Transcript

Transcript

Transcript

Thank you very much. Good morning, everybody, and welcome to the first my area committee of May because we actually have two this month. Please note that this is a fully virtual meeting with members and officers attending fully virtually. The public section of the meeting will be recorded and published online for public viewing after the meeting. Can members activate their cameras where possible to enable you to join by video and can all attendees mute their microphones when not speaking. Please do not come in during items unless you're invited to do so. If members wish to speak on any point, please use the hand up function in the team's meeting or if you are unable to use the hands up function state your name and the item you wish to speak on and I will bring you in at an appropriate time. If any members attending fully virtually lose connection or have any technical issues during the meeting, please alert the committee officer cursed him a cloud by a separate message if possible and support will be available from an IT officer during the meeting if required. At some stage this morning, I will call for a brief comfort break and if anybody is feeling desperate, please let me know. Kirsty, can we please take the sediment? Thank you. Good morning. Can you see the blackheads? Yes, I'm here. Can you see the brain? I'm here. Good morning. Can you see the TV? Yes. Good morning, I'm here. Can you see the doughnut? Yes, I'm here. Can you see the doughnut? Yes, I'm here. Can you see the doughnut? Morning. Can you see the clockwork? Yes, hello here. Can you see the night? Yes, hello. Hello here. Can you see the night? Good morning. Can you see the patchy? Here. Can you see the rocks? Good morning. Can you see the city? Yes, I'm here. Thank you. Thank you. Do any members have any decorations of interest? Councillor Brown. Good morning. Thank you, Jay. I have an interest in item 12, sale of former care supported living facility Glenalek by virtue of a personal connection to one of the interested parties. And so I will leave the meeting and take no part in this item. Thank you. Thank you. I have a transparency item in a transparency declaration in item five in that I do sometimes enjoy having a meal at Dune's side house. And I have an interest to declare an item 10 because my husband is a member of Bremer history group. And so I will leave the room and Councillor Goodall will take that part of the meeting. If nobody, oh, Councillor Ross. Thank you. In item five have dined at Dune's side house. So I'm going to leave the meeting too. So there's no conflict at all. Thank you. I don't see there's a conflict for me. So I won't be leaving. Anyway, it's up to Councillor Ross. Could I come back then and ask for advice on that, please, as to whether... Yeah, I think if you're just somewhere that you dine sometimes, you'd be okay making a transparency statement. Okay. Rather than a declaration of interest, but obviously it's up to you for doing it. Okay. Well, I'll make the transparency statement regarding that that I dine there occasionally. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Ross. Can...does committee agree that we will give due regard to our duties under the Equality Act? I see nobody saying no. To be exempt information, do we agree to take items 12 and 13 in private, please? I agree. Agreed. Agreed. And the minute of the meeting of my area committee of the 16th of April, do we approve the minute as a correct record? Agreed. That's absolutely okay. So now, over to Janelle for Statement of Outstanding Business. Finally, finally, thanks, Chair. So members will have updates within the Statement of Outstanding Business and there's updates for item 1, so we are still waiting on information before a further update can be provided from the service and item 2 members should have received an update on ward pages on the 20th end of April. Happy to take any questions on that, Chair. Thank you, and I don't see any questions. So we can move on to item number 5, which is full planning permission or erection of eight flats, staff accommodation and eight storage sheds and formation of access to existing yard land adjacent to Park House in Tarland. We have a request to speak from the applicant, Angus Donald, our committee, happy to hear from him. Yes. That's fine. Thank you very much. So over to you, Nail. Thanks, Chair. So this one is before you today having been recommended for refusal, put out to local Councillors and referred to committee for the reason set out and report. You'll have all read the report. It's quite clear what the shortcomings are here, so I'll run through the slides quite quickly, because there's nothing particularly visual that's worth noting here. The site sits to the north of Tarland within the settlement statement largely on what's referred to as white land, which is vacant land without any real existing use or designation. It's associated with Duneside House, which is located north of Tarland. You can see here in the map, it's pinned up there, and our application site is just where I'm hovering the cursor here just at the north end of the settlement. Here's an aerial view. The site is largely this little area here that I'm encircling with the drainage going across the road. Photographs from a wee while ago as well, the application's been with us for a long time. That's part of the story here. It's been quite a slow burner. There was drainage issues, which took a bit of time to be resolved with an offsite drainage solution coming forward, being approved under a separate application, which would be delivered to provide the drainage solution for these flats if approved. After we got the drainage issues resolved, rounding off all the other issues, there was still an objection from affordable housing. There was a lot of discussion there about the provision of affordable housing, and then once there was a final position reached on that, there was then disagreement over developer obligations, but I'll touch on those themes in a little bit more detail, just moving through the slides here, looking north towards the site and the neighboring properties beyond with the flats sitting in this image on the left there, and adjacent yard and buildings all within the ownership of the applicant here. Here's the settlement statement. Our site sits just in this little nuke at the edge of the OP-1 site encroaching slightly within the OP-1 site, but doesn't affect that designation in any way. Here's a proposed layout. Two blocks of flats, a bit of open space to the rear parking in the middle, access to the flats coming in from here with a new access into the adjacent consented commercial yard, and cross sections through the site here showing the sort of storage, almost mini shed type garage setup serving the properties. Here's the elevations here. As I say, there's nothing particularly contentious about the design and the site services being resolved through the offsite drainage solution. All the technical matters are resolved, but the issue, as you'll see in the report, relates to the non-provision of affordable housing and not agreeing the developer obligations. So again, we discussed it last time at committee about applying all policies of the local development plan. So the proposal is intended to be for staff associated with the Dune site hotel, but in terms of land use planning, that's no different to any other type of flat. Flats are sui-generous, meaning they don't belong in any use class, they're not class nine units like a dwelling house would be, but they are residential in nature, and as such, policies relating to affordable housing developer obligations apply. Now there was a lot of discussion about the affordable housing, and within the national park, there's a mechanism there to apply a condition to limit the occupancy of certain types of accommodation to staff when it is associated with tourism and whatnot. Now from a planning point of view, that's obviously not a policy applicable here because this is in Aberdeenshire, so it's the Aberdeenshire local development plan. But there's still a bit of logic there, so there was very long detailed discussions with housing. Long story short, there was disagreement there, housing didn't really see staff accommodation as being any different, and they wanted two units on site, whereas the planning service were minded to say through a control by condition that these could all be staff accommodation, and we were willing to depart from the affordable housing policy to allow the proposal to come forward with a condition limiting all the flats would be for staff, sorry, and if a section 42 application ever came in in the future to remove that condition, well at that time, we can revisit the issue and either secure financial contributions or secure two of the units as affordable. So we got to a point there where the planning service were willing to set aside the need for onsite affordable housing provision. The remaining matter was then the payment of developer obligations, and sadly the applicant has not agreed the contributions there, and as openly said, I mean through this all the communications being really good, we've tried to work through all the issues to get to a point where this will work for everyone, but sadly the disagreement on the developer obligations is kind of the straw that broke the camel's back, I guess, is the same there where there's been, there could have been concessions elsewhere, but there's no reason to set aside the developer obligations because whether it's staff living in these flats or not, there is still a need to contribute to healthcare, to sport and recreation and things like that. So from the planning point of view, we're not willing to set aside developer contributions in this instance, and as such, the affordable housing provision is then also a loss. So that's the two reasons for refusal here, there is a bit of a story to the process and to the application and the time taken to get to this point, there's been a lot of attempts with support and information coming in from the applicants agent to try and convince housing that it was okay, and through all that, it is worth noting that, again, with good open and transparent dialogue, the applicant and the agent has made clear in their support and information that the flats aren't really viable in themselves, whether the developer obligations are paid or not, so it's not that the developer obligations are tipping this beyond being viable, it doesn't appear to be a viable development in the first instance anyway, so there is just no case to set aside the developer obligations and with that the case to set aside the affordable housing goes as well, so this one is recommended for refusal due to those clear policy failings, and it could be quite a dangerous one without any real robust information on viability and with the development remaining, with questions over its viability anyway, to just ignore and set aside these policies, there is no compelling plan and reason to set aside these policies, it will not affect the viable operation of down side house because this was really to rehome staff that live in the area already and in HMOs and whatnot, the intention seemed to be to just pull those staff together in this one purpose built location that's a little bit closer to down side house, so that yeah, there may have been some operational benefits, but it's not an issue of securing new staff or contributing to the prolonged success of the tourist accommodation either, so sorry I've spoken for more than I thought I would chair, but this one is hopefully clearly set out in the report and recommended for refusal, thanks, thanks Neil, I admitted to ask that the applicant was online and I must apologise because there is a spelling mistake in the briefing note and it's actually Mr Donaldson, so can we just confirm that he is on the call and that he heard all that? Kirsty? He is on the call, Mr Donaldson, you may need to dial star six to unmute your phone. Hello, hello, did you hear the planner's presentation, Mr Donaldson? I did, yes, thank you, thank you Chair, I did. You did thank you, well the procedure is now that the committee will ask questions of the planner and then I will invite you to speak and you will have up to five minutes to do so and then members may have questions. I see Councillor Clopert's hand was up, did you want to come in? Yeah, well I was just going to ask about why staff accommodation was required, but I think Neil has answered that at this moment in time and I look forward to Mr Donaldson kind of speaking up there, so thank you. Thank you, I've got one question for you Neil and that is, at what stage are developer contributions paid? Are they paid immediately planning permission is given or is there a process, a time process? It conveyed a chair, so usually the contributions that agreed quite early in the planning process of the application and this one's been in the system for a long, long time, but part of any package of contributions we'd include affordable housing, so it took a long time to get to a point where there was a final position in the affordable housing, so it was only in the last couple of months the contributions were put out and they weren't agreed, but where the contributions are normally agreed in any planning application there's kind of two ways that that gets resolved. They either get to the end of the process, whether that goes through committee or just ourselves making a delegated grant, and we would not issue the decision notice until those contributions are paid, or in some instances which we'll always see for the larger houses, the contributions are paid prorata upon quarterly in a year's occupation of dwellings and that's secured by a section 75 legal agreement. For something at this scale when it's only eight flats, the norm would be that they would be paid upfront prior to the issue of any decision notice, because quite simply the costs of appointing solicitors to go through a section 75 agreement would probably double the cost of what your contributions would be, so it would usually be upfront payment for something like this, where the contributions are agreed. Thank you, Neil. If no other members have any questions, I will invite Mr Donaldson to speak, please. Thank you, Chair. Can you hear me all right? Certainly, Ken. Thank you. I'll start now then, and I'll work to just under five minutes. So, dear Chair, Councillors and officers, thank you for the opportunity to address your committee. I would also like to thank the Councillors for the support and help with our application to date, it has been very much appreciated and they have worked very hard to get as to where we've got to. I think it's important to stress, as Neil has mentioned, all the technical and design aspects of the application are agreed that the application is for modest staff accommodation and not technically mainstream housing, and I think Neil has touched on the key issue for us is the economic viability of this project. In our view, the only independent application gaining a recommendation for approval is over the developer obligation money contribution requested, which came to our attention in March this year, which is quite late in the process, and I recommend to understand how that came around. While I hope that Robert Trust might be known to a number of the committee, it might be helpful to stress that we're a charity. His purpose is to support financially good causes. We don't pace shareholders, we're not a private equity company, we're not a high-spilder and we're not a development company, and perhaps that makes the trust somewhat different to a number of applications that you're asked to look at. The purpose of the FLAT has provided, proposed, is to provide staff accommodation to support or charge purposes through our work in the tourism sector and the economic and employment well-being of the area. The project has, as mentioned, been extremely challenging economically for various reasons, drainage, etc. Evidence has been provided to the planning department in demonstrating these viability issues. It's a development consisting solely of low-cost staff accommodation units whose value on the open market could and would be considerably less than the projected construction costs. Even after land costs, professional fees, etc. are excluded. The local development policy makes clear that sort contributions should not make a project unviable. In this case, we feel that the development obligations have not taken into, taken this fully into consideration on a project that is really challenging financially. Full, undescended contributions are being sought. Even this pessimistic situation factored in the free land, no finance costs, free project management costs, which the trust will deal with internally. So, there's a true economic viability question at play in this application. Having worked incredibly hard to see, to get a viable project, I'm afraid the introduction of these up front, up front, financial obligations seems to me to be the final nail in the coffin, which I'm sure no one would like to see happen. On the other hand, it's crucial, it's a crucial initiative for the sustainability of Duneside and the trust if we are to attract and retain staff in the tourism sector that we would in the future potentially like to grow our tourism business. But that won't be possible without additional staff accommodation while there is a shortage of affordable housing in the area, particularly for young people playing, I think Neil playing also mentioned that we do have some staff accommodation. What we're using is to grow and to thrive. We need more and it's very difficult to get. If it was within the gift of the committee, and I appreciate it may not be, I would respectfully ask the committee to consider not supporting the developer obligation requirement outlined and approve the application presented. It should the committee be minded in doing this and grant consent, it would give trust and myself encouragement to press forward to find a mechanism to make this initiative viable. It is so important to us, I will have to go back to the market and see what I can do, but it would give me the onus to go and do that. Nevertheless, and understanding the committee has its responsibilities and it was not possible to support a request and accept, we would of course accept the wisdom and guidance of this committee and again today I can respectfully confirm if the developer obligations have absolutely have to happen, we would find it as promises through lack, we deduct it from our child's bill given, but if you can make it a reserve matter by condition that we would pay it when the development can commence. So really what I'm saying is that we think there's a reason that we shouldn't be asked for the contribution or not the full contribution given circumstances, but if in the committee's wisdom you see there's no way around that, I can today see that we would avoid rejection, we would try and work with the office to find a mechanism to pay the relevant contribution. Mr Thomas, I must ask you to wind up please. Yes, I would simply ask that we work together for the betterment of the community and the well-being of the area and for the progression of the tourism industry. Thank you for this opportunity to speak, it is appreciated and I hope that you can take on board my concerns but equally the offer to address this matter. Thank you. Thank you Mr Donaldson. I see from the paper that and from what the planner has said that they've worked extremely hard to help this happen and that indeed a section 42 could be submitted to if you ever wanted to change the use if we were to grant the mission, but the staking point here as you've touched on is the other developer contributions and my own feeling is that whilst I accept that margins are very tight, staff may need local health care for example, so I'm not sure why any business charity or not should not have to pay those contributions and I welcomed the fact that in your presentation you said that you would actually find a way of doing that if the committee was minded to support on that basis but that rather leads me to a question for Neil which is could that be conditioned rather than paid and you slightly touched on that in what you said to me earlier but I wonder if you could clarify that please. Oh Chair, unfortunately not as I said there's the two mechanisms there's, gosh I think it's under section 69 of the act it's up from payment prior to the release of plan and permission or it would be a section 75 legal agreement but in this case and I mean in any case I would advice to any applicant for something of this sort of skill would be to try and pay up front to avoid basically doubling your costs through solicitor fees to get a section 75 and that advice is obviously quite clear in this instance when it's the trust and so on and money is the sticking point quite simply so no the solutions here and as I said in my presentation I thought we'd got to a point finally where I was going to be able to come and take a positive recommendation two years a departure on the basis of affordable housing but that required everything else to be okay and sadly the developer obligations wasn't okay and that's why I'm here recommending refusal but if members felt there was a compelling reason to depart from a affordable housing policy and attach a condition to any approval to limit the staff accommodation for staff that allows that issue to be revisited in the future and should it then not be for staff and ever be attempted to be sold on the open market there's a mechanism there but I'm afraid the developer obligations there's no such flexibility it's it's pay it and pay it to get the decision or sign a enter in a section 75 agreement and in that instance the the payment would be upon occupation or in our years of occupation type thing and so that's where we're at and I one possible suggestion and and kind of hope no one in the management level of development management are here in this because it does nothing for our performance but you'll know in a lot of reports there's there's an instruction that we've got a delegated power that following the grant of approval at committee for a local application if the developer obligations isn't paid within two months we can then refuse that application due to failure to pay it but if members were minded you could give a six-month period so the delegated grant as a departure from policy h2 with a six-month period to pay the developer obligations to then release the planning consent that may work for all involved and if it's not paid in the six months I would then have the delegated power to refuse the application at that time so that's maybe a balance here chair that the committee might want to consider um it's just a suggestion that's great thank you um as i've seen cancelled cluppets go to question yes chair it was actually more for Neil than for um for the speaker actually so am i am i is is it all right to ask Neil another question then it certainly is okay thank you um and um Neil i was just wondering right when you are um suggesting such a proposal for six months deferral basically um would there be any kind of um a way that these uh developer obligations could be perhaps found elsewhere i mean i'm thinking for instance why the it's so difficult for staff to find accommodation while there is actually in the local area quite quite some empty houses and quite some um for instance council tax raised on that so i just wondered if there would be a mechanism there as well to potentially look into that sorry council clapper i'm not too sure what that question is you know well um develop obligations for the for for this proposal right um i think that it's it's what um what our chair said as well it's to do mainly with to help services at this moment in time um however staff haven't been able to find suitable accommodation and are already housed elsewhere and um the need for um for the staff uh to be housed nearby is is absolutely relevant but also the the health service is absolutely also um for you know needed for staff as well but they can't find the local housing because there's so much you know um empty houses and you know they can't find suitable and affordable housing that way i just wondered if there is a potentially a some kind of mechanism if we're talking about the federal of developing obligations if there is some other way of um you know raising this through a mechanism to deal with for instance council tax that's raised through empty houses in the area to completely set the thing completely set the thing because they're cloth art it's it's just not the way developer obligations is about offsetting the impacts of the proposed development so if this development's refused nothing's needed if this is approved that's eight new flats eight new people come into the area and with that there's need to offset the impacts on local services that those eight properties will bring um so no no there's no other mechanisms council taxes and entirely separate ongoing thing that covers different things to what developer obligations is for um so there's no there is no other mechanism quite simply um and that's it really and again just just for clarity on my suggestion here it wasn't deferral it was if you're minded to support this but agree that the developer obligations should be paid then you can give a delegated grant to allow uh my suggestions a six-month period for that to be paid if in six months it's not paid i won't be coming back to you it will be determined and that would be refusal because they haven't paid it and the refusal would be against policy rd two of the local development plan thank you nail um councilor brian thank you chair it was a question for new again sorry new thank you to also to mr donaton for representing your position um i share many of the same concerns that you've highlighted you while i understand the um proposal and the intention and the need to you know the the attractiveness of of self-contained properties as to hmo the the we can't get away from the fact that not meeting developers obligations around the need for these eight properties health care and the other um you know obligations it is essential so i wanted to ask about the delegated grant and the six-month's potential opportunity which may or may not even give give breathing space for the applicant to find that money given that they've um explained and then the reports have explained the delicacy of the financial constraints so it may or may not work but near my question is around risks involved in work starting um warrants happening not happening um and problems that could be stored up down the line and also um is there any risk in something happening and then having to get enforcement action you know what what could that um proposition cause for by the applicant and follow-on procedure um nothing nothing because it's a delegated grant i wouldn't be issuing the decision notice until they've paid so they will not have any consent until they've paid the developer obligations so any it would probably be a pretty straightforward breach of planning permission if they went someone went in with a digger tomorrow and started trying to build these flats because there's no planning permission to do so so a stop notice would be served immediately but that would never happen um i mean the agent in the applicant as as has come through from things i've said and they've said we're all trying to reach the same goal here and it's it's for an application that's taken in the guts of two years um it's been constant dialogue and constant agreement and what the issues are and just all with a desire to move forward so i don't there's there's no risk at all as i said it it won't do me any favors or the planning service any favors to have something sit for a further six months for example and because our performance is reported on the average time taken so this will now end up being about two and a half years to be determined for a local application um but there's an explanation for that as with any anomaly in our statistics we can explain while there was a number of issues and we knock them down like dominoes over time and we've reached the end goal and it it what could be a positive outcome so um there's a benefit there um the performance statistic isn't a material consideration making the right decision and doing the right thing is is the focus here and there might be a solution here and it it comes with no risk in terms of unauthorized development or breach of planning control it's it's quite a common thing to have the resolution of these matters as a delegated matter post committee it's more of the time scale that we're looking at playing around with here but it's the committee's gift to perhaps put a timeline through their delegated instruction if that's the route you choose to go down thank you nail cancer good old thank you chair um just a quick question from mr. r daronson with the solution offered by Neil be acceptable to yourself yes thank you um well that also and indeed welcomed i have to say it's a very reflective our relationship with the planning officers really really appreciated that's um also salted my question so did you want to come back mr. daronson yes it gives me breathing space i mean what would then do is go back you know and look at the scheme and look at the market and speak to the trust directors about how we progress it gives me a breathing space to do something desperately keen to see this project work for lots of reasons as we've explained um in that discussion Neil you know i think there's a figure stated that yeah so like in terms of how that was calculated the principle of that and yes so the answer is yes we'd accept we'd delighted to accept Neil's proposal thank you um and do you feel that you've had a fair hearing here today 100% from from the members and the officers 100% very very grateful that's great to hear thank you very much so members um do you feel that we have enough information here to determine this application yes okay well um if members don't mind um i'm going to lead on this as i called it into committee although having read the papers um i'm slightly taking a different track and that is on the developer contributions um the McRobert Trust is hugely important to Tarland and i'm very aware of how difficult it is to recruit staff and if you can't house staff it's even more difficult to recruit them and obviously with public transport being poor we want them to live close by um i did have serious concerns about the non-payment of the developer contributions um with regard to health care and and things but um i feel that Neil has offered us potentially a solution there which mr Donaldson says that he agrees so i'm going to move um a motion that we approve the application um with a condition that the flats are for staff employed by the McRobert Trust only and that section 42 would be required to remove this um condition and that we have we put this all into a delegated grant a six-month delegated grant um as Neil suggested for the payment of the development the development contributions so that we actually end up with the right development in the right place um council brian thank you chair yeah i mean i i mean i think i've shared some of my concerns and and thoughts about that also and understand as echo your sentiment regarding the value of the trust and the the many um outreaches and support that they provide to the community it is incredibly welcome and this is a difficult proposition in as much as as i said i understand the intention it's it's very hard to accept though there is an unwillingness to sort of make the financial contribution but i think through the discussion that we've had today um it sounds like it it's just that financial commitment and giving the giving the trust some breathing space to do that under the delegated um power within a six-month period i would support so i'm happy to second your motion thank you i see Neil's got his hand up so before i bring councilor roson i'll just bring Neil in yeah just uh suppose i'll be reminded as well that there is still a departure you acknowledge from policy h2 within any support to be given here um so the delegated grant aspects perfectly fine and i would even suggest that within that we can perhaps the committee can perhaps give the period of six months or an alternative time period to be agreed with the plan and authority because if we're if they need an extra week at the end of the six months there's obviously a bit of pragmatism to be had there but let's set the clear target for six months and we seem sensible to me if if you're in agreement with that but just to be clear as well that um the grant of consent would be as a departure and um well thankfully i pretty much had the reason for departure written up before and we failed to reach the agreement and the developer obligations but the reason for the departure from policy h2 affordable housing would be on the basis that the proposal is intended to be used for staff accommodation and can be controlled accordingly by planning condition to avoid um the sale through the open market and again chair i suppose just a point for clarity as well there wouldn't be a need to instruct through the delegated grant that a section 42 application would be required to make any change to that condition because that that's out in legislation um but yeah that hopefully just rounds everything off um as much for Kirsty's minute taken as for clarity for for members thank you Neil um could somebody just read back to me exactly what we're saying here because it's got quite complicated so chair what i believe you were you were um moving was a delegated grant on the basis of supporting the application as a departure from policy h2 affordable housing of the local development plan on the basis of the proposal being for staff accommodation and that can be controlled by planning condition and that delegated grant is subject to the payment of developer obligations within a period of six months or an alternative period as agreed with the planning service thank you Neil and of course subject to all other relevant planning conditions that again would be part of the delegation to yourselves to tie up all the stuff about parking and waste provision and tying into the the separate drainage consent and all that thank you Neil um so i think um mr Donaldson i hope that's clear and um i look forward to some progress thank you chair thank you committee and thank you Neil so now we're moving on to um full planning permission for erection of 68 dwelling houses formation of roads and associated infrastructure at land to the northwest of the hill of bancory um there are three requests to speak one from the applicant Ross McLennan from kala management one from martin kindness who is an objector and one from rona lawith on behalf of Charlie roith an objector are we happy to hear the speakers yes um and um Kirsty can we confirm that the speakers are on the call please we have two of the speakers on the call i'm just waiting for the third to join do we wait or i'll just see if i can get him in my chair thank you should be all speakers on the line now chair thank you um good morning everybody um the committee will first hear from the planning officer and then you'll be invited to address the committee um in line with the guidance you've received please mute your microphones when not speaking if your phone permits this you can unmute using the code start six when required please do not speak unless i invite you to do so and please do not interrupt other speakers you will each be given up to five minutes to speak and after that members may ask questions you will then be entitled to remain in the meeting for the rest of the item although your microphone will be muted so i'll now hand over to louise Todd to present the case please thanks chair sorry i'll just get going so this is full planning permission is sought for the direction of six to eight dwellings and associated infrastructure at phase two c hill of bankery the application is recommended for approval by the service planning service and is before committee today because it's defined as a major application there's an objection from bankery community council and it's considered a departure from the local development plan just this extract here is from the bankery settlement statement and it relates to op3 which is allocated for 50 dwellings and is located to the west of remar road and to the north side of bankery uh to the east is neighboring op2 which is known as phase two a and two b of the master plan and planning permission and principal site the site plan shows access taken from remar road providing a new junction and access a road along the north boundary of the site linking back to the original waste recycling center road um from the new access the main sparrow lead west with dwellings positioned to the north and south and there would also be dwellings positioned off the waste recycling center road with the stud spacing and the play park towards the south side of the development this slide here shows the different type of open space provision which makes up 40 percent of the site the ancient woodland is located to the west side um and there is also some ancient woodland to the north but that's all to be retained as part of the development the site sections here show that there is slight cut and fill required but it is a relatively flat site and running through some of the house types including the affordable units all the dwellings will follow the same material palette either consisting of dark or light grey feature stone upvc windows and a tiled roof moving on to some of the technical drawings um this identifies that the existing upper locked in junction point onto remar road will be closed this that's the cursor there and shows it in green that part there'll be closed off and the site would be accessed via a staggered junction further north allowing access for both sides of remar road uh phase two c to the west and a and b to the east and then this is the other portion of the site um you can see the access to the waste recycling center road connecting into the existing one with passing places shown as well and then a more detailed staggered junction layout which will include the widening of remar road um pavements on either side and crossing points some photos this one is upper locked in junction where it meets remar road looking both north and south and the existing properties at the entrance to upper locked in road and a view looking east this woodland here will be thinned and that's where the play parks proposed um this is a view looking west um and the fields where the development is proposed and also this is a field towards the south side of the development these are the existing properties in upper locked in road which will back on to plots 32 to 40 um the representations and bankry community council do raise concerns regarding the proposal which are summarised in section three the committee report however the planning service are content that the proposal results in an acceptable development with appropriately outcycling and design the site is allocated within the local development plan settlement statement for 50 dwellings and 68 are proposed however five of these are not within the allocation and can be treated as infill development and policy does allow scope for higher densities the and the 13 additional units are are not considered to be at the detriment of a successful development since the original submission last year the housing numbers have been reduced and the ancient woodland retained and the proposed development is considered to make an efficient use of an allocated site with 40% open space provided the the junction arrangement is raised and representation received around about was originally anticipated to be provided to allow accesses access to these phases so to be in 2c and this application alters it to a staggered junction you'll see this slide here this is an extract from the master plan with with the indicative road layout with a roundabout identified and there has been ongoing discussions between the applicant and roads development to ensure appropriate solution can be provided and although a staggered junction is not what the residence anticipated alternative solutions can be considered and as part of the alteration to the junction remar road will undergo significant upgrades and just for clarity the settlement statement for op3 lockdown lease does not stipulate that a roundabout must be delivered policy p1 does state that future development should regard to the principal set with the master plan hence the departure from policy p1 and the master plan is a material consideration but it is also indicative and alternatives can be considered through the detailed design phases therefore the form of the junction has been altered to the arrangement identified in the master plan but to a suitable alternative which is considered acceptable by roads development and we do have Ken Clark principal engineer on the line here for any technical questions you might have another point there is a proposed amendment to the committee report a condition 15 of the content sent states prior to commencement of any development the junction shall be installed it's proposed to alter this to conditions which ensure no dwelling shall be occupied until the junction has been constructed and operational and the appropriate diversions are in place at all times to allow access and a construction traffic management plan provided and in these conditions would would allow a more pragmatic approach to be taken to allow a allocated site to be delivered in a viable way ensuring the road infrastructure is in place and operational at a time it is needed and and the approach and the wording of the conditions has been agreed with roads development so subsequently the principal of residential development on this site has already been established the character of the local area will be reflected in the design and the landscaping fits successfully with the existing features of the site it is acknowledged that the access arrangement differs from what was anticipated by members of the community but this doesn't automatically render in an alternative unacceptable so all other matters are considered to be addressed through the committee report and the proposal is an acceptable departure from policy p1 and complies with other element policies and as such it's recommended for approval thank you louise do members have any questions either for louise or for kin at councilor donna yes thank you chair and yeah thank you louise you've given us a good outline of the planning history on this area i have a question for yourselves just now with fact i've got a few things to say but i'll try and keep it just the questions and i would like to know if possible what was the reason behind the change of road layout given around about has been in the whether being indicative or not in the planning since 2014 and right up until i suppose the planning application that was withdrawn recently around about was always the the option for making that junction safe and i'm just really curious as to why the sudden change thank you so the like you did mention there there was an application in that was withdrawn which did include the roundabout and between then and now road development and the applicants have had ongoing discussions about alternatives and i don't know the ins and outs of of the reasoning but i do know that this was considered a suitable alternative we know roads development are content and that's key for us in the planning service we need to know that they consider it to be an acceptable solution and in this case it is is obviously the indicative everything in the master plan can is subject to change and the settlement statement does stipulate that that is the case there may well be changes to design through technical amendments and and things like that and ultimately if we feel that there's an alternative solution the planning service have to assess it on its merits and we look at what is in front of us and this is the solution that's now here and because it's acceptable to our technical consultees um that that element is it also acceptable to the planning service um can i come back in chair yes yes i i know you within the text within the document it said this is a better design in terms of traffic flow and carbon emissions um i'll probably speak more about that later but um i still would like to know um who whose decision was it that around the roundabout would not be the better option given the fact that the um applicants probably went to some lengths and some cost having plans made and drawn up and they also went out to consultation um in boundary town hall and i would like to know um is this the preference of our adventure council roads department themselves or the applicant because again this is a question um maybe that question will be a statement um the reason that um the number of units dwellings was increased for this site was to enable funding around about so um i would like to know whether this is the preference of roads or the applicant not to build around about thank you so that the applicants on the call so it might be a question better directed to them to find out you know where it came from if it is and ultimately like i said that the planning service are we could take the advice and the the value of the roads colleagues if they are content we are we're not the roads engineers and when we rely on that um you did bring up sorry there was another part to your question um i don't remember what that part was was it sorry it was our turn it was the it was the fact that i suppose this is three applications from this particular developer who are going to build in there and i'm sure each planning application is quite costly and um i just wanted to understand you know who the decision maker was to actually change the road layout but i will put that to the um to the the applicant and but that's all the only questions i have uh like this moment in time thanks thank you councillor donno councillor ross thank you good morning louise and um on the back of what councillor donno has said the roundabout has caused great concern within um or the lack of a roundabout and the new road layout is causing great concern within um the ward of bankry and mid d-side and as you have quite rightly said there is a long planning history um to this one of the objectors of which we've all got a copy of the letter has um questioned as to whether land for the roundabout has already been compulsory purchased would you able that that's my first question would you be be able to answer that so has the land for the roundabout that was going to be going ahead with previous planning applications and i know we consider each application on its own merits which we've got in front of us but this new road layout is causing concerns so my first question is has the land for the roundabout already been compulsory purchased i'm not aware of that they keep being the case at all no um again that's probably something to be directed to the applicant okay my understanding is the landowner has been involved in the decision and the discussions about the changes thank you um and is the landowner the developer no okay thank you for that um my next question is um those of us that know that that live locally no rainwater road very very well and there is a dip in the road as you're coming um approaching this um where this junction is going to be is this junction going to take out the dip in the road or is it going to be left as is and i've got further questions please after this so the there's no change to the position of the dip in the road the main change is to the works to the road are up to further north there so there's going to be the widening of the road the crossing points and the pavement is extended the as far as i understand the speed limit restrictions are going to be moved north and these are all be in effect these are safety measures but again Ken is on the phone that if he can answer any of these in more detail that's probably the place to direct some of the more technical road questions well thank you because i have concerns there we're going to have traffic queuing eat from either direction perhaps then going forward um towards bancary and as i said after this junction is you're going towards bancary there is a dip a rise in a dip in the road and that is um safety concern to me um the master plan is that you have said was for 50 homes it's gone up to it went up well 78 now it's 68 the infrastructure in bancary is breaking um whilst um we're told that the um for example the medical center but especially bancary academy is um within capacity i'd like to know whether the figures that the consideration of the capacity for bancaring academy was made for 50 houses or for 68 please so i have spoken to developer obligations and um the relevant services about this and obviously as you know the this because this is a master plan site it's already factored into the capacities but i did speak to them and they confirmed that even that this as it stands bancary academy is actually operating at less than capacity so they they have absolutely no concern that the additional 13 that are factored into this application will have an impact on that that they're because the school is not actually operating the capacity they anticipated you know that you know they're they're quite content that there's there's no issue and it's the same with the primary school the primary school is operating significantly less than they thought it would be at this point well thank you thank you for that clarification however um hill of bancary primary school is at capacity in children from the houses at i'm going to say hill of bancary and loc side have to go to bancary primary school so one of the schools in bancary is already at capacity and if bancary academy um they're saying it is under capacity i think any parents and children that go to the academy would very respectfully and politely disagree Councillor Ross can you stick to questions please thank you thank you um i'm going to what one other question was the affordable housing which is on the road to the recycling center could you please put the map up again for the road to the recycling center please there we go if you can see that and could you highlight where the road is because the several roads on there for um members that aren't familiar with the area thank you so is it the road what with the road to the waste recycling center will if you can see my cursor just continue along like that road to the north as existing it comes up and along pretty much in the middle and connects down here right i could actually i could go back to the original the first plan has a um the first slide has a plan of the existing road layout is would that be helpful please thank you there so it just comes north and then west relatively straight towards the western slightly center thank you so am i correct in saying that it's going through past the affordable housing so it's going north yes it i'll go back really is there so it's going to go affordable housing in here other properties you can see dwellings these ones here will be accessed from the waste recycling center road and so will the affordables yes okay thank you and finally peat bugs i understand from reading the papers that um some of the land we've got ancient woodland but we've also got peat bog there now elsewhere in um scotland we're trying to restore peat bog so what's going to be done with this development to protect the peat bog so to there please my understanding from all the environmental surveys that have been undertaken is the peat bugs to the north and there are mitigation measures in the reports which are for you know surface water um construction methods so there there is a report that there'll be a condition attached to ensure that all um works are carried out in accordance with the mitigation measures outlined in the specific reports on those elements and also a construction a construction method statement for the works to be carried out to make sure there's no pollution or silt or anything entering somewhere that it shouldn't be thank you that's all for now thank you thank you um i don't see any other um questions for louise so if we could move to mr mcclenon please um and mr mcclenon you have five minutes hi there can everyone hear me okay yes yep perfect okay thank you very much um as as introduced um good morning councilors my name's ross mcclenon uh of cower homes in abradine um as as you'll be aware fantasy today is the proposal for six day homes and bankry upper lofting consisting of 51 private units and 17 affordable homes and the mix as you would have read in the papers is one two three four and five bed properties um and it's approved today a development will begin in the summer uh and then discuss uh in addition to that we're in discussions with uh an rsl the moment to ensure that the early delivery of affordable housing and which is likely to be social housing i think is what the housing service have requested and you made the way of cala but we have uh um our roots in the area and we found it in abradine in 1875 uh and she counsels approved today with board investing again in the area having last built uh houses in the mid 2000s at tall pines um having read the report today um in advance of boss and committee in the main and as i've heard from the questions and the details are really round about um how the rules network all works which i'm happy to take questions on later and it sees the relocation of the recycling center road that was discussed and improving access to this uh key local facility and and the existing housing um upper lofting and creating um a development which um helps to satisfy the housing need in any as well and we've heard from Louise about and the master plan in line with this and the local plan and that details a transport assessment will will lead for junction arrangement and should be outweighed. The existing upper lofting roads as we've discussed will be importantly closed because you know um that is very substandard at moment in terms of visibility and pretty pretty dangerous it doesn't achieve requirements at all about uh 4.5 meters by 50 meters in terms of visibility and requirements. The new junction that's proposed is 7.3 meters in width and so a sizable junction and normal uh bigger than normal and this achieves the visibility standard so the point that and that was discussed around about the depth in the road and everything and the new junction you'll have far improved as is the ability standards which are in line by roads requirements. Raymore road actually gets widened actually moves out a bit as you'll see in some of the drawings as you go south towards Raymore garden center so a vastly improved position and in addition to this we'll also have I think there's questions around about queuing traffic but there'll be stacking lanes going either to the west or the east so traffic comes off the road and meaning that there's uh there's there's no queuing there. The suit path extension I spoke about um again which is not there at the moment it helps create a safe environment for pedestrians and there'll be rescue islands and there as well for crossing. In addition to that 30 mile an hour extent of banking the moment which is roughly about uh at upper locked in road gets moved out further towards north towards um the cowshed and there'll be new signage out at that point which welcomes people to uh bankry and was discussed with community council by ensuring like the community uh the town crest and everything is is on that so that that road layout is in keeping with boats within the town and um and wider Aberdeenshire and this has all been independently assessed by road safety audits um through a lot of collaboration with the council roads teams and also as a road safety unit so there's it's a considerable infrastructure first approach uh delivered prior to any houses being uh occupied and that's always been the key part through our consultation with community and and discussions with officers and let's back to the roundabout this proposal replaces the previous roundabout in our initial applications and that was amended following detailed investigation with Aberdeenshire Roads which is essentially rendered and deliverable um people may be aware that there's four Scottish water means in Remo Road massive infrastructure there there's also gas and electric all sit within the road those services always have to be moved for the roundabout to be created which then means basically huge closures on Remo Road which likely to be around about six months to close that road and deliver that piece of infrastructure so that's probably one of the main points for why that roundabout is not um proposed now not following getting to detail with the council and I'm going through all of that as you know there's not really any possibility for suitable diversions roundabout the roads are already minor and so it just really means that roundabout solution is not deliverable and hence where we've had to go back to the drawing board and come back with another proposal which is um a suitable alternative we've worked hard with Aberdeenshire council officers to create that alternative approach and this has been rigorously tested and Mr McLennan can you wind up please yeah no problem um we're positive about delivering in Bankrie again we want to contribute to economy and and deliver those private and affordable homes that are needed we're hopeful that members agree with the recommendations of officers allowing of development on this allocated site and I'm much improved roads and infrastructure to come forward and as I noted at the beginning I welcome any questions from members okay thank you very much thank you and Councillor donno yes thank you chair um yes thank you Mr McLennan and you partly answered um the question regarding the roundabout and why the the change in layout which was something that I knew already but it wasn't within the report um when you came to a with the first planning application for this which was I think came planning application 20230908 that was for 78 houses you held a um event in Bankrie town hall for the public to come and have a look at the plans and um it was well I think attended um obviously people I think within the community are still unhappy that any building is going to happen up there again but it is what it is it's in the local development plan but the roundabout was um the persuader to make that junction safe and has been the persuader since the inception of the master plan and the local development plan and now you've said today that the reason this won't go ahead is because it's going to cause um diversions which you say aren't suitable and um probably a lot more costly um you also within the report it says this is a better design in terms of traffic flow and um carbon emissions that um the cars won't be sitting for long therefore won't be given out the same emissions well I beg to differ there because you have got these lanes where people were going to be sitting in waiting for traffic to move off and um there's going to be enough a lot more cars so there's going to be a lot more carbon emissions and um this layout is not any safer than what's already the answer dinner are you asking a question cancer dinner are you asking a question oh sorry yes the question is um where's the evidence that this um will produce less carbon emissions thank you so there's a my understanding thanks for the question there's a the report done the road safety audit looks into and also the transport assessment then there's lots of modeling done on lots of different scenarios of different junction arrangements and around about street queuing traffic a lot of detailed data that the roads analysts go into and what they'll be counting is doing one the session versus the other that as you've kind of said as you approach around about you tend to stop and have idling traffic whilst this is as a um all cars will have to do that so they'll be assessing that versus a junction arrangement where there's less traffic stopping and idling in the and lanes to turn into either side of the the f or three more road versus all traffic having to stop an idle so they'll be doing assessment along those lines and but as i say there has been a lot of detail going into it i think they're all on the planning portal where you'll see all the traffic counts and measures and how many cars will be stopping anyone playing a time what is the peak traffic points as well and so there's a lot of data that goes in behind that and that's what their calculations will be based upon can i come back in chair sorry yes we're the question yeah okay i will i will make it a question um so your my question to you is you you reckon that cars will be idling longer at um around about then they will at the junction at the moment thank you so that's where the the transport assessment will review that that traffic flows coming into around about all cars stop and look and then decide what to do whilst the other junction arrangement will be less cars stopping as they'll be into the stacking lanes before moving across i'm not a transporter i'm not explaining means but that is my assessment of what's in the detail in the transport reports no i'm not an expert either but um i'm just kind of going by common sense here i think there will be more traffic um stopped at the the junction that you propose waiting to exit it'll be sitting there much longer waiting for traffic coming either side we've as around about it's as a constant flow that's how it works at the hillabankery thank you thank you councillor councillor tervy yes good morning thank you very much i may have raised my hands a bit too late previously uh when you have asked um i don't know if i can come with a question about the developers obligations here because i always feel like when we have big development like that we have you know we have the developers of obligations um items like name like kind of kind of generically rather than you know specifically so councillor tervy yes please can you answer ask your question ask your question afterwards for the planner if this is for the planner or is it for the developer uh either i don't i'm sure what is best well probably the planner okay i'll allow you to come back in afterwards councillor or is your question for the developer yes it is thank you and good morning um i previously mentioned when i was talking to louise um the dip in the road and i was asking if that has been factored into the transport assessment that's my first question please do you know if that's been factored in yeah so the the junction has moved north uh considerably and then the way more road itself as you can see uh don't start drawing on the on the screen but the way more road itself pushes out to the east slightly they're sort of uh the road gets widened and pushes out and now that allows a better visibility down to the south towards way more garden centre and also allows the footpath to be brought all the way up uh the both sides of the road and especially on the west side of the road where there was um it's quite tight against that wall so the road kind of bulges out a wee bit yeah better visibility you can't see seeking it's that new junction which is a considerable size a considerable investment and and footpaths all the up to development so you're really bringing that urban urban edge out and you're not having i think if you remember back to the very first application we put in and this time last year the 20-23-1 there was no footpath proposed up to the development with the roundabout so there's now shown that with the new junction arrangement thank you and i've got a couple more questions if you don't mind please um bankry the bankry paths group have asked for the crossing to be um tied in with um um a previous application 178 is that possible please um i would declare the junction points the crossing points have been kind of moved about on the road and i think the current location was agreed with the road's department as their scope to to agree or revise tuition but suits everyone were pretty comfortable with that it would just need to be for whatever works in terms of um road standards thank you so you'd be happy to work with the bankry paths group and planning to align with what the bankry paths group um are wanting yes that can be caught in condition that that would be absolutely fine um thank you the planning and the roads departments yeah thank you thank you now my next question um refers to something that you have said just now um and and you gave the explanation as to why the roundabout hadn't uh couldn't go ahead because of the mains gas and water um underneath the road my question is surely when you took over this development from bangcon i think it was bangcon that had it previously um you would have been aware of the roundabout and you'd have been aware what was going on to the road um yes we were aware that there was significant infrastructure in the road what we weren't aware of is what was going to be acceptable in terms of road closures um and what that means is is really more road so no access from the north into the town at all for probably up to six months and so that that's the real crunch part here and why um why the proposals actually undel miserable um is because you can have significant impacts on on the town coming in from the north if you go on the roads to the east um past the cow shed that's not suitable for all traffic um as you know it's very narrow kind of windy road other diversions right out towards um i guess on the glavel road and things like this huge huge impacts on on people and and moving all of those and key services that that's really the crunch part um the the road as you saw can be designed as a roundabout they can't be delivered it's a problem hmm thank you um thank you for that explanation bankry community council in the um i i know that you've consulted with you know what when i say consulted you visited them and done presentations at bankry community council but they have um put an objection in and um they have said as they have said this is the third iteration of the proposed development and um the additional houses that they agreed um needed you know that they agreed um to the argument as to um why the larger number of houses were needed um and which was because of the economic challenges of delivering the roundabout um but now we're not going to have a roundabout is there no other solution possible uh um and i appreciate you you know you've got costs but um and a business at the end of the day but the community and bankry and bankry community council have objected because the roundabout is not going in so is there no other has there been any other solution put forward by the Abadinesha roads department um can i bring in um Ken Clark here um as the roads expert because um i don't know how you feel um mr mcclenham but i feel he might have the technical knowledge to answer some of these questions yeah as Ken could answer the technical that i can add a little bit before that that's okay yeah absolutely the community council we've had a great relationship with um we've met them a lot and actually really enjoy going and speaking with them and talking through things um and they've had a really good attitude towards everything um and and hearing what we've got to say and and trying to understand that so and that that has been really good um in terms of the road and the cost itself so we've please had 78 houses i think way back in a day with the with the roundabout um the costing around about and actually the junction improvement works we're talking about isn't actually that different the roundabout itself's throwing me 700 000 odd that the junction improvement works about 580 so there's not actually that much different because we're actually creating huge 7.3 meter junctions on each side of the road stacking links to the middle widening rainwater road completely through pass up either side and moving rainwater road out to make sure that we've got all the right visibility and that all works so does that seem not that much difference in terms of cost between the two the main difference is that you can do different the works at different times and not have to shut rainwater road completely for for considerable time that i've mentioned earlier and so hopefully that helps clarify some of those parts and Ken might be able to give it more detail on the technical aspects and this. Do you want to come in Ken? yeah thanks chair i just i just thought there was quite a few sort of technical sort of comments being made there really that i thought i may be able to help and clarify um it's the question of the roundabout is from our roads development point of view we look at a roundabout junction it is a road junction it's a junction between typically two or three four roads and they're put there for a reason and that is because you have a large number of side flows for example come into developments you've got they tend to be very balanced uh you tend to need them for capacity issues so the first thing to say is that based on the traffic flows generated by this development there's nothing being generated by this development or any the future developments that comes close to the quite not even close to the requirement for a roundabout and capacity terms so the roundabout is not needed in any way for capacity i just want to make that clear and that that's through the normal standard analysis that we would look at for any development so then the question comes down to road safety and again it's been mentioned a few times that this this junction has been put in to make this a to make the whole thing safe now again we would look at a junction in a sort of iterative way and you'd have to then decide whether or not what was being put in in terms of the the sort of priority arrangement that has been put in now is there something inherently unsafe about that arrangement now that that's a typical junction that you'll see anywhere across not just that would ensure but anywhere and is that anything inherently unsafe about that junction in comparison to that you'd have to address with a roundabout and the answer to that is is no but there's nothing unhealthy and safe about it and what's more over and Ross had mentioned the costs difference between say a roundabout junction and the priority junction what we sought in in looking at the junction change what was previously proposed was a roundabout junction but with nothing else on the road what has been sought now and the key to this from the road's development point of view is that we wanted urbanization we wanted to put ways on either side of the road we wanted street lights we wanted that to be a far more urbanized arrangement which in effect slows down the traffic at that point compared to what it is at the moment now there's there's nothing that takes you from that to say that there's going to be some intrinsic safety issue that would lead you to then say we need to put a roundabout in to solve that so technically there is no reason for the roundabout and just the other point was just the dip in the road anything that gets designed there at that point will have to meet all the technical requirements of the the council national standards so anywhere where there is a lack of visibility anywhere where it does not meet our visibility standards both vertically and horizontally has to be designed out so that that that will not be an issue so I just thought I'd want to put these points across because they've been released a few times so thank you chair can can I ask the question for Ken please on the back of it can continue yes can I ask then I respect what you what you've said please accept that let me let me let me make that clear however if there is no need for a roundabout why was it previously granted because in previous applications and and local counselors who who were in the previous council term were faced with this and and the roundabout was was granted so why why now is there no need for capacity when we're going to have increased houses and the there whilst each application is judged on its own merits there are a future up and the master plan is going to deliver further houses in this area what it why was it previously acceptable and now it's not a counselor I think that I can only answer that by by saying for whatever reason it was granted it was not on technical reasons for example and we can it trip generation here for this development it generates something like 52 vehicles in the morning it'd be 44 vehicles in the in the evening that's for for this particular development now these figures don't come close to even the junction that's there at the moment I'll just give an example we do a technical analysis of the capacity of the junction that's been proposed that the the priority junction that it reaches something like 10 percent of its capacity on the side roads and 2 percent of its capacity on the rimoy road it it there is not the capacity issue here in any in any sense I can't tell you any more than that but whatever reason the round was there it was not a technical reason then was that roundabout not part of the master plan originally so why would it be it well first of all I'd like clarification on that before I I go forward with what I was going to say next yeah I believe so but again I think Louise brought that up at the start that it can be indicative it's somebody's throwing a circle in a plan I'm not quite sure but it's not it was not on a it was not on a technical basis Louise would you like sorry Louise would you like to come in on that yeah I was just going to say that it the master plan is indicative and it's never been there's been never any detailed consent never any detailed planning permission for a roundabout it was just a solution shown in the master plan as a potential option at that time and I know it goes historically back I know it's a long standing expectation but that doesn't make it something that had had detailed permission that would need to come forward the detailed design process can alter that which is exactly what's happened here and that's what the settlement statement says that future applications may alter the position of the master plan and that will need to be justified with all the technical requirements um all the the supporting information that we've had through this application so yeah I think it's important to remember that was just a solution that was shown as a as an option that historically people had the expectation would be there but actually in reality there's other options here thank you for the explanation but while it may have only been indicative we've had they part of the master plan already delivered um with you know planning gone through so I'll leave it there thank you thank you um Councillor Tervie are you still wanting to ask about developer contribution please sorry that's what you break down so I have I know I have no degrees on it I have both questions I have a question for the developer too please okay so um can I have Casa my colleagues um because they don't know I consider Ross have covered a lot of a question already I have more a question on about um the playground and the sport pitch you are is which is lined up in the plan in the plan um is adult the plan at the maintenance of the playground and the sport beach being factor into the houses factor and um maintenance because you know that's something that people doesn't always realize and how heavy is impact and what is the sport pitch for and like what type if you have this reply for me yeah no problem yeah the over all the open space associated with the development of all the within a factoring regime which is run by the residents association so they had the play the play area and has moved on the plan of all the looked after by that so and there's no issues with and the council wanting to look after for example and it's all all maintained and he says the same for the sport pitch and what's of sort of sports pitch are we talking about because we are in bankruptcy we have a serious lack of all those sports possibilities yeah there's no sports pitch proposed it's a it's a play area as part of the as part of the development thank you um so councilor terry sorry sorry just one second to but with in the developers obligation it does support a new sport pitch so i don't know why it's not with the in the wars then that's that'll be the contributions to um the council identifying a sports pitch somewhere else so we're paying towards that and so yeah see the Aberdeen shared pitch strategy identifies requirement for a sports pitch in vancouver and then we basically are paying a contribution and towards that whatever that and is to go that thank you that's not clear thank you yeah so does that answer your question about the developer contribution as well uh not enough it's just like okay well if we come back to that um um later councilor donna did you have another question yes chair it was actually um for ken is that okay back around the boat again yeah yeah hello ken um i was quite interested in listening to what you said there about the capacity and not for roundabout um when this back in 18th of June 2019 um the other developer not kala but the original developer came to area committee asking for the condition 16 which was the removal of having to build the roundabout first before it proceeded with some of these other phases which were to a b and c and they wanted to build the phase two seahouses first and they said in order to a fund around about that's what would need to happen but at area committee it was a that was rejected and within the consultations from roads development and i can just read this out to you it says from roads development they had no objection to the proposal subject to a condition stating that prior to the completion of the 30th house within phase two c and prior to commencement of any development uh in phase two a and b the roundabout shall be constructed and operational and also infrastructure service transportation they also speak about the roundabout having to be put in place so it's just really disappointing that we're now at this stage where abadinger council probably seems to have had no intention of having a roundabout there and and the roundabout is this a question in council don't know sorry yeah i suppose just ask ken what his response is to that because this paper says one thing and you're saying another thank you uh i think the answer that would be is at that point there was no alternative junction being proposed uh there was a roundabout seemed to be a fate of complete from from my memory on looking at his junction and you know and i came to into as an officer just you know after and of what the stuff had been put forward so i suppose at that point it was it there was nothing alternative being proposed and that again nothing had been looked at in detail it had just been presented as a roundabout presumably because of some long-standing desire for that to be roundabout there for for like a say for whatever reason i don't know the answer to that but now that we've looked at it in detail and taken all the technical points on board again i just come back to the point to say that there's nothing within road's development that we can take from what's been presented and say that doesn't work there needs to be a roundabout that there's nothing i can find to do that with and and mr mucklin i'll tell you we're not the easiest people to please hate on on things like this eros development um so i can only answer it by saying at that point there was nothing else proposed there's nothing else on the table thank you ken um counsellor Ross sorry to come back um and i hear what you've just said and thank you for being forthright however i appreciate there was nothing else proposed but surely and it goes back to what you said previously when that planning application that counsellor donno has referred to came forward surely there would have been technical consideration made and the road's department would have been consulted therefore the need for the roundabout would have been patent it's a bit difficult to not go into lots and lots of technical detail that no one will thank before but i think what i'm getting at here is that the roundabout went in for normally in design you would start with i collect the traffic data i look at that traffic data i say what do i need in terms of capacity i would look at that and say that that level of traffic i can look at that from user experience to say that that will be easily handled by a priority junction you would only move to a roundabout if for example they proposed a priority junction that didn't work into capacity terms then you would look for the next stage of junction up whether it might be a right turn lane provision it might be traffic signals this this has gone backwards for some reason i can't tell you exactly why because i've not been involved with the full process but so what what would have happened to answer your question here counsellor's is that the roundabout's been put in an analysis been put in to support that roundabout in terms of it being there the analysis wasn't put in to say that a roundabout is needed here it's it's it's been put in to say that with that roundabout there it will work if that makes some sense because there wasn't an alternative to build up to that roundabout i hope i'm making a little bit of sense and please tell me if i'm not but it's been done backwards so the analysis has justified the roundabout rather as the other way round which would be the normal way to do it if that makes some sense because we know this because there's subsequent analysis being done on the priority junction shows that there is no capacity issue there that needs to be answered by our roundabout does that help maybe not explain it very well um yes and no thank you for your explanation and um i can't respond i'm afraid to that but you talk about capacity now remoia road is those that of us that live locally know is a very very busy feeder road to bancery and i appreciate your analysis regarding capacity will have been done professionally i understand that and by you know the council's matrix for that sort of thing however it is an incredibly busy road we have the garden center we have um the this is the question yes it is i'm i'm getting there um we have the recycling center and it is incredibly busy so whilst i understand the feeder road layout and and and you've referred to environment or the papers have referred to environmental issues with whatever we have we have a similar and it's not the same but a similar um layout only approach on the a 93 when you come into bancery by to the road that goes off for Tesco's into hill of bancery and that um when you have traffic queuing which you will have there in that feeder lane is locally um when i say is i should say locally has lots of concerns about it because um locally it's felt it and maybe technically it works but locally it's felt it does not work properly so regarding the capacity bancery is has has grown and grown and grown and grown and i i would argue that there is capacity there for around about is that a question or a statement it is kind of no it's it's kind of both so um and i i appreciate what you've said Ken i i understand where you're coming from and and get what you're saying but i would say that the traffic on what day of the week was this um analysis if if it was done if there were traffic um monitor you know the cables you put across the road or how was this achieved was it a desktop exercise or was somebody there perhaps at a weekend or during the week what day of the week was this analysis done because it's busier sometimes than others and to the time of the day as well i i understand that because i don't know the exact the day of the day of week but can i just go back to the the analysis there shows that there's there's plenty of capacity it's running less than 10 of capacity now it doesn't you would have to you would have to multiply the flows by 100 to get close to it being a anywhere close to capacity if we were to try and defend this and appeal for example and said it needs to be around you out there i would have to ask what grounds because there's not there's not a technical issue here with capacity that says that you need to put around a bit in week we can't ask that so that i see Neil's gets hand up we may probably help help me with some of the wording here do you want to come in Neil yeah sorry chair it was just to try and almost move things along a wee bit to be honest um there's a few things here Louise has said several times the master plans indicative and the master plan is quite an old master plan it's a lot more prescriptive because of its age and and that's ultimately part of the problem here um if this was a new master plan to come forward we would be looking at phasing and commitments to delivering the solutions rather than the detail of the solution so a modern master plan would say yeah to serve phases two a and two b and two c there will need to be a junction upgrade on remor road and that wouldn't tell you what the junction upgrade would be whether it's around about a staggered junction a grade separated junction with sliproads and flyovers that detail would come at a later date um it the master plan would just say look here's where the housing's going and that they'll need to be upgraded junctions to serve these phases that's what we need to keep in mind here you can't put too much weight on an indicative detail in a master plan the decision today isn't a choice between a staggered junction and around about nobody's proposing around about the proposal before you as a staggered junction and it's acceptable to roads Ken's outlined a great length the technical acceptance of that road design there's no road safety concerns it meets the the capacities for the development allows the priority flow on remor road it is a technically acceptable proposal um and and that in turn meets plan and policy as a committee it's a difficult one to go against the technical consultation who's the expert in the field and the planners who then use that to inform compliance with policy um and you can't give too much weight to an indicative detail in a master plan um and just to touch on the mention to the a 93 and the junction leading up to tesco i remember as well that we had the discussion about roundabouts when um we had that retail proposal before you and it did just seem there's this idea that people shouldn't have to wait 20 seconds to turn right on a stacking lane people don't have the right to constantly be moving in a car and as Ken's outlined when the road capacity and the traffic flow is is even on all approaches and there is the capacity there then sure a roundabout can be the optimum solution but t junctions staggered junctions um small stacking lanes that's a perfectly acceptable solution and if someone has to wait for 15 or 20 seconds before they turn right in the stacking lane then that's fine that that's acceptable it's a perfectly acceptable and common road solution here so i appreciate there was a public expectation through the master plan that there would be a roundabout here but the main thing to try and swallow not necessarily accept um everyone will have their opinions here but what's before you is an acceptable solution and nobody nobody has ever really proposed the roundabout and Ken hit the nail in the head i think it was councilor derno was asking about the previous proposals that came in from bank on they were looking at delaying the delivery of the roundabout and that was justified the junction as existing could cope for a certain period of time before before the upgrade was needed but at that time the upgrade was considered to be the roundabout now at that time had they have proposed the staggered junction the condition might have said staggered junction rather than roundabout and so on so again we're not revisiting the pass we'll have to look at what's before you currently and that is a housing development on an allocated site that has met all the technical requirements of the council t and is proposing a suitable junction and as per the planning condition that junction upgrade will be in place prior to the occupancy of any dwellings to address the need for the road safety in and out of the site so again hopefully we can just move on because there's other speakers on the phone here and there's other issues possibly to discuss and so on um but you've got a perfectly acceptable road solution in front of you here thanks chair thank you neil um i think um you've nailed it really with what you've said um we are actually still in poor mr mcclenon's time so any more questions for officers we will swoop up at the end but in the meantime if nobody's got any more questions for mr mcclenon um councillor tervy is your question for mr mcclenon or for the end uh for the officers please okay so we'll we'll keep that for the end so mr mcclenon thank you for your patience and your forbearance here um thank you do you feel that you've had um an appropriate time to present your case under fair hearing yes that was great thank you thank you very much so now we'll move on to mr kindness and we will again just keep questions please for mr kindness and we will sweep up any questions for officers at the end thank you you have five minutes hi hello can you hear me certainly can i can't hear you know hello can you hear me yeah yes oh sorry thanks very much good morning chair hey martin kindness here um i'm uh president of a care got up a lot in bankry i'm most probably most directed directly affected by the say development because my property actually lies on the the boundary exact boundary of the year proposed development this is the fifth attempt uh to to undergo this development previously two by bank on now the third by carla all for people who stated that they are not viable based on the you know put in master plan conditions so they've proceeded to you know ignore the master plan conditions and and build a a development which basically the entity is truly based on their want to make more money why the why the question can ask many times it's been far far round about because of the consistent conditions 16 why is it a condition 16 well nobody's given a reason as to why that around but shouldn't have been built in the first place that that's been the thing that people have been mentioned louise lost and can't have mentioned various points of view but again there are points of view the actual farthest of why condition 16 was a intermittent in the first place but the main reason for the roundabout isn't for traffic calming sorry isn't for a a if of course it's purely for traffic calming then we know that part of bankry at the end of our junction the care care guard at the upper locked and it's the speed of traffic entering the bankry from the north and the speed of traffic leaving bankry from you know from the south from the from the garden center purely um the speed of traffic uh has been various attempts before to uh like moving the speed limit junction police cars you know speed cameras set but none nothing nothing's worked uh so how did the how did color you know how do you alleviate this you know the the increased cost so they're putting cost basically planners and they call that putting cost and convenience before safety that's what's happening here this is it's a major uh a junction uh they've mentioned that they wanted the reasons why they you know they need the traditional houses as the cost of labor and materials but that shouldn't justify you know moving on from you know a provisions based on the master plan if the cost of labor materials are higher than they just be it then you know you know increase the price of the house and there was no there's been no public consultation with regards to this development yes there was an initial public consultation held two years ago and it was but and and the constant Scott gov rules and recommendations and regulations that you need to go back with effort or change you need to go back with a public consultation so to leave this decision on a couple of residents in upper lock and party with regards to a major infrastructure change to boundary is it's not right you know you need to have a public consultation so the public can the whole of boundary can they can comment the report the roundabout report is based on a card is through report desk desktop study with no site visit uh so and they planned it based on you know a given a plan to take comment on if you extend this plan it was produced in the earlier one the slave if you stand this plan 50 yards to north and 50 yards to south what you've got is the north you've got a blind access 60 mile an hour access a road entering bank with bankery or pill on a corner and now you're gonna bring the close up new junction if you're leaving bankery again we've mentioned it's been mentioned before the tip in the road is the excessive speed and blind access again uh so but the next and a couple of diagrams were few one but you don't mention the type of traffic gain it's on that day junction there's no mention of the temporary traffic which is you know articulated laurie's advanced cars traffic non-stop i think Ken mentioned that they the survey was based on a 30 or 44 cars and i thought the junction i mean we get 30 44 cars at the junction on a weekend just in an hour going to tip so obviously none of the tip traffic has been there included in this area decision because they're only using and mention it they're based on it and not new houses so it doesn't so it doesn't mention anything there um the original initial road the development has been developed through the existing day tip road now the recent tip road was made 15-20 years ago based on safety reasons to take it away from a residential area area and upper locked and now they're building again on residential area i think one of the counselors mentioned that you're on and from a personal point of view i mentioned before my property directly on the border of the of the uh they proposed development the original master plan had a provision for a green belt between existing properties and any new development if it's an advanced woodland area between the rear houses on the on the upper locked and honey new new development must be nothing of this taking account into consideration all that planning to do is put a six-week high offense on on the exact on the boundary of where my house is so my house is the original upper locked and cottage which is uh over a hundred years old so at development we'll have a one-point eight-meter high fence on their side of the garden mr five minutes could you wind up please okay basically just to say that my my house is lower than the current force development here by my house is the original cottage so i'm going to see on my side nearly a three-meter high fence based on the the development side because it's got a built-in higher ground that extend in the level of the ground and so i'm going to be overlooked majorly by this development um i've got lots more to see you mean it's all in the it's all in the attached documentation but thanks for your time yeah thank you um i will now throw it open to members to ask questions specifically please for mr kindness Councillor Ross thank you and good morning mr kindness um thank you for coming and speaking to the committee today you've mentioned that your house is going to be overlooked what is the distance between your house approximately cosign um and um any houses on the development and will you be overshadowed over hugely that's i'm trying to say it might as i say that a nearly three-meter high fence on the high side because we're taking the ground level of my property compared to the new development here but i think they've said it's 18 meters between the back of the current development uh window and and my bedroom window so but it's it's important to note it all other uh houses next in my neighbors are all mentioned individually within the report saying how would they would uh mitigate certain overlooking set that but mine being exactly on the border is not even mentioned in the report i mean that's the name house names but not mine so obviously they can't answer the question that's what i try to get at uh so majorly overlooking set that a window it over you can see in one of the pictures i've got a window that overlooks the current site a picture window that that will be completely obliterated by uh any development on the other side thank you could i come back and you've also mentioned it was myself that was talking about the um access road to the recycling tip and you live as you have said locally um what is how busy is that route i mean you mentioned a number of cars but actually how how busy and is is that road a week not just at weekends but a weekends particularly and and during the week for you massively because i i obviously oversee the road behind me because directly and land my window so i can i see i see and hear traffic all the time and and i used to tip there the cycle center frequently sometimes i i've been in a queue at the recycle center just waiting to get to the gate a 15th in line of targe not just in the space i you know a couple of minutes not like in the summertime when it's you know there's a lot of people outside doing uh gardening work etc it's constant i mean it's i mean to mention to base the junction on 30 to 44 car the cars arriving the junction well as i said all around you'll get an hour easily for traffic for the recycle center thank you thank you um yeah sorry sorry keep going i mean i can let you guys just to put a safe visit i'll show you i'll be happy to thank you thank you um i see no um other questions i think Neil um but i think perhaps Louise wants to come back in sorry i was just um i'm not sure if you got a direct question for me but i do um those i'm not sure what you mean about the the not being i mentioned in the report though the the report does cover overlooking and overshadowing directly to those properties and the properties to the west and any which directly back on to the no but i in general either plot numbers you know the ones that are plots i can't remember 32 to 40 um and other properties since the previous since the previous application last year the application um the house types have been changed to increase that separation distance so there's 18 meters window to window on the first floor level which the ground floor there's a timber fence and unfortunately in an urbanized area such as this there's there's not a huge amount you can do and this is an allocated site which has been a very long running allocation and a timber fence is pretty standard for ensuring privacy between garden grounds and we had looked at softening that slightly and and i think that's maybe what you're referring to in the master plan but again as we've touched on that's all indicative and and and and the prop with the proposal in the master plan is very different to what we're proposing now um and i do think it has been covered in the report in terms of overshadowing overbearing and overlooking and it is a substantial change there's a significant difference between what these properties currently experience and what they will um at the moment they overlook fields and and there is going to be properties beyond their garden and it it will be significantly different but that doesn't make it unacceptable it is an allocated site which was allocated for housing for a number a long long time and we have worked with the developer to try and increase the separation distance and 18 meters is considered acceptable so why how can all other houses houses are mentioned and not not mine mr kindness i know how you're going to deal with over crowding yeah you're looking um mr kindness um i think um council Ross come wants to come back in but please can you not interrupt very good apologies thank can i come back in thank you that then i've got a question can i ask louisa question please because mr kindness is saying his house has not been mentioned um can you keep it to the end to the sweet thing up please um mr kindness um thank you for coming to committee today do you feel you've had a fair hearing and a good chance to present your case uh well i guess so but i mean i've got loads more points to consider and i guess that i'm included in the attached documents but one of the major points i guess is when Carla came to a like the last thing without a second attempt for development they mentioned 69 houses because they needed the additional houses to cover for a roundboat now that they don't need to have a round boat and so how many how many houses is the development of using producing by just the one you know so thank you a profit yeah thank you thank you thank you um you're very welcome to remain in the meeting until the end um i'm now going to invite mrs loeth to um address the committee on behalf of um charlie loeth are you with us mrs loeth hi there hopefully hi there can you hear us all right i can hear you can you hear me we can hear you um you have up to five minutes and then members may want to ask questions thank you that's great thank you so i'm representing my husband charlie loeth who's submitted an objection but she all has objection points and i do appreciate that road safety and pedestrian crossing is in well covered already in the meeting and it's really useful to hear more about the road layout from the developer and positive to hear that there's opportunity to look at the pedestrian crossings as well we are however so extremely concerned about increased pedestrian crossings without a roundabout to reduce the current speed of traffic will i appreciate that some rules assessment have been undertaken i've joined today to share my lived experience of times across the road at peak times with cars speeding past those at very obvious high speeds so real of a Brooklyn which is just below the crest of the hill following the dip and also at the current informal crossing point that the bank lead past refer to or patents of primary school children who attend bank lead primary and would regularly walk our children to school not means we have to cross the more road at peak times as we've said in our objection our attempts as well as many of our neighbors have been fruitless and resulting traffic calming measures on the basis that where the roads are owned about expected to be constructed and that would resolve the issues so we've patiently waited so it is good to hear about some of the proposed measures to try and and calm the traffic with this new development and fees to be walked in a re-development there will be a large input to new residents and also the popularity of the new path at lack of leads is attacking many more residents to use the bankly circular route which crosses by our house and that's all positive for this reason we do believe it's crucial to ensure the speed of the road is addressed before increasing the amount of residence in the area we agree with bankry path but although the planned pedestrian crossing is not far along pedestrians will cross by our house this is a natural link for the circular path it's human nature to take the short route if you're running late for school if the pedestrian crossings are the island type it's efficient given it's a main road when it's been issued so this is a controlled pedestrian crossing with light the our driveway goes out onto the mortise road just below the crest of the road traffic has not yet slowed and many of the outgoing traffic feel it's appropriate having passed the garden center that's then leaving bankry first fire junction may be considered improving visibility for those then going into the depth visibility will be the same the road with increased usage is for any development has started i often feel unsafe pulling out the driveway incoming traffic comes in at such a speed very suddenly worse that we try to get action taken on traffic calming measures and every day we watch cars being passed as a stand holding the kids hands to road at peak times go out the driveway to think what it would be like to have to try and get out of our driveway and traffic point that we wanted to leave this plan is removing the range though does not fit with the walk to school message if parents do not feel it's safe for their children's cross ability to walk to school them the problem of volume of traffic on the road see an ability objective and it's not healthy for anyone not full spy it's a 25 minute walk for us you should be need to try and promote walking school as it will be tempting for many parents if the children who reconsider the safety of the road when reviewing this amended planning application thank you to me you're breaking up did you hear it all okay um did you finish sorry the last the last bit broke up did you hear me up until can you can you just say the very last bit again that was that i urge you to do we consider the safety of the road amended planning applications entity that's perfect thank you very much and do members have any questions please for Mrs Loweth and i don't see any hands up so thank you very much for being so patient today and waiting do you feel that you've had a good opportunity to present your case under fire hearing i hope that was a yes i didn't hear thank you um members i'm going to suggest that we at this stage take um a five minute comfort break and then come back for the debate because we've been sitting still for two hours is that acceptable to everybody so if we come back say 10 past 12 thank you we will come back at 10 past 12. Thank you. [BLANK_AUDIO]

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