Transcript

Good evening and welcome to the Strategic Development Committee meeting. My name is Councillor Ayman Rahman and I will be chairing this meeting. This meeting is being held in person. Committee members and key participants are present in the meeting room. Only the committee members present in the meeting room will be able to vote. Other persons may also attend remotely. Committee members and others who have chosen to attend remotely have been advised by the committee officers that should technical difficulty prevent full participation in the meeting, it may proceed in the absence if I feel it is necessary. I will ask everyone to introduce themselves shortly, but before I do this, I would like to briefly confirm protocol for addressing the meeting, including virtual meeting procedures. Participants must address the meeting through myself as a chair. If you are participating online and you experience any technical difficulties, you must contact the democratic service officer as soon as possible via email. However, officers may not be able to respond to such requests. You should keep your microphones and cameras switched off at all times. Please do not use the meeting chat facility. Any information added to the chat facility will be discarded. I will now ask the committee members to introduce themselves. Please can you also state any declaration of interest that you may have in the agenda items and the nature of the interest. Just to declare, I have been receiving emails just regarding today's agendas. Thank you. I will start from my right. Good evening, my name is Councillor Khan and I represent Blackwell Cubic Town. I have nothing to declare. Thank you. Good evening and welcome everyone. I am Councillor Gulam Kibriya Chidri from Poplar Ward and I have nothing to declare. Good evening everyone. I am Councillor Silik Ahmed. I represent Spitalfies in Ballytown Ward, nothing to declare. I am a feeder busting counsellor for Island Gardens, nothing to declare. I am a substitute to Amir just to hear item 6.1 which I believe is going to be heard first. Thank you. Councillor Koubirussain, Nori Pia. Councillor Shugo Hussain from the south, nothing to declare. Councillor Sabina Khan, Mai Leng, nothing to declare. Thank you Councillors. Agenda item 2 is minutes from previous meeting. Can we approve the minutes from 9th of October, 2024 meeting? Thank you. Agenda item 3 are the recommendation of procedure 4, hiring, objection and meeting guidance. I will now ask Paul Beckenham, head of democratic service management planning and building control to present the guidance. Before I do that, Paul, let me just. Justina, any apologies for tonight? Yes, chair, I received apologies from Councillor Iqbal Hussain. Okay, sorry. Silik Ahmed is the substitute for Mr. Yes, Paul, over to you. Thank you. Thank you, chair. Good evening. Good evening, committee members and members of the public and officers who are joining us at the meeting today. So this item on the agenda sets out the standing advice for determining planning applications, including legal advice that decisions must be made in accordance with the relevant development plan policies and any other material planning considerations. When we come to the items for decision, the process will go in the following order. So I will introduce the item with a brief description of the application and a summary of the recommendation. Then officers will present the report. We would normally then hear from registered speakers, and I think I'm correct in saying, Justina, there are no registered speakers this evening. So you can read that if you need to. But then the committee will ask points of clarification from officers, including any questions, debates on further advice, and then the committee will reach a decision based on a majority vote, and I'll confirm that decision back to the chamber and those joining online. Just a few other points. So, for example, if the committee proposed changes to certain aspects of the officer recommendation, for example, to add, delete or amend the planning conditions or obligations, then the task of formalizing those changes is delegated to the corporate director of housing and regeneration. In the event that the committee do not accept the officer recommendation, they must state their planning reasons and then propose and agree an alternative course of action. The committee may be adjourned briefly for further planning and legal advice, and the task of formalizing the committee's alternative decision is also delegated to the corporate director of housing and regeneration. Finally, if the committee proposed to make a decision that would seem to go against the provisions of the development plan or could have other legal implications, then the item may be deferred for further report from officers dealing with the committee's proposed course of action. There is an update report that's been published this evening that deals with a few matters that have arisen since the main agenda was published last week, and I'll come to that when we deal with the individual items. Thank you very much, chair. >> Thank you, Paul. Agenda item for deferred item. There are no deferred items for the committee to consider. I've decided to vary the order of business for this evening's meeting. I would take item 6.1 first because this item needs to be considered by committee members who were present on 9th of October SCC meeting and some of these members will not be taking part in the members in the reminder of the agenda. At the meeting on 9th of October, the committee resolved to grant the planning permission for the redevelopment of the Whitechapel road development site for the life science development Whitechapel road, London E12BB. The resolution was subject to certain amendments to the proposed section 106 ahead of the terms. The committee were advised that if the application were unable to agree the procedure amended heads of terms or if there were any other legal issues that the report would be brought back for further consideration. I now ask Paul Beckenham and Ian Austin to present the report back. Thank you, Ian and Paul.

I have a question. Is everyone sitting there? You won't be able to -- okay, that's fine. Councillor Hussain was there. Mufi Dabas did myself. Councillor Surak Ahmed. But I'm guessing Councillor Hussain is absent. So it should be okay. Okay. That's fine, yeah. The committee is call it. So you can take the decision. Thank you, chair. We've just got a very short presentation to go along with the report that's in your pack. You will remember, I'm sure, the details of the application. So I don't propose to go through that again. Although if you do have any questions, we have got some of those earlier slides available as well. But this slide is just showing you the general layout that the application proposes with the various different blocks that would be developed in the application site just south of where we're sitting here today. So turning to the committee resolution, on the 9th of October, the committee resolved a grant planning commission, but it was subject to some changes to two of the proposed planning applications. You will remember there were rather large number of different planning applications, but there was a focus on changes to two of them, which was a financial contribution and the affordable work space and also a clarification with regard to the community involvement centre. The affordable work space amendment to secure a financial contribution was delegated to the corporate director, and the committee, Mr. Chair, said agreed that a report be brought back if there were any issues around dealing with those amendments, given that they were things that hadn't been discussed previously with the applicant and we did have some advice around policy on one of them. This slide just summarises those again. So the first one was the two and a half million pound planning contribution to be worded more flexibly towards community health and wellbeing projects and programmes. It previously included reference amongst other things to women's health. The second one was to clarify the community involvement and is being offered as a 20 year lease, peppercorn rents and the council has exclusive use and oversight of the space and can rent it out. And the third one was the affordable work space requirement be amended to provide a commuted sum in lieu of the affordable work space and delegate responsibilities to agree the financial amount to the corporate director. So that's where we were at the end of the last meeting. Since then the applicant has sought their own legal advice and the council has also sought legal advice separately. So we have both approached council to do that separately, I should say, and different council were involved, but they both came to the same conclusions. So this is primarily, I should say, around Amendment 3, so the affordable work space. So what they were saying in summary is the development plan policy tells us the correct approach to affordable work space and absent a compelling justification for departure from it based on site specific facts, departure from that policy framework wouldn't be justified and then the logical flow from that is that Amendment 3 would then fail the tests for planning obligations set out in regulation 122 of the community infrastructure levy regulations. The applicant also said clarify their overall position. So on the first one, whilst it wasn't primarily a point of law, the applicant did have a strong preference to retain the reference to women's health. On the second one, the applicant has helpfully clarified the arrangements that they would propose around it, so a lease would be offered to the council for the community involvement plan. It would be a peppercorn, so that's a notional rent and it would be used for health-related initiatives, so it would be up to the council to determine how that's run. There was a question from the committee about subsequent lettings, which in principle, yes, but it would need to be subject to an approved lettings strategy. And then the final one, the affordable work space, really just reiterating what I've already said about the legal position on that, and as a result the applicant wouldn't be able to enter into the 106 agreement for that, which arguably could lead to an issue of having to refuse planning permission. So just now trying to bring all that together, so this table, the first column is what the committee proposed, the second column is the applicant's position, which I've just talked about, and the third column is our advice on how we can sort of move forward. So on the First Amendment we're suggesting further amendments, the wording that re-inserts women's health but also other community groups' health and wellbeing, but also keeps the more flexible reference to projects and programmes. The reason behind this is when you take a step back, it came from discussions with the applicant and the Director for Public Health, and you'll remember some of the conversations we had at the meeting around some of the disparities between men and women's health in this borough, but also that kind of extends to other groups in the community as well, so not just gender but other defining characteristics. So what we're trying to do is strike a balance between what the Director of Public Health felt would be most welcome in terms of when that money eventually might come forward, but also trying not to dilute the emphasis on women's health. The second one is a bit more straightforward, the only change there is just the insertion, if you look at the very final bullet point on the right-hand side in bold, that lessing is to be in accordance with the approved lessing strategy, so that's something that would be worked through in the 106 drafting. And then just the final one, point three, again just to reiterate, because relevant policies and guidance don't allow the amendment that was proposed, that obligation wouldn't meet the legal tests, and so on that one we're suggesting it reverts back to what was originally recommended by officers and agreed by the applicant, which if you recall was an Affordable Workspace offer that went substantially beyond what's required by policy, it reflected the unique nature of this development, it included, as well as conventional workspace included, laboratory workspace, and it also included some deep discounts beyond the usual 10% required by current policy, and also it was for 25 years with a further option to review after that, so it reflected a) the unique nature of the development, but b) also trying to add to that package of benefits that helps to mitigate some of the other impacts associated with the scheme. So just to conclude, what are we suggesting the committee does? So this again has come from the council advice, but also has been discussed with the council's monitoring officer, so we would recommend firstly to revoke the resolution taken on the 9th of October, so that takes us back a step. We do invite you to agree those three sort of minor amendments and clarifications that we have suggested, and then to consider the application again, obviously the recommendation is to grant planning permission, subject not just to those three amendments but the whole list of obligations and the whole list of conditions which we have reproduced in the report in case you need to refer to them, because they are all relevant, it's just that for today we are just focusing on those three where changes were proposed. That, Chair, is all I have to say at the moment, very happy to take questions and comments, but also I should probably allow Ian just to make a comment, because obviously a lot of this hangs on legal principles as well as planning principles. Ian, thank you. Thank you, Chair. Yes, the principle that you had explained to you earlier this evening when Paul introduced how planning decisions are taken is that they must be in accordance with the local plan and/or material considerations. When granting planning you obviously look at other issues which might necessarily be able to be controlled by conditions, conditions affecting the land itself, the build of the land and how the development is going to be built out and used. And there are other impacts which you are probably all familiar with, for example the impacts on highways, open space, and you are familiar with reports asking for contributions in section 106 agreements for affordable housing, open space, car-free developments and the like. And the affordable work space is one such provision which is caught in section 106 agreements. And to meet the test to be included in such an agreement, the obligation you are looking to secure must be necessarily reasonable and directly related in scale and size to the actual development itself. So to pick an absurd example, if something were taking place, a development were taking place in Canary Wharf, there is no impact of the development upon the north of the borough, so that development will fall foul. We have here clear policy obligation on a commercial development that requires affordable work space to be provided and we clear throughout that there has to be the exceptional circumstances to move away from that. The procedure for tonight and the recommendation for tonight has been discussed with the monitoring officer and it is the appropriate way to provide planning permission in accordance with the steps set out on the slide. That would ensure that we have made as a committee a decision that is legal and is safe from challenge because there is no argument that it doesn't meet the requirements of our local plan. So unless there's any questions I think Paul and I may have said everything we need to say. Thank you Paul and Ian. Do members have any questions for officers? Anyone else? Okay. Do members like to share their thoughts on the debate on the report? I just want to take the opportunity to thank officers for their work on this. I think I made my views really clear in the last committee meeting, so I appreciate the additional work that's had to go into getting additional clarification on this, so thank you. Thank you Mr Chair. In our last meeting, in principle we agreed this one but we want to try some amendment, but our council did take a lot of advice from the legal issues. Now I think we don't need to spend enough time because in principle we are agreed to this one and they take the legal issue everything. Now I think we will go for the boot. Can I see all those in favour of revoking the previous revolution? Can I see all those in favour of agreeing the changes to the held of terms as recommended in the officer's report? Thank you. Can I ask Paul to give the report on the votes? Can I see all those in favour of granting planning permission subject to the full list of planning obligation condition recommended by the officers and the section 106? Can I see those hands again, please? Paul, would you like to address that? Thank you very much, Chair. Just to recap, what's happened is that the committee has effectively taken the planning decision again, but based on some amendments proposed by officers which looked at what the committee asked for last time. We took legal advice, we discussed those with the applicant and we have advised accordingly. I'm grateful to the committee for dealing with this so expeditiously as well because I'm sure the applicant is very keen to move on to the next stages with the 106 and the Maryland and the referral. Thank you very much. Thank you. I think there might be a bit of changes. I'll give everyone a few minutes before. Hi, everyone. Thank you. Can we have the new members introducing themselves, please, and state any declaration of interest? Councillor Campbell who said nothing to declare. Thank you very much. Agenda item 5, our planning application for decision, we have three applications to consider this evening. Agenda item 5.1 is full planning application for development at 7 Barna Street, Woodworth. I invite Paul to introduce the application. Thank you, Paul. Thank you very much, chair. I think it's Brannon Street. It's a relatively new street part of the Woodworth development. So proposal 7 Brannon Street and the application is redevelopment of the site to provide purpose built student accommodation along with associated amenity space, class E floor space with the building up to 46 storeys with a basement together with a plant, car and cycle parking facilities, associated servicing access and landscaping and all associated ancillary works. This is an application that was subject to environmental impact assessment. So the outcome of the environmental statement has been taken into account in the recommendation to your committee. The recommendation is to grant planning permission subject to conditions and planning obligations and, of course, the stage 2 process referral process with the mayor of London. Chair, if I may, there is just an update report on this one. It's relatively self contained and it deals just with one particular issue. We'll see in the recommendation that there was one of the planning obligations is a financial contribution towards offsetting carbon emissions and we've had some advice back from the GLA and it's all it's a little bit technical in the update report, but in summary, the methodology that was originally used to calculate it isn't quite right for student accommodation. So what that's meant is that when you rerun the methodology and the figures correctly, it comes out with a different contribution, so the overall contribution that should be secured has gone up and is 342,867 pounds, but that's just because of the formula that sits behind it and some of the peculiarities of how this type of development is calculated. Other than that, just to say, you'll see in the presentation that this is an application for full planning permission, but it sits within a much wider master plan that you'll see in the presentation at Wood Wharf, which already has outline permission and is already well under construction and there are lots of completed buildings. This effectively is to kind of slot in a new development on one of the plots and that will be explained, I think, when the officers do their presentation. Thank you, Paul. I will now invite Nicholas, planning case officer, to present the application. Thank you, Nicholas. >> Thank you, Chair. Good evening, members. Good evening, members of the public in the room and at home. As Paul mentioned, this is a development for a new tower block in the Wood Wharf district of the Canary Wharf estate. The tower can be seen here in the middle of the image. It's a 46-storey tower block with two levels of basement, amenity spaces in the middle, bottom and top, and then 912 student bedrooms throughout. I'll show you this image just to give you an idea of what the building will look like and where it's placed as we go through the introduction of the presentation. As Paul mentioned, the site is within Wood Wharf, which is a new neighbourhood which attaches to the existing Canary Wharf estate shown here in blue with Wood Wharf shown here in yellow and the application site shown in red. Wood Wharf obtained outline planning permission in 2014 for a very wide-ranging master plan development with a number of different uses including offices, cultural facilities, new school, new primary school, sports facilities, medical facilities and of course residential. Shown here in green at the top is the North Quay development which is another part of the wider Canary Wharf estate which is just about to commence construction and it's important. I'll kind of explain why that's important a bit later. As mentioned, the Wood Wharf outline was granted back in 2014 for a number of different uses across various different plots across a very large site. Since then, the outline has been commenced and buildings have been constructed at pace and a number of the buildings are now occupied. There are a number of residential buildings along the south here and eastern edge with more commercial buildings located in the middle here and we've got our application site in the middle here in red next to the Blackwall Basin. The orange section is part of the application site but is just parts of the basement so the proposals within the orange section here are only below ground. These are just some images of the buildings which have been constructed at Wood Wharf already including the school in the top left here and some commercial buildings with ground floor commercial uses including restaurants, bars, cafes and the like. We've got residential in the bottom left here and this is the kind of more affordable area with a large park in the middle representing some of the open space within the site. And then on the right here is some more of the residential developments which have gone up showing the sheer number of units which have been provided and built already. So our application site here is shown in red. This is just the ground floor area. It fronts onto the Blackwall Basin to the north and then Brannon Street runs along to the south here. These are residential buildings with service apartments towards the front here and then other residential behind with residential currently under construction along the southern edge here. And then this is the application site when viewed from the north of the basin looking south showing the residential tower blocks and then the commercial uses here and then a service apartment building here. This building here next to the application site is going to be affordable rented accommodation. So in terms of consultation 294 letters were issued to residents of Wood Wharf and neighbouring businesses. Press notice was published and site notices were erected near the site. In total only two objections were received. One of those raised queries regarding the provision of car parking and the other raised concerns about the future of Lovegrove Walk which are a number of properties within the outline application site but don't actually have any impact on the present proposals. So turning to the building itself, the building is 46 storeys. The top storey here is an amenity floor which has kind of fitness studios, a gym, an external terrace and then there's student bedrooms all the way down to the ninth floor here. Within the building there are a mix of student bedrooms from studios to cluster rooms which have dedicated kitchen living diners. Level nine here there's another amenity floor which contains things like post and study spaces and then at the ground floor there is a commercial use. There's going to be a café type use and then there's also more student amenity space and study spaces. The café is located adjacent to the basin along the new boardwalk which runs all the way along or will run all the way along the basin. There will be landscaping either side of the building as well. The outline permission sets out various parameters for a building on the plot. The parameters for the building were for a building up to 190 metres tall in AOD terms but the proposal is only 150 metres, 151 I think it is tall which is significantly shorter than the parameters. The only other difference between the parameters is that the building steps out at level 10 by 2.25 metres. This is to allow for the floor layouts and to accommodate additional student bedrooms. Other than that the building is entirely in line with the parameters which set out at the outline stage and so there is sort of a baseline already set in terms of assessing things like neighbouring amenity and other impacts such as townscape and visual impacts. So officers are very satisfied that the proposed building meets all requirements as to amenity and other things but I'm happy to discuss those within any questions. The main focus of my presentation will be on the land use. These are the two main policies in relation to the land use. The current land use approved on the site is for standard C3 housing but the applicant is seeking to introduce student accommodation which is a different use and dealt with by different policies. So the two policies are SH1 and DH6 and the key parts in SH1 is that development should not undermine the supply of self-contained housing in particular family homes and then in student housing it should not compromise the supply of self-contained homes. These are very similar requirements but obviously worded slightly differently. In terms of what compromise and undermine mean it's relatively vague but generally it means that there shouldn't be kind of an existing approval for housing on the site or a site allocation to provide housing. So as I mentioned plot F1 here has approval for housing. However as also discussed a significant quantum of housing has already been provided on the site across the entire southern edge here of the site as well as on the eastern edge here. This is the affordable plot which is coming forward here and this plot here is where and down to here is where the Lovegrove walk properties are and that was also kind of scheduled for residential accommodation. There's also residential accommodation here. The residential accommodation wasn't particularly necessary across all of the plots although uses could have been provided within them but residential was chosen to be pursued at a detailed stage. So the applicant really has delivered a significant quantum of housing on the site. This table here sets out the parameters of the original outline application. The outline application required a minimum of 1700 homes and provided a maximum of 3610 homes. So far the applicant has delivered or had approved in detailed consent and then commenced 3334 homes. This is a significant number of homes towards the borough's housing targets and obviously it's just a general significant number of homes. It's fully compliant with the requirements as to affordable housing and unit mix which was set out within the specification and is also an increase in the number of homes which were envisaged at the time of the application submission in an indicative scheme which set out that the scheme could in one sort of iteration provide 3100 homes. So yeah it's generally provided a very large quantum of homes already fully in line with its requirements. In terms of student housing it is a form of housing which contributes towards the borough's housing targets and it's calculated at a ratio of 2.5 to 1. So 2.5 student rooms represents one home towards our housing targets. So currently there could be an additional 276 homes built under the existing permission but if PBSA were to come forward on this site with 912 rooms that would contribute 364 homes towards our housing targets which is in excess of the that could be provided if standard C3 housing were to be built on the site and then there is still also opportunities for more C3 housing to be built on plot F3 as well. So in summary officers would find it very difficult to suggest that there would be any compromise or undermine of the supply of housing on the site given the significant amount of housing that's been provided and the fact that applicant has already fully complied with their obligations under the outline permission to provide housing. So turning now to student accommodation I'd just like to highlight a few nearby sites which are providing student accommodation. There's the site highlighted here in yellow which is the old town hall at Mulberry Place. This will be providing student accommodation. There's 2 Trafalgar Way here which is just to the north of the application site in red. This is providing a mix of student accommodation and standard housing and then there's 30 Marsh Wall which is just outside of the Canary Wharf Estate which is also providing student accommodation. There is also the North Quay development here which has permission for up to 100,000 square metres of student floor space. So what the applicant is proposing to do is effectively move a quantum of floor space from this development over to Wood Wharf. They're doing this by virtue of Section 96A non-material amendment, the North Quay application which will reduce the floor space for student accommodation on that site by the same amount as would be provided on Wood Wharf. And that application can be dealt with under delegated authority and is currently awaiting determination because its acceptability is subject to the acceptability of this application effectively because there are policies protecting student accommodation. So by moving it rather than losing it, it would become acceptable. This table here sets out the North Quay amendment in numbers terms. As you can see, there's currently 100,000 square metres in North Quay and North Square metres in Wood Wharf. So after the permission there would be 67,000 square metres on North Quay and the 32,791 would move to Wood Wharf. Turning to planning, sorry I should just say generally the site is in a very highly accessible location. It seems like the perfect kind of site for student accommodation to be located and officers consider the site to be an acceptable location for student accommodation in place of C3 housing. Turning now to obligations and sill, there will be a number of obligations to be secured by section 106 agreement including the provision of 35% of the student rooms which will be affordable student rooms and the majority of the rooms would also be secured via a nominations agreement with a university. There are standard employment obligations which you see on all schemes of this size which include 25 construction apprenticeships and contributions totalling just under £300,000 and then a carbon offset contribution of just under £350,000. There is also sill payable on the scheme and this is notable because when the original application was granted for the outline, burr-a-sill wasn't a thing and so we have the opportunity to charge burr-a-sill on this application and so sill will be chargeable in the amount of £12.5 million towards the burr-a-sill monies which otherwise wouldn't have been possible or won't be possible if the scheme were to continue under the outline permission. So in summary it offers a recommendation to grant planning permission subject to any direction from the Mayor of London, conditions set out in the report and obligation set out in the report to be scored by Section 106 agreement. I will happily answer any questions members have about this development. Thank you. >> Thank you, Nicholas. Do members have any questions for officers? >> So on page 46 of the report you have got a summary there from Transport of London talking about active travel zone and hours of darkness and violence against women and girls and perhaps there is a suggestion there that the council secured 500,000 towards pedestrian improvement and perhaps it's something that we can also look at within this committee to see whether there is additional funds that can be allocated for that particular bit around violence against women and a strategy around where it's located and the hours of darkness for people to be able to travel safely. Thank you for your question. The TFL initial comments raised concerns about the active travel zone assessment which was updated to include details of the hours of darkness assessment which was then reviewed. The active travel zone improvements themselves, we did enter discussions about securing those via the 106 agreement in this case but it was felt that actually these improvements are better covered by sill monies rather than being secured specifically within the application documents themselves, because some of the routes which are assessed in the active travel zone assessment, effectively what it does is it looks at all of the routes people might cycle or walk in and some of them are quite far away from the site and as was discussed kind of in the previous item, we need to make sure that contributions and things reasonably relate to the site. So it was decided not to kind of pursue the improvements as part of the section 106 agreement because they are already covered by sill monies. In relation to the payments which TFL highlighted for pedestrian improvements and there's another one for bus improvement works, those are references to contributions which were secured as part of the original outline commission, which were secured in total and then split up amounts of floor space and then different amounts of money were due at the delivery of different amounts of floor space. We have done a check and all of those floor space parameters have already been hit so those obligations or contributions would already require payment in full, so there wasn't the ability to kind of pursue that risk re-securing those payments in any way. The application itself currently that we're assessing doesn't create the same impacts that the previous scheme would have done in relation to needing that mitigation. So there isn't really any scope to secure any mitigation on top of that in this case. But the site has already paid its proportional amount to the wider outline impacts. So in summary everything is secured or covered already. Councillor Sabina Khan. Hi. Thank you for your presentation. It was really quite explained everything. I just want you, can you explain to me regarding biodiversity net gain in terms of 10%, how would we achieve that and would it be offset or on the side and how will that work, please? Sure. Yeah. I'll just get up a relevant slide for this. So the site itself in this application is not actually that big. It's quite contained to just this small area adjacent to the basin highlighted in sort of, there's a red line around it here. So the applicant has done a biodiversity net gain assessment which has been reviewed by an external consultant on behalf of the borough and considered acceptable. So the site itself at the moment is completely cleared. It was completely cleared at the time of demolition of the whole of the wider Wood Wharf. So currently it doesn't actually have much biodiversity value. So kind of by delivering just a small amount of biodiversity on the site you can create very significant gains. So the biodiversity net gain assessment in this case has actually calculated it to be around 118% net gain where the statutory requirement is 10%. So the net gains in this case are actually quite large even though the actual kind of biodiversity which is going into quite a small site, going to quite a constrained site, are relatively kind of small I guess. The application was reviewed at pre-app and we pushed for additional greening as much as possible and more planters and things. So yeah we've got a significant amount of, or a relatively significant amount of greening for a site this size which is shown here on the landscaping. So this here is kind of a planter and then we've got tree planting, street trees and more planting here. There's a biodiverse green roof and then there's also some of the planting on the terrace here which isn't actually shown in this image. But yeah there's more than enough biodiversity net gain which would be secured in the appropriate manner through the decision notice. Thank you chair. Thank you for the presentation. I believe there is no discovery development and there is no on street parking facilities. You can touch on the page 48, column second. There will be two blue bed facilities. One is for retail, one is for PBSA. It's quite density area and this is a significant low number of parking facilities. So do you think this is enough for the residents and also the retail user? Local and London Plan policies require developments of this sort to be car free in terms of parking on the road. So the scheme by not providing any parking on the road is in line with policies and would be secured through the 106 so that residents can apply for parking permits and things like that. The two blue-badge parking spaces are also required by policy and they're the only parking spaces which would be acceptable in this case in policy terms. So they're being secured again by the section 106 agreement to make sure that they are kind of allocated appropriately and so forth. There is a requirement to provide an additional 7% blue-badge parking as well. We are securing that via condition, I think it is, or obligation, I can't remember which one it is, but it is being secured that there will be a strategy showing how the additional 7% blue-badge parking could be provided within the wider area so that there is kind of demonstration that there's enough room to accommodate those spaces if they're required. Thank you. On the other hand you are providing 228 cycle space and it's for higher and also standard private space. Is that right? So almost, if I calculate 228, 228 multiplied by 456 space? Yes that's right. So policy requires a certain number of parking or cycle parking spaces per student bedroom. So the number of cycle spaces has been assessed by TfL and our transport team and considered acceptable. The cycle parking will be provided in the basement of the building. The applicant is proposing quite a novel arrangement, this is a plan of the basement, so these are the two cycle stores here. So it's quite a novel arrangement where half of the cycle spaces will be provided for students to use their own cycles but quite often the students might not have a bike but might want to use one. So there's going to be 228 free to use hire cycles which will encourage people to travel via active travel means and you know get people out cycling to lessons and things like that. Councillor Campbell-Hussain. Thank you chair and thank you officer for your making this report and presenting. Just trying to understand, we as a council, we are listening council and if I'm not wrong I think 294 or 92 letters have been directly sent to the public for consultation but only two representations were received. I'm just trying to understand the narrative because this scale of building and properties erected in that area and we've received only two representations, is there any lacking of public consultation? Yeah I think we've obviously done the statutory requirement, we would have sent out letters, signed notices and so forth but the location of the building is such that you're not going to get, it's not going to impact a lot of people so it sits within the Canary Wharf estate, it's not going to impact a lot of people so you're unlikely to get a lot of people making representations of this. It's not one of those schemes where it sits in the middle of a residential street and everyone's going to be impacted by it so that's probably why we haven't got a lot of representations on this one. I'll do that as well if I can, the residents closest to this building who have already moved in were consulted directly and yeah so two of those residents, it was within buildings kind of that were consulted directly provided consultation responses so the residents that would be most impacted by the development in terms of the introduction of student accommodation would have been consulted directly. Sorry I didn't pay attention, I think my colleague already asked this question, I'm not really sure, but the safety of this area, something says on the TFL has some concern about the safety and they propose some of the money to make it happen, can you just elaborate more on that? Yeah sure, so the improvements which were identified within the active travel zone assessment is what I think you're referring to, we did discuss securing those improvements via the 106 agreement in this case but it doesn't meet the tests for legal obligations due to the proximity to the site and the fact that they're not directly related to impact of the development itself, so those kinds of things are better dealt with by the use of seal money and this application is actually securing a significant quantum of seal which could well be used towards making those improvements and we've got a document which highlights what improvements could be made so yeah I hope that answers your question. Yeah councilor I don't know if it assists but on consultation generally for planning adverse we have a statement of community involvement that's been approved by the council and any planning application is notified in accordance with that statement of community involvement so rest assured that the consultation that the team has done in respect of this fulfils what the council expects of it and that meets statutory requirements. Any more questions? Would members like to share their thoughts or debate on this application? Would Paul or Ian like to share any final advice before moving on to vote? Thank you chair, not too much to say really. I think there is a bit of a procedural issue that's in the report and it's not really for your committee to worry about but in parallel to dealing with the full planning application and the delegated powers we have to deal with sort of slotting the plot out of the outline but that's something that we will deal with and the delegated powers if you resolve to grant permission for this and then as Nick talked about in the presentation there's also a parallel what we call section 96A application which is for North Quay and that sort of deals with student floor space there so we don't get an over concentration of two sites so in a way it's almost like moving the floor space from one site and on to the other through the combination of those processes but again that if you resolve to grant planning permission for this application we would then just follow on and deal with that and the delegated powers. But otherwise I think you don't have a lot more to say really chair, perhaps pass over to Ian if there's anything you wanted to add? Thank you. I was thinking about something on this application and I'm just coming back to it. I was thinking about the antisocial behaviour with student recommendation as well. We do have a lot of antisocial behaviours with student recommendation and has that been checked through with delegate officers regarding and next to it and I'm sure a lot of these properties are still vacant and will bring a lot of people there as well after it. So the application was submitted with a student management plan which was prepared by a operator of student buildings elsewhere in the country and within Europe and that's been reviewed by officers and that controls things like noise antisocial behaviour and everything else and it requires a certain number of security to be on site at any one time and things like that. So once a provider has been decided upon by the applicant for the building they would then be required to submit the final student management plan prior condition before the building can be occupied and that would be robustly assessed again by our environmental health colleagues in noise to make sure that any noise disturbance is minimised and that the students are behaving themselves and then if that plan isn't complied with then enforcement action can be taken directly against that plan by the planning enforcement team as well as in collaboration with environmental health colleagues in relation to noise and things like that. So we have looked at it and there is a plan in place, a draft plan and then that would be secured as a final plan by condition once the final provider is secured so that they are fully signed up to the same plan. And may I just add it's not a matter this committee would have any control over but the operator of the building would be renting the rooms, leasing the rooms out with tenancy conditions, licence and conduct of occupants, residents will doubtless be a form part of those conditions so not only would there be the remedy Nick spoke about through the management. Sorry chair I didn't mean to interrupt you there but just to say that before you go to the boat I think Mr Bell has indicated he'd just like to mention something as well if that's ok. It's ok thank you very much chair. I've been working alongside Nick on this application for some years now and we've been working with Canadian Wolf and alongside for a number of years. Just wanted to mention that there are some key deliverables that are coming out of this application. One is that we are not increasing the number of student accommodations, student units as a result of this proposal, we're keeping it neutral. Two, we're getting still money that we wouldn't otherwise get if we continue with the residential. Three, the scheme, Canadian Wolf, has delivered all the residential they're required to deliver as part of the original application so they're not required to deliver any more. In effect they could stop, if we said no they could just not build it, wait for five years and come forward with something else. So I think all in all and four, the location of this particular student accommodation building is probably one of the better locations that we've had for student accommodation in terms of previous applications in the borough where they've been in far more dense residential locations. This is a much more of a mixed use location so a better location for student accommodation which is why we negotiated removing it away from North Quay and bringing it up towards this site. So these are just some of the key sort of deliverables that are coming out of this application that I wanted to highlight tonight. Thank you chair. I just want to go back to page number 59. I want to understand the figure of the total homes. You say 3, 3, 3, 4. So if I calculate out of 3, 3, 3, 4, if I get the council 35% with affordable and intermediate, we're supposed to get 1,166. We are getting in affordable 4, 3, 7 and on the intermediate we are getting 1, 6, 7. Just need to understand a bit more. Of course, yeah, thank you. It's a good point. So there's two things on this I guess. The first is that the outline permission was granted and it was granted to only provide 25% affordable housing at the time in 2014. I assume that must have been to do with viability. So rather than kind of meeting any higher targets. So it needs to be 25% rather than 35% and that doesn't change in line with policy. That kind of stays at the point that it's agreed in the section 106 agreement. So the applicant has fully complied with that through the homes that have been provided. And the way you calculated the number just now was based on number of homes, but the 35% or the 25% in this case is calculated based on the number of habitable rooms rather than the number of homes. So you could have a family home with four bedrooms, a living room, a kitchen, which is a lot of rooms, but there could be just a one bed home which has three habitable rooms, which is two homes, but there's kind of 10 habitable rooms potentially. So the percentage doesn't quite always align with kind of what number of homes and kind of in that way. So it would have to be calculated as rooms. But yeah, the applicant has fully complied with their obligations so far in relation to affordable housing. Thank you. Yes, Councillor. Thank you so much for your presentation. This is 46 storeys is a massive student accommodation. I live in Poplar. I have one student accommodation in the Cambria campus in East India. Number of residential buildings are there. And I think students often have different schedules with late night gathering. And we need to see the area because I believe this establishment will disturb the residential atmosphere, established residential atmosphere. So before we need to move, I think we need to see the area. Councillor, before you defer, can we just take a look at the application and see how far if that's okay before someone seconds to defer. Thank you. So, yeah, this is the application site here. And yeah, there are residential properties relatively close, kind of around here, there's residential properties, and there's going to be a residential building immediately next door. But then there's residential kind of around here as well. But then there's, there's none up here. There is some down in this corner of Wood Wharf, but then there's kind of office developments and other buildings, which will come forward in between. And as Jerry said, this is the ideal location for a student accommodation block because it's it is quite a dent, like quite a nicely populated site, it was designed that there was sufficient distances between buildings that it was kind of felt nice to walk around and things it's all in line with the outline permission. If you wanted to see more of the site, I do have photos. I do have photos of, I did a site walk myself and have photos from loads of different vantage points around the site if you wanted to see those. But yeah, there's kind of this shows, you know, that the building is separated quite nicely from the buildings either side. This area here has got temporary permission for new public realm works, which will create a new public square. And this here will also be public realm for a short period whilst development comes forward on the plots. And there really are no concerns to officers as to kind of anti-social behaviour or anything in terms of this particular student block because it's it's kind of ideally located. And, you know, there's sufficient separation distance to the residential buildings. The residential buildings are immediately opposite here. G1 is a service department building, so would have very short term stays. Yeah. One thing to add, the concerns you've got about the height. I think it's important to recognise that this building is actually lower than the one that's approved. So if we can go back to the, yeah, there you go. So if you can see the taller box on that screen, that's how tall they could have gone. That's what's been approved. So this is actually a smaller building than what we've approved in the past. So some of the issues. So I think in terms of height, I think we've actually in a better position than we might have been in the past. Thank you, Charo. Just for the point of that, I just want to know, you said the building is lower than it's approved. What is the reason for that? I guess that's, you know, they're seeking to deliver the optimum number of student units that they need to deliver on the site to make it work. They don't need a building of that height. So they've delivered a building that's lower than a certain number of student population units. They can deliver it in a building of the height that's been applied for and there's no need or it's not required for them to go any higher. So the impact of this building is actually less than what we've already been approved on the site. And it's worth noting that across the whole site, all the buildings had an approved height. Not all of them have been built to lower heights in each of the cases. Some of them have been built lower. Just because that's kind of, yeah, as Gerry said, the optimum number, often it comes down to viability. You know, adding an extra storey might cost an extra so many million pounds to build. So it isn't really worth going higher because you're not going to make that money back. So yeah, in this case it's probably a similar sort of. So it's nothing to do with the planning committee advice that there needs to be lower. So this is the applicant that they decided to comment on, yeah. That's correct, yeah. Councillor Sabine, I just want to say sorry, guys. I took it to vote and then I've pulled it back. I'm extremely sorry, yeah. But Sabine, I can't. Yeah, my opinion is that we need more student accommodations because every year students come from all over the world, plus the national students. They don't have enough accommodations and they're pushed to private accommodations and it's so expensive. The students I've spoken to personally, they're saying because they have to rent privately, they're left with after taking in all the calculation with the cost of the money they get from the government and the loans and everything and part-time work, students are going hungry. We do need student accommodations. I just don't see, I mean it's the same as like how families need good accommodations, student need accommodations as well. So I don't think we should delay it. Maybe we should look into putting conditions that still money, certain amount needs to go into safer, making that there's safety, money spent on safety instead of deferring it because I just don't want to be a parent or someone to say look, your child is staying in a private accommodation in really bad conditions, not safeguarding and I don't think we should put the students in that kind of situations. We should consider it to give the planning permission. Thank you. Councillor Campbell said. Thank you Chair. Mr Bekeman, a lot of respect to the officers. I understand you're presenting as an ideal location for this development. Even though this planning provision doesn't require this applicant for providing us normal housing, but we live in a borough where thousands of people are waiting for a decent home. I think while Councillor Chaudry has suggested, before we make a decision, we want to make a more informed decision. So even though it doesn't make any provision for providing housing, but we want to see how this development are going to impact this locality. So no harm to defer this item for now. Let's get the more information. Let's go and have a look and we can take a more informed decision. That's my proposal. Seconded by Councillor Chaudry. Thank you, Councillor. Yeah, absolutely. Wanting to make an informed decision. Just before you vote, just a couple of observations. So I think the point that Councillor Kalm is making around the supply of student accommodation, it has benefits not just in being accommodation in its own right, but also it takes the pressure off, if you like, existing housing stock in the borough for conversion into the likes of houses in multiple occupation by students. So it has a complementary role in that sense. Everybody wants you to make an informed decision. The only comment I would make on that is that I think we did offer a site visit before the committee, but I don't think that that was taken up. So in a way, it's your committee's decision, but just in terms of sort of expediting decision making and you know what will happen, it will start to build up on the agendas, et cetera. Has anybody been to the site visit? Anyone of us? No. No, but it was arranged and offered. We didn't get any responses to it, but it was sent out in advance of the meeting. So yes, it was sent out a couple of weeks ago. It's okay. It's okay. It's okay. It's okay. I have. I didn't have to go with officers. I went myself. Please, please, please. Get away from the item. Thank you. If it's regarding site visit, I'm not going to take any questions and answers. Thank you, Chair. Yes, we are glad I calculated myself the figure and really we need the student accommodation in the area and also the affordable social housing. This is one of the top pledge by Mayor, because we are struggling to put people to the social rent, social housing. And I'm really up for it, but my question is can we increase a little bit? Rather than 25 per cent, we can go to the minimum standard now, 35 per cent affordable social homes for the residents rather than 25 per cent back in 2024, what officers say. Sorry, just for clarifications, are you talking about the level of affordable student accommodation? Are you talking about the residential? We can't increase it. It's not part of the application. We can't do that. Just to let the committee know, I know everyone is busy. I completely understand. Sabina, I know you had a question. Just bear with me. I'm so sorry, Asma, extremely sorry. If I may, I didn't want to upset you. I just wanted to say have you visited? That's fine. You know, officers do spend a lot of time on these applications and I get it, we're all busy and officers do want to help us as much as possible with site visits and pre-meetings and I understand everyone has a very busy schedule where, you know, like today, a couple of my colleagues came out from the MAB and they weren't able to come into pre-meetings. I completely understand. I also think when we get opportunities to go to site visits, we should aim to go but I completely understand. Sometimes we feel like we don't need to go to the site visit as we know the area and that but when it comes to live applications like this tonight, you know, when we talk about it more, I feel like maybe we should actually go and visit. For example, I give you the Waichapo one. I mean, our town hall is here and as soon as we come out, we have Waichapo and we've got life sciences everywhere coming up but going there, to be honest, when we were offered site visits, we didn't attend at the beginning because we thought we knew Waichapo but when we attended to the site visits, we had a proper different view about the whole application. I completely understand. We were offered site visits and we didn't take it. However, I feel like I will echo with my colleagues as well, maybe we should go to a site visit and sorry officers, extremely sorry, I don't want you to feel like we're wasting time or anything but I think we should go to a site visit just to maybe have a proper view and a proper visual experience before we go to vote. I know we could have gone to vote tonight very quickly but I felt maybe we needed more questions as well and I have opened a can of worms because more questions have come up and I will actually echo with my colleagues to maybe do a site visit as well. Thank you. Moving away from a site visit. I was going to ask for some clarity around Councillor Rahman's question around antisocial behaviour and what I actually asked about the active travel. I would like you to provide me a little bit more reassurance that self-funding perhaps can be allocated for these particular areas. I know you've spoken about it and you said this is where you can look at drawing the funds but just to reassure me for my mind before I make a vote, before I cast my vote, I would like to get a little bit more reassurance on how we can possibly do that because I think those two are a really important issue around antisocial behaviour but given the fact that TfL kind of explicitly spoke about that and I think your partnering is UCL, is the college that you're partnering up with for the student accommodation. So that would be really good before we cast our votes. For me, if you could give me a little bit more clarity around that. Thank you Councillor. So on the antisocial behaviour issue I think as we mentioned earlier I guess it is a bit tricky because there's not always a direct correlation but the applicant has put forward a student management plan so that will sort of help with the actual management of the building itself and the occupants. With regard to the active travel and some of the comments that TfL made, when we investigated that we felt that because it was talking about wider routes in the wider area rather than those specifically to do with the development itself that it wouldn't pass the test for 106 but still money could be used. The only thing that I would say is officers here tonight can't guarantee you how some money is spent because it's actually not the gift of this committee. As you know it's an executive decision so it sort of fits within the councils infrastructure funding programme so it would have to be dealt with sort of outside of this committee so we couldn't say cast iron, nothing to stop it from being used but we couldn't give you a figure for example and say this amount would be. So I just want clarification. So for example if we do a site visit and we feel that we can't control the single money and I mean I personally think it's a good idea but if you decide oh we're going to go against it we're not going to grant planning permission just hypothetically saying it. So we say no but eventually it will get granted by the mayor because it's in the master plan to have this kind of accommodations so why make the housing homelessness for people who really need that private rented accommodations and you know not build this student accommodation. Why delay it? You know because people are struggling every single day. I just don't see what's the reason, what we're going to gain by delaying it. We're just going to cause struggle for people who are going to be taking, the students are going to be taking that private rented accommodation from the homeless people and the residents and the families and the children who go to schools who need that accommodation. So I just don't see what's the purpose of delaying it. I mean even if we just say okay yeah there's educational behaviour we can't do anything about like you know I don't see we can do anything much about it. I don't think it's delaying it. I think everyone wants to be sure of granting the planning permission or not granting the planning permission. I don't think it will make a significant change by doing a site visit but I'll let Paul come in to answer the rest of your question. Yes members just a couple of things. On CIL, sorry I've just looked up the government website, the levy can be used to fund a wide range of infrastructure including transport, flood defences, schools, hospitals etc. Local authorities must spend the levy on infrastructure needed to support the development of their area and they will decide what infrastructure is needed so effectively the money comes in and the authority, there may be councils who are correctly better on this but they perhaps have more dealings with it, the authority then has a list of the projects that it wants to have supported by CIL and it allocates the money accordingly. So it sets in legislation how the money can be spent and it's not a gift to this committee to say thank you for the CIL but we want 500,000 of it to be spent towards the zones. More reassurance, we're saying that this community infrastructure levy is spent within that but is there any way that we can... And certainly moving very quickly on, I think at the moment we have a proposal to defer for a site visit and that has been seconded. Councillor Kahn has put forward a very strong argument as to why that's perhaps not the case so that motion is on the table. I see Jerry in a minute so we'll respond there. So we've got that on the table at the moment. We do need the specific reasons why that is considered to be appropriate because the guidance for this committee, the protocol that we work under, once the application has reached the termination stage now, councillors should not request a site visit unless the councillor considers that it is really necessary. That's the bar you've got to test. That's the bar you've got to jump in deciding whether or not to defer for the site visit. But I would reiterate everything that's been said. If you do decide to defer, please attend. Jerry wants to say something to the councillor in the chair if that's okay. If I could just briefly touch on some of the active travel zone improvements. So the purpose of the active travel zone assessment is from TFL's guidance to improve the active travel routes into the site effectively. So cycling routes, walking routes and things like that. And the improvements that are often identified are quite small. It's things like adding an extra light in this underpass. It's kind of CCTV here and here which isn't really within our gift to necessarily secure and we can't reasonably relate that to the development itself. But obviously as we mentioned, SIL can go towards that. But in this case I think some of the areas they were looking at specifically are kind of that underpass underneath the roundabout by the old office and things like that which are dealt with or kind of impacted by lots of different developments. There's lots of different developments going on around there as well. So again we can't really pinpoint anything to this specific development. But the impacts which were identified or kind of the improvements which were identified were all things like quite minor improvements. So I just want to reassure you in a way that they haven't just uncovered kind of a hidden dark alley which everyone is suddenly going to be walking down. It's kind of like how can we make this route which is a little bit, you know, there are potential ASB issues here. How can we make sure that that is like meeting the pinnacle of like safety effectively. It's kind of not picking up on kind of dark routes which aren't well trodden. It's kind of making sure that those routes are the height of what they can be. So yeah I guess and then also it did identify some routes within Canary Wharf itself which is obviously private land. It's private roads, private highways. There's a 24/7 security team in those areas. It's well lit and things and so you know those routes were all kind of fine and kind of well secured and things like that. So I hope that addresses some of your concerns anyway but obviously I can't make any guarantees that those improvements will be delivered by us I guess. The only thing we can say is that it will be minuted and recorded so we've got it. So it will be recorded and minuted as part of the meeting so it will be there. I did look at the report and I did say there was bits around Lansbury around cutting trees back and so forth and you know it is quite far out but I do think it's really important that we do keep on talking about active travel and the dark and women's safety especially when we are putting up tour developments we're talking about student accommodation here you know we're talking about anti-social behaviour so I do think it's important that it doesn't slip through the nets so it is recorded and it is minuted which is what I would like to have happen. Can I come now? Can I also second the Sabina's motion as well not to go on a site visit and I'll give you my reasons why. I think officers have made an attempt to contact each and every single one of us a couple of weeks ago, Justine am I correct, a couple of weeks ago to get us to go to a site visit before this application was presented to us so I do believe that we had a lot of time to go and visit the site itself prior to us coming to this committee then be looking at the papers and look here in the presentations we do get the papers in advance as well so we do have an ample of opportunity to read those papers and then go to a site visit which was offered by council officers Justine and I had an email conversation where I said I couldn't make it and she looked to accommodate a different date for me to go to a site visit but given that I've been to that area I know the area quite well I just didn't require a site visit to make a decision and read the papers prior to the meeting to make a decision after the meeting by doing a site visit so I do echo what and I second what Sabina has said that I do think we I am in a position where I am comfortable of making a decision in this committee today. >> Thank you. Okay. So we have had Councillor Sabina who has requested not for a site visit and has been seconded. We have had Councillor Kiberia who has asked for a site visit and we have had Councillor Hussain who seconded so we will take it to a vote to but before we take it to a vote for a site visit can I ask you Councillor Kiberia Chaudhary to give your reason for a site visit again please. It's a massive student organization, 46 storey and number of residential area there. I think we need to visit this because I think it's a lot of students their schedule is not like residents. A lot of social gathering, a lot of activities they do and definitely it will disturb our established residential cohesion we need to see this is my view. Thank you. So I will take it to a vote now. Can I see you? You are correct to do it this way around because the motion to have the site visit was proposed and seconded first in time. Obviously if it fails there will be no need for the site visit you can move to the vote without Councillor Beckham's motion. Can I see all those in favour for a site visit? All those against? >> It's four in favour, four against and under the procedure rules, you have a casting vote. >> We will go for a site visit, thank you very much. >> Thank you very much, chair and members. So the application stands deferred for us to arrange a site visit. I think we will look to do that as quickly as we possibly can, subject to everybody's availability. We do have in fact two more committee meetings before the end of the year, so I think it would be my preference that we turn this round as quickly as possible, because obviously it's not really you mentioned officers, but really it's the applicant who is after the decision. So we need to be fair to them. So we will liaise with Justine and make the arrangements. Thank you, chair. >> Thank you very much. Okay. Thank you very much. Agenda Item 5.2 is a planning application affecting One Canada Square Canary Wharf London. I now invite Paul to introduce the application. Thank you, Paul. Thank you, chair. So this, as you said, is a planning application affecting two floors within No. 1 Canada Square Canary Wharf. It's an application for change of use from use class E, which is office space, to a flexible use class F1, which is learning and non-residential institution, so it's effectively sort of teaching space. I should say there's no direct correlation with the last application. >> Okay. That's fine. Paul, do you want to start again? Because Sabina can't because there's a lot of movement in the structure. Yeah, we'll start again. It's not a problem. So it's the planning application for One Canada Square Canary Wharf London. Thank you, Paul. >> Thank you. So yes, it's a planning application which is for a change of use of two floors within No. 1 Canada Square. It's a change of use from use class E office to flexible use class F1, learning and non-residential institutions, so it's effectively providing teaching space. There's no sort of building works, there's no physical changes to the actual building. The reason it's coming to your committee is under your terms of reference. When there's a proposed change of use that would involve more than 2,500 square metres of floor space and there would be a potential departure from development plan policies, then it can't be delegated to offices, it has to come to committee. But the recommendation is to grant planning commissions subject to planning conditions. And for this one, there is no update report, Chair. Thank you very much. I will now invite Nick Graves, planning case officer to present the application. Thank you, Nick. >> Thank you, Chair. Thank you, members. As Paul said, this is a proposed change of use levels 48, 41 Canada Square. The intended occupier is University College London School of Management. And UCL has submitted a letter in support of the application confirming their intention to occupy this space. The site is located within the Canary Wharf metropolitan town centre and central activities zone. Canary Wharf is also a primary preferred office location. The site has excellent public transport links. It's close to the Canary Wharf underground and DLR stations. This image shows the aerial view of Canada Square. The building itself provides over 115,000 square metres of floor space, most of which is in use as office floor space. However, UCL School of Management also currently occupy two floors of the building. And these changes of use from office to the provision of education were granted permission in 2015 and 2020 at strategic development committee. This image shows the existing and proposed floor plans, levels 48 and 49. Combined, they provide 4,138 square metres of floor space. As proposed, the floor space would provide a mixture of staff, work space and teaching and learning space. The site could accommodate up to 150 employees and 420 students. Whilst no decision has been made on the final layout, these images are just here to provide a flavour of what the space might look like once occupied. The drawing on the left is an illustrative design of how the spaces could be organised, showing a mixture of teaching and staff work space. And the photos show the existing floors occupied by the School of Management within one Canada Square. So whilst the loss of office space is contrary to policy, there are many factors why the proposed change of use is acceptable in this instance. The loss of floor space is relatively small compared to the amount of office floor space within one Canada Square. There is also an existing pipeline of consented office space coming forward in Canary Wharf, including at Wood Wharf and North Key development sites. The site lies within the Canary Wharf Metropolitan Town Centre, so it's very accessible and an education use is consistent with the range of uses that would be expected within the Metropolitan Centre. UCL itself as a university is considered a centre of excellence for its world-leading research and with UCL in place, the use would be a strategic central activity zone use in compliance with London Plan policy for this area. Finally, UCL have built up connections with local businesses since moving to the Canary Wharf and this proposal would enable them to continue this work in compliance with London Plan policy E8. The proposal is considered acceptable in land use terms in this context. The proposal is recommended for approval subject to conditions outlined in the report. Thank you very much. >> Thank you, Nick. For the quick update on this application. Do members have any questions for officers? I'm just trying to visualise it. Whereabouts in Canary Wharf is it? Is it a particular floor? >> Levels 48 and 49. Might need a top. It goes up to 50. >> I would like to visualise that one. So, Nick, we know what university is coming in, I'm guessing. Did you say UCL? Yeah, UCL, strong intention of going in. They submitted some letters in support. Pretty much straightforward. So the office has come out and university is going. Is that how it is, yeah? Councillor Kamboo is saying. Question time or comment time? Okay. >> Thank you for your presentation. Thank you. Just if you look into the executive summary, that last paragraph, the proposal would result in the net loss of 4138 square metres of office floor space. And this loss within the primary preferred office location is not normally supported. However, in this specific instance, it is considered to be acceptable as the proposal would not undermine the supply of office floor space within the Canary Wharf. Can you clearly explain this? Just last paragraph on your executive summary. >> Yeah, well, as I said, the building itself has over 115,000 square metres of floor space. So we're talking about a relatively small amount of the building itself. And within the Canary Wharf estate, there's lots of new office floor space coming online, so to speak, with developments in Wood Wharf and North Key. So the amount of office floor space in Canary Wharf is expanding. And this is just a relatively small loss of two floors. Is that okay? Does the proposal comply with the local plan? Is that the question? Yeah. Is it complicated? >> Okay. So as you read out in the executive summary, the proposal doesn't comply with one of the policies, and that's the policy that says there shouldn't be a net loss of office floor space in Canary Wharf. But there are what you could call conflicting policies that relate to sites in Canary Wharf, and one of those is that Canary Wharf is also a central activity zone, where there are certain uses which are the only uses that you'd want to see in a central activity zone. And one of those uses are centres of excellence for higher education. So UCL is a centre of excellence in terms of research and teaching. It's also a metropolitan town centre where we like to see a diversity of uses. And there's also quite a large consented pipeline of office space. As Nick mentioned, I think North Key alone is over 200,000 square metres of consented office space, and that pipeline is almost more than the predicted need over the next planned period. So it's a very small loss and kind of de minimus, we think, in this particular circumstance. >> Thank you. Sabina Khan. Yeah, just looking at Telegraph 2nd September 2024, empty spaces, office spaces, and it's going, there's going to be more empty spaces in Canary Wharf, and I think it's a really amazing project. We will get business rate and it will keep regenerating, and the more activities happen in the area, the more businesses will come, more -- Do you have a question for the officer? >> I'm coming to the point. So for example, if we have this, if we grant this, in terms of business rate, are we going to lose money out of it, or how does that affect our income? >> It's not relevant consideration for this committee, because it's not a planning issue, first of all. But just to answer the question generally, if the floor space is empty and it's not being used, then there's no business rates. So as we've indicated, there is a lot of surplus floor space in Canary Wharf, it's better to use it for something that is going to generate business rates than leave it empty, because our policies suggest that we should. I think, you know, on balance, this is a much better way of making sure that the building tends to get used, generates activity, generates jobs and employment, and also generates business rates, which is not relevant to this committee, by the way, so I might just make that clear. Thanks. Thank you. Joanna? >> Thank you, chair. I just want to clarify something. On the site plan showing the purple line, sort of starred shape consultation area, I'm just trying to understand how did you work that out? Like, because it's not going in particular circle or square, just in a odd shape. So what was the how did you work that out, and what was the outcome of the consultation in total? Yeah, it looks like a strange shape, but it's because it goes round little black points that you can see at the kind of points of the purple line. So they are properties, whereas if we had done a square, it would still only be those properties within the square. Yeah, the consultation was done in compliance with the statement of community involvement, there was also a site notice, and a press notice. Yeah, so we've consorted as required. I'm sorry, I'm not quite sure, but quite understanding. Like, outside that pink line, is there any residential close by? Because one of them is quite distanced, you come up to the bottom one. And whereas the other is just very close by consultation. So what was the reason it's coming down so much far away than the actual site and some of the areas is very close by? Is it because of non-residential area or it is? I was just looking at the buildings and it looks like it's a concrete jungle. Thank you, chair, and thank you to the officer once again for working hard to make this report. I'm just going back to Councillor Choudry's point. Your executive summary clearly says this is one of the planning policies against one of the planning policies. My question is, are you confident in your terms saying this proposal, the benefit from this higher education the community will get? This is outright loss of conditions, you know what I mean? >> Yeah, aside from the reasons as stated in terms of, you know, there's a relatively small amount within this area and within Cleriff Street, you know, UCL are already in the building. They're making a success of it. It's showing that they need to expand and this floor space will provide them with that opportunity. Yeah, they've by all accounts have been thriving, been in Canary Wharf, lots of collaboration with the financial and business organisations in there. So it feels like a good next step for them to expand and success. >> Any more questions? Okay. Would members like to share their thoughts on this application? >> I think it would be really good to have UCL coming to Tower Hamlets and bringing this world class education facilities and give the people who are working around the experience and then more people will come to Tower Hamlets and it will make keep our Canary Wharf special the way it is. So I will be if there's any vote, no deferral, I'll be saying yes. >> Just to confirm, you're not going to be able to vote normal because you've walked out from the okay. So just to let you guys know before we move to the final vote, I think it's quite good application to be honest with you. I mean the floors are just sitting there. So UCL coming seems like a good idea for me. So if no one has anything else to say, we'll move to the vote now. Thank you. Just to clarify, UCL is not coming, UCL is already there. But they're expanding. >> They're expanding, they're making it bigger. Thank you. All right. Can I see all those in favour of the application? Mr O'Beckham, would you like to let the committee know about the outcome of the vote? Thank you very much, Chair. So of those members able to vote, unanimous support of the officer recommendation to grant planning permission for the change of use of the floors within number one Canada square set out in item 5.2 of the agenda. Thank you very much, Chair. >> Thank you, Paul. Just take a few minutes comfort break. Thank you very much. Guys, can we come back by 8.30, yeah? Normally I don't give this long, but I know we have someone who's pregnant, so we're going to laugh. Thank you very much, everyone. We all have to keep mind of the time, please, yeah? Okay. Agenda item 5.3 is an application to vary an existing section 106 agreement relating to land at Leaven Road bus carriage. I'll now introduce Paul Beckham to introduce the application. Thank you, Paul. Thank you, Chair. So as the Chair said, this is an application. It's what we call a section 106A application, so it's a variation of an existing section 106 agreement, so it's not an application for planning permission as you would normally see. The permission, in fact, was actually granted back in 2020 for residential development, which is actually the work has begun on site, but it has stopped temporarily because of some issues around affordable housing, so the applicant has approached the Council with a proposal to change the affordable housing tenure and mix in order to get the scheme back off the ground and get it implemented. So the recommendation to your committee is to allow a section 106A application, so to approve the revisions to the affordable housing. Chair, just very quickly, there is an update report. What this covers is in the main report we said that there hadn't been any statutory consultation carried out because of the type of application. That's technically incorrect because the regulations do require either letters you have a choice of either letters or a site notice. The site notice has been displayed, although the period for any representations will expire after this committee, so what we're suggesting, Chair, just to expediate things, is that if we do get any representations, obviously we will bring it back. But once that date expires, so there's just a slight tweak to the recommendation in the update report to reflect that, and that's something that we've discussed with Ian and colleagues who are quite comfortable with that approach. So thank you, Chair. Thank you, Paul. I will now invite Jane Jean, team leader, East to present the application. Thank you, Jane. >> Thank you, Chair. Thank you, everyone. Good evening. As Mr Buckingham explained, this is an application to modify the section 106 agreement that has been attached to the consented development with planning reference PA-19-02148. An application for a residential redevelopment was considered by the Strategic Development Committee and resolved to grant planning commission on 22 July 2020. Subsequently, after stage 2 referral to the Mayor of London and completion of the section 106 agreement, the decision notice was issued on the 14th of October 2020. The development site is located on the eastern side of Leben Road, but it's a river lead to the west, and the site is part of a -- was part of a London trams network, and the tram sheds were constructed in circa 1903, and following the replacement of the trams, it was used as a bus depot. It was last used as a storage facility around 1986. The site is in Lansbury Ward. As part of the original consented scheme and throughout some non-material amendments, the consented scheme has 532 residential units, of which 35% of affordable housing measured on haberoon basis, and commercial spaces with 22% of commercial space was secured as affordable work space. This application for your consideration tonight is not a planning application, as Mr. Buchan already explained, for a proposed development, but it is an application to vary the section 106 agreement, which was secured as part of the permission given for the development. The section 106 agreement details an agreed quantum of affordable housing, 35%, as I mentioned, and tenure that was secured amongst other obligations, which is required to be delivered by the developer for this development. And as such, granting of the permission was subject to this section 106 agreement. Therefore, unlike any other applications you consider tonight considering the merits of the proposed development against the development policies and other planning -- material planning considerations, this is application purely considering whether the proposed amendment to the affordable housing as secured through the section 106 can be agreed. The relevant development policies still apply, such as mainly the housing chapters of the development plan, are relevant for your consideration. Just in terms of the background why this is here tonight is that the Planning Commission was implemented in 2022 by Taylor Wimpey following the acquisition of the site. The site has been cleared and the piling and substructure works below ground works have already started. Works to the river wall and the required works for the trem shed facade to be retained, that's been carried out. However, all construction works were suspended in early 2023 due to the withdrawal from the project by a registered housing provider. And at the same time, there was significant regulatory changes to the fire safety requirement requiring two stair cores to buildings that are more than 18 metres high. So the developer had to make some design changes to facilitate that and all at the same time we had a situation within the economy where there's increase of interest rates, labour, material costs all had an additional impact to the initial viability of the scheme. Therefore, the applicant seeks to modify the Section 106 agreement to reduce the overall affordable housing quantum from 35% to 21.9% measured in habitable room to make the development viable but most importantly to recommence on site for a quicker delivery of the consented housing scheme. Sorry about the table, it's a bit small but what this means is that the proposed affordable housing tenure as you can see on the slide which is specified in Schedule 1 about Section 106 agreement for the consented development is proposed to be changed and I'll take you through the numbers and how it changes. The proposed amendment would result in an overall reduction of 65 units within the shared ownership but it's an increase of 27 units in the affordable rent tenure from what has been secured. The increase in affordable rent is spread across all unit sizes however there is a marked increase in the provision of the large family size three and four bed rented units. There is an increase of 11 units, so of the 27 units the 11 units are within the family size affordable rent when compared to the extend scheme. So what this slide is trying to show you is where everything goes below the horizontal line is a negative figure. So the green which is the shared ownership, it removes that from the scheme but anything that goes above the horizontal line is an increase of the provision that was secured. So as you can see through the graph it is a bit telling that you do see more increase in the Tower Hamlets living rent and the Tower Hamlets affordable rent whilst it is acknowledged that there is an overall net decrease in the total affordable housing of 38 units. So in considering the reduction of the overall affordable housing to 21.9% in light of the viability of the scheme the applicant and officers sought to prioritise the affordable rent sector. Therefore the proposal seeks to remove all shared ownership units and focusing on maximising the unit numbers in the affordable rent. The proposal will deliver an increased quantum of affordable rent housing compared to the extend scheme by 27 additional units. So it should be noted, sorry, it should be noted therefore the net decrease of the 38 units in the affordable housing would see an increase of 38 market units within the development which has spread across one, two and three beds. The proposal has been subject to a viability assessment and scrutinised by the council's own viability team and it has been confirmed that even with the proposed affordable housing tenure that you see on the screen the development is still not viable and is in the deficit of approximately £6.9 million. However this is a much better viability position than the consent scheme which is at circa 12 million. So there's more certainty about the delivery of the current proposed amended affordable housing. The relevant planning policies considerations are set out in paragraph five of the main report and general thrust of these policies are to maximise the delivery of affordable housing. However you should also note that the material consideration also afforded to the consideration of viability of the scheme. Officers have had regard to the notable key change in the reduction of the quantum of the overall affordable housing which is not considered to be favourable being 21.9%. However the planning policies aim to maximise affordable housing which is secured through the Planning Commission. However we do acknowledge that there are viability challenges for the site that have resulted in an implemented scheme being stalled since 2023. The applicant's proposed amendment have put forward to make development deliverable with a focus on delivering the low cost rent housing tenure which are the affordable affordable rent and living rent with the limits of the viability whilst meeting the local housing need. The delivery of the affordable rent is being prioritised in this proposal with affordable rents coming forward ahead of the private homes in the scheme which are in the last blocks to come forward on this development site. It is also worthy to note that the applicant has secured a contract with Clarion Housing to progress the development therefore on balance the proposed amendment to the affordable housing tenure in light of the viability of the scheme is acceptable. So the slide outlines some key changes but also the benefits we could secure as part of the variation of the section 106 such as late stage reviews and also the change in the, sorry, the deed of variation also allowed the developers to get back on site and whereby if there will be a clause within the section 106 to suggest if they don't recommence within six months of the signed agreement then the site would have to fall back to 35% which was originally secured. So we ensure that there were buffers in place so that it's not just the developers doing the 21% less than what was secured but we're responding to the reality of the scheme in that it's not viable at the moment to recommence how it was consented so there will be a significant delay in actual delivery of affordable housing or housing in general for the site. So as such and as noted and as explained by Mr Buckham in the updated report the following slide shows our recommendation that our members approve the revisions to the affordable housing offer secured in the section 106 but agree to delegate authority to the corporate director of housing and regeneration to finalise the recommended deed of variation to the original legal agreement under section 106 and 106A of the Town and Country Planning Act and other enabling powers as set out in the report including refining, adding and amending or deleting obligation detail in the heads of terms set out in the main report but only once the consultation notice has finalised which is after 20th of November. So number 2, that as Mr Buckham already explained that we do bring it back if we do receive any representations within the time and then we'll bring it back with any material consideration that may have been raised in those objections. We consider that this is acceptable given that it's not a full planning application for consideration but it is a changing the affordable housing tenure in the quantum. Thank you. I'm happy to take any questions. Thank you for your presentation. Do members have any questions for officers, objectors or applicants? Of course you can. Thank you. So my question is around the deficit. So you said $6 million is better than $12 million so that doesn't give me much reassurance that potentially it could come back again and say, well, you know, $3 million is better than $6 million for instance. So I think if you could explain that a little bit more because the social housing does drastically reduce. I could understand the shared ownership part of it completely disappeared but the social housing element of it does reduce. I do see that there are $400 properties but I don't think that kind of outweighs the fact that it's still going to be in a deficit and it doesn't give me reassurance that the building may be able to be developed. Sure. Thank you for that question. So basically as you said, you know, we do equally grapple with the situation. It is still in deficit so there's a certainty but it is less of a deficit than what the consented scheme has been proposed. But also what's most important here is that the developer is in contract with the housing provider to deliver the affordable housing that's been set out and so there is more certainty around actual delivery whereas the previous consented scheme with slightly less affordable housing, you know, there is no certainty then therefore that it would actually come forward in that manner because it's not a viable scheme. And also obviously developers are willing to take a commercial risk although the scheme may be in deficit. They may wish to take a commercial risk to develop out because there's obviously upward growth and that's part of the section 106 obligations that we will also secure in terms of a late stage review to ensure that we do capture anything if there's any growth in the economy, in the market, that we do actually capture any upward growth within the scheme. But the scheme that was consented is just not, I suppose from the developer's point of view, more risky and therefore it's not viable and therefore there's no certainty that they are going to come forward unless some other developer comes on board and put a whole revised scheme in and that will be again going through the whole process and where then there will be significant delay in actual delivery of the housing. So with all the balancing of quicker delivery of housing, you know, the certainty about with the securing of a clause within six months from the agreement that, you know, we, officers are satisfied that, you know, we will get the site back again on track which will help with the housing delivery targets and also in particular there is slight benefit with the increased affordable rented sector which is a priority for our borough and the housing needs that's been identified in the local plan. So I think, and thank you so much for that response, that was actually quite helpful. I think it, I think I've got everything that I need to actually make a decision as well. In terms of, you know, pushing on the housing targets, that's important but in terms of this committee particularly, you know, that's important as well as everything else in terms of planning. So that's not my main driver for approving or not approving a planning permission. I think the other thing around, you know, having Clarion be coming on board and being the housing provider, that raises as a local councillor for me in a different setting concerns which is not in terms of planning here but I do think that it's not just about delivering housing but it's also about delivering good quality houses but also without having the risk of it potentially coming back as you were saying and there have been several, even more so for the committee for me to say this, there have been several planning agreements that we've put forward and then they come back after ten years with a completely different plan because they've decided to rejig it. So it does, I guess what I'm saying is in terms of reassurance of the 12 to the 6, it hasn't provided me enough to say that potentially it might not come back again to us for us to have a relook at it, or maybe potentially be taken over by a bigger developer who would probably have a different plan in place for that area. It's not a question, it's more of a comment, I do apologise. Chair, can I just, we do have the applicant who are the developers and perhaps they might be more willing to discuss the difference in the deficit and what the commercial risks are to make a bit more assurance about its delivery rather than further amendments that may, that you have a question about. I think if there is a deficit of 12 million and then to be okay with 6 million, I think the bar just will keep on dropping, it doesn't give reassurance, I wouldn't be content with a deficit at all if I was coming back to a committee, but that's, like I said for me, I think because it's going like that for me it doesn't give me enough reassurance that on balance it's enough for me to kind of move or change my mind, but I will listen to other members here. Can I comment? I think, you know, I have some sympathy with the opposition and that was a concern for us as well when we first started talking to the applicants about this proposal. I think we've taken the unusual step and I think Jane mentioned it earlier on with putting the clause in the 106 saying if you guys don't do this in six months you lose this benefit. This, I don't think that clause I've ever seen in any legal agreement before, so it's quite a draconian clause. So the likelihood of them coming back with a different, I mean we can't say never, it's like it's impossible, that would be not truthful, but the likelihood of them coming back with a clause like that in place is actually quite small. So we put as many measures as we can in place to ensure that the reduction in the level of affordable housing is compensated by the fact that A, we get larger family sized units, more affordable rent and we get earlier and quicker delivery on site, which is key to us because this site has been stalled for a while and we've got a number of sites in the borough that are stalled and we have to do everything we can to try and get these sites moving and getting the affordable housing coming forward as soon as possible. But if there are any other questions I'm happy to answer them. I think Paul wanted to come in as well. Actually, Mr Bell is going to cover some things I wanted to say, so that's fine, thank you. Thank you, Chair. The actual deficit was £12 million, you can see, and then you removed the shared ownership and came down to £6 million. On the other hand, it's reducing the percentage, coming from 35% to 21%, a significant number of reducing the affordable housing and this is not reassuring, because I just want to echo with my colleague, this is not balancing the figure. Yeah, it's not balanced in terms of percentages and I think it's important to recognise that affordable housing for real people is actual housing and that's what we're looking at. Obviously, as planners, we have to look at this and report to you in terms of planning policy in terms of percentages, but I think the reality is that we, on balance, having thought about this quite at length and in depth and we've had lots of discussions with the applicant, thought that in terms of delivery, that's what's more important, is it getting that percentage up in 35% or delivering affordable housing for people who need it earlier, quicker and more importantly, the type of affordable housing that's needed, which is the affordable rent product, because we all know and recognise that intermediate products tend to be not affordable for a lot of residents in the borough. So that's why we've tried to target reducing the intermediate and trying to increase the affordable. Councillor Kamal Hussain. Thank you, Chair. I share the same concern as my colleague, Councillor Asma, about the way you explained this quite helpful. I want to listen from the applicant what they have to say, I'll get better assurance from the applicant, and would you like to introduce yourself? Same question as Councillor Asma asked, we have £6 million deficit, so we have a concern about the delivery, because they still have a deficit, but the officer has quite clearly explained this is the most better, much better situation than before to get the delivery, even though we lost some of the houses, because of the lack of housing in our borough, I want to get a delivery and I'm quite happy with the number, even with this less number, if we can get delivered these houses and some of the people can have their home to live, so I want to get more assurance from the applicant while they're here. So are they able to give us more assurance? Good evening, Councillors and Officers, firstly thank you for giving us the chance to be here tonight to discuss this very important application for all of us. First of all, I would like to reassure everyone on behalf of Teller-Wimby that we're definitely not a land trader and we very much are in the business of delivering residential... Can I get your name first of all? Sorry? Name, please. Stuart Blakely, Head of Planning at Teller-Wimby London, Stuart Blakely and I'm Head of Planning at Teller-Wimby London. Thank you. Yes, so we're very much about delivery of homes and we're actually geared up to fully restart on site, as Ms Gin has been saying, and we really want to deliver these homes and within six months we can guarantee that we will have certain works done which will be agreed in the section 106 deed of variation. Admittedly of course there's an overall reduction in the affordable but we do believe there's actually a 30 per cent increase in what we would probably all consider to be truly affordable homes, the affordable rent, rather than the shared ownership. Thank you. Councilor Sabina Khan. Chair, I would like to ask the block some questions, can I do that? Yeah. I understand you are in deficit and this application I can see in 2020 during Coronavirus virus and the Ukraine war and everything and I can understand inflation and everything, but what I want to understand is about how - I want to know that you have good faith and then how would you have - what reassurance have you taken from outside body financially that you can deliver it if variation was granted? Because what I don't want is an empty half-constructed building, antisocial behaviours and people just loitering and making mess of things in Lansbury, but how do you - what assurance have you taken financially that you can go ahead? Thank you, Councillor, that's a very important point. Obviously the usual developer profit will be less even if this were to be recommended for approval this evening, but as a PLC, as in a national house builder, we want to see all our sites developed and this was actually the first ever - I worked at Tello Wimby for ten years and this was the first site ever that has been installed during my tenure and it was - we don't want this site to be empty either, it's costing just to leave the site there while we try to get it back on its feet again, but time is of the essence now with

• particularly with finally getting, I think it was 18 months to get a housing association on board and so that's really important as well, but finally everything seems to be lining up in terms of getting Clarion on board and hopefully if this was to be approved or recommended for approval this evening, that means we can get fully started almost with immediate effect. Yeah, we definitely don't want any side line with security issues and so on. Thank you. Any more questions? Would members like to share their thoughts and debate on this application? Straight to the vote we can swiftly move to the vote. Before we move to the vote, I would like to ask Paul and Ian to share the final advice before we do that. Thank you Paul and Ian. Thank you, Chair, and thank you members for your questions and debates around the issues. I think just a few things to mention in summary really is we know how important affordable housing is to this borough and so in a way when a developer puts an application like this, we don't take it lightly and there is full scrutiny of it and there has been that independent viability review that sits behind it. I think when you see headlines like 35% affordable housing dropping to 21.9%, I absolutely understand why everybody would treat that with that absolute caution. What does that mean in practice? I think I would just encourage you to look out sort of what sits then behind that. So the 106 as currently agreed on the 2020 application had 89 affordable rented properties within it and the rest were intermediate and that would go up to 116 in this, so there is actually an increase and then if you delve further down into sort of the family accommodation which we know is the most where the most acute housing need is within Tower Hamlets, then the current 106 I think has 28 three and four bedroom properties under this mix, there would be 39 and they would all be rented, there wouldn't be intermediate, there is no intermediate at all. What basically the applicant has done is to take the 65 intermediate properties and say okay, some of those will become private but some of them will become rented and that's how they have achieved the viability. I completely accept members' scrutiny around deficit because it does seem very strange, why would a scheme that is in deficit actually progress and I think that's and we do see this from time to time ourselves and in a way it's a commercial decision on the applicant's part, but that's also why as Mr Bell said, we've put that sort of almost how can I put it, carrot and stick clause in here that if we agree to this, it's subject to that six month commencement, so he actually encourages the developer to crack on with this because otherwise their fallback position is they'll have to go back to the previous arrangement which they've already said that they can't deliver, so in a way we're trying to be as strong as we can, belt and braces around it, so I guess, Chair, those are my final summing up comments on that and Ian, I don't know if you had anything you wish to add to that? No, Chair, I would just say to the committee at the moment, we seem to have a stalled site, we need the application to vary the Section 106 has to be made and if I've read this correctly, I think it's an all or nothing effectively decision here because there is no right of appeal unlike a planning application because the deed is not sufficiently old to be able to exercise any right of appeal, so it's your decision, but an appeal against it will be by way of judicial review which means your decision must be reasonable and it's a decision that any reasonable planning authority fully appraised of the facts would take and basically a sensible decision, but the principal question that I will put to you is that this has been assessed by viability not just by the applicant but also internally, they have come to the conclusion that this is these figures put forward as sensible and this is the best that can be offered as a result of that and the question that may well be asked on any challenge is What do you know any better? Very much, Ian. So we'll move to the vote. OK. Can we please -- can I see all those in favour of the application? 6. All those against? Paul, can you please confirm the committee decision? Thank you, chair. So I'll have a majority of votes of 7 in favour and 1 against. The committee has resolved to agree the section 106A amendments, the deed of variation to the previous 106 agreements in accordance with the detail set out in the report for item 5.3 on the agenda. Thank you, chair. Thank you very much, Paul. Thank you for your time. That concludes the business for this meeting. The council is collecting feedback from members about their experience speaking at the meetings. If you wish to participate, please complete a paper copy of survey and hand it to the committee officer after the meeting, or if you prefer, you can complete the survey online. There is a QR code to access the link. The next meeting will take place on Monday, 25th, November, 2024. Can the committee just stay behind for a few minutes, please? Thank you very much. [BLANK_AUDIO]