Transcript

Transcript

That technology doesn't work. No, I think the press is the bell for voting. Okay. Good evening, Councillors. Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Mr. Kelly, we're online, are we? Good evening, anyone watching. I hope you find it interesting and that you appreciate the decisions we take. I hope so, anyway. My name is Tony Belton. I'm the chair of the Planning Applications Committee. I represent Battersea Park Ward in Battersea. I will ask members to introduce themselves when they have something to say. And, of course, they all have something to say at some point or other. But I will also, first of all, ask the top table to introduce themselves. Good evening, I'm Nick Calder. I'm the head of Development Management at Wandsworth. Good evening, I'm Duncan Moore. I'm the external legal advisor. Hi, I'm Becky Hickey. I'll be clerking the meeting. You'll be what? You rushed. Clerking the meeting. Thank you. Okay. First of all, I have to ask if anyone got any interest to declare. Any interest to declare on any of the particular items? None. Any apologies? It looks like a full house, which is pretty unusual. So, no apologies. Minutes to sign. I've read the correct record. Do you agree, Councillor Humphries? So, agree to the minutes. And, in that case, we can move on, I think, onto the agenda itself. And the first item on the agenda is, applies to Tolan Square or Eastwood South Estate. And, Councillor Graham Henderson has asked to address the meeting. I suggest that we say yes. Welcome, Councillor Henderson. As I'm sure you know, you have five minutes and the floor is yours. Thank you, Chair, and I'm speaking on behalf of all three Hamilton Councillors. I understand that an email sent a couple of days ago from a number of residents on Tolan Square has actually been circulated to all members of the committee. Therefore, you should be aware of their concerns, particularly in relation to storage as a consequence of the garages being demolished, and also car parking issues. First of all, on behalf of the Roehampton Councillors, we recognise the very serious housing crisis that exists in Wandsworth and across London, but obviously this is Wandsworth orientated. And we do actually support the planning application. There is a need for much larger properties, three, four, five bedroom properties, so we do actually support the application. Having said that, we have actually worked very closely with the residents of Tolan Square for quite some time. The current planning application is certainly a very considerable downscaling of what was originally intended. It has twice been amended, and Roehampton Council is actually very pleased about that, that we have actually certainly worked with the residents to safeguard their green space, etc., particularly in the centre of the estate. We do actually believe the original plans involve far too much amassing. Having said that, the development before you is essentially the demolition of a number of garages and a replacement with new housing. The garages themselves, you'll see in the report, I think it's about nine of the garages leased out to residents, but clearly the age of the actual properties on Tolan Square is such that storage is limited. There are proposals to replace the capacity of storage within the garages with the number of storage bins, so described, one for each of the garages, I believe. We do actually believe that this issue of storage can be resolved, and we would therefore urge officers to engage constructively and positively with residents. I'm sure they will, that's their nature, but clearly it is a concern to a number of the residents. The other issue concerns car parking, and whilst I think we certainly recognise there are issues associated with car parking on the estate, we do actually believe that there are certainly solutions to that, in particular in tightening up and ensuring that the car parking on the estate is actually available to estate residents. The Tolan Square location is very close to Queen Mary's Hospital, and a number of residents have complained to us that people visiting the hospital, even some, they believe to be hospital staff, actually park in Tolan Square. The current restrictions are from 7am to 7pm, but we certainly think that that could be tightened up again. We would urge officers to consult and discuss with residents to find a suitable solution. I think that is all really I'd like to say, Chair. The residents, I think, have been quite clear in their email. Sorry, there is actually just one further point, which Mr. Hartigan, who wrote on behalf of the residents, I think quite modestly, didn't mention. He actually lives on Tolan Square, which, as referred to in paragraph 7.8 on page 23, is the property most affected. He and his wife and family have assigned to the property, which will open out onto the new development. Currently, he has a wall protecting him, therefore providing him with a high level of seclusion, et cetera. And we would also urge officers to consider providing some protection by, for example, planting trees or some other suitable means. So, with that, Chair, I think that summarises as best I can the views of the residents and also the views of the elected councillors. Thank you. I think that's very clear, Councillor, and I think we all understand that. Does anyone have any particular questions they'd like to ask Councillor Henderson? No? Okay. In which case, I would add that since I received the letter, whenever it was, I've talked to the officers about it. And Ms Molloy, who's the planning officer concerned, has actually raised the storage matter with the housing department. So perhaps, Ms Molloy, you can tell us what the result of that was. Thank you, Councillor. In terms of the storage, there's currently 33 garages on the site. They will be replaced with storage sheds of a standard specification across the wider estate. As Councillor Belton has said, we have contacted the applicant, the housing department, and they have committed to bring forward the storage sheds for the residents on the estate before the construction of the houses. So there will be storage sheds implemented and constructed so people, when the garages are demolished, they'll be able to put their storage into those sheds. And that has been agreed and committed to by the applicant. Which sounds good, sounds as though it's some considerable way on the storage. It doesn't cover, I think, the storage for people who rent the garages but are non-resident on the estate, is that right? I think it's within the late, but the priority will be given to people on the estate. It is one for one replacement, so in terms of the people who are renting it from outside of the estate, they will have storage, but the priority will be given to the people who are actually on the estate at the moment. Thank you. Perhaps I can turn to Mr. Tiddley about the parking. Where are you, Mr. Tiddley? Hello, Councillors. David Tiddley, the Head of Transport Strategy. As Councillor Henderson said, the parking on the estate is currently managed, or should be managed, 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday to Friday, but it is estate road, so it's managed by the housing department. That's certainly a matter. I'm sure they're aware of the residents' concerns and issues here, and it's certainly something that we can clearly take up with them. In terms of the parking on the estate itself, there's no net change in the amount of parking on the estate. There's a net increase of the 7 units, and our surveys or surveys of the local area have indicated that any potential demand that 7 new units would bring, which would be very small, could be suitably accommodated. Thank you. Ah, Councillor Ayers. I'd like to ask Cathy Molloy about the volume. Introduce yourself. I beg your pardon. Finner Ayers, I represent East Putney Ward. What was I going to say? Yes, Cathy, could you tell us about the volume of the storage spaces compared with the garages, because from the drawings, the storage spaces look about the size of a telephone box, and the garages are garage-sized. I think that could cause some problems. Hello. Just in terms of the size of the proposed storage units, they are within the lathes, so they'll be 0.9 metres wide, 2 metres in depth, and 2 metres in height. The existing garages at the moment are 2.4 metres wide, so they cannot accommodate a car, but they obviously are providing an area for storage. There is a reduction in the size of the actual physical structure, however, the storage units which are going back are of a standard size, which I understand is implemented across the borough. Thank you, Councillor Apps. Thank you. I'm Councillor Apps, and I represent Shaftesbury and Queenstown Ward, which is kind of relevant to what I'm going to say, which is that I've seen a similar situation with garages being demolished in my own ward to create new housing units. There was a lot of worry at the time. I'm not saying it's going to be exactly the same in other areas as it was in mine, but I can give an example of the experience we had, which is that despite many concerns, the new storage units have worked well in that facility. They're used within that state. It was actually a design which was put forward by the previous administration, and our administration changed it to be social homes. So the garages were replaced. People were worried about the loss of green space, but actually the landscaping that's been done has made it a much more pleasant, much more well-used area, and it's got improved walkways and new cycle storage. And also, I know they weren't derelict garages, but they were in bad order, and actually what they've been replaced with in housing has made it a much more pleasant area to look at as well. So overall, it's given a much greater aspect, and I haven't had any complaints about that development since it's been completed. We've made a few minor alterations as it's gone along, but I just thought it's a fairly similar scheme in a different part of the borough, and although people often think that people in Battersea never complain about development, they do, and there were certainly a lot of complaints about that, but it is actually, in my view, it's worked very, very well. Thank you. Any other comments? Councillor Govindia, Councillor Colle, and I've got a comment myself, and Councillor Humphries. Wow, full house almost gone. Thank you, Chair, Councillor Govindia. I just want to pursue the matter of storage, and I think Council has, in a sense, encapsulated the concern or the divergence between what the residents think of as storage and what we think of as storage. I mean, that's inevitable, I guess. So my specific questions are, the storage that we are providing, will it be compliant with the London Plan guidance on space standards, and if that's the case, then perhaps it's one of those things that we ought to have mentioned in the paper, that it's compliant with some sort of a guidance which is objective and so on. The second related question is that, so we've got seven homes who are they going to have adequate storage according to those space standards, and then the nine existing storage users, will they all have replacement storage units provided by housing? And then the third related thing is, whilst welcoming housing's willingness to put all the storage in place in advance of current storage being demolished, can we consider making that either a UU or unilateral undertaking by the applicant to do that, or better still, perhaps a condition, that that will be condition precedent to starting demolition work on the estate. So the residents have an absolute guarantee that what they were concerned about has been addressed by this committee, and this committee in addressing it has ensured that the applicant actually delivers before they lose their storage. And the second thrust of my argument is that whilst it might be inadequate compared to what they have, I'm certain it is, but is it somewhere in conformity with objective standards that are applied by City Hall and are universal across London? I suspect we can assume that the new properties have the storage space that fits in with modern standards, because I'm sure that otherwise it wouldn't be being put forward, but perhaps Mr Molloy can… Funnily enough, I do actually believe in things happening occasionally from genuine people, and if there are rules, I suspect it will happen, but Mr Molloy will possibly put his right on that. Another thing that was mentioned earlier, which you may like to make a comment about, is the particular protection in terms of Number 1 and trees. I'm sure you can't say anything now, but you could possibly raise it with the Housing Department. Over to you, Mr Molloy. Thank you. Just in terms of the London plan, in terms of, as far as I'm aware, the only standards is for built-in storage, so I don't know if there is anything for external storage space across an estate. So it is built-in storage, and in terms of the seven houses, they do have built-in storage on the ground floor, and that's as you come into the properties. In terms of securing it through planning, it's something that I think the applicant has committed to. We've got a landscaping condition on there, but in terms of a unilateral undertaking, this scheme doesn't have one. It's conditions only, because there are no legal obligations that need to be secured, because it's seven units. In a sense, the unilateral undertakings are relied on in planning process, when we know somebody is agreeing to it, but we just want to make sure that the third parties who are concerned about it feel confident that they've been listened to, and their concerns have been somehow buttressed by this committee's decisions. I don't really see anything wrong in saying a willing applicant would not have any objections to making that undertaking, and we could sort of almost invite them to do so, or perhaps do an informative saying, will the applicants be invited to undertake, to provide this in advance. In a sense, already having committed, is invited to do so. I'm not asking for a condition, I'm asking for some sort of faith, and enshrined in some sort of statement from this committee. It sounds to me as though you're not asking for faith at all. If you had faith, then you'd have faith that the housing department would do what they did, but that's another point. Don't argue with me, please. Give the Counselling of India, I was told off last time, to rising to you, and I say it's you, rise to me, but there you go. I think probably it's unenforceable in the condition terms anyway, and we've got their word for the housing department that they would do it. If you want to reinforce it very slightly, we could make it informative, I think. Go along with informative, okay. Sorry, can I just pop in? I think Councillor Covington is not quite right with his definition of a unilateral undertaking. It's a section 106 agreement, it's just submitted by the applicants, so it's a requirement to mitigate the elements of the development. It's not there for third parties to feel assured by the process, which is exactly what you said. I think we probably need to be clear about what we're talking about. We've accepted that it's informative, we'll do, I think. Good. Councillor Colquay. Thank you, Chair. Councillor Colquay for St Mary's Ward. I was pleased to see that these seven units were doing the passive hours standard for energy efficiency. And just more out of curiosity, I wanted to ask officers because, for instance, we have some applications from the council that are passive house and some that aren't. I was just wondering if it's more difficult to have passive house on, say, larger buildings and it was easier to, and was it easier to do passive house because these were sort of smaller individual units and when we had like larger sort of blocks that are built, it's a lot harder to do those standards. Can you comment on that, Ms Malloy? Just in terms of the policy, kind of where we are, the policy either requires developments to meet passive house or the home quality mark. So we have on these council schemes had a range of either passive house and I know the next scheme that's coming forward is the home's quality mark. In terms of the question, if it's easier to actually do it on the houses, I'm not entirely sure because I think on a previous scheme that I've dealt with, they have also achieved passive house. So it's just in terms of how the project team take it forward and I know Mr Hayter's got some information about home quality mark as well and it's a slightly different assessment where the home quality mark is where you take wider things like air quality and things like that. So that's more of a BRE assessment and the passive house is quite different, so it's just how the applicant takes it forward in terms of the policy which allows for either or. Okay. Councillor Humphries. Thank you, Chair. Councillor Guy Humphries, opposition speaker on this committee and a councillor for Southfields in Putney. I'm afraid I'm going to drag us back to the garages again. Are we sure that nobody in these garages has got a car inside them? Because we don't seem entirely sure who's got them except the nine residents on the thing because, again, as Councillor Hatcher, speaking from personal experience, I keep a car in a council garage in a different part of the borough. And if it's not a modern car, they will fit quite comfortably inside the older garage because obviously we're built for older cars. So are we sure, first of all, that nobody has got a car inside one of those garages? In terms of, I understand the applicant has undertaken a recent survey and we were provided with that information today. I think there might be a motorbike in one of them, which is within the representations, but no one in terms of any of the objections have stated that they're storing a car. Thank you. I'm still, again, not convinced that the phone box, as Councillor Ayers put it, storage is an equivalent storage for some other kind of space if you're not putting anything bulky in there. I do think it's somewhat disappointing that these issues obviously are genuine concerns, as Councillor Henderson said, from residents on the estate. After the long history we've had on this development already going down, we couldn't have got these things bottomed out before it came to committee to decide. It's something that's obviously been an issue for quite a while, so it's not a surprise that people are going to worry about losing their storage. So I think it's disappointing that we haven't got this finally settled and we're still discussing about how we can make sure it does happen successfully for the residents, whether it's the storage or the parking or anything else. It's a bit disappointing. I just want to reaffirm Councillor Girindale's point that I would like an informative on that, because it's not a question of not trusting our housing department colleagues, but as this committee can do its best to do anything to defend the residents' point of view, our point of leverage is lost once we've granted permission. So that's, I think, the reason why we want to make sure we can reassure residents as much as possible that we're doing what we can to get as much as we can to suit them, whether it's the surrounding hedges and trees for your gentleman at number one or the storage space. Oh, Councillor Humphries, you've regaled us with a little personal anecdote. Can I give you one? I had a car stored in Chatham Road estate, and you've just dumped me out of it to put in the development of the Chatham Road library without making any assessment of whether I needed or whatever. My rather grand old car, which you may or may not remember, certainly it was very difficult in there. When I was young and fit enough, I could just about get in and get in and out of the car, but I doubt I could do it now. And it forced me to take a decision. I suspect that that would be the case with some of the other garages. Frankly, we're building seven new homes for people here, for large-ish homes for people, and we're providing storage space for the people who already have the garages there and our residence, and we're prepared to talk about other storage spaces as well. I think we're doing a pretty reasonable job. Can we move to a vote? Oh, Councillor White, Councillor Apsle – so it's another go, I think. Yeah, Councillor White, Tootingbeck Ward, and I suppose I should mention I'm Chair of Housing on this particular proposal. Like Councillor Colle, I'm very delighted with the environmental aspects of this housing. Also, when I visited this place, I thought this would be the least controversial of the areas because it's stuck in the corner. I thought it was an invitation to ASB. It looked quite ransack already down there, and I think that the image that we have of the new housing looks a massive improvement and a massive improvement for the estate. But I'm a little bit disappointed that we didn't manage to squeeze more housing out. Again, I felt this was one of the least controversial of all 1000 Homes programmes, and I think we've lost a few houses there. In this instance, that's 14 homeless people in our rising homelessness numbers who won't be re-housed, unfortunately. Sorry, Councillor Apsle. Oh, Councillor Owens. Thank you. Sorry, just briefly, Councillor Emeline Owens, Northcott Ward. I just had a question about the impact on the school because I sit on the Children's Committee and I was just curious. Clearly, they're going to be losing the boundary wall. I'm assuming they use that for basketball hoops, that sort of thing. And the issues around getting children to school with the bill going on, that's of interest too. Thank you. Thank you. Just in terms of the – I understand the applicant has been discussing the proposal with the school. Condition 27 has details of boundary treatment, including the boundary to the school. In terms of noise disruption, construction impacts and that type of thing, again, there's conditions for a construction management plan, air quality, dust management plan. So, hopefully, that should be sufficient to minimise the impact. Are the recommendations agreed? Agreed. Agreed unanimously. Good. Move on to Ackroyd and Community Centre for an application to rebuild and add some housing units. Mr Hayter, I think you want to show us some pictures to add colour to the paper version we've got. Thank you, Councillor Henderson. I hope you're reasonably happy with the end result. Mr Hayter. Thank you. So, this is an application for the redevelopment of the Ackroyd and Community Centre. The development would involve the demolition of the existing Community Centre and the construction of a part three-storey, part four-storey building that would include 13 affordable units, seven one beds and six two beds, along with a replacement Community Centre at the ground floor level and associated cycle and vehicle parking. Landscaping and the construction of a new children's playground. Just to give a bit of context, as you can see, the application site boundary is in red. The existing Community Centre is in the centre and then to the left is the existing sunken garden area. That would be where the new playground would be. And then to the right-hand side, the red line boundary includes the existing paved area to the front of a row of shops, which is proposed to be resurfaced as part of the development proposal. And then you can see there's various residential dwellings around. There's Sandringham Close to the north. And then there's adjacent blocks to the south and to the east. And then there's some images of the existing site, if you can see them. I know they're a bit small, but hopefully that gives an impression of the existing site. So the proposed ground floor would include the Community Centre, as I said. So you can see the layout of that with a large hall on the left and then a smaller hall on the right-hand side. And then the Community Centre would include a garden as part of it, to the left-hand side. And also on the left-hand side is where the playground would be located in the existing sunken garden area. And then this is a proposed first floor plan, just showing the general layout of the residential units. And then just some before and after images to give you an idea of the existing site situation and what it would look like. You can see the proposed playground in the existing underutilized sunken garden area. And then this would be the view from the front of the site, from Montfort Place. And then a view from the other side, existing and proposed. You can see this would be the side where the sunken garden area is and then there's where the playground would be in its place. And then this is the view from Sandrum, close to the north. And we can see existing residential dwellings neighbouring the site. And just a little overview for you there. Thank you.

Thank you. And the recommendation, of course, is to approve the application. Any queries, any questions, any comments? Silence. Well, I thought this was -- sorry. I didn't see either. Councillor Humphries and Councillor Gavino then. Thank you, Chair. A couple of things. There was a comment in the comments from residents about the sunken garden. There was a referral to historic flooding on that sunken garden. I wondered if that had been picked up and addressed in the improvements we're going to do. It's not much of a great place, but if it's underwater. So is some improvements to the drainage and such like proposed as part of the scheme to address that issue. So they included in the application is sustainable urban drainage system. And that would be conditioned. And as part of the proposal, there would be permeable surfaces. I can't see the planning officer can do much more than say there's some conditions covering the item. I can hardly guarantee that we won't have a once in a several millennia flood, can we? I was just impressed that you knew the acronym for SUDS rather than the result of what that meant in reality. My other point, which is a different one, we've just seen on the CGIs, I think it's on page 45 of our report, the impact of the north elevation on Sandringham Close. I think that's the one CGI that doesn't do this any favors to be honest. It does look quite impressive. I read in the report that there's a cutout on the building on that side to try and increase the depth on the distance between the properties. But I suppose a bit of reassurance that's not grain speed. Just on the face of the visuals, it does look pretty imposing on the front of those houses adjacent to it. Yeah, so we looked at this in a lot of detail. So the applicant submitted daylight, sunlight assessment, which includes impact on properties on Sandringham Close and that the impact is within the BRE guidelines in terms of daylight, sunlight. The balconies which face, I think it's number nine Sandringham Close, they sort of face the side of the property. There are a couple of windows in the side elevation of that property, but they're at ground floor level and there's one sort of towards the other side. So there won't be any direct overlooking, we don't think, into those windows. There's also a recommended condition for details of screening to the balconies. So when that comes in, we'll look at what potential overlooking impact and they'll be, if necessary, will require some more screening. And yes, like you say, there's a cut out on that corner which reduces the overbearing impact on, I think it's number eight Sandringham Close. And there's some windows in that elevation that shows the condition requiring them to be at school glaze to avoid any potential overlooking to that property. I must confess, I felt the same about that particular CGI. It's difficult to tell here. What's the distance between number nine and the block? You can measure it. It might take me a couple of minutes though. Okay, come back to us in a couple of minutes. Sorry, I just wanted to say that just as a way of reassurance as well. Sorry, who are you? I'm sorry, my name is Ellen Richards, I'm the team leader for the West Area. I actually visited the site. This is a long time ago, and it was specifically to do with Sandringham Close because we felt like this block would be so imposing on them, given that they haven't really got an awful lot there at the moment. But you can see that there is a part of a building there already that that they deal with, but we were very concerned about the garden and we're also concerned about windows, but the windows on the side there, they're secondary. The main windows are still clear with a lovely aspect through the garden. There's a walkway along there with quite dense tree growth, if you like. So in an odd way, even though distance-wise you'd think it would be actually quite imposing, the way that you sit there relative and the direction of the aspect, it's not as bad as you would imagine. So I think that was our biggest concern, but it was amended to create further setbacks at that point, specifically for that property, so I hope that helps. Ah, Mr. Hayter. It's on page 62 of the report, paragraph 7.1, and the distance is 7.5 metres at first floor level. Okay. Councillor Govindia and then Councillor Apps, and then Councillor Ayres. Thank you. I couldn't understand the comment about sill in the late letters, late papers. I mean, my understanding has always been that it's 100% social housing and the community use underneath, neither of which would be eligible for levying of sill, so I don't know where this figure comes from. I see that at some point it'll come out in the wash and perhaps it'll come out as zero, but I didn't really get that clear message through, so perhaps somebody could help me with that. One question arising from Councillor Humphrey's question on SODS, which is that the area does actually suffer just more generally from urban flooding. And whether this solution is adequate for just this site or it's got a capacity to partly address the wider problem. I mean, it's obviously not a matter for this application and so on, but it's just curiosity that is the opportunity being taken to help address a wider problem at the same time as solving this site-specific problem. And my third is generally a comment. I mean, I raised that in my earlier correspondence with Mr Calder. I was really worried about the kind of questions about the fire safety. You know, you have a council application, you have a council-appointed fire expert working for the applicant who comes out with a solution which is inadequate. We then need to challenge it and then he gets enshrined in the paper and it's out there in the wash saying council as an applicant starts off with an inadequate fire response and then we have to push them to do it. I mean, I just think it doesn't read well and I only hope that opportunity be taken to pass the message to everyone who does this that it's important to, and it's just important in terms of council reputation that we as an applicant behave with some thoroughness about something as sensitive as fire in a public place. Absolutely. We've had enough problems with fire in public buildings. I absolutely agree with you. Ms Hayter, can you help us? In terms of the SUDs, we can only look at what's in the application red line boundary. We're satisfied that the scheme would improve the flooding situation on the application site, but I couldn't tell you about the word of the state. In your assessment, do you think there is some spare capacity? I'm not asking us to determine the application on the basis that they should be spare capacity. It's just a curiosity. Will there be more space for extra water? Sorry, if I could perhaps come back on that. We can look to see where it was within the scope because it's a figure. You raised a very interesting point about sill as well, so maybe I'll come back unless anybody's got a better idea, but the mayoral sill is still required on the community space, so that's not exempt. That's the reason there's a smurter sill requirement. Well, that's something I think I learnt, perhaps I've been reminded of, but you too. Councillor Apps. Thank you. Firstly, I just want to say I really like this development. I think it's going to look really good and hopefully be a very good facility for the community. I agree with some of the other comments about concerns about flood risk. I think that is something that's going to form a bigger and bigger part of our applications. I also wanted to bring up another environmental issue, which is I hope I didn't miss it, but I saw the provision for food waste collection in the Tollens Square, but I didn't see it in here. Is food waste collection dealt with separately and can it be if it's not? Also, I think on the whole it would be really good to see how schemes are going to encourage recycling, encourage good levels of waste separation. That might not be something we can do legally, but it would be good to know that that's been thought of as part of the scheme by housing. Those were my questions. For the residential units, there's the ground floor refuse store and there's sufficient space in there for the communal food waste storage. Presumably, the waste, what we call it, the people we consult with about waste on almost every application, lots of applications, that's within their milieu to check that the food waste is being considered. Yes, when we ask, I am assuming, but this is good to clarify, I'm assuming that when we ask the waste department whether the facilities are adequate, they will cover what they have to cover, food waste as well as ordinary waste. Is that a reasonably correct assumption, Mr. Calder? You're absolutely right with that assumption, Councillor. It's something we won't put every detail in, but if it complies with the policy and they come back and say they have no objections, we won't go much further than that. It might always be in the report, but it's a useful question to ask. Councillor Covindia, Councillor Aps. Sorry, not Councillor, Councillor Covindia, Councillor Ayres. Go on, Councillor. Just on the food thing, as I understand it, it is not a requirement for food waste to be collected on council blocks of flats, which is why perhaps the difference between Tolan Square and this happens. But, importantly, are we future-proofing this scheme when housing roll out food waste, and that's the question. And I know it might not be in terms of current policy standards might be compliant, but are we future-proofing the space standards so that should housing do it, they have a space for it to happen. Useful to raise it and useful to clarify on all future applications, I am sure. I think the standards are changing so rapidly in all sorts of details of planning, we can't just stop. I'm assuming that the food waste will be covered in here, but in future rooms make sure that that is the case. It probably is in any event. Councillor Ayres. Thank you, Chair. I wanted to deliver a bouquet because not only do I agree with Councillor Aps, I'm very pleased with this project, but there are two particular items in the internal planning which fill my heart with joy. One is that we have bathrooms with windows, so we have natural light and natural ventilation. The other is that there are utility cupboards, so you can put your nasty, noisy washing machine away and not ruin your nice dinner parties by candlelight. Thank you. Thank you for that ever practical remark. Sorry, Chair, could I come back on something? Sorry, just coming back to that food waste, because I think it is a really interesting point about future proofing. We have a condition, condition 30, regarding notwithstanding approved details to ask for further submission. My suggestion would perhaps be to include food waste within that so we can just make sure that that's covered. Thank you. We're all happy with that. So thank you for the helpful addendum. So is it agreed? Planning application agreed? Planning agreed. Now the next one is the orders, all drinks on the road, which as far as I can understand, after you ploughed through all the papers one way or another, is because Network Rail have decided, as is their right to if they're concerned about the safety, they have to move about 18 inches to the east, and apart from that, it's all been agreed. But open to any questions or queries about it. No questions? So it's agreed? The orders agreed? Good, thank you. Rowie in a crescent. Rowie in a crescent, I'm sure we all have views about this one way or another. Mr. Grainger, do you want to introduce yourself from far away? Good evening, my name is Nigel Grainger. I manage the East area team in development management. This proposal essentially is the retention of the front elevation and obviously the supporting side party walls, but the removal of the internal fabric. So that would mean partitions and the timber suspended floors that create the levels inside the dwelling and the rear addition. And it's rebuilding with a series of improved built layouts and, importantly, a roof extension above what would be commonly known as the rear addition, and the ridge would be raised also by 500 millimetres in a continual plane using the same angle as the existing roof pitch. I think you would all have gathered by now that in the course of the application, the basement was deleted from the proposal, so there is no basement in this proposal. Right. And as it's not conservation area, there's nothing we can say about the demolition because people have the right to demolish the house if they want to. Outside our conservation area. Other comments, I just give a flavour before people plough in. I represented the area for a very long time and the big space that you see across the road at Rowena and out the back of those houses on the other side, there's a big space with an old Victorian frontage. It was an institutional building of some kind. It was completely gutted and essentially rebuilt where you've got that big blank space and that has the original frontage and everything else in the place is rebuilt. So it's not unique in that part of the world, though this one, larger than what's there now, is nowhere near as big as the one just 30 yards away. Sorry, I was meaty gassing here. Councillor Ayers wanted to say something. I have no problem with the design of this and I know it's got many precedents demolishing and keeping a façade. Piccadilly at the moment has got steel work along it that would hold up the Great Wall of China just to preserve some façade. Well, there may be cases to do this, but I really think this is a proposal which really upsets me. We talk about conservation. Demolition on this scale is unsustainable and although it's common, it should not be encouraged. I will therefore not be voting for it. Thank you for that. Any other comments? Councillor Humphries. Mine's a bit more protege. I noticed a comment about the air source heat pump in the garden and I gather there's a condition on that. They're quite small, the gardens here, aren't they? And there are some constraints on the siting of the heat pump anyway because it's got to be at least a metre from the boundary or something like that. I know they're getting better, but even so they are still quite noisy. This is going to be adequately shielded or whatever because it's not going to be very far from anybody else because the size of the gardens is pretty small. So you'd be lucky to get it a metre from the boundary without it being slap bang in the middle of the garden anyway. So I just want to make some reassurance perhaps that it's going to be adequately shielded and that's covered in the conditions. Thank you, Councillor. Yes, but the objective of condition 15 is to obtain that information on its future performance prior to its installation. So once you've actually got a baseline and you've done a survey and you understand what the ambient noise levels are and then you know what the technical specification is in terms of its operational noise levels, then if you do, we have an opportunity within the discharge of this condition, if it needs an acoustic housing, we can get that and the condition also wraps it up with the retention for its lifetime. But just as an aside, a lot of these heat pumps, if they're kept within the volumetric capacities allowed under permitted development rights and only used for heating, you don't need planning permission. Right. Any other comments? If not, and I can see why people might not have any other comments, is the application approved? Agreed. Thank you. There's one abstention. Well, if you want to make a point of your abstention, one abstention. I was just leaving it to other people around me who were after precision. I was just happy that it was agreed. Okay, move on to vision point for Yelverton Road. People have seen that. I think we'd be quite interested in some discussion about it earlier this evening. We'd be quite interested, Mr. Grainger, to know that whether exactly the funding that's being talked of here in terms of their failure to build exactly as originally approved, whether that funding can be used just for council house stock or whether it's wider than that. It's in the paper we touched on that point, but this fund is specifically going to be ring fenced for the use for existing council stock in order to either adapt it for this M4-3 standard or it could possibly be made available to housing associations that are working with the council in order to provide additional M4-3 standard housing. But the main thing is that it's going to support council-based social housing stock. Have we any views about why apparently they didn't build what was intended? How long have we got? Sorry? How long have we got? There's an expedited version because it's not been an easy process, I must say, but the proposed development was approved after two planning applications, basically, and there was a benchmark position for the units, particularly the identified M4-3 units, which are the wheelchair-accessible units. We always have a clause since our specialist occupational therapist officer has been with us, and this has been now for a number of years, four going on, maybe more years, for proposals to be that particular element of the proposal of the wheelchair-accessible housing to be consulted upon through discharging a clause within the section 106 to specifically allow the specialist OT to be able to review these units and effectively agree what's been shown in drawn form and obviously move on. There's a mismatch in the way that the proposal was granted and then the speed at which that this was developed on site. And the further that the development increased in terms of its actual built form, we then started to get approached to sign off certain aspects of the section 106. For instance, the occupational therapist's input, there are certain triggers that go into 106 for monitoring, but they were difficult for the agent to be able to adhere to because there was a lot of backwards and forwards and changing of back office staff during this development for the developer. So that opportunity, we didn't know at what stage the development was, but then we entered into a series of negotiations once we began to learn that these units were going to be too small to support the correct standard of M4-3. So we started to then think, well, what can we do because the actual built layouts and the internal arrangements were becoming more and more fixed. We looked at making the terraced areas, enclosing those off and including that space, or it was suggested to officers, and incorporating that space, which are five or six square meters into the overall floor layouts, to up the overall floor area. But the discussion there was, well, that's quite inequitable because why would a wheelchair user suddenly be excluded from the opportunity to have a terrace based on the fact that you've raced off and there are mistakes that have been made. And it could have had a side impact or even perhaps viability because there would have been more internal floor area that would have value. It became very, very, very complicated. And whilst these discussions were going on, the further the project raced on and on. So we got to a point where of no return. And we've had to think imaginatively on how we could actually resolve this problem, which is regrettable and certainly a one off. I've never seen anything like this and hope to never have to go through a negotiation like this ever again. But we, working closely with ROT, we've managed to come up with a formula based on build costs of the shortfall of the square meterage with certain items that go into wheelchair accessible housing, like wet rooms and a number of fixed spurs that need to go into these facilities and then multiply that by the square meters with the build cost and then multiply that by eight units. And we've got to this figure. Thank you. Councillor Boswell. Councillor Sheila Boswell, Tooting Beck Board. Thank you very much for giving us more detail around how the occupational therapist resolved this. I do think that if that comes up again, we do need more detail in the paper. I'm not one for extending these papers at all. But just one sentence on that, probably that that wasn't enough. It would have been good to hear more of what you've told us. And I also want to make the point that I was really disappointed to see that I realise a mistake has been made, but that this was a solution because we've arrived at a state already in this borough of a parlous state of affordable housing because of developers coming back and saying it didn't work or they couldn't, you know, couldn't make it work or there wasn't a profit. And I certainly don't want to see that starting to happen on accessible housing. So, yeah, just a message really to back up what's already been said, that this is not an acceptable work around. We don't want to see this in future where people are able to come back and say, well, we just weren't able to do that and we're forced to take this as a solution. Thank you. Agreed. Any other comments? Councilor Govindia. Not laboring the point too much, but it's just a question of maybe some sort of clarity from officers. Was it possible, is it possible to read the plan, the floor plate, and see whether what is being planned for a wheelchair accessible unit is in fact in space terms adequate? I mean, could we have read the plans and say, yes, this works. Did we have to wait till afterwards and they say, oh, no, it doesn't work, because it's that sort of thing. Should we have read it better? Is it our fault that we let it go and then were found out, well, then told that it doesn't work? Or did they plan deliberately something that just about passed and then when it started being constructed, it didn't pass? It's just one of those things as to whether could we have been more vigilant in the first place. So, Mr Grainger, are you at fault or someone else? Sorry, don't read anything into what I've just said. I was trying to come up with some kind of confirm or deny answer, but the... We have an architect, but we'll probably have you back. Yes, yes, yes, we do as well, but there was a... Now, come on children, let's not get bitter about this. Mr Grainger. There was a situation where, because this was subject to two applications, because they had to come back for the increased height, I think that there was a situation created from the initial application where there could have been a shortfall that wasn't necessarily identified initially. That, to my understanding, and I've had to go back as far as I could, because colleagues have left since all of this has done, and I and another colleague have done my best to try and rectify the situation as best I can. But I think it was translated to possibly by mistake that maybe might not have been identified, or there was a certain sort of agreed position in someone's mind, the developer's mind perhaps, that that could continue on, and it wasn't necessarily identified or just thought that what happened before was good, it will happen again. It certainly, categorically, does not happen now. That is where we are. However, Councillor Ayers. I want to offer some comfort, because I've looked at those flats which we've ended up with, and they are reasonably generous, especially the hallways and the bathrooms. So although they're not to the correct standard, they look as though they could be relatively easily adapted. So I'm less worried about it than some of my colleagues. Councillor White. Yeah, I agree with Councillor Boswell's comments, really. A slippery slope indeed. But also, just a comment, I'm really disappointed that this doesn't make the Wandsworth Plan or the London Plan, as far as the distribution of affordable housing is concerned, as it's 100% intermediate, and there are no social rent homes again. So another opportunity. We could have had at least 20 social rent homes, another 20 homeless families who won't have homes at the end of this. How did that happen? This is a section 73 application. We can't revisit the viability and the distribution of tenure or what it is. That's not up for examination. That's why it's just a comment. Yes, OK, OK, fair enough. OK, so perhaps mildly reluctantly, but nonetheless agreed? Agreed. Thank you. Move on to the decisions paper, paper 330. Any comments noted, noted on the closure of investigations? 331 noted. Closed appeals. 332 noted. And tree preservation orders. Agreed. No one, no one's got anything to say about the tree preservation orders? No. How uncontentious of us. Right. Thank you very much and enjoy the rest of the evening. [BLANK_AUDIO]