to actually answer that question. It's an asset management question, I'm not qualified to answer that. We're not excluding the possibility of that though, sorry I should have mentioned that. Could we maybe put it in as a condition that it gets tendered out? That's not a planning question. That's not a planning question at all. Can I ask Paul to come in? Thank you chair. That's a decision that's out with this committee. What we're considering is the use of the land. The decisions around how, as you say, if permission is granted because decisions on how that space is occupied needs to be taken elsewhere within the council. It's not a planning issue. As I declared at the beginning that I am a local councillor in the area and I also live within the area and in terms of what the resident just spoke about, the planning for a six storey building, I saw the consultation to that, lots of local residents were hyper engaged within that and there is some degree of confusion, including for myself to see a six storey building coming into a nine storey building and there are lots of residents that are unclear of what's going on and there is development that's happening within the area via the council, so there are social housings being built within that vicinity as well. In regards to the report 7.6, we are talking about Caxton Hall here and I believe my colleagues are speaking about Caxton Hall. Caxton Hall is currently managed by Malmesbury Community Project who actually have a lease at will from the council and this has been given to them in 2010 and they contribute nothing towards the council but sublet the council building to Age UK, so that is where it is and within the report is absolutely, I don't know who Malmesbury Youth Project is, I'm quite concerned that we've not got it right in our reports in who actually manages the building for us and how they hold a lease at will, it says here it's leased, so there is a bit of concern with regards to who has the building, how it's going to be managed, it's not been, it's a building that's been managed and I've been trying to get Malmesbury Resident Association local tenants to utilise the building itself, that's not been possible as well and given that you've not also consulted the Malmesbury Resident Association who are a very, very active organisation within the Malmesbury area who do lots of tree planting, they've looked at Tom Thumb's Arch, made it all green within their own, whatever coffers they get within the money, money that they get within the coffers, they've been improving the entire area, they've been also getting youth provision in the Mooga and they've been paying for that themselves as well, so given that they are a very, very active resident organisation in the local area, they've not been consulted and going back to your consultation in terms of the letters that you've distributed, you've distributed just over 200 letters to the local area, 20% of those letters have come back with the negative feedback, that's quite a substantial amount of feedback coming back from local residents, so again in terms of what my colleague has said, Kamal Hussain has said around consultation, that consultation has actually gone as far as it could have gone given the fact that there were two applications in the same place which are completely different. Can I just come in on the Marmsbury Community Project, they have a tenancy at will, it's been in place I believe for 10 years at least, again I'm not qualified to answer this but they have a legal right to be within the building, so I need to be clear about that, however I do know as I've expressed that dialogue is going on with colleagues across the council with the existing user groups, also I do know and I just don't know everything about them but I do know they're also registered charity. So just to say, in your report you've got them as Marmsbury Youth Project, they're not Marmsbury Youth Project, they are the Marmsbury Community Project who hold a lease at will with the council and sublet it to Age Concerns Group, so it's about the correction and getting it right, I've struggled with this for 10 years so it's about making sure at this opportunity in a public forum that it is done correctly. Just also going back to the group that you referenced, there's two different elements of consultation here, there's the statutory consultation by the Planning Department but there was also the non-statutory consultation by the Capital Delivery team and that included the entirety of the Marmsbury estate and it also included the residents association that you referenced. Can I ask Ian to comment on this matter please? Yeah, members, may I just, any use of this land and any use, community use, et cetera, et cetera, that may result from any grant is a matter to be resolved afterwards by the owner of the building with the proposed tenants and the proposed users of the building. The current occupants of the land may well have various rights to be there, there may be licenses, there may be tenancies at will, but nevertheless that doesn't stop an application being made for planning and an application either being refused or granted, whether or not the applicant, if they are successful in getting permission, can implement that position will remain on whether or not they are able lawfully to end any occupation rights that people may currently have in respect to that building. But may I remind you please, I appreciate the passions and I appreciate everything that has been said but you are looking at the planning use of this, the proposed planning use of this particular bit of land. Thank you, Ian. Councillor Natalie. Thank you, Chair. Thank you for the presentation. I have a couple of comments and questions. The first comment is to officers that I think there wasn't really enough information, there wasn't enough image given as part of this report to actually work out like the site, especially the Four Seasons Green, there's no diagram of the proposed proposal for Four Seasons Green, there was no orientation on the plan of the like the layout, the internal layout, so it took me a long time to work out like where the windows would be facing, so please, please, please in future like just more pictures is always really, really important to help make these decisions. This is a big development, it's clearly, there's a lot of controversy around it and you know, planning officers, you've made a calculation that the impacts on the daylight and sunlight of the neighbours is acceptable compared with the amount of social housing being provided, fine. I mean, I'm struggling to accept it but I mean, I think you've given enough information about it, so I don't have any questions about it anymore. The things that I would, maybe just some more specific questions around the, so okay, so there's a couple of questions around the Four Seasons Green and then there are also some questions around the layout of the road, around the proposed layout of the road, again, there are no plans for the proposed layout of the road, there's just some text narrative about it, so I'm just kind of putting things together. So there's a proposal that there's going to be a raised table outside to provide a continuous pavement from Malmsbury Road into the Four Seasons Green area and it's kind of creating a public square area, I don't know, so some more clarification about that would be nice. And I'd also like to have a bit of clarity on the, so maybe, so that's question number one, question number two is on the proposed floor plan there are several bedrooms inside the, basically like fixed inside the flats and just wanted to get some insights from you from officers about how acceptable that, yeah, so there are these bedrooms kind of set inside that just looks like it's going to be so dark and I don't really, I'm a bit uncomfortable with the how cramped that looks, and the third question is there's a night time active travel zone mentioned in the report and I don't know what that is and I'd like to know what that is, thank you. Thank you for the questions, just because it's on screen at the moment, just to clarify in terms of the bedrooms that you're concerned about, I think potentially maybe it's the ones that are off the balcony and they've got a window off the balcony, yeah they've got the single window off the balcony and they're like in the middle, so there's one bedroom, so it's the two middle units and it's the two middle bedrooms in the two middle units and they've got single beds in them, yeah, okay so I mean to note that they're south facing so they will obviously in terms of the aspect of the sun they will have good aspect of the sun, granted though they are sat behind a balcony, it's a common sort of I guess dilemma or like a planning sort of dilemma that we have in terms of the design of balconies and whether they should be inset or sort of projecting from the building, usually in terms of the aesthetic appearance and also sort of the general deliverability of the proposals, it makes sense to have them inset, obviously the knock on effect of having inset balconies is that the windows behind it and the rooms behind those windows don't experience as much daylight penetration as windows that would obviously be on the external facade of the building, nevertheless I think we're comfortable with the arrangement here, this is something that we would see in schemes of this nature whereby we'd have bedrooms like this with obviously it does have a window and with the proposals there was a BRE, so there's two types of tests we do, so we do the external neighbours in terms of the impact on them and also there's a BRE test that we do with respect to the quality of the internal residential accommodation and I mean Daniel, sorry are there details of that in the report? Yeah so I think 83% of the rooms assessed, 16% failed and these bedrooms are the ones that failed, yeah. So they fail in terms of the BRE or the visible sunlight? Well it's a different assessment, it's in terms of the penetration in terms of daylight for those types of rooms and it fails in terms of the internal illumination of those rooms. But while granted they fail, that's again on the scheme of this size to have, it's unlikely that we would ever achieve 100% in terms of the actual, because they are quite onerous tests and they've recently been upgraded to become more onerous and getting a compliance rate of about 83% I would say is a pretty good result actually. Obviously with schemes of this size, with all new residential development, it's tricky getting the right balance between delivery of good quality accommodation and the daylighting impacts. We actually throughout the design process on this, we were quite keen on the sort of decked access arrangement that the units have so that they are actually through units, so they have the southern aspects and the northern aspect onto the deck and obviously there's also those units around the corner and we pushed the design team to work quite hard I think in terms of what they would actually achieve in terms of the amount of aspect that these units have and again as Dan said in the presentation, we feel quite comfortable and quite positive about the actual residential quality in terms of the aspect of these units but granted there are tight spots and quite often there always will be these tight spots on a floor plan like this. The other questions, sorry I had a couple of, another question about the active travel zone and the race table outside. So I think the sort of limited information submitted in terms of sort of at this stage and obviously that would be sort of secured in terms of in consultation with highways, but you can sort of, the images, where is it, so yeah basically you can, where is it? Just while Daniel's looking for that, I mean it should be said obviously in the committee report we only select a limited number of drawings so obviously there's a full suite of drawings on the planning application and so the proposed ground floor does show where the race table will be on the highway. So yeah, so it's this section sort of in the corner of Nalsby Road and Caxton Grove. So it will be raised to the level of the pedestrian access directly to the south of the building. Okay thank you. Are there also plans, you said that there's some more drawings on the planning application, are there plans for Four Seasons Green available somewhere to look at? So at this stage the plans, the most detailed plan I think is the one that you previously shared on the screen in terms of the play space provision that would be on Four Seasons Green. With all of these details it's typically something that we work through at the conditions stage in consultation with our design team, our biodiversity team and then, no there's the one, that's behind. That forms part of the landscaping, so I'll show you on the screen, so this child's play space is in this location so that's sort of along here basically. So it's just a section, that child's play space is just a section of that landscaping. I wonder if... I'm a little bit worried because I've not had time to look at this properly, chair. Is this image available somewhere online? Yeah it should be on the cancer screen. I'm sorry for taking up so much time. I just took your microphone, I'm going to take another question, widely checking that, is that right? Thank you chair. So I'm a bit confused about the consultation and what has actually been consulted on and when the change from six storeys to seven to nine storeys actually happened. So can we be clear, because it's not really clear in the report, as to what has been consulted on at what stage, please? Thank you. So as we received the planning application, at planning application stage, the proposals were for the proposals that are presented to you tonight, so this part seven, part nine storeys. So in terms of our duty, our statutory duty, to consult the neighbours, to put a site notice up and to do the press notice, that was all on the basis of part seven, part nine storey. So neighbours of surrounding properties, the 200, I can't remember the exact figure, but they would have received that description of development through the door, as it would have been on the site notice and also in the press notice. So in terms of the statutory duty of the planning authority, that was all undertaken in terms of the up-to-date proposals. The confusion arises whereby the applicant, so obviously the council, but the applicant, when they undertook their public consultation prior to submission of the application, when they were consulting with residents' groups, they were talking about a different scheme, or not a different scheme, but a smaller scheme. So that's where the confusion arises, I think. That's really helpful, thank you. So then I guess my question to the applicant is, why have you increased it from six storeys to seven to nine storeys? Is that feedback from the consultation that you had? Is there another driver behind that? Why has that happened? Yeah, the driver behind it is to optimise the development on site, and to, as the council has a priority on housing needs, hence why the development was increased, because there was a -- Is it all right if I can stop you for a second? Natalie, do you want to come and take a seat, please? What, sorry? Sorry, I was just trying to ask -- You can't. Take a seat, please. Thank you. Sorry. It was to increase the capacity to meet the demand, as it was considered, it would be potentially acceptable following various studies undertaken or capacities, in terms of technical reports. Okay. And is that the only thing that's changed? Is it just the height, and the number, presumably the number of, um, uh, accommodated number of units? You're correct. It's the height and additional units. So how many additional units are coming through from the increase in the height, and what are they? Are they, like, one beds, two beds, four beds? I can't remember the additional units. It's from 26. We have our architects here, who can give you the precise number, but I think it was 20-something. It's 26. 26 units, with the six-storey scheme, and as Peter has said, we felt there was an opportunity to increase beyond that, having done a lot of technical assessment work and examined all the impacts, we felt we could just try and optimize the housing capacity beyond 26 units. So we've essentially gone up to part 7, part 9 storeys, and as a result, we've also sought to increase the amount of family-sized dwellings, so we have 14 percent, that's, like, 14 units within the developments, which is roughly 40 percent of the total provision. Okay, thank you. So it would be useful to know how many of those additional 10 units, what were the size of them. But going back to sort of daylight and sunlight impact, the major adverse impact, would that have been the same at that six-storey level, and/or has that assessment been made? So at this stage, so when the applicant, prior to submitting it, the applicant team were engaged in pre-application discussions with the Council, and so these previous iterations of the scheme at six storeys, or even different iterations of the scheme, came to us. But whilst we always typically ask for daylight, sunlight to be provided as part of the pre-application response, or part of the pre-application materials that we receive, I don't think in this instance we ever actually received the daylight/sunlight. So to be categoric, I can't, but the like, I mean, it is likely, I mean, it's fairly certain that they are worse, because, but I wouldn't be able to quantify by how much they are worse, because of the additional height. Obviously you can picture the relationship between, particularly the building to the north, you can picture the relationship if the building was six storeys versus if the building was nine storeys. Obviously, if you're looking out of your windows, that's going to have an impact on the amount of daylight you can see. But to quantify that, it's, we were unable to do that. Thank you, and I understand that, and yeah, I'm really, something doesn't feel right about this, I've got to be honest. Like if this wasn't, if this wasn't, if the Council wasn't the applicant, would we have taken the same approach? Would we have allowed them to submit an application without the daylight and sunlight assessments? Would we have allowed them to not do their consultation with that change, with that change of height? We've assessed this application like we would any other. We take into account all of the material planning considerations and come to a view for my recommendation. The specific point about not having the daylight, sunlight pre-application, that's pretty normal. We always ask for it, because it is very informative, to help us understand the impacts of the proposals. But for whatever reason, it's quite unusual that we actually get it. So it's always something we're, with all kinds of applicants, we're saying please, please, please can we have it? And quite often they don't provide it to us, because to be fair to applicants, they don't want to like give us the detail until they've frozen the design and actually decided what it is that they're going to submit a planning stage, so they won't give us the actual concrete details of that stage, because obviously they've got to employ consultants and there's fees involved in that. So they kind of wait until they're actually at a design freeze, so to speak, before they provide us the details. So I don't think there's anything untoward with that and anything different to how we would have treated it were it a non-council applicant. Sorry, I misunderstood. When you said pre-application, I thought you said application. So then my other question is around, so one of the objectors, Mr Dunmore, made reference to the quality review panel, and I can't see that phrase in the report, so is it the conservation and design advisory panel, is that what you're referring to? Yeah, so that's actually an error in the report in terms of the name of the panel, that's the old name of the panel, we updated it to be the quality review panel. However, there is an oversight in the report in terms of, I think we have to admit that the feedback from the quality review panel is not in the report, nevertheless, just to give you an understanding of that feedback, the feedback was very much in line with the feedback from our conservation and design officers in terms of, they also agreed that the scheme was too high, and then they agreed that the principle of a building of height on the site was acceptable, but at the height that they saw it at, they thought it was too high, and they identified other issues in terms of, again, quality of residential units, so this was undertaken prior to the application stage, so I think the applicant worked through a lot of the quality of residential issues, nevertheless, that isn't in the report, that's an omission that we've only just realised, so we accept that that's an error, but the thrust of the comments in those respects are that the proposals were higher than the quality review panel would have liked, but again, it hasn't changed our assessment of the proposals in terms of, we're of the view that, yes, the proposals do constitute a tall building outside of a tall building zone, and they are proposals that are taller than the surrounding built form, but given what we consider the exceptional circumstances of the scheme in terms of the delivery of 100% affordable housing, capped that social rent, the significant amount of family sized units, we're of the view that, overall, we would still recommend approval for the proposals. If I could just come in, Paul, I mean, we, I think we have no issue, let's say it was an oversight, it wasn't reported, which we just, say, spotted in the meeting today, and we can only apologise for that, we'd have no issue putting the QRP comments on the planning register, I don't think that raises any concerns. When we do see them, there is just sort of a note of warning that actually the QRP took an unusual, it wasn't a full QRP, it was just what we call a chairs callover, and they actually kind of explored something which wasn't put before them, which was the idea of, they thought, from their own volition, they took it at the view that it might be better that the development came forward on four seasons green itself, and I have to say officers didn't share, the development management team certainly didn't share that view, but when we do put it on the register you will see those comments. Just to give a fuller flavour of that, it was, the development would be on the four seasons green and then the open space re-provided where the ball court and the community centre was, which was an unusual take, but I would reiterate that that was an unusual take, that is not the reason why they are not reported, that's just a genuine oversight why they are not reported. Yeah. Paul, do you want to comment? Yeah. Chair, I just have found some information in relation to Councillor Besson's question about what was the difference between the housing mix in the pre-application consultation and then what was actually submitted. So in terms of family housing, the 26 unit scheme, six storeys, had three three bedroom properties and three four bedroom properties. This proposal has ten three bedroom properties and four four bedroom properties, so there's quite a significant increase in the family component. So I suppose you could draw a conclusion that by increasing the height, it's allowed the applicant to optimise the amount of family accommodation within the scheme. Councillor. Thank you. I just want to come back to pay space and I know it's been discussed, but I would really like to understand, so the four, I don't really call it the open green space there, but the green space, I'll stick to what I call it, the green space. You're re-providing that green space, am I correct in saying that? Yes, so the open space, the green space will not be developed on other than to accommodate child play space. Okay. And the Mooga will be developed on? So the Mooga that is down the road? No, the Mooga that's an existing one. That would be lost. And that's not being re-provided? That's not being re-provided, but there is a sum to be agreed and a scope of works to be agreed to improve the Mooga that is down Moundsbury Road which will be secured through the planning applications. So essentially, I think I'm just trying to work out whether there is additional space that will be provided with this big nine-storey development where we're looking at more children and families coming into the area. No, no. So it would be the current green space with the loss of the Mooga pitch completely and no additional green space or child space for additional people? Publicly accessible? No. There is a strip of green space to the north of proposals, a narrow strip. That's not publically accessible. So you're correct in what you're saying. Okay. Brilliant. Thank you. Thank you. Just a very short question, and I would appreciate if you could just, the summary, I just want to know about the consultation was measured times by control Asma and others. Did you follow, I'm sure you have a minimum standard or a standard of consultation that you, you know, you do every application. So did you, from your opinion, did you follow the council guideline for the consultation that I think a couple of consultations went through? Did you follow the council guideline that which covers the planning system? Yes. So we have what we call the statement of community involvement, which sets out how we consult on planning applications or various types of applications. And with this application it sets out the sort of area around the site that you should consult. Absolutely, we consulted in accordance with that, and that resulted in 237 letters being out based on an area that we plot in accordance with what it says in the statement of community involvement. And also the statement of community involvement details the requirements for a site notice and a press notice, and we undertook the consultation in accordance with that. Thank you. That's what I wanted to know. The next thing is talking about the building itself, the development, in order to, because it's quite close to the train line, is it fronting the building or behind? But is there any, what measure did you take to sort of soundproofing and for new tenants to move in without complaining that, you know, is there anything likely to happen? The application was consulted on with the council's environmental health officers in respect of noise, and they've reviewed the submitted noise assessment and recommended conditions in relation to sort of ensuring that future occupiers would have sufficient noise mitigation. So the details will be submitted to ensure that that would happen prior to occupation. Can we come back to Councillor Natalie's question? I'm all right. I've not been able to find the plan in the documents. I want to maybe suggest that we consider postponing the decision, but I'm seeing lots of shaking heads. But it's, for me, I think I've not really had enough time to consider it. So I think -- >> Is there anything, because we do have the officers and the applicant here, is there anything they could answer for? So I'd like the officers to indicate in the planning application documents on the website where the plan for the Four Seasons Green can be found, but also, like, maybe there's some more information about the design that's been missed out of the report that we need to consider a little bit more. And the consideration about the consultation. So I think there are just a couple -- there's been a lot of discussion here. We've taken a lot of time. I think maybe it's a reasonable suggestion to postpone. Thank you. Ian, would you want to comment on this? I think if Councillor Leung-Feit's suggesting the matter be deferred to another meeting, we need clear reasons for it. And as she's made that suggestion now, Chair, bearing in mind we're now two and a half hours into the meeting, and you've still got to go to debate, if she had a seconder, I'd suggest that you put that to the vote, whether it be deferred for those specific reasons. If it's lost, you can then move to the debate and to vote. Do you want to -- did you have any questions on -- I forgot my question. Okay. All right. We will -- do you want to switch your mic off? We will go on a quick vote if Councillor Natalie's debate, Councillor Natalie's question, if anyone wants to defer the item, deferred by Councillor Asma, so we'll go to a vote. Can I add another reason why I would like it to be deferred. So I agree with what Councillor Natalie has said, but also I do think that there is, you know, it's not by anyone's fault, but there's been a bit of omission of information within this application and which is, you know, it happens, it's -- we're all human, we make mistakes, I think there's that, and also the fact that I've been -- there's been a paragraph within that that is not correctly written in who currently holds the lease and so forth, I would like that to be corrected as well, whilst we are making our decision to actually just have a very clear report that gives us all the information that we need, so that we can consciously then vote on it, so I would like that to be added to it. So those who would like to defer this application, can I see your hands up, please? So that will fall -- so we'll carry on with the application. Does anyone have any more questions on this application, apart from what we have already discussed? Councillor Kibre? Thank you, Mr. Chair. My last question to Buckingham. Does this development comply with our local plan and London plan as well? Thank you, Councillor, very good question. The application broadly complies with the development plan, but there are aspects where it departs from it, and probably the most notable one is the council's tour building policy. So we've been quite clear about that, that it doesn't comply with the policy to all buildings, but we've explained why we've accepted the departure from that policy in terms of optimising the site for social housing, particularly because this is 100% social housing that's being proposed. So that's part of the planning balance. But generally speaking, in other aspects, it does comply with policies in the development plan. As you can see in the report, where there are policies that it's fully compliant with and where there are policies that are partly compliant with, I think that's quite, you know, members of the committee will be aware that all planning applications, very rarely will you find something that ticks 100% of all of them, but that's why we present how we've come to a planning balance, and it's up to you as a committee to see whether you agree with our - the way that we've interpreted it or whether you have a different view. So I hope that answers the question, thank you, chair. Any more questions? Councillor Afzane. Lastly, have we - Mansbury Road is usually quite congested, and with the new uptake of residents and I'm sure we're going to have residents with disabilities and stuff, have we considered maybe parking measures for the new residence? So the application proposes two blue bay budgets, one for the residents and one for the community centre users. And anything for my cyclist neighbours? So there is a cycle storage within the residential component, and also there's external cycle storage sort of in front of the community centre. Just to be clear, there's full compliance in terms of cycle provision for the residential, and I think we will look to deal with it by condition to provide additional cycling for the community centre. Any more questions? Okay. Would members like to share their thoughts or debate on the application? Thank you, chair. I think given my proposal to defer that wasn't carried, I think on balance, for me, I think I'm minded to abstain on this application, because I think there are just too many unanswered questions at this stage. I'm sure that they could be answered satisfactorily. I think, you know, and it's a difficult - in general, it's a - I think the application is to be applauded, it's, you know, very much needed social housing, and I think that's really important, but I think it's also really important that the local community feels as though they have been listened to, and for me, it seems like there are too many things that have maybe gone wrong in that process, including informing us as councillors properly in this report. So for me, I'm abstaining, just because I think, yeah, for those reasons. Thank you, chair, and I would add to that as well, so I think there's a couple of things that I'm - that concern me, so firstly, the non-compliance of policy. I think there's some keen on compliance areas around the tall buildings, and I think it's a shame that we haven't seen or had the opportunity to see the feedback from the quality design panel that we discussed. I think as well, as a council, I think we should be delivering social housing, but we shouldn't be taking away play space in order to deliver it. We're currently, as a council, consulting with residents around creating more play space, and yet we're taking it away, it feels counterintuitive to me, and not something that I feel is easily justifiable. So yeah, I am minded to, given that we're not deferring, I'm minded to vote against this application. Now we will be moving on to the votes. Before we move on to the votes, I would just like to ask Paul and Ian just to share one final advice before we move to the vote. Thank you very much, chair. I want to listen very carefully to the questions and debate from the committee, and I think committee have recognised, as have officers, that the issues are finally balanced in this particular case. I think the key sort of argument, I suppose, in favour of the development, noting that there are some adverse impacts, but not sufficient to recommend refusal, in our view, but also weighed on the other side of that is the optimisation of the site, not just for affordable housing, but it's the family housing component, which is very generous in this scheme, which inevitably leads to a certain mass and a certain bulk having to be created in order to deliver those homes. So it is finally balanced, but we don't believe that the harms that we've identified would be anywhere near sufficient to warrant a recommendation for refusal. So I think that would be my summing up. And just in terms of sorry, point, chair, in terms of four seasons, green, although Councillor Bienvenidos talked about kind of the layout of that and how that would be sort of formed in terms of the landscape design, condition 23 of the recommendation requires details of the equipment to be provided in all the play space, so all of that detail is secured by a condition on the planning permission. So there is the opportunity then to kind of look at that in more detail as the condition is submitted if planning permission is granted this evening. Thank you, chair. Thank you very much. Can I see all those in favour of the application? Can you remain your hands up, if anyone in favour? Any abstention? Paul, can you please confirm the committee decision? Thank you, chair. So on a majority vote of 6 in favour and one against and two abstentions, the committee has voted to grant planning commission for the redevelopment of the site at Caxton Grove in accordance with the details set out in item 5.2 of the agenda and there were no additional conditions recommended for this one. Thank you, chair. Thank you very much. We will take a ten minutes contract break. Thank you very much, chair. Thank you very much and welcome back, everyone. Just a quick one. If these meetings go over three hours, we need to ask the committee members if you agree to carry on with the rest of the application. The rest of the applications are very, very quick ones. So can we all agree to carry on? Yes. Is that all right? Yes. We will whiz through it, yes? Should we take it to a vote? Okay. Let's do it quick then, yeah? Agenda item 6.1 relates to other planning matters. And I invite Paul Beckenham to introduce a preapplication report which is the site at the former Bishopsgate goods yard Brierworth Street E1, pages 125 to 132. Thank you, chair. So this is a slightly different type of report and I'll just go through this really quickly. So the report is aiming to just agree a procedure going forward for dealing with the Council's observations to the Greater London Authority, GLA, on any reserve matters submitted at Bishopsgate goods yard. I'm sure members will know that the goods yard is a large strategic site and it straddles the boundary between Hackney and Tower Hamlets just off Brick Lane and Bethel Green Road. Outline planning commission and listed building consent for a major mixed use development was granted in 2022 by the mayor of London. Now previously the strategic development committee several years ago actually resolved to object to the outline application and also resolved that if the mayor of London granted planning commission, any of the what we call reserve matters applications that essentially plug in all the detail should be referred to them rather than what normally happens and be delegated to officers. But as well as granting outline planning commission, the mayor of London also resolved that they would continue to be the local planning authority and make decisions on the reserve matters applications as they come in for each phase of the goods yard. So hence our role as a council and indeed Hackney's role as a council with the reserve matters is not to actually make the decisions but is actually to act more like a consultee and put forward our representations and observations to the GLA. Now normally observations to other planning authorities are dealt with by officers under delegated powers but be mindful of what the previous SDC thought was going to happen, what they expected to happen. I think we would feel that it doesn't seem quite right that we would simply deal with those under delegated powers so we wanted to just bring a report to you to say that we think what we would do is given that most of these reserve matters would, if you think of them as individual applications, probably would fall within the scope of your committee, that we felt it was appropriate for your committee going forward to receive those observations and to effectively have the opportunity to confirm that you agree with our thoughts before we send our observations over to the GLA. So it's really a sort of procedural one, it's a little bit different but we just felt it was important to bring that report. My colleague Mr. Weir does have a few images that you can just share with you in case you're not familiar with what happened at the goods yard in terms of the outline planning permission but I'm just mindful of time so I don't know whether perhaps if we could invite Ricky just to share some of the more pertinent slides and not necessarily everything in the presentation if that's okay with you, Chad. Over to Ricky Webber, case officer, to present the application. Good evening, members. Just to clarify, members are not being asked to make any decisions on development tonight but rather to formalise the process of dealing with future reserve matters, just to provide a brief overview. So this is the site in the west of the borough, Bethlehem Green Road and Scalia Street to the north, Bricklanes to the east, Shoreditch High Street and Commercial Road to the west and the railway line towards Liverpool Street to the south. This is the approved relevant site, shaded in red. Temporary use on the site, Box Park, Shoreditch and Power League Shoreditch, 28% of them are in Hackney to the west and 72% are in Tower Hamlets. This is the consented development, 346 to 500 new homes, 50% affordable housing, 139,000 square metres office space, 20,000 square metres retail, 12,000 hotel, 7,000 D1 and D2, includes a new public park as well. So parts of the development in outline require reserve mass applications for the approval of full details. And this image is illustrative purposes only, showing the maximum parameter building outlines. The tallest building to the top is office development in Hackney. All of the housing falls within Tower Hamlets, whereas in Hackney it's predominantly office. The site is split into a number of plots, including those in outline. Reserve mass applications will need to be submitted. These images show the consented development consists of maximum and minimum parameters, therefore the previous image is only indicative. The final scale and appearance will need to be decided at reserve matter stage in accordance with approved parameter plans and design guide. The applications were first submitted in 2014. The mayor of London took over determination in September 2015, after which time SDC decided if they had control of the applications, they would have refused them. Subsequently amendments were submitted, significantly reducing the scale and quantum of development. In November 2020, SDC resolved to raise objections to the GLA and also resolved that future reserve matters applications shall be determined by the committee. When approving the application in March 2022, the GLA confirmed they will be keeping determination of reserve matters applications to themselves, therefore Tower Hamlets will only be able to provide thorough observations to the GLA. Just a couple more. Officers recommend that thorough observations are brought back to committee to confirm with members in light of the high level of public interest for the site and its scale of development. This image shows the different areas of the site at platform level consented in detail or in outline, whereby RMAs would be required to be approved by the GLA, who would request thorough observations from Tower Hamlets and Hackney. Examples of thorough observations could include scale of development being more towards the minimum rather than the maximum parameters, quality of new homes or not being in accordance with the approved design guide. It should be made clear at this time that thorough observations are usually delegated to officers. However, officers consider that bringing these matters to SDC would be the most appropriate considering the previous resolution of SDC. In conclusion, officers recommend that reports on reserve matters for Bishop's Gate goods yard will be referred to SDC to formalize Tower Hamlets observations to the Mayor of London where the scale of the matters to be reported would fall within either committee's terms of reference. If this resolution is not agreed, then thorough observations will be delegated solely to officers. Thank you. Do members have any questions related to this scheme for Ricky or the officer? Thank you. Natalie. Yeah, thank you, Chair. Sorry, I just wanted to be really clear on what are the parameters of the comments that we're allowed to give. Yes, very good question. So the reserve matters are, if we just go back a couple of slides, I think we have them on the screen. So in law there's only certain things that you can sort of reserve. So in this case we would be looking at things like appearance, access, landscaping, layout, scale. I suppose the other side of the coin are things that we can't change now because they're effectively set in stone are things like, you know, overall affordable housing and the mix of uses and those sorts of things have all been sort of set with the outline planning commission. Any more questions? Is there anything -- yeah, that's all. So what will the stages be for this and when do you suspect comments will need to give comments? I think it's the first reserve matters application has now been submitted and affects one of the plots that straddles Hackney and Tower Hamlets. So we're currently going through that ourselves as officers, deciding sort of, you know, what we think about those issues that I've talked about and, I mean, I appreciate on one level it feels like we're sort of a little bit constrained in what we can do, but that's just the nature of the planning process. But we're just mindful that I think the previous committee recognized that this is such a large scale big development that impacts some people and they felt that it was important because the outline permission effectively, although there's an awful lot of imagery with it, in reality that detail is plugged in by these applications and it's important that there should be proper scrutiny of those, even though ultimately the decision will be made by officers on behalf of the mayor of London rather than in either Tower Hamlets or Hackney. That's just the nature of how the process has gone. But it's just to try and introduce that extra level of scrutiny, I suppose. So in terms of the timescale for that, I think it would be at some point over the summer period that we'd be able to bring the observations back to committee, I think it's fair to say, Ricky. Yeah. And then that will form the basis of, if you like, a report or a letter that will go to the GLA saying this is what Tower Hamlets thinks about it and they will have to take that on board. In a way, it's about the council doing what it can within the constraints that we've got to try and influence the best possible outcome for, as I said, what is a huge development in this part of Tower Hamlets. Thank you. We'll take it to a vote. I guess the way I would ask the vote is by saying if we would like to carry on working with the officers. I suppose the alternative is if the committee hadn't agreed, then it would have defaulted to kind of how we would normally deal with things under the constitution, which we would still be sending observations, but it would be delegated to senior officers, but I think we feel this is the best way forward, given the quite long and complex history of this particular site. Thank you very much. Agenda item 6.2 is our final planning matter. I now invite Paul to introduce a preapplication report which relates to a London legacy development cooperation, LLDC in trim delegation scheme, pages 1, 3, 3, to 1, 3, 8. Now invite Paul to present the application. Thank you, Paul. Thank you, Chair. So the -- I did have a presentation, but let me just talk through it, because it might take me longer to load up the presentation than it does to explain it, but the London legacy development corporation was established in 2012 after the London Olympics. It was set up as, if you like, a regeneration body to take forward regeneration of the areas around the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, and at the time it was -- it's a mayoral development corporation, so it was set up by the London mayor under provisions in the Localism Act, and at the time it was also given town planning powers. So it has powers to make its own local plan, and it effectively decides planning applications within its area. On the 1st of December this year, those planning powers will be transferred back to Tower Hamlets and the other three growth boroughs, which are Hackney, Newham, and Waltham Forest, and that will be done through a piece of legislation that we expect to be laid before parliament in July, and then it's secondary legislation, so it's not really debated, it's just no one objects, and then it goes through. There's been an awful lot of collaborative work across the four authorities affected and with the LLDC about how to make that planning powers transition as smooth as it possibly can be, and one of the proposals that's been put forward is that rather than waiting until the 1st of December, three months before that, any new application submitted to the LLDC would actually be delegated to Tower Hamlets and the other three boroughs to deal with on their behalf, and if you'd like the logic behind that is when you're so close to transition, there isn't a great deal of sense in taking on more work, it allows the LLDC to focus on the applications that they currently have on hand and try and get through what they're already dealing with, it allows the boroughs to start to have a bit more influence in their area, it provides a bit of certainty for applicants so you don't end up in situations, for example, where application gets submitted to the LLDC, isn't determined halfway through, gets handed over to Tower Hamlets, so you don't get that sort of continuity of officers, so in order to establish that, a proposal is for what's called an interim delegation scheme, this is done again under existing legislation in the Localism Act, so there's precedent for this elsewhere in London, and the LLDC are taking a paper to their board in May to establish this, we looked at what is the governance arrangement, because this is quite novel, so what would be the governance arrangement in Tower Hamlets to agree an interim scheme of delegation like this, and it turns out that the only body that can formally agree it is actually full council. Now, planning decisions are effectively delegated by full council down to the two committees, Development and SDC, and to officers, so we always have to work backwards, so as officers we think this is a very sensible, pragmatic idea, but we need to be certain that your committee, L&D Development Committee, think that as well, because it's quite possible, I know it's only a three month period, but in theory you could be asked to determine an application that's in the LLDC area within that time. There is also a secondary element to this, that if for any reason the legislation that needs to go through parliament to turn off the planning powers and hand them back was delayed, so for example if there was a general election call that interrupted parliamentary business, by having the scheme of delegation already established you could actually just extend that until the legislation goes through and catches up, so if necessary it could be extended after the 1st of December, which is the date that planning powers are supposed to transfer back. So I hope I've explained it in a way that sort of makes sense, and I know colleagues, some colleagues are more familiar with this than others, and indeed colleagues who are on Development Committee will have heard a very similar report a few weeks ago, and Development Committee voted for the scheme of delegation. So if you are minded to agree that we should have this, then the next stage is that in July it would go to full council with just a short report to say the two planning committees and officers would like council to vote on this and agree to bring in the interim scheme of delegation. As I said it's only for three months potentially longer if there's any delay with the legislation, so it gives us a bit of a safety net if things don't quite go as we expected on the 1st of December. So Chair, I hope that helps, I'm very happy to take any questions, again I appreciate the slightly unusual report. Any questions? Before we move to the vote I will ask Paul to ask a question of the vote. Well yes, in terms of the vote, the vote is where the recommendation is. Did you say only three months? Yes, sorry, it's a three month period, so the aim that everyone's been working to is that planning powers will formally be transferred on the 1st of December, so I guess one option would be do nothing and you just allow almost like a sort of a full stop to happen on the 1st of December. What this is, is about trying to bring that period forward by three months, but only for new applications submitted, so the LLDC will carry on dealing with whatever they've got on hand, but anything new would come to Tower Hamlets and indeed the other three boroughs. Probably what I should have said is that the other boroughs also agree this is a good idea and they're also doing similar processes to what we're doing tonight and working towards a decision to formally have a delegation scheme from the LLDC to themselves. Can we all agree? If you're happy with it then that sounds fine. Thank you very much. Thank you Paul for your time. Officers have made a note of issues raised by committee members which will inform both free application decision. I'd like to acknowledge that this is our final meeting for this year and it has been a real honour and privilege to chair this committee. I'm grateful to my cross-party committee members and officers for their contribution to these meetings. That concludes the business of this meeting. Thank you very much everyone.