Transcript

Great, thank you. Good morning. Welcome to the Buckinghamshire Area Planning Committee, North Bucks. First of all, can I just apologise for the delay? The reason for this is there's been a major internet problem, which not only has affected us, but also affected Stony Mandeville Hospital as well. We have finally got it back up and running, so that's good news, which means we can continue. We can webcast as well. So all the services are now back and running. So can we go to our first agenda item, which is apologies. We've got two apologies, one from Councillor Stegner and one from Councillor Towne. Good, thank you. Can I ask colleagues for approval of the minutes on the 10th of April and the 15th of April? Agreed. Thank you. Now, this morning I'm supported by some colleagues up here, Andrew Cooper and David Marsh from iWays. Antonio Lee is going to be presenting the first case for us today, and she's supported by Sarah Armstrong, who's the senior planner. On my right is Catherine Stubbs, who's the corporate lawyer, and Harry is here to keep me on the straight and narrow, hopefully. Are there any declarations of interest? Any declarations of interest? Only just that I'm a ward member. It's not a prejudicial interest. Fine, thank you. There's another one. I'm just also a resident in the area as well. One item I have to deal with is the election of the vice chairman. I was elected chairman of this committee on the 15th, and therefore I would like to nominate Howard Mordue as vice vice chairman. I'll second that. Thank you. Just an appointment. Okay. Thank you very much. All right. So the order of business for today. Our first application is 23/00178AOP, which is land west of London Road, Buckingham. It's pages 3 to 80 in your packs. And I would like to hand over to the presenting officer, Antonia. Thank you, chair. Good morning, everyone. I don't believe my presentation is on screen. Okay. All right. Thank you. There is an update report which was published yesterday. Okay. There is an update report for this item. First I would like to draw attention for information. I would like to draw attention to the report for the first time. Section 6, an added section to the highways section of the officer's report. This is to address a point initially submitted as a -- submitted and registered as a complaint from a local resident. Relating to the existing pedestrian and cycle crossing near to the A421 and London Road roundabout, which hadn't been included in the junction modeling. Following further investigation, we have noted this as a late representation. And this update is to address that point. Some typos, corrections to condition 7, 13, and 30. And 32. And as a verbal update, it's not -- the recommendation is the wording is slightly changed. It needs to refer to no new material considerations arising from representations rather than no new material representations. As there may be new representations and not all of those are material. And in paragraph 6.30, the second sentence should read area rather than the amount of minerals. So I'm here to present an outline application with all the matters reserved for residential development up to 3,300 dwellings. And employment space and associated infrastructure at land west of London Road in Buckingham. Start off with the site context. So the site lies to the south of Buckingham. If you can see where Q is in the red line, that indicates the site. To the north is land of Osia Way, which has outlined permission for 420 dwellings. And reserved matters was granted in February 2024 for 121 dwellings. To the northeast is a completed residential development for 700 dwellings. That was granted in 2009. And further north, near Tindrig Industrial Estate, it was outlined application for up to 400 dwellings with reserved matters granted in April 2019. And that's under construction. The landscape character falls in Padbury Valley, and it's a shallow landscape with scattered developments such as barns and farmsteads. And the topography generally rises to the west and it reaches the plateau around Little Oak Farm, which is just to the southwest of the site. In terms of the site, it's approximately 18.7 hectares. As I say, it's currently in agricultural use. Topography rises from the south to north by approximately five metres. There are hedgerow boundaries with individual trees within those boundaries. There is an existing vehicular access onto London Road. And there is a public right-of-way in between Buckingham Industrial Estate and the site which runs through a belt of trees along the northern boundary. Okay. The site is allocated in Buckingham neighbourhood plan. So it's allocated for employment development. There's an extract of the neighbourhood plan there. Part of the southern part of the site is also in a mineral safeguarding zone. It's to the south. That takes up approximately 7.5 hectares of the site. And then the other aerial photograph shows that the site is in flood zone one with flood zones two and three in the blue. Just shows context there. Some photographs of the site. This is the first photo is taken from London Road. You can appreciate the sort of downward slope from north to south. And the second photo is taken from the southern boundary. So we're looking upwards to the northern boundary. So that's the upward slope there. Third photo is standing at the northwest corner looking towards London Road. And the fourth photo is standing at the same spot but angled looking south. You can see the countryside beyond that. And these photos are from the existing access. So this is London Road to the north and south. And this is the public right-of-way that lies adjacent to the northern boundary. Okay. This is an outline application with all matters reserved apart from access. But we have received an illustrative site layout. Of note the main vehicular access with access as a matter before the committee today. It's from London Road. It's a new access. And it includes -- the proposal includes amendments to the existing access for pedestrian and cycling. Okay. So this is the proposed access. It's a 6.5 wide new access onto London Road. There is a new right-hand lane turn proposed just opposite the access. And it requires relocation of bus stops. Just showing on the plan. The existing access is amended for pedestrian and cycle access which links up to the existing provision. And the proposal includes a new shared footway and cycleway near to London Road and to Needle Point roundabout. And there is a proposal for pedestrian crossing that links up to the provisions to the north. Okay. So the officer's report takes you through each of the relevant planning issues which are listed here. For the non-bolded items these are all found to be compliant with the development plan subject to conditions and planning obligations which are also listed in the officer's report. For the items in bold I'll go through these in a bit more detail. Green items are compliant with policy, black items are there is some conflict policy found. So transport matters and parking. In terms of the access there is acceptable visibility displays. Satisfactory stage 1 road safety audit has been undertaken. And detailed design and further road safety audits can be secured via highways legal agreement. There is a proposal to extend the 40 miles per hour speed limit approximately 130 metres southwards. Which is supported by the council's network safety team and Thames Valley Police. This requires a speed limit review including a statutory consultation. This is a statutory process, this is a separate process from the planning process. But we can secure financial contribution to take this which can be secured by section 106. In terms of sustainability the VALP settlement hierarchy identifies Buckingham as a strategic settlement which is a focus for growth for employment and housing and community facilities. The Buckingham neighbourhood development plan site lies within the Buckingham settlement boundary. Highways officers have noted that the site is within accessible walking and cycling distances from services and facilities. And then financial contribution is sought to extend the bus service along London road. Financial contribution is around £300,000 which can be secured by section 106. Proposed highway works includes a footway cycleway to the western side of London road and crossing between the site and needle pin way. And travel plans have been submitted to demonstrate good measures sorry travel plans have been submitted which have good measures included in them to support sustainable or active modes of travel. And this can be secured by condition and monitoring fee can be secured by section 106. In terms of trip generation in terms of the assessment there are some issues identified with capacity at these roundabouts or junctions. But there is the council is seeking mitigation commensurate financial contribution towards the Buckingham transport strategy. The BTS is a strategic project that aims to alleviate traffic congestion within Buckingham town centre. The contribution would be around 726,000 which will be used alongside financial contributions from other sites including the land of Osea way, land west of Morton road and land of Walnut drive to deliver the scheme contained within the BTS. This will allow the development impacts in and around Buckingham to be mitigated strategically. Turning to infrastructure and developer contributions planning obligations must meet the three tests set out in the still regulations which are necessary to make the development acceptable directly related to the development and reasonably related in scale and kind. Turning to education first the education officer has advised that there is insufficient school capacities with secondary and primary schools in the local area. However there are plans to expand existing schools in the area and so they have requested and we are recommending a proportionate financial contributions to towards those planned projects. The financial contribution calculation is based on pupils cost generated by the development and the costs are from the Department of Education as of May 2024. For the sports and recreation whilst open space and equipped designated areas of play are provided on site we are seeking a proportionate financial contribution towards offsite sports and recreation projects in and around Buckingham to alleviate the pressure as a result of this development. This is calculated based on the approved bedroom mix per dwelling which is determined at reserve matters and it should be in line with the council's Ready Reckoner. This could be secured by Section 106. Turning to health. Bob ICB commenting in relation to primary care. They have reported that primary care is at capacity in and around Buckingham. However Bob ICB have advised that there are plans to extend the SWAN practice and so seek a financial contribution. It should be noted that the SWAN practice have made representations and they have raised no objections subject to the appropriate financial contribution to be secured as a planning obligation. So for acute and community healthcare, the NHS, Buckinghamshire Healthcare NHS Trust have advised that there is capacity issues in terms of cancer services, diagnostics for CT, MRI and therapy services and inpatient beds in the Aylesbury Vale area. And so therefore they have requested financial contributions towards their planned projects to expand Stoke Mandeville for cancer services inpatients and therapies and to retrofit Amersham or Stoke Mandeville or even both for diagnostic services. Both for the primary care and acute community care, the financial contribution is based on population of proposals generated by development at the additional floor space needed to support the new population and build costs. Turning to the employment land, as advised the site is allocated in the Buckingham neighbourhood plan under policy EE1 for employment. Approximately 6,300 square metres is proposed as part of the proposal. That nine should not be there in the presentation, sorry, it's a use class EG3, which is employment uses which are compatible with residential uses. The remainder of the site is proposed for housing development for up to 300 dwellings and other associated developments with that. To note the site is not identified as a key employment site in the FALP and so it's not subject to the protections given in the FALP policy EE1. So therefore the applicable employment policy in the FALP is EE2, which is provided on the slide here. This relates to other employment sites. It is a more flexible policy than EE1 in that it allows for alternative uses subject to the criteria listed there. In this case, turning to criteria C, whilst we have received evidence from property firms acting on behalf of the applicant who have confirmed limited approaches with none of those approaches preceded with for employment uses, whilst those have been submitted, it's not considered that sufficient evidence, marketing evidence has been submitted to fulfil criteria C. There's also a conflict with criteria D, which requires evidence of substantial oversupply of suitable alternative employment sites in the local area. It's felt that that's not been satisfactory evidenced. So the officer's report acknowledges the unjustified loss of the employment land, which will result in harm. That is given significant weight and it's considered in the planning balance in the officer's report. Turning to mineral and safeguarding, stated before, approximately 7.4 hectares of the site of the south east lies within the MSA. Buckingham Minerals and Waste Local Plan Policy 1 requires an overriding need and a mineral assessment, amongst other items. In terms of overriding need, the site is allocated for employment use and the proposal includes some employment development. And the housing provision would contribute towards the housing land supply shortfall in the Elsbury Vale area. No mineral assessment has been submitted to demonstrate the existence of minerals and whether it's feasible to extract any minerals prior to development. On the other hand, approximately 2.4 hectares of the MSA would be built on, with the remaining 5.1 hectares falling within the landscape buffer, which is proposed to the south. This would still result in harm, though, and again, it's afforded limited weight, as set out in the officer's report, and considered in the planning balance. Turning to countryside calendar, apologies if the text is a bit small, this needs to be considered in context of it being an allocated employment site, where the scale and siting of the commercial structures are likely to have an equivalent or greater effect than the proposed developments. And just draw your attention to FALP policy NE4, where there is accepted there is harm to landscape character, specific onsite mitigations would be required to mitigate harm. Where appropriate, mitigation to overcome any adverse impact to the character of the receiving landscape has been agreed, development should generally be supported. So in terms of the countryside character, that's assessed as acceptable, whilst the change of views from agriculture to residential would erode the intrinsic nature and open character, and setting of this part of Buckingham, the built development won't extend beyond the allocated site of employment use, and the landscape buffer to the south would provide a suitable transition to the countryside. In terms of landscape character, which is the physical make-up and condition of the landscape itself, this is acceptable as acceptable mitigation is provided. It's considered the new landscape features proposed would integrate into the development, would help integrate the development into the wider landscape and restore some of the landscape character lost. And in terms of visual impacts, which isn't the visual appearance of the site but views to, from and within the site, we have identified there is some harm that cannot be mitigated, which would occur from the public right-of-way to the north. This is recognised in the Office's report and given moderate weight against the proposal, and again, this is considered in the final planning balance. Turning to the planning balance, I'm sure you're all familiar with this. But it requires local planning authorities to make decisions in accordance with the development planning so far as they're material, unless there are other material considerations. So material consideration, the NPPF is the material consideration of significant weight, which sets out the presumption in favour of development, or where there is no relevant policies or the policies which are most important for determining the application are out of date, footnote 8, granting permission unless the -- sorry, and there's two criteria there. Oh, sorry. I've reproduced footnote 8 here, which talks about when the total balance is triggered if the council cannot demonstrate a five-year housing land supply for the purposes of this application. In this case, for the purposes of this application, the council cannot demonstrate a five-year housing land supply as it was submitted prior to 20 December 2023. So the paragraph 76 of the NPPF is not engaged, therefore the tilted balance is engaged in this instance. Okay, in terms of the planning balance, draw your attention against the loss of employment, which has given significant weight, visual impact, moderate weight against, and the loss of minerals, which is limited weight afforded to that. In terms of benefits, we have housing provision in terms of housing provision itself and for affordable. So significant weight is afforded for both of those benefits. There's economic benefits -- sorry, going back to the housing. The housing provision, just for you to note that it would significantly contribute towards addressing the shortfall and meeting demand for affordable housing and self and custom build plots, which the local planning authority is required to have regard to. Currently, the council can demonstrate 4.7 years housing land supply for the periods 2023 to 2028. This is a shortfall of approximately 469 houses and this application was up to 300. Turning to economic benefits from the -- there are economic benefits from construction and increase in local spends from the occupants, given the scale of development, this is given moderate weight. And there would be some biodiversity net gain over and above what's required by applicable policies and legislation. But given the amount of net gain, this has given limited weight as a benefit. Overall, with reference to the material considerations and the provisions set out in the MPPF, those impacts do not significantly and demonstrably outweigh the benefits assessed against the policy of the framework taken as a whole. And therefore, the recommendation is to defer and delegate to the service director of the environment for approval, subject to completion of the section 106 amended or additional conditions considered appropriate to the officer. And obviously, the updated recommendation in terms of the material representations or refuse if that cannot be achieved. Thank you. Great. Thank you very much indeed. Can I call our first witnesses Anita Schaufer. Sorry. I've got Mark down to represent the town council. I thought you were speaking also. I'm speaking as the Councillor. This is the way we've got you to speak first. If you come up to the desk. At the end of three minutes, if you don't mind, remaining seated for points of clarity on what you have said. So the Councillors will only be speaking to you about what you have actually presented. So my first concern that I would raise is the waiting of balance that has been proposed. I do not see how there can be an economic benefit that outweighs the economic disbenefit of not having industrial development or employment sites. So I would question that. The second point I would like to make is that if you look at the conditions of the of the belt that you have pointed out, it simply does not meet those conditions. I have real difficulty seeing that the benefits would outweigh the loss of employment from this site. And to me, those are very significant considerations. The development plan for Buckingham says it is a strategic site for employment and for housing. I think these things need to be considered in conjunction. You can't just go ahead with a lot of housing development and not do the employment development. I think this is unbalanced. We have seen a lot of housing development. We have lost potential industrial or employment development along the Tindrick Road. And we're seeing the OSA way. So there has been a lot of housing development without the accompanying employment development. So where are these people going to work? Because they will be working. They might be working in Milton Keynes. They might be working at Silverstone and Westcott. All of this will require significant amount of transport. Silverstone in particular, there is no other way of getting there from those parts of Buckingham than going through the Buckingham town centre. So no amount of mitigation that you put in place for that will stop that. There is simply no other way of getting there. So it is all country roads. For those who are not familiar with Buckingham, I know most of you are, but for those who are not, there isn't the ring road. There's just the bypass. So on the western side of it, you cannot bypass Buckingham. So I question that any amount of money you put into measures to encourage people not to go through the town centre will actually have any significant effect. Therefore the traffic, you have mentioned it, there is an adverse or the junction is already at capacity. Particularly if those of you who are familiar with Buckingham will have been there at 8.30 in the morning or at 4 o'clock in the afternoon and the tailbacks this already causes. So on all these grounds, I think there is a significant issue that, in my opinion, is not outweighed by 300 additional houses, bearing in mind the amount of housing already going in. Thank you for your time. Any points of clarification? Thank you. Council Member Morgan. Thank you, Chair. You mentioned about the local plan. I just wanted to confirm what was in that plan exactly for this space. Because I'm slightly confused on the relation for where the site is in relation to the conservation area and how that has an impact. I don't think we talked about that, the conservation area. Certainly in the first question you may answer. The site is in the current Buckingham neighbourhood development plan as an employment site. Okay, thank you. Council Cooper. Yes, you've been talking about the need for jobs in Buckingham. And the risk that people will be travelling outside. It's implied in the report that the applicant doesn't feel that the site would be taken up by those providing jobs. What's your opinion about that? Do you think there's a need for a site like this for employment in Buckingham? Is there any way that you can demonstrate that there is a need for an additional site like this? We have had applications in neighbouring villages for significant expansion of employment sites. Which are problematic in the site where they are. So that would suggest that alternative sites which are more easily accessible would be taken up. We have seen no evidence. And the planning officer has pointed this out. Of the site having been marketed as an employment site. So it is my view that there is both a need and that if it was marketed properly there would be a demand for it. So are you suggesting that the site hasn't been marketed properly? The planning officer has pointed out herself that there is no evidence that it has been. Okay, Councillor Bond. I've got the same question as my colleague here so he's going to ask it. Thank you dear colleague. Thank you chairman. You had mentioned that the route to Silverstone is only one route and that's through the town. That's not quite correct because I know many people that travel to Silverstone. Especially Silverstone weekend. And there's two alternative routes that take you out on the A421. Without that would you confirm that there is an alternative route? Please. There is an alternative route going via the A43 which is quite a distance away. So I'm not sure whether for daily employment. I think it would need to be demonstrated that for daily employment purposes this is a route that people will take. And of course there are other routes through say Radclyde village which I'm pretty certain the inhabitants there would not like to see promoted as an alternative route of going to Silverstone. May I just come back on that please? Okay, thank you very much for obliging me. Well when you look, you come to Tesco, you turn there, left on the A421 and then just to the outskirts of Buckland itself is the back cut for it. So that would take you through to Mould Country store. So that would be the shortest alternative route. Or if you carried on a little bit further, which Benny Gate would be up to Tinswick roundabout and then to Silverstone Nest. There is two alternatives on top of what you say. They still need to go onto the Brackley Road and that is already an issue at the key times. So no matter which way you come into Buckingham, you will still at least very much skirt it and there would still be a traffic implication there. Thank you. Okay, can I just pick up on something as well? You talked about the transport area going through to Buckingham and clearly this is an employment area that has been identified previously. Is it my understanding that places like Tinswick Road, which you referred to, used to suffer from HGVs, heavy vehicles? And therefore would it be more appropriate if they were dealt with on an outskirt to the town rather than some of these developments within the town? I think there are probably other people who can speak more clearly as to counts of HGVs. I am afraid I don't have that information at my fingertips. The proposed site for employment is probably relatively accessible for this. I cannot imagine that as an employment site it would see the same amount of traffic, individual cars, as it would as a residential site. Thank you very much for coming and I won't touch on the areas which you have touched on. Just to explore slightly your view of the mitigations within the Buckingham Transport Plan, which is an historic document, dates back to the days of county council, which is an interesting route. But in that transport plan it alludes to in the report, and to officers correctly differently, that there was an understanding in the transport plan, whatever view of the application may be, that there would be a link between the 8421 and the 822, which was part of the Buckingham neighbourhood plan aspirations in 2015. Irrespective of the things you have answered, which I don't want to go back over, how do you feel that implication of that will actually act? Because that is in accordance with the Buckingham neighbourhood plan. This possibly takes us quite far, but I would say that an additional relief road between the 8421 and the 8422 and extending to the 8413 would probably reduce some of the traffic congestion, I think by definition it would. My main objection is still the loss of employment site there, and that would make no difference whatsoever to that. You have already discussed that, that is why I was going to a different area, because you answered those questions, so that is why I was concentrating on this question, because I didn't think revisiting that was appropriate. I just wanted to clarify what Councillor Gaughan was talking about, I am guessing that conversation is relying on people having cars and being able to drive to Silverstone, but it is my understanding that what you said was there is no public transport to Silverstone, is that correct? There is currently no public transport to Silverstone, and it is a growing employment site, it is important for Buckingham, but you do need to have your own transport to get there, and it is, unless you are a very keen cyclist, it is beyond cycling distance as well. Ok, there is no further questions for you, thank you for your time. Can I call Councillor Cole please? Councillor Cole, you know how this operates, you have three minutes which will come up behind me. Just before I start, Mr Chairman, for members of information, Catherine McElligott is our planning clerk from Buckingham, she is with me to answer any technical questions. Is she going to speak? Thank you. Is she going to speak? I am sorry, does she? Is she going to speak? No, no, she is not speaking, I am sorry. I think she is going to help you. Thank you, good morning Chairman, Councillors, Officers. Buckingham Town Council is opposing this application for 300 dwellings as being contrary to policies of the Buckingham neighbourhood and Vale of Ailsbury plans, which this site for employment land until 2031 and 2033 respectively. To overturn this would render government supported neighbourhood and local plans pointless. Buckingham with a population of 15,000 currently has no unmet housing need up to 2031 but it does have a growing employment land need after 2021 Valp changed Oseal Way from employment to housing. This has made site Q even more important and the Valp recognises that. Since then there have been 998 dwellings either completed or approved in the town, all with 35% affordable housing content. Oseal Way, St Rumbold's Fields, Moreton Road, Phase 3 and Hamilton Close and there is more coming on stream at Walnut Drive, Maids Moreton, which is Buckingham's conjoined neighbour. Where are all these people going to work? Silverstone and Westcott, the town's other designated employment zones, are accessible only by car, too far to cycle and without practical public transport. There is no allocation for expansion on the adjoining industrial park and finding in excess of 1,500 job vacancies in the existing employment areas are highly unlikely. To remove this employment land would have a severe impact on Buckingham's ability to attract new business opportunities. More housing will put only more cars on the road, contrary to the national planning policy framework. The only access to Silverstone employment for housing estates south of the Bypass, as you have heard, is through the congested town centre. The Buckingham Transport Strategy insists that this congestion will be alleviated only by upgrading the A421. Members will have noted there are 63 objections to this development, most citing the town's already overburdened infrastructure in terms of schools, primary care medical facilities, transport and parking. One of the objectors is Buckinghamshire Council's own economic development team. There are also 59 comments in support, citing a need for more housing, but these should be treated with caution, as many are from outside Buckingham and follow telephone canvassing by the applicants' agents, Just Build Homes. The posts have much the same language and not one refers to the infrastructure problems or to the Buckingham Neighbourhood Plan. This is about defending our plan, the Buckingham Neighbourhood Plan and its policies, which have been continually upheld by the Secretary of State, even to the extent of him overruling his own inspector after appeals. And the town council asks this committee members to support made local and neighbourhood plans by refusing this application. Thank you very much indeed. Any points of clarification? Councillor Bond. Have you got any data in your collection of people that work from home? Is that not a big issue in this day and age? Have you got any data, which is probably uncollectable, of people that work from home? In this day and age a lot of people do work from home, which would nullify your voice to some degree. That's something we can't take into account. Thank you both for coming and giving the time today to represent Buckingham Town Council's concerns around this. I think that has to be noted. What I'm trying to establish and question you is your discussion around the transport issues, how your representation refers to the pinch points and the employment question, which was a large question within the Buckingham Neighbourhood Plan, which was agreed and has been challenged. As you said in your summary, once by the employment of Oseaway, which has got nothing to do with this, but it did remove a section of employment and your points around the elements of employment in Buckingham and how you see that affects the environments. Although you mentioned that, you did in kind mention it because Buckingham is a hub for employment and sustainable employment and housing is key. Whether you can help me with that and explain, gives you a chance to expand on it and see where we're going. Also, I don't think I've ever seen a planning document which has stated people working from home yet. Perhaps it will be something new that will be asked to include in planning, but I've never seen that. Can we just have a question, rather than you can't expect me to? I think I did ask the question. Councillor Cole to expand on something. That is called a question. I asked him to expand on his football. To ask to expand on it. The point of clarification is the same. To expand on what you're saying. I'm not quite clear what I'm being asked. I'll go through it again for you because we get this at meetings. What I'm trying for you to expand and clarify your points around the transport issues, the employment land, the neighbourhood plan, and I don't know how I could have said it any more clearly than that, but we seem to be in that point. And that's where I'm going. You made some points around that. I'd like you to strengthen those points and say why you made them. What is unclear? Clearly it's unclear to you, Councillor Cole, what you've been asked to provide. I'm just going to take advice, one moment. Councillor Stuckey, thank you for the question. I think in what I said, I've already covered what you're asking. This is scheduled to be employment land. It is in our neighbourhood plan and we're here defending it. Thank you. Councillor Gaughan. Very kind, Chair. Thank you very much. You clearly stated that there was, if you wanted to, OK, let me reword this. So Silverstone is quite a new employment area looking at the sort of younger generation, up and moving, very technical area for people to get employment from. And you clearly stated that there was no public transport to Silverstone. That's not quite correct because the Line 83 goes from Buckingham to Silverstone on a regular basis. It takes 25 minutes. Could you clarify, please? If I could qualify what I said, I did say without practical public transport, you can go to Toaster and then get another bus to Silverstone. My clerk's just reminding me the 83 is a bus that provides the university college at Silverstone. It only runs during school hours. It goes into Silverstone at nine, back at four and only during school term time. It's a service now, Councillor Gaughan, to a technical college. It's a service to the technical college at Silverstone. It's a bit different than that, but I'll leave it there. Yeah, it's good. It's a good job you're doing, OK? Any further points of clarification? Councillor Mahone. Thank you, Mr Chairman. You mentioned in your speech about the 55 representations that's been received supporting the proposal. I'm just looking at it now on page 77 of the report. You said that they should be treated with caution because most of them are from outside the area of Buckingham and that some canvassing was done by the applicant's agent. Where is the proof in that? On the planning portal, one of the posts was a snapshot of one day on the 7th of June 23 where there were eight calls made to residents by the agents. One from Aylesbury 17 miles, one from Stukeley 13 miles, one from Newton Longville 11 miles, one from Edgecutt 9 miles, one from Brackley 8 miles, one from Winslow 6 miles and only two of those residents were from Buckingham who replied to those questions. That is actually shown in public on the portal. That's great. Thank you for confirming that. Thank you. Councillor Morgan. Thank you, Chair. Just in reference to the A421 that you spoke about, I know in the report it talks about the London Road being widening. Is the London Road the A421? No. No, that's the A413 London Road which is Buckingham to Aylesbury Road. A421 is the trunk road which comes right across that part of eastern Glendale. Just around the employment land in the local plan, 6.13 of the report talks about almost this land being an oversupply of employment land. Can I gauge from you if this doesn't happen as employment land, would that really have a detrimental impact on Buckingham? Yes, as my clerk says, this would rather emphasise Buckingham's role as a dormitory town if it's more housing rather than an employment centre. And as you've heard from your officers, we are a strategic employment settlement. Thank you very much. Councillor Colle, thank you for your time. Thank you for your time. Can I call David Ward, please? No. Okay, we'll move on from that, we'll move to the agents. I've got David Murray-Cocks and Simon Parfitt, please. First of all, who's who? I'm David. Okay, thank you. And again, when you've got three minutes between you to make your presentation and as you saw earlier, please remain seated for a point of clarification. Good morning, chair and councillors. My name is David Murray-Cocks from Turley, the agent on behalf of the applicants. And I'm Simon Parfitt, the applicant's highways consultant. We would like to start by welcoming the recommendation for approval of this application as set out in the officer's report. The applicants have sought to engage positively with officers and key stakeholders throughout the application process. This application provides for up to 300 homes, including 35% affordable housing, 5% custom build and 1.7 hectares of employment land. In addition, the scheme includes open space significantly in excess of the council's requirements and will deliver a minimum of 10% biodiversity net gain. It is recognised by the applicants that the allocation of this site in the neighbourhood plan is for 10 hectares of employment land. However, the neighbourhood plan was adopted more than eight years ago, and in that period there have been no credible approaches to deliver employment on this site. Based on evidence presented with the application, it is considered by the applicants that 1.7 hectares of employment land is more proportionate and deliverable, having regard to the scale of Buckingham and its role within the Vale and the wider Buckinghamshire area. This is particularly so given the existing oversupply of employment land available in the local plan area, which equates to in excess of 73 hectares. This is a very substantial oversupply and a material consideration, particularly having regard to the existing housing need in the local area, which this application will help address in one of the most sustainable settlements in Buckinghamshire. In addition to the benefits already outlined, the development will also be making substantial contributions to a Section 106 agreement, including £675,000 towards health care, £4.4 million towards education, £989,000 towards sports and leisure, £726,000 towards the Buckingham Transport Strategy and £300,000 towards public transport. In regards to highways, I would just like to add that all aspects of the Transport Appraisal have been agreed with the Highway Authority. The mitigation package enhances the site's sustainability credentials with new pedestrian and cyclist infrastructure on London Road. It adds to the BTS contribution and bus service funding. The site access has been independently safety audited and is fully compliant with relevant design standards. The forecast site traffic generation is less than could be generated by the neighbourhood plan allocation, and the forecast site traffic impact is compliant with local and national policy requirements. We respectfully invite members to support your officer's recommendation today. Thank you. Thank you very much. Can I just pick up with you, Mr Bowie-Cocks, the employment, the excess employment availability that's in the whole of the valve, not just in Buckingham? That's correct. The valve via, I think it's paragraph 3.13, which was based on evidence in the HEDNA, which obviously predates the adoption of the local plan, that identified a need for 27 hectares across the whole of the local plan area. Conversely, the excess supply, which is 100 hectares referred to in the valve text, is excluding allocations that had not yet received consent. Okay, so what I'm trying to get to, Buckingham is quite a way out from our way, and what we're trying to establish is, is there sufficient employment land in that area to sustain the employment for the future? Yeah, so I think one point that, just to bear in mind, having regard to the policies that the planning officer referred you to earlier on, namely E2, is what's defined by the local area. And throughout the text of the local plan, the local area is consistently referred to as Aylesbury Vale, and Buckinghamshire generally is referred to as the wider area. Now, the evidence upon which the neighbourhood plan – I appreciate this is a long answer to your short question – but the evidence to the neighbourhood plan, which we don't have signs of through the passage of time, it's disappeared from online, is obviously of some vintage now. It's older than the local plan evidence base. But what we've presented with the application itself is an employment land statement produced by Turley, the company that I work for. And that presents a situation where it's not simply an issue of Buckingham, but actually occupies seeking locations elsewhere. So, for example, particularly Northampton, Silverstone and Milton Keynes. And in that evidence, what we present is that within a five-mile radius – this is data to October 2022, I think three years prior – there were something like 66 office and industrial spaces leased. That had an average of 576 square metres in each deal. There was a reduction in three years prior to that to 481 square metres. But if you look at Buckingham, Buckingham has around about 6.3 per cent of all the jobs in the local plan area. That would equate to something like 37 per cent – well, sorry, I'm slightly confusing you here. That number of jobs, that's taken from the ONS Business Register and Employment Survey, that's 2021. That was 5,589 jobs. That's 6 per cent of the 86,000 within the district. Ten hectares of employment land, as allocated by the neighbourhood plan here, would represent 37 per cent of the total requirement through the valve. And it's our analysis through that employment statement that that's a significantly greater level of employment floor space that could be justified at Buckingham. And does that take into account the loss of employment land? It does, yes. As of that base date of October '22. '22? Yes. So Oslo Way and places like that have not been taken into account? Well, I think that would have been in the valve, which was adopted '21, so yes, that should have been taken into account. Okay, I'll check on that. Thank you, Chair. My question is traffic and children and the 4-1-3 is a busy road anyway. I know some summer days when it's really busy you come back right up to Padbury, so you're going to put more traffic onto the road. Are you going to have a left and right turn? What are you going to do for the children? How are you going to make it safe for them? Could I just ask for a bit of clarification on the specific nature of the children and the safety locationally? Where are you specifically talking about? They will obviously be going to school, so they'll be walking down the pavements and things. But you also referenced the A421? 4-1-3. 4-1-3, I do beg your pardon. That's where I wasn't sure. Yes, as far as the pedestrian infrastructure is concerned, we are introducing a toucan crossing to the south of the Needlepin Way roundabout, close to the site. So in terms of safe crossing of the A413, we're providing it via a signalised facility, so that will allow children to and from Lace Academy to route that way. We're also providing a four-way cycleway on the western side of the A413, effectively mimicking the facility that's already on the eastern side, so there would be a more comprehensive and safer pedestrian and cycling infrastructure on that section. But what about people going down to Buckingham School? They will have to cross that road beside Tesco's? Yes, there are already signalised crossings on both sides of the A421. That's the east-west route. So as far as people travelling from the site, we're providing them a safe route to get to the A421, and then the 421 infrastructure is already in place for the safe crossings to cross over the 421, and then it's on the existing footways up to the facilities within Buckingham. So you're going to provide a pedestrian crossing at the first roundabout? That's correct, yes. OK, and what are you going to do about all these cars that are going to be coming onto the road? That's a wide question. I mean, as far as the agreement that we've reached with the highway authority is concerned, we've assessed each of the junctions on the London Road corridor and identified that, yes, there are some congestion in evidence at the A421 junction, but the impact from the site is not going to be significant or severe in terms of the additional traffic that's generated. I would say also that the neighbourhood plan allocation with the employment designation, the amount of traffic that that would generate would be broadly similar if the same type of employment were promoted as is being promoted within this application. It could be more, or you could have more trucks or so on and so forth. So it's a relative like for like in that basis. As far as what we're doing about it is concerned, you've heard the contribution towards the Buckingham Transport Strategy and the nearly three quarters of a million pounds worth of contribution towards that, which is the county's holistic approach to improving transport conditions in and around Buckingham. In addition to that, we've got the pedestrian infrastructure we were speaking about before, but also the BTS allows cycling infrastructure improvements. And then on top of that, we've got a £300,000 contribution towards public transport facilities. Okay, but you could have another 600 cars coming into that road, couldn't you? It won't be 600, but I appreciate that there'd be more, there'd be more. I mean, the additional traffic during any peak period is forecast out to be between 200 and 250 in a peak hour to and from the site, which is similar to the neighbourhood plan application. And now the assessments that have been undertaken on those junctions has all demonstrated that the increase in traffic, if you like, would not have a major impact on it. Yes, there would be a slight impact, which is why the contribution is entirely valid towards the BTS. Okay, thank you. If you could just clarify a couple of things. You know, you talk about walkways, cycleways, etc. And you talked about going up into Buckingham. So I'm looking at the site here. Is there an appetite to put a crossing in to the lower part of your proposed plan of a footpath to go across to the existing one that goes all the way to Winslow? I don't know if you know of that. I'm just looking at so you mentioned quite a lot about cycleway. So that's one. And also when you talk about the transport plan with Buckingham with that site, I noticed this is all to do with employment as well. There's a coach park just up the road, we discussed a coach park just up the across the road. So we discussed with Bucks Council, maybe a transport policy to to use that facility to transport people to other employment places. So effectively Park and Ryan you're talking? Yeah. I'll take them in order because I've probably got a better answer for the first one and the second one. The crossing to the south of the site access junction was raised by the county as a question probably about a year or so ago. And we looked at it pretty carefully in terms of the ability to safely implement crossing to the south, as well as to the north, because of the configuration of the junction. It doesn't allow a safe provision of a junction to the south of the junction. But the deviation for a cyclist to travel north to go south effectively is only sort of 70 meters or so, and that wasn't seen to be a sufficient reason to put in a facility that was was not considered safe. As far as the coach part, I'm not really familiar with it, I have to be honest, I mean, as far as Park and Ride, I'll try and answer in a wider sense but forgive me if this is not pertinent to your question. There have to be some very specific benefit circumstances for Park and Rides to be deemed to be efficient and suitable and worth the trouble if you like. So towns like Stratford-upon-Avon, for example, have gone quite big on Park and Ride sites over the years, but they really haven't. Sorry, Chair, if you don't mind, I'm not looking at Park and Ride, I was looking at those residents from that estate that possibly even went through, using a coach system from that car park, just across the road. Like setting up a transport system, but like walking across to the coach park and okay, don't worry about it. I'm really sorry, yeah, I'm missing something. It's been just digging too deep. Okay, thank you. All right, thank you very much, Chair. Can I just have the layout, the plan on the screen, please? Now, my concern is with regards to noise and how that's going to be managed. I listen to your noise and how that's going to be managed. I listen to your presentation and your explanation as to why the use of this as residential supposed to employment is beneficial. Now, what I see here is to the north of the plan, I can see that that's all industrial, is that correct? And to the front as well, it's your proposal to have that also be industrial, is that correct? So the residents within that enclave will be surrounded by industrial estates and destructivities, is that correct? So just taking the two parts separately, the existing and then the proposed. So in relation to the existing employment uses industrial, as they may be, the application was accompanied by a noise impact assessment when it was submitted. There were no concerns raised by the conclusions of that in relation to the relationship of the dwellings to the existing premises. There are conditions proposed. I don't have the number as well, which can ensure that at the reserve matters stage, habitable rooms, gut back gardens and so on, achieve relevant internal noise standards. In relation to the proposed employment area, the planning officer referred to the use class of that as being E brackets three. And you'll probably recall that several years ago the use classes were changed quite dramatically in relation to employment uses. And that's a broad, fairly flexible use class now, but the stipulation is that it has to be appropriate to a residential setting. Right. And that ties into my next question. Because what you're then going to do is your proposed industrial estate to the front of the new estate will be similar to what's currently north of it. So you're going to more or less restrict what that piece of land can be used to from what I can see from the recommendation. Any industrial process which can be carried out in any residential area, which therefore more or less limits what that industrial piece of land can be used for. Is that correct? No, I would say not. Because the way in which the use classes order is now set up means that that could be commercial floor space, business floor space, services. It could involve some sort of light industrial purposes provided they are appropriate. So it is actually a very broad definition. Had we submitted this application several years ago and it had been a definition of B1A, for example, that would have been tightly defined to offices. But now provided it's appropriate to its residential setting, it could be within that broad definition. Yes, that still doesn't answer my question, because what you've then done with this plan, if I understand, is you've embedded residential premises within what ideally is industrial. Because to the north of it, it's clear that that's industrial. And to the north of it, now the new estate will lower to what you call the east of it, will also be industrial. So what that piece of land, what business or industrial activities can be done there will then be limited to what residential areas can take. Is that correct? By virtue of the definition E1 or E3, sorry, yes, it would be limited to anything that's within that broad definition. Thank you, chair. Okay. Thank you. Councillor, Mrs Morgan? Yeah, thank you, chair. So you referred to the transport, public transport. It almost led me to think that I'd missed something in the document that they were getting a new bus service. But actually that's not what's set out in the proposed use of the S106 funding that I can see. The £726,000 financial contribution towards the Buckingham transport strategy doesn't involve an increase in existing services. And there's been a lot of talk this morning about the employment land and about it's in the report about the lack of demonstration of how this has been marketed. So I just wondered if you could cover that, please. I'll answer the question about buses and then pass on. The public transport contribution, £300,000 is completely separate from the £726,000 Buckingham transport strategy. The £300,000 is additional and is specifically related to providing additional services across the day from the existing bus routes that are running. So the county council have requested the contribution so that either they can put earlier services on or later services on or possibly extended services at weekends or possibly doubling up services during the evening peak. In order to maximise the bus services that are currently running on the London road. So it will be flexibly worded, the original motivation for it was the county council saying early extension and late extension. They since clarified that. Has an additional 300,000 not in the report? Page 22 paragraph 6.76. Thank you. Okay. Oh, sorry. Second question. Over eight years, nearly nine have passed since the neighbourhood plan was made. Throughout that period of time, the -- and the slight update to what the planning officer said earlier, there have been two agents acting for the landowner rather than Rainier as the applicant. Or one of the applicants, I should say. During that time, my understanding is that they were appointed to engage interest generally speaking. There were no credible approaches for employment development at this site. There were two. One of those was found not to have any financial backing. And the other one actually fell away because of a concern over the need for employment land. It does sort of outline that in the report. I just wondered why that evidence hadn't been submitted. That evidence is with the application. I have a series of questions, so I'll take them one at a time so nobody gets confused. Firstly, you state the neighbourhood plan being old. But the neighbouring plan was -- had planning weight up to 2021 because it was the only plan which had planning weight. When the Vale plan came in, it had lost its planning weight because the Vale plan superseded it. So the idea that it's historic is only historic by a year. And so what's your understanding of the vision of the neighbourhood plan and its aspirations for employment? You state its statistics. I've not seen. I've only heard you state those. They're not before me, so I can't judge those. How do you understand that? I'll come back with a further question. My understanding is that just taking with the evidence base to the neighbourhood plan first, my understanding is that that largely dated from around 2012, particularly in relation to employment uses. I recognise, as was said by representatives earlier, that the neighbourhood plan refers to employment and housing. The fact is that the evidence to the Val is more recent, is more up to date and presents a picture for the whole of the local plan area. And in that period, things have moved on since the neighbourhood plan was adopted close to nine years ago now. I think it was November 2015, certainly around late in the year. Things have moved on. You have the Val policies, you have the Val evidence, but you also have the evidence that even before the Val was adopted, there just were no credible approaches for the scale of employment that was delivered. But just, sorry, one final point. If it's taken that the strategy is employment and housing, the fact is that with the lack of credible evidence, one of those isn't happening. This application presents a vehicle to provide 1.7 hectares. Thank you for the answer. Now the next question is around your transport strategy and infrastructure that you propose, which you said about. Your note, because I know a little bit about this one, when Layshill, your adjacent development was built, that generated the crossings which you referred to in your application, the free crossings which you referred to, which you perhaps benefit from. But you've not put anywhere close, as I can see it, the amount of mitigation for handling the traffic from this estate additional one. Because when that estate went through, Bucks County Council, as was, remodeled the entire roundabout and extended it out as a public record to count with the Layshill developments turning left from the A421 into the A413. Now what you're proposing is to turn right and go back into the A421, and in which case I can't see the moderate, the traffic catered for going the other way. I can't see how you've catered for the traffic. Because anyway, irrespective of the town center questions, the actual bypass, I know you've put a contribution in there for future use, which will be used whenever. But I can't see in your modeling how you demonstrated that that will be coped with sufficiently enough. Because it's the movements of vehicles through the congested roundabouts at peak times, which makes your application, if you move there, habitable. And it affects people who already live there to make their lives tolerable. So you haven't demonstrated that. Can you give me some bit around that, and I've got one further question, depending on your answer. Yeah, sure. I mean, as far as the impact appraisal of the site traffic, you'll be familiar, you'll have seen it in documents across multiple applications. The responsibility for us is to have a look at what the difference is if we weren't there, and then if we were there. So the assessments within the TA looked at a 2033 future year and demonstrated that, yes, there was some worsening in the queuing, but it wasn't significant in sort of policy terms. And that the feedback from the county council was very much that the focus was on the east-west bypass approach because of what's in the BTS. And whilst there may have been benefits in enhancements to sort of small-scale widenings, say, on the London Road, particularly coming out of Buckingham, that that would actually be contrary to the objectives of the BTS because what they want to do is they want to take traffic out of the town centre. And so if you make the routes coming out of the town better, that you might encourage people that way rather than the long-term objective, which is to use the east-west route. So that's the general gist, is that we weren't asked for a specific mitigation scheme at the junction. The response from the county council was, as we expected, what we'd seen from other applications in more recent times, was the focus on the BTS. Thank you. In your deliberations, you talked about off-site deliverance for health, which is in the report. And that's generally off-site deliverance of health contributions, which is in your report you mentioned it. You also mentioned delivering leisure facilities off-site. I have concern, which maybe you can address, is if you do the numbers on lace hill development, which is incredible development opposite, that delivered a sports field. It delivered a community centre and a school. And you're making contributions to that, but you're not delivering anything there. Though you can't be responsible for the adjacent development, that's not your responsibility. That's delivered nothing at all. So we've got two developments of about 800 houses who haven't cumulatively delivered any of that, only in financial terms. So I wonder whether you feel there is some way around that that you can look at your plan to see whether some community space to do it. And one more question on community then after that. You're right. There is no community facility proposed in the application. It would be exceptionally rare, in my experience, of a scheme of 300 homes or so to deliver a community facility. And the same principle is likely to apply for the Osia Way scheme. The reality, if you pursued that approach, because each development should only provide what is necessary to mitigate its impact, is that you would end up with a series of small, probably fairly unusual, unusable, community spaces. In this case, the officers have sought contributions from us. They have not told us that there is a specific need that needs to be addressed on this site. So we're responding to what's been put to us as a request from them. And furthermore, within your development that you've put forward, you are anticipating that -- this is going back to the point made earlier by Councillor Collell. And I don't think the way people move from that site to education and the traffic on the road -- no, you will be aware that adjacent to your site there is a bridleway, and you will be aware that on your side of the road there isn't a accompanying footpath. There is a footpath across the crossing, and it didn't say in the plan that you would be putting a footpath on your side of the road, which would in some ways assist that, because the children getting to school are not an exact science, let's agree. Children don't always take the route you send them on, they take the route that they want to. Do you think it's not unreasonable to consider that, if this was so to be agreed? Because it's got to be sustainable for the long term, and the council shouldn't be funding it retrospectively, and I think there's no footpath there. Thank you. Yeah, I mean, we're talking about London Road here, yeah? In terms of the location? No, no we're not. We're talking about the 8413. There's a footpath on the Laysill side which was delivered through condition in the 278 works. I know that because I worked on them, was heavily involved in it, all them roundabouts I did. But you've not delivered any comparable footpath on your side to deal with it, as I can see. I understand that totally. London Road is the 413. Well it is, the road where you'll do your development. We are putting exactly the facility that you're referring to, so I don't know if the officer could maybe put up the site access plan or not? We'd love to see that, the chairman. If you can see on that plan there, the dark colouration, effectively at the bottom of that drawing, that's heading through the roundabout on the bottom side there. That's a three metre footway cycleway that we're putting in as part of the development. So there would be exactly that mimicked facility that's existing on the other side of the road. I think one of the disappointing things from my point of view, seeing that, if your site could link up with a roundabout, I think you'd make it much better. Because at the moment you're going to have a turning after the roundabout as you head in towards Winslow, with a lane to a turn and a lane to carry on. So there's going to be three lanes there, is that right? Sorry, could you just explain the three lanes? Well you're going to have a lane for turning right. Oh yes, at the site access junction, no that's correct. And then on the other one you'd have to come out, cross that lane to go right. Before I answer your question, did that answer your question from before? Without swapping glasses I couldn't tell you, but I'm not looking at that map, I'd just swap with glasses. It looks like you're saying, and Chairman, there's a footpath in there. We're putting in a new footway cycleway on our site side that goes all the way down to the Tesco roundabout. So we are providing the facility that I think you're suggesting. Yeah, I thought that was the road on there, I didn't see the actual footpath, the delineations. But that does answer that, which is great. And lastly, why you're talking about contributions. Should I ask the Chair's question first? The question about bringing the access through onto the roundabout was raised by the county about a year ago. We did look at it at the time. As far as land ownership is concerned, it doesn't allow the connection through to the roundabout. So it's not deliverable from that sense. But also there's quite a dense wooded area, I'm not an environmental person, but there's quite a dense wooded area of about 45 metres in depth. So if we had a corridor of let's say 15 to 20 metres wide, even if we did own the land, then that would be quite a hefty removal of woodland. Yeah, I think there's other solutions though, because if you look at the roundabout, there's absolutely nothing stopping you putting another roundabout just before and combining them. I've seen many roundabouts like it. The problem with this area, the biggest problem with this area is every roundabout, just after you come off the roundabout, has got traffic lights. So at peak times, the traffic build-up is phenomenal back down towards London Road. That's when the schools come out and everything else. It's just solid. So all I'm seeing here is yes, there's going to be a turn-in, but I think it could be done better, and I'll talk to Highways in a minute. If I could just explain about the site access junction, we wouldn't put in more infrastructure than was required to service the facility, because that would be contrary to policy. So we wouldn't go to a roundabout first. We would only go to a roundabout if there were capacity or safety benefits over and above what was required. And in this instance, the right turn lane junction, it allows the London Road traffic to have the priority, so it continues to flow as best it can. And the site access is the one which has to give way. It's been through an independent safety order, it's been through all the capacity checks, yadda yadda yadda, you've heard it all before. But as far as the agreement with the Highway Authority is concerned, it was deemed by us to be the appropriate solution, and the Highways colleagues agreed. And you've said this before, you're doing a 300 house estate, and that can only deliver a certain amount. But we've got estates further along and elsewhere which are giving packets of money, but where are we going to put the facilities? And this is becoming the issue with it, is that you've got no, you talk here about $4.4 million in education, yeah? Where's that going to be spent? I don't think we're not responsible for identifying which schools would be expanded on. That's clearly outside of any applicant's remit. I think the Planning Officer referred you earlier to the Education Officer's response that there are plans to expand schools in the area, and I'd hope that that would be where they would direct the money. Certainly it would be directed to the school, but where the hell are they going to expand them and build them? Anyway, I just thought I'd mention that to you. Councillor Mahone. Thank you, Mr Chairman. A couple of questions here, but the first one I wanted to raise is your response to Councillor Stutsbury's question about providing community facilities. And I think your wording was that there's no requirement for a project of 300 houses to provide community facilities. Is that right in what you said? That's correct. I'm not familiar with any policy in the local plan here or the neighbourhood plan for Buckingham, and I'm not familiar with any scheme of this sort of size, 300 homes. Okay. Can I give you a couple of examples here? That's quite important. In the village where I live, and I'm Chairman of the Parish Council, three developments have been built in the last three years separately. One for 100 houses, one for 70 houses, and one for 100 houses. On the two developments of 100 houses each, the developer has put in a play area of substantial size in the middle of the development. And the reason we asked for that, at the time when it came to consultation to the Parish Council, we asked for this immunity to be put in the centre of the development. Because we were having difficulty with HS2 and East West Rail and HEVs on the road, and we didn't want kids having to walk down main roads or country roads where there was large amounts of traffic. I think this is exactly the same situation here, where you have a very busy road, and as the Chairman has just said, it's alright giving all this money, but where is the facilities going to go? So if you could answer that first, and then I'll come on to my next two questions if you don't mind, please. Please forgive me. I had perhaps mistakenly assumed the reference to a community facility was a built bricks and mortar with a roof community hall. This application has, as I said in our speech earlier on, significantly in excess of the Council's expectations for open space, and I can give you the figures on that if it would help in a second. But just on play facilities, we have a neighbourhood equipped area of play within the centre of the site. We have two additional areas which are local areas of play along the northern edge of the residential area. And in combination, those two are around about 2,000 square metres of active play space. So the provisional play area is, if that's what you and Councillor Switcheby are referring to by community, sorry. So Stutchbury is SDU's the HB you are on. Had you been going since 11, 1086, so it's been around? If that's the reference to community facilities, then the provision within this scheme is... Is adequate, is what you're saying? Well, certainly the provision for play area is certainly adequate, but it's part of an overarching scheme which provides over eight hectares of open space against a requirement for 3.6 hectares. Okay, I'm happy with that. I want to move on now to social housing. And you talk about 35% social housing, which is great. Can you, number one, give me the mix of housing in the social housing element, and two, could you give me the percentage that is actual social housing, i.e. provided and managed by a social housing provider? And the percentage, number two, is the percentage that's for shared ownership, please. Right, can I just stop there? I understand what you're saying, but that will come in with the next application. This is an outline planning, and therefore won't be covering those details. Okay, so once they do come in with reserve matters, then it will be showing the types of houses and details of those. Yeah, but with respect, Mr Chairman, we don't get a chance to comment on that then, do we? Yes, you do. We do? Yes. Okay, fine. Thank you. If it would help, I'm happy to add some commentary there. Well, at the moment, it's indicative, isn't it? So until the reserve matters comes in, we don't have a definitive application for it. You're quite right. The applicant is providing the 35%. That actually compares to the 25% sought by the neighbourhood plan. The exact housing mix is quite rightly a matter for reserve matters. There's no reason why a section 106 agreement couldn't provide some percentages reflecting the evidence in the local plan and the housing officer's response on the application. Okay, Councillor Maudy. Thank you. Under the HEDNA policy, it says that there's no actual data, specific data for Buckingham. So, as you said, you interpret it for what it is. However, it does say there's a need for B1C and B2 industrial development in Buckingham. However, as we know, as you said, that you marketed it for two years without being successful. Although you have got some industrial units there, which I think are EG if I'm right. Yeah, which is units which are suitable to be in a residential area, which can be research and development or office, for example. What I wondered was, when you originally marketed your site for sale, what did you market it as and how? You will have heard the debate earlier this morning about the approach that has been taken by the agents. They have been acting since at least the neighbourhood plan was made. How they approached any developers, I'm not familiar with that evidence. What I do know is that during that time they had just two approaches, one which wasn't subject to any financial backing, the other was withdrawn because there was a lack of concern over the need. Just on the E3 use, that is very flexible and that could respond to a variety of different needs. The reason why it is 1.7 hectares is precisely because that is the figure that we see as more deliverable and more likely to happen. Okay. Councillor Cornell. Thank you, Chair. I think Councillor Marne has asked a lot of what I was going to ask, but I was concerned about the fact that looking at the rough plan, there doesn't seem to be a lot of parking spaces and parking for visitors. I am going to assume here that that green space at the base, you are going to turn into children's playgrounds and all sorts of lovely facilities for people after you have moved the badgers. The visitors parking will come up as a part of deserved matters, so we can actually identify it in more detail then. About the badgers, I don't know. They are being moved, sadly. Yeah, possibly. Councillor Cooper. Thank you, Chairman. Councillor Morley has asked precisely my question. However, it did spark another thought and that is I wonder whether you have spoken with our economic development officers, because they seem to disagree with you on whether this site can be used as an employment site. So have you had conversations with them? We have not spoken with them directly. The authors of the employment land statement may have spoken with them as part of the preparation network. I can't confirm that now. Just in terms of their comments on the application, I think there are probably two points that I would make. The first is we have previously expressed concern that it is not entirely clear whether or not they had regard to the fact that the application does propose employment land. Because they just talk about the 300 homes. The other point that I would make as well is that they refer to having spoken to commercial agents and this may be part of the reason for your question. We have not had sight of that correspondence. We don't know who those agents are and what was said. Okay. Councillor Bond. You done? Okay. Thank you. Councillor Stott and me. Through the chair, do I ask whether we can ask this now or not? Historically, you may be aware that in Buckingham, management companies have become quite problematic. I believe that probably would be the route through the chair that you will go through. And where the section 106 agreements, because we haven't got a seal, have been drafted in the sense that in reverse that with consent the local council being then the town council would get an offer on it if they wanted to take it up. So that they could be involved in those discussions. Then the other way around that with the planner or the landowner saying with consent. The reason I say that is if that's cost a lot less money for if they wish to do that. And it also settles that argument reasonably clearly because you can negotiate with them. They may not want to do that, but they may wish to. Where that has taken place, adjacent on Laysill. Since the action of the town council being involved with the management charges substantially, and I know they're working terribly hard on other areas which we will not mention. But it's about sustainability living there and the cost to the residents going forward. It's entirely up to the town council what they do with that. But if they're cut out of the question at that point, it's much more difficult to do afterwards. And I don't know how the chairman thinks where we can ask you whether you would consider that. You may be not in a position to do that at the moment because I guess there's a couple of issues. One of which will be whether it be adopted. High wage will be adopted. And the other way is to be a management company running it. Because the experience we've had locally is being quite horrendous. I would certainly expect the main roads within the site to be adopted, yeah. So you build them to that standard. Absolutely. Yeah. Just in terms of the management of the open space, our understanding is that the OZIA way application is subject in the 106 to management company process. My client just by glancing back is entirely happy for the section 106 here agreement to include an either or approach which is entirely -- it's very frequently contained in planning obligations. Either it's a management company or there's the option for the town council to take it on. I think that's something that we'll take up probably in the reserve matters. But I think it's sustainability of anything if it was agreed. Okay. Right. So there's no further questions. Oh, Councillor Morgan, sorry. You're forgetting me, Chair. You're right at the end. That's all right. Sorry, my head was starting to go into technical questions. Because I know that's where we're headed. But we've sort of touched on it in terms of park and open spaces. And obviously this is only an indicative plan you are going to come back with reserve matters should this be approved. But you can't really stray too far from what's in front of us here. So could you demonstrate to the committee where the play parks are? Because I can't see that on this plan at all. I think you would need significantly better eyesight than I've got. Yeah. So you'll see if you can see that just on the about century on the southern boundary. See the pointer. Yeah. I think there's a couple of pink dots there. Number four. Yes, number four. So the two north-south green routes through the development, you'll see in a very small number. Just where the -- if you go up there. Yeah, keep going. The one to the right of that. So those are smaller, more incidental players, the ones along the south are the primary ones. I can see a few of the little brown spaces. Good, good. Thank you. I'm very happy for you. Gentlemen, thank you for your time this morning. Oh, sorry, it can't be gone. I know I was last minute. A late entry. I'm always a late entry. Just a quick question. This might be for the wrong -- might be an officer question, actually. Because you've tried to find employment occupation on that piece of land. Has there been a comparison of -- we've talked about traffic a great deal and the impact that it has on that road. So what I would quickly like to know, have you done a comparison of traffic -- possible traffic movements compared from industrial to housing? Yes, it was necessarily a good fag packet. Let's put it like that rather than a sort of detailed exercise. So what I did was I took the coverage for the 1.7 hectares and expanded that across the whole site. And if it were used in an old B1C sort of light industry type thing, you would be on almost exactly the same total amount of traffic. It would just have a different tidality. So it would arrive when the other -- if you understand. If they were a higher office content, you would get more traffic. If you had more warehousing, you would have less traffic but more trucks. The way I've been badging it is it's broadly like for like. Okay. Thank you very much. Colleagues, I think we have a ten minute break then before we go on to technical. [ Background noise ] Councillor Stutchby, although -- [ Background noise ] Oh, okay. Yeah. [ Background noise ] Just to clarify, the local members, it was Councillor Stutchby who also indicated he wanted it called in but decided not to speak. Separately. And therefore we spoke during committee. Okay. [ Background noise ] Right. Let's move on. We move to technical. Now we've covered a lot of technical questions already. [ Background noise ] Under the local members in the last application -- application, the member who was there wasn't the person that called it in. And wasn't the member for this area. Not a local member. But the local member is here and is on the committee and chose not to speak separately. Right. We'll go to technical questions. Like I say, I think we've asked a lot of technical questions during the course of those things. So we'll try and keep that very specific. [ Background noise ] Councillor Cukor. Thank you, Chairman. I'd like to be clear about the status of the neighbourhood plan. From what we've heard this morning, it's been implied that the neighbourhood plan is rather elderly. I think it's 2016. So can we just confirm that it does have full weights still? It is a made neighbourhood plan. Therefore, it has full weight. And it's part of the development plan. Or the development plan. So it forms part of the development plan. Okay. Councillor, Mrs. Morgan. Yeah, thank you. Just on that point that Councillor Cooper just raised. In the planning balance that's on the first few pages from the officer in terms of where the balance is weighted. I don't see any reference to the local plan. Unless I've just -- I've read it and read it and I can't see any reference to the local plan in the weighted kind of planning balance. And there's also, you know, what I was trying to say was about the 300,000. It is mentioned in the beginning of the document but it's then not mentioned on page 39 under the developer contributions part. Which is why I was slightly confused. And -- sorry, chair. Okay. Which existing school is due to be expanded? Because is it primary or is it secondary? Because, you know, a quick check of the vacancy list shows us there's two spaces for secondary schools. And no spaces for primary at all. And again, what is the planned expansion of the doctor's surgery? And are you confident that the planned expansion of both the doctor's surgery and the school is enough not just to meet the capacity of this but existing capacity of the new developments that have already been approved? Okay. Thank you. Thank you. I'm really sorry. Could you just tell me what the first point you were talking -- you said the reference -- there wasn't any reference to the neighbourhood plan. Yes. On page 345 where it talks about the planning balance, I can't see any mention of the local plan. 345. First few pages. Page 3, page 4 and page 5. On the paragraph 1.2 of the summary, BNDP is back in the neighbourhood development plan policy EE1. Apologies. I didn't pick up the abbreviation. Yes. Thank you. Thank you. The educational contribution is for primary and secondary schools. The education officer in the consultation response didn't identify which schools but they have confirmed that they have projects that this money is going to. So it will meet the three statutory tests that is necessary, directly related and it is reasonably in scale and -- But they haven't actually named the schools or anything? Not in the consultation response. Okay. All right. Sorry. In the doctor's surgery. Thank you. Sorry. In terms of naming the educational projects, that would be defined in the section 106 in terms of the definition. So that would be negotiated and confirmed in section 106. Yes. I think the only thing that concerns me is I personally on my ward had an incident where S106 monies was put to one side for the expansion of a doctor's surgery. And then it took years to get a small contribution, in which case they had then taken on all of the housing as patients. And it created a huge crisis. And that's just something I'm mindful of here. Okay. Sorry, just to confirm that Bob ICB confirmed that the section 106 monies would go towards the expansion of the SWAN, which is a planned project, SWAN practice. Yes. SWAN practice is the main one. Okay. Councillor Osbourn. Thank you very much, chair. I just need quite a few points clarified. The first is the employment land. Now, I understand this is potentially going to be a loss of employment land. Do we still have other sites within the area that can be used for employment? Are you talking about allocated sites? Allocated sites. Because I understand the OZO way was also changed from employment housing. So if we change this as well, is there any other piece of land allocated for that? There isn't, I think, any other allocated sites in the valve. And the valve does draw the wider area. The valve area is looking at where the employment land would go. So in answer to your question specifically, there are no more allocated sites nearby. Thank you. My second question would ride on, Councillor Cooper's own, which is the neighbourhood plan in the valve, the relationship between both. I understand from the documentation that whilst the neighbourhood plan provides for this site as an employment site, the valve doesn't. What's the importance of that? So at the beginning of the presentation, we explained that it's allocated in the neighbourhood plan, but it's not identified. There are two policies that apply in the valve. One is what we call E1, which gives a high level of protection to employment sites. So they are identified sites within the valve. This site has not been identified in the valve. Therefore, the policy that applies is a slightly lesser restrictive policy, which is E2. So they do sit together. The identification in the neighbourhood plan of this as an employment site, and then we have a corresponding policy by which we can assess it. And that's what our assessment has undertaken in accordance with those two policies. Did you want to just explain the other employment line? E1. And you've got key employment sites. So the first policy I was talking about, there are -- E1 is key employment sites. So they're the really important -- identified as the really important sites in which there is less -- very much less flexibility. They have a protection in their own right. This has not been identified as that within the valve. So it has a secondary policy, still looking at a level of protection, but there is more flexibility, and that is why we've been considering those different elements of policy E2. All right. Thank you. My next question rides on the health facilities. I noticed you talked about this from practice. How come there's no mention of the Leeshill Centre? There's a proposed development in that area. Why isn't that mentioned anywhere in -- and I saw Amersham and Stockfield also mention that. Has that development been mentioned at all? So when we went out to consultation, we received comments back from the ICB and the Buckinghamshire Health Care Trust, and they made comments about what they considered the needs to be, and it relates specifically to the SWAN practice. So we're not really able to direct what we say we want to direct their comments. They gave their comments to us. And then the SWAN practice, as Antonia identified, commented on this application and said they would object unless there was a contribution for them towards an expansion. So I am assuming there is that symmetry between the SWAN practice and the ICB. Right. Based on local knowledge, I know the Leeshill Centre is quite important, because that's a proposed aspiration for residents locally. Is that something that can be included in this plan, if need be? I'm not sure that we can include it within this, because we have had quite a clear steer in terms of the ICB saying that this is their project. So it is the ICB to tell us what the impact -- health impacts are on this development and what they see the necessary mitigation is. So I know that there is this other site; however, they haven't identified that as the mitigation. Okay. My next question. Can we have the harms and benefits slide up, please? Right. No, I'm sure most of us agree with what's on there, but there are two things I think are worth noting here, and I'd like your opinion as to why they're not on there. The first relates to water resource. Based on 6.123 of your document, it's clearly stated that the Great Billion Waters Recycle Centre has a good capacity. Now, I think that would be a significant harm to existing residents and potential future residents as well. So I think it's important that we take that into consideration as well. Then my next point, which I did ask the developers on, was regards to the noise. Now, if we go to 6.102, it talks about the types of industrial process and purposes that the land can be useful. Now, my main concern, and I'm sure this-- and this is why I think it's a significant harm as well, is that that area is purely industrial, right? What this plan seeks to do is to embed residents within an industrial area, which would then impact on what that area can be used going forward. And if not, then the noise levels will be quite difficult for not current residents but future residents. So I know that what you take into consideration is the current impact, but those that come into that property will be impacted by what's around them. I think that's a major concern there, which should also be part of the harm. What do you think? So if I take the latter point first, if you don't mind, but we won't forget to come on to the earlier point, is your concern from the existing industrial buildings that will be in close proximity to the residential or the proposed employment within the site? Both. So my concern is there's an existing industrial area around it. We're about to embed residences within that area, which will impact on what the current industrial area can be used for. Then also the proposed area will also be limited based on the amenities and restrictions under, I think it's E2, EG3. A noise assessment was submitted with the application, which did a noise survey, which was accepted as robust. The noise assessment sort of indicated that the most intrusive or the most harmful noise, quote, unquote, would be road traffic from London Road rather than Buckingham Industrial Estate. And so the noise assessment and my assessment goes on to consider the most impactful noise on the proposed residential development. And it was considered that with the recommended conditions, that noise could be successfully mitigated. Right. Theoretically, I might agree with you, but I think practically if we put the slide back up, the slide with the outline, if we look at that, so theoretically you might be right, but theoretically what you have is you're going to have an industrial estate to the north of it. And you're also going to have industrial site also to the east of it. So those houses there are encypcled by industrial estate. I can't even see the road because the road is way out. So theoretically, I'm sure that's what is said. But if we look at it, I think we need to consider that as a significant harm. And I think what we're trying to direct you is that the evidence that's been submitted with the application and assessed by our own environmental health officers has been accepted as a reasonable assessment. So it's about the evidence base and your concerns around the development, the employment within the site is addressed by the conditions seeking to control the nature of the uses there. So I'm afraid that's the answer that I have to provide to you. It's the evidence that we have which has been tested and our own mental health officers have identified more the impact of the London road. Well, the reason why I said theoretically because the evidence hasn't been put to test yet. It doesn't really test when the house has been built. So theoretically, I can say you might be right theoretically, but practically, it is obvious here that it's going to be encircled. That's it. But I'll leave that point. I will take that on. Then if you can talk on the water resource before I go to the last one, which is highways. Sure. So in terms of the water resource, it's quite a fundamental point of planning law that you cannot put a harm against something that is dealt with by other legislation. So it states here at 1.23 that Anglican water recognize that there is an inability but they have a duty to accept the foul flows. So that is dealt with by different legislation and different law. And we can't then control that. That's quite a fundamental principle of planning. That's why we recognize the issue we've told you about. It's told you about the issue. But that's why it doesn't reflect in the harms because it is dealt with separately. Right. And I'll say theoretically as well, I do agree with you, but if we look at it, what we're having is we have an area that's allocated for employment. So the numbers, the amount of flow that will be coming from that site will be minimal if it was led to employment. Now, to change that to residential would increase the amount of outflows that will be coming from that site, which have significant impacts on that facility. So I'm saying it's relevant because you're changing it. So it should be part of the harms to be considered. I will direct you again to the fact that when they saw the application, they commented on it and they haven't -- and they've identified the issues. And it will be for Anglican Water to be able to provide the necessary infrastructure that's required to service that. There may cause a delay in the development, but -- and therefore what we've done sort to try and anticipate that is to have a phasing plan so we understand how that will impact on the development coming forward. But I'm not able to really go any further because it's just the basis upon which planning law is established. Thank you. My last question is on highways. Now, this is my favorite part about highways because they always say the right things at the wrong time. Now, theoretically I've read your report and I think that came in from .6.80 all the way to 6.88. Now, my main concern is I do live in that area and I do know the congestion that is there. So, whilst you say there will be minimal impact by this development, I don't think that's practically accurate because currently my wee hair when it was raining, there was traffic and so I was slightly delayed. So, my worry is when -- because I have had this discussion as to the evidence that's used towards highway assessment and what times are they done, you know, the report you have here, when was this evidence collated? Can you just give us a clarification as to when the timeframe within which the evidence you've used here is? Let's have a look at that and we'll come back to you. Thank you. Okay. Councillor Bond. Yeah, if you could just put a slide up for plan and balance again because that's my point. So, in the -- so the harm, loss of minerals, we haven't heard anything about that at all, which is -- I will ask the question. But it's got housing provisions significant times too, but then the neighbourhood plan policy is not there at all. So, I'm having a struggle to balance this. Okay. It's under the loss -- Sorry, what harm -- sorry. What weight has the neighbourhood plan policy got that it's not on that list? The loss of employment impacts is that derived directly from the neighbourhood plan allocation and the E2. So, we've given that significant weight. I see. What about the minerals? What's that? The minerals -- the loss of minerals is documented in the report where they failed. There's a safeguarding policy on our minerals and waste plan and this is within an area that's safeguarded. And they needed to demonstrate the impacts that their proposal would have on mineral resources. It's not a you can't do it, but there is a need to do an assessment and they haven't done that. So, therefore, they do conflict with the policy, although recognising that the site has been allocated for an alternative development use. And we've given that conflict limited weight. Okay. Councillor Morgan. Thank you. There is reference made to two badger sets within the site. Main one and an annex set. It's proposed that the annex set is closed. And it mentions that this will give enhanced foraging experience to the badgers. I just wondered what that was. More distance. I should say page 33. Probably more distance to travel. Sorry. Could you reference the paragraph? Yes. 6143. 43. It actually refers to museum matters. And the enhancements are set out in the ecological reports. Do you want me to I can look that up, but I'll have to come back to you. It's all right. It's obviously something to be put in to justify an action that's going to be taken. Because you need a licence from natural England in order to do it. Because badgers aren't protected. Okay. Thank you, Mr Chairman. Can I refer you to page 4? 1.2 and 1.3. Please. And again, following on from Councillor Bond's comments. So line 3, I've underlined, and so conflicts with BNDP policy EE1. Line 5, the proposal conflicts with valve E2. Line 8, there is also conflict with valve policy S2. And there is still no weight given in the balancing process here. These are one, two, three very significant conflicts in my opinion. You said at the start of this technical session that the BNDP was fully weighted in this application. When asked by the first question, okay? Yet, I see no weight, any weight whatsoever given to these three lines that I've just underlined on my report. And I'd ask the question, why? So the loss of employment is detailed within the report. So the S2 policy is a strategic policy of where things are designed to go within our Aylesbury Vale area. And then within that, you have the employment, the protection of employment by the allocation. And they both link the EE1 policy of the neighbourhood plan and the assessment. So that is the loss of employment. So if we build on this site, it's a designated employment site. So it's the loss of employment. So we've just generalised that term. But we've given significant weight. And we look at that in quite a lot of detail in the report. So we have given that significant weight. I don't think we can distinguish harm to E2, because E2 policy is a mechanism by which we can assess whether the allocated site could be moved from employment to an alternative use. Okay. Sarah, I get all that. So I'm going to say now that you've said basically this is an employment site. So my argument here would be you've given loss of employment as significant. Housing provision significant times two. Can I just challenge here that loss of employment should be significant times two? The mechanism of balancing, and I suppose what the problem is we're not trying to show you this is an exact equation, because it's not, and we've talked about this in members training. It is something that we have sought to give you some indication of the weight that we've given it to you. But at the end of the day, it's up for members. You've read our report why we've come to this point. We've given different weights, and in the planning balance, we've had to give, we look at, we're at the tilted balance. So what we have to say, does it significantly and demonstrably outweigh the benefits? And that is the additional material consideration we have to give, because we're in tilted balance. So they're the weights, and you need to look at that and give your view and consideration that you believe that they significantly and demonstrably. We think the impacts do not significantly and demonstrably outweigh, but it is for members to make that assessment, and that is what you're doing. Can you just hold that? Yes, Catherine. Thank you, yes. So the reason for the significant times two isn't that it's sort of more significant in some way. It's because there are two elements to the housing provision. So one is housing itself, when there is housing need, and we can't meet our five-year housing land supply. And the second element is the provision of affordable housing, so that's an additional benefit. So that's why it's times two, because there are two elements that come within the definition of housing, but they each are significant. Okay, okay, I get that. I just want to go back to Councillor Aidee's comments, who has raised numerous comments here, and he believes there was no weight given to the harm. Now, Mr Marsh said he would get back to Councillor Aidee. When are you going to get back to him? Because I would like answers to Councillor Aidee's questions that you're taking away, before I would consider making the decision on this application. Thank you. Councillor, if I could answer that question. The question was, when was the transport surveys undertaken? They were undertaken in October 2022, prior to the submission of the application. They were over the course of a week, and we looked at those survey data, and looked at the assessments that have been undertaken. We compared that data with council survey data, and all of the figures used were considered to be robust. Hope that helps. Thank you. Okay. And excuse me, Mr Chairman, but Councillor Aidee also raised about water. If I could just, would it be possible to just ask Councillor Aidee to remind us of his questions, please? Thank you very much. Chair, if I could just come back on that response. If the Council doesn't know the locations where that, the single pinch point where the surveys were done, that would also be very helpful. And just to assist them, Councillor Mahone, I think the other two issues was the water resources and capacity issue. I was raised in 6.123, and also the noise element by the new residents being enclaved on the 6.102. But I would appreciate if the highways could help with that and show information as to the specific points. With the locations, okay, yeah. So the traffic surveys, a traffic survey was undertaken at the A41 London Road roundabout, which has been discussed. Counts were also undertaken at the two Needlepin Way roundabout junctions, that's counts of all the different turning movements. And also where traffic flow count was undertaken along that A413 London Road corridor itself. And were these all day? The surveys undertaken at the junctions are undertaken during morning and evening peaks, with an hour either side of that. And then the traffic survey undertaken on the London Road itself was a 24-hour seven-day traffic flow undertaken. Like I say, we were able to compare those counts with lots of counts that the Council separately undertakes itself. Just to help me out, the one on the London Way was done for 24 hours, but the Needlepoint and the other ones were done for just peak periods. That's right, that's the appropriate methodology. So you could count a weekly traffic flow, two-way traffic flow for the whole week. And when surveys were undertaken at the junction and you're counting all the different movements left, right, straight on, they are generally done during peak periods. Because those peak periods, the morning and evening peak periods, they are being then assessed. Those numbers are the numbers that we use in our assessments. So there's no need to count them, have people counting them all day. If I could help, because the London Way itself isn't where the traffic is, it's actually the points which you counted for just peak periods. So the London Way most times is true traffic, but the roundabout areas, and this is why I know this because I have local knowledge of it, is where you have the traffic. That's where traffic builds up. I know the Chairman also did mention that the traffic lights contributes to this, but there is a lot of traffic there. So it will be helpful before that statement on, I think it was 6.80 was made, before that 24-hour survey to be done. Because the traffic will be going towards the town, not towards Ilsbury. Does that help? Because if you focus on London Way 24/7, right, that's going towards Ilsbury, which isn't that bad. But going into the town, right, is where you get the traffic load. And that's where we need to know if that statement you made, which is on 6.80, which says the Council Highway has reviewed the imputes to estimate the traffic flows from the proposed development. And has confirmed that they are acceptable to ensure the accuracy of predicted trip rates and traffic flows. I think that statement with regard to London Way, yes, I might concede to that. But to the other junctions, I think it will be important to do a 24-hour survey before that statement can be said to be accurate. I don't think the 24-hour survey would add anything more than we'd already get, because the busiest time is the peak. And that's the peak of the network and the peak of the development. So you're going to get the maximum number of vehicles on the road already and the maximum number of vehicles from the development. So you're catching the worst-case scenario is what we're looking at. So the peak would show you mostly true traffic, traffic going out. But what we're looking at is 300 new homes being built in that area, which would be going into town as well. They won't just be doing pick periods, they'll be at different times. Hence what I'm saying, what would be ideal would be for that survey, 24-hour survey, to be going into town, not going on the London Way. Does that help at all? I see your point, but I think the point I'm making is that during the peak hours, the road is going to be the busiest. So any impact is going to be greater during that peak. And we also, because people are going to be going to and from work from the development, that's going to be the peak of the development as well. So you're combining the two worst-case scenarios. So if there's no issue there, there's automatically going to be no issue throughout the day. That's the way the assessments are done. The reason why I said 24 hours would be better is because your peak, you have just taken an hour or two as the peak, right? But to have a full understanding of the impact of the traffic, of the new traffic, would be helpful if that junction or those junctions, subsequent junctions after the London Way, have 24-hour surveys as well. Because that would help us get the full site. Then we can then take the 6.80 statement as being complete. I'm not sure I have anything else to add to that. I think that's our current policy, is that they just do those peak times. So I don't think it's going to add any value to it. Okay, can you just search me? Thank you very much, Sharon. I'll refer members to pages 64 to pages 68. That was my calling, which I didn't get to mutter about, which in that calling I talk about the elements set from pages 28 to 29. But what I'm trying to get to is the understanding around drainage and sewage, which is part of my calling, which I ask questions and my concerns why I wished it to come to committee. Now, I'm not sure that we have in any way addressed with the points around the sewage and drainage capacity, the points around that we can do. What I understand is the S19 water industry act 1991, which provides the right to connect sewage regardless of capacity, which worries me greatly. Because this is not the only development which is taking place on this side, and this is additional. And the act states that we can't refuse planned permission based upon it. I'm also very concerned about the fact that then the lack of capacity will have to be secured from Grampian conditions, through which our Grampian conditions are after this is done. And what I do know is what I've said in my concerns about the calling is there's evidence already in the area of the sewage and drainage being at capacity. In 2020 and 2022, the sewage system in Buckingham over tilted in two areas. So I'm worried that though we may have no legal capacity to stop it at this point, there's nothing in this that we can guarantee the outcomes of the drainage and the sewage in this. Anyone who shakes their head and wants to move into Buckingham and watch the sewage go in your garden, which I've seen in two properties opposite, and I won't name them for the sake of their property. The Councillor starts me off thinking that Ms Armstrong raised that point earlier. No, I don't think we do. I think she did. She actually clarified it when it was raised before, because what happens is it's a different legislation. I know, but what I'm trying to stress here, as I couldn't speak in the calling section about this, I think I would talk about it now within the report. It says that we haven't got capacity. It says that this could be done by condition afterwards. And I wonder whether the whole system that we are operating under is reversed to good sense, in the sense that you would afford that. And I've questioned this in cabinet as well, and I've questioned this with officers continuously, is the whole system seems to be weighted against us being able to completely mitigate knowledge of the care. Now, I'm not saying the officers have done anything wrong, but I remain really, really concerned that this development will add to the cumulative effect on the drainage and sewage. I can state actualities that when the laser development was constructed, and this is fact, that the sewage and drainage didn't get completed to halfway through the development, and it was started being built for. So we need to consider, I hope the officers would consider that, that we need to, if this was so, to put in very strong conditions about construction before drainage and sewage is agreed. We can't do that. It has to be dealt with by the authority that's responsible for water and sewage. Well, okay, we can't do that. We can't put conditions into a planning application to cover that. Okay, okay, so we can't do that, so we carry on regarding it. Now, we go to the section where we state about the flood risks. Nowhere in the report does it recognize the actualities of the flows of the rivers and the flooding on Buckingham. Now, it says it will flow down to the overflows will go down to the Clayton Brook or the Grays Brook or whatever you want to call it. But it doesn't recognize, if you see the entire captain area flood for Buckingham, those rivers congest from steeper Clayton. And an additional water in there will go down to Fortin where it enters the river. And then that adds capacity to the water at Fortin. And then that floods back up into Buckingham reverse. And it's happened on numerous occasions, there's evidence of it. And I just, I haven't seen it here because it's maybe it'll be done in details. How we're going to handle, it mentions it, but doesn't say how. We're going to manage that additional flow of water or increased flow of water for the concrete areas. And I just want some reassurance before we go to detail thing I would do. I know this might seem irritating to you or everyone. But having lived in the town and recognized the problem and seen it flood in 2021, 2022. I'm conscious that anything I say should support the long term protection of those residents. And not to mention it in a public meeting would be wrong. So I hope you can help me on those two points for clarity, especially around the ground conditions. Just for clarification, are you referring to the flows from the proposed sustainable drainage? That's my second point. The first point was around the elements about drainage and sewage management from it. And the fact that we're relying on the act which is against us and we're relying on ground conditions. So I'm expected to make a decision on something which I know the outcome of. I can only just reiterate the points that I've made. We cannot consider refusing the application on the fact that there is an adequate foul sewage at this infrastructure at this point in time. Because Antlec and Walter have told us that and they're obligated. So that simply cannot be, this is planning law, we simply cannot look to refuse it on those grounds. And the point on the sustainable drainage I'll ask Antonia to deal with. Sorry, so on the point on foul drainage, I think if you look at condition 25, I think that probably achieves what you're seeking. That's on page 56. So that's prior to the construction above damp proof course, the scheme for the onsite foul water drainage works. Including proposed connection point and discharge rate to the public network should be submitted to and approved in writing by the local planning authority in consultation with Anglian Water. So that does prevent the houses being occupied or anything, impact any development above damp proof course before that scheme is in place. And we have an acknowledgement from Anglian Water that they will put that scheme in place and that's their statutory duty to do so. So I think that condition does actually secure what you're seeking. Do you feel that the S19 1991 Act is covered under those conditions that covers that area? And people will talk about this, so it's better that we do it now. So you feel that's covered by that condition? I think that condition secures connections for foul water drainage. I wouldn't say where, we don't know where, but maybe we'll find that out at the next stage of the planning. Well, those details will include a proposed connection point and discharge rate to the public network. So I think that sort of secures what you're seeking. And can I just come back just for sort of everybody's benefit, you're talking about a grampian condition, it's not a grampian condition. A grampian condition is a specific type of condition that requires -- I was going by what the legal officer wrote to me on the 5th of January. So this is not a grampian condition, this is a condition, a standard condition. He said that they may be in the position of a grampian condition. Well, I haven't seen what you're referring to, so I can't comment on that. But this is a condition, a straightforward condition. Okay, I think we'll discuss that again, but yeah. Got some water there, Chair, bless you. Sorry, in relation to your query about the sustainable drainage and the flows from that, the applicant has put in sustainable drainage principles to it. And they are proposing attenuation basins and swales which would control the flow or infiltration of the surface water when it's discharged. And they have done the calculations for that to ensure that there isn't, you know, a heavy flow. Through the Chair, will that come to the next conditions, things that we can see that in detail? Yeah, this is Morgan. Thank you, Chair. So I just wanted to have a bit more understanding about your kind of thought process with the weights. And so I do agree with you that the housing provision, it affords double the amount of weight because it provides over and above the 25% or 20% standard social affordable housing recommendations. But in order to give it a significant weight, would it not need to be more than 50% rather than only 35%? I just wondered why there was significant weight added to only 35% of social housing. And then on the left-hand side, you know, we were talking about why it's only been afforded one significant weight. And so I just wondered if the conflicts with the local plan in Buckingham, then the loss of the employment land and then the lack of adequate marketing which is also mentioned in 1.2, if those three points then in your mind add to one significant weight. Thank you. I think the problem by seeing it onto tables like that, that you're doing quite a balancing exercise and it's not as straightforward as that. I think there is a far more nuanced argument. We have given significant weight to the loss of employment. A lot of the report has done that. And that takes into consideration all of those elements that you've identified. I think it's unfortunate you see it in times two. Really the housing provision, we try to identify affordable housing. It's a 35% and 300 houses is quite standard, provision 300 housing is a significant amount of housing. And that's why it's been given significant weight. I think it's just a bit -- if you see the times two, I think it was just trying to identify that within that significant bracket, there's two elements. So I would try and ask members not to see it as quite that finite like an equation one and the other. I think it was more about the housing provision having two elements. But the loss of employment part having three elements. So if I take you to that, the loss of employment is -- it is about all of those policies are linked together so you have designated for employment and there is a mechanism in the policy of valve. It's not got complete protection. We just talked around that. It's not a key employment area. But it has the ability to consider alternative uses. And they failed to meet that policy requirement. So that is why we see those being linked together. And we have given it -- it's the top level of weight we could give it. It's significant weight. We do see that we have recognized that. So just to clarify, chair, you don't feel that the fact that it then doesn't accord with the local plan is a separate way to the loss of employment? No, I think it's related. Because I think it doesn't have protection status in its own right. But we are seeing the loss of employment. As I say, I would again try and ask you not to consider it as a quite -- this kind of balance -- and it's a balance of exercise but this equation as it probably looks like it's there. It is for members to consider it. And then the key issue, as I say, is that test. The adverse impacts do not significantly demonstrably outweigh the benefits when assessed as the policies in the framework taken as a whole. So that's the final consideration. Okay. So I think we've been through all the technical. Don't tell me I missed you again. Councillor Gaughan. Chairman, I know I'm sure to stop the team but I am the loudest at times. Yes, thank you very much for the acknowledgement there, Chairman. So I've got two questions, please. And one of them firstly is I asked the gentleman that was sat there that of highways also or the planner looked at the traffic movements in the comparison. We've gone about the way you're planning what's harmful, what's not harmful, the benefits, the non-benefits. Is it beneficial to allow housing rather than industrial? What I'm trying to say is would there be less movements if it's housing compared to employment area for a start? So is there a benefit? And if you could answer that one first. I've got another question I'm looking forward to give. Yeah, I think as was previously explained, if it was -- if the site was to be used for its commercial use, it would be roughly comparable, maybe even more vehicle movements from the site. Lovely easy answer. Thank you very much. And then following on, so there is a great concern from those in Buckingham about losing employment and then about public transport is an issue. And I noticed that within the application, quite a lot of money is being given towards the council for money. Has that consideration been put to the public transport that that money should be spent on increasing public transport, say, to Silverstone? Have we got any -- are we allowed to influence that in any way? Because it is quite a concern and listening to them, you know, there's no real transport going to Silverstone. So are we able to influence that in any way? So just as we were speaking earlier, we were messaging and there is public transport from Silverstone. It's like a demand responsive service that caters for Silverstone. And that is open to review so there may be increased frequency. The money is going towards the Buckingham Transport Strategy as a whole. There's lots of different measures within that strategy that the money could be used towards. And some of those are including bus frequency to, say, Winslow Station and things like that. So it's not out of the question. But it's going towards the whole of the strategy, not just a particular part of it. Thank you. Okay. Councillor Mahone. Thanks, Mr. Chairman. I refer you to page 5 again, para 1.13. Could you just elaborate a little bit on that? Because, you know, it talks about notwithstanding the weight given to adverse impacts. That's referring you back to the plan imbalance that we have been discussing now. That is a conclusion of what we've just been discussing. So in that summary we've tried to identify the weight given to the -- so that's exactly that point there, the adverse impacts. I've drawn your attention to the fact that once you've done the planning balance you have to come to that conclusion. The adverse impacts do not significantly and demonstrably outweigh the benefits. So that literally is the same point. Whilst there is overall conflict with the development plan as a whole concerns me. That again takes us back to the fact that the neighbourhood plan allocates the site for employment. And to not develop it for employment is in conflict with that plan, the neighbourhood plan. And we consider it therefore to be a conflict with the plan as a whole. We recognise it's a conflict and we can think that's quite significant. So that's what we are saying there. We are where we are because we have to give consideration to the policies in the MPPF that take us to the tilted balance. Sorry, Mr Chairman. No weight is given to this overall conflict. I'm just not getting it. So I have made my decision. I will not be supporting this application. Okay, that's the best. You just need to take your time. So there's a statutory framework that we have to pay attention to. And so you have heard reference to paragraph 11D of the MPPF which is this tilted balance. So what that says is that there's a presumption in favour of sustainable development. And in terms of decision taking, if there is a proposal that accords with an up to date development plan, then that should be approved without delay. We are saying that's not the case here because there is a conflict with the development plan because of the loss of an employment site. So then you look at the consequences of that. And then it says where there are no development plan policies or the policies which are the most important for determining the application are out of date, you grant permission unless certain circumstances arise. In determining whether the application that the local plan or the most important policies are out of date, there's a statutory test, a requirement in footnote 8 which says that they're automatically treated as being out of date. Whether they were made last week or ten years ago if you can't provide a five year housing land supply. And that is the situation the council is in. So because we can't provide a five year housing land supply because it states in the report we have 4.7 years housing land supply, we have to then consider that the policies are out of date, the housing policies are out of date. And we look at the consequences of that. And so where there are no relevant development plan policies or the policies which are the most important for determining the application are out of date, and that is the position here, you grant permission unless the application of policies that protect areas or assets of particular importance provide a clear reason for refusal. Now that might be a situation where the site is Greenbelt, for example, or in the AONB. There are no such policies that we are saying are relevant in this case. So then you look at D2. And so that says that in those situations that I've just said where you've got out of date policies, you grant permission unless the adverse impacts of doing so would significantly and demonstrably outweigh the benefits when assessed against the policies in this framework taken as a whole. So that's the point at which we have to balance all the relevant policies. So we've borne in mind that there are policies that are breached in relation to the employment land. But what the officer report is saying is that when you look at all the matters that have to be taken into account, the harm on one hand and the benefits on the other, those harms do not demonstrably, significantly and demonstrably outweigh the benefits. And on that basis, permission should be granted, says the officer report. Okay. And thanks for that and thanks for the clarity. So basically, as I understand it then, it's all down to the five-year land supply. Basically, that's it in a nutshell. So if we'd have met our five-year land supply, we probably wouldn't be sitting here today, would we? I think it was true to say there would be a different assessment that would have to take place, and as Mrs Stubbs has taken you through, this is from the APPF and this is the assessment we have done through the application, so it is a different assessment because we are in with a lack of five-year housing land supply which applies to this application. Okay. Understood. Just take two more and then we'll move on. Council will start the meeting. 6196 to 6197. Though it states in there, Chairman, that we will have capacity for the Bob and the Integrated Care Board, that's one practice, there's no detail in there about how that would be delivered. And I know that that's got to be with having worked on the report on primary care and how it made recommendations. I'm pleased it's coming to a report now, but will that have a mechanism for delivering that? Will that come to, if this was agreed, would it go to, or whatever, would it go to the next meeting? The same with the CT and whatever, because I think we need to know and discuss that, because this is by condition and I think the reserve matters. But it is credit to the officers for getting it into a report, irrespective of whatever we decide. I think it's the first time I've seen Buckingham Primary Care mentioned in a report, whatever the outcome, and I think that's credit to them. That will go in the section 106 agreement, so it will be covered and secured by that agreement. Council Moulton. Just on the five-year housing supply, I know in another planning application there was some recent legislation, and I note that you made point or reference to the date that this application was submitted. Is that relevant in terms of the new, you know, it was submitted before the new legislation? Yes, it's very relevant, and this application has been with us some time, so it was submitted before the date, which is December 2023, which gave some protection for authorities that have an up-to-date local plan, such as about within five years. We have some protection from the five-year housing land supply, but it was not backdated, so any applications that were submitted prior to that, we do need to consider them within the framework that's just been described to you. Thank you, and I'm doing it now. If, you know, the local plan itself takes a lot of work, and it takes a lot to get it approved, and if this has been identified as key employment land, and we've agreed with that, and government have agreed with that, and, you know, residents have agreed with that, it almost feels wrong to say, actually, that doesn't matter, because we've got these policies that significantly outweigh what you sort of have agreed, and then parishes would then say, well, what's the point in us doing a local plan if there's other things that can then override that? That's a political situation you and I win. I definitely wasn't bringing politics into it. No, the thing is, people look to us to see that, and see how we can justify it, and we can't. Okay, let's move on. We go to open debate, and who's going to start me? Peter Cooper. Councillor Cooper's not on. Thank you, Chairman. Right, I'd just like to start by reminding us all that this is an outline application, and we're only looking at part of the eventual outcome of this, and for me, the important thing from today is the change of use. That's what this is actually all about, I think, our decision today. And I'd like to go right back to the beginning of the meeting, and the evidence we had from Councillors Shafer and Cole, because I think actually they summarise this whole situation extremely well, because we have a situation where we have a made neighbourhood plan. I did check earlier to make sure it is completely up to date, and it seems to be completely up to date. So we do have a neighbourhood plan, and we need to bear in mind that that neighbourhood plan was made locally, and by referendum, so it's the will of the people directly, and I think that's really important. And so that's there. It has full weight. It decided this area should be for industry, and it decided that, as I understand it, for really good reasons. Partly it's an extension of what's already there. It's in the right place for the town, in terms of traffic and connections and all the rest of it. If you put it anywhere else, it would involve traffic going through the town. We've heard all about that. We've also heard that there's no alternative sites in Buckingham for industry. So if this goes to housing, then there's not an easy alternative. So you're then looking at possibly Silverstone or Milton Keynes or Aylesbury or Oxford or somewhere else, which then, as Councillor Cole said, brings us back to Buckingham being a dormitory town, which is exactly what they don't want, and I believe we as a council don't want either. So there's all of that. On top of that, Buckingham has built many houses. We have approved other large developments, Osia Way, for instance, and others that have been built. So there's already a lot of houses, and we're talking about more still to come, that haven't been built. So that brings us to the question of whether there is a need for industry in Buckingham. My belief is that there is. However, the applicant is claiming that there is no interest in that site for industry. I would dispute that, and in fact our economic development team dispute that, and I think we need to take great weight from that. So I would just remind everyone to think back to what was said right at the beginning of this meeting, because I think in those six minutes that those two people had to put the case over, they said everything that's important about this. The way that the neighbourhood plan outlines this site is exactly right. Now, the problem we have is the tilted balance, and I do feel for the officers here, because I don't believe that they've made a recommendation that they really believe in. But I can see that they have no choice but to make that recommendation, because that's the way the rules currently run. Had this application come in after the 20th of December, we would not be sitting here having this debate. So that's the situation we're in. So where do we go with it? As far as I'm concerned, I can tell you now there is absolutely no way I can support this application. However, refusing it is another story, because that will put us, I suspect, in quite a difficult position. So without going into any further detail, my conclusion is that I'm going to abstain from this. I'm definitely not going to support it. I can see no alternative but to abstain. And I do wonder, perhaps this is a question I should have asked in technical questions. If we were all to abstain, what would the outcome be? I think just going back to the point you talked about, you were not in favour of it. Have you given any consideration for the reasons for not being in favour of it? Because we would have to demonstrate that if we went down that route. Yes, and I've thought about that because we've had this problem in the past. I'm sure we could go into another room and sit down and dream up all sorts of reasons against. My main reason is that it is not right for Buckingham, it's not what Buckingham was, it's not right for the Valesbury or for Buckinghamshire Council in my view. Now to put this into terms for refusal, I think is quite difficult, bearing in mind the fact that we have the tilted balance against us. So I'm not sure we're going to win that. We could probably do it, we can go for that. But I think if we were going to do that we would have to do what I've just said, we would have to go out and work on that. But I think in the end there's a danger, and this is where I agree with the officers to an extent. I think there's a danger that we will end up putting ourselves in a position where we would lose an appeal. And this is what we've been told in the past and I think it's probably experience as well. That's why I'm inclined to abstain. Okay. I know Buckingham very well and I've been looking at this. This is a speculative build, speculative on land that had previously been allocated for employment. We have lost a lot of land for employment in Buckingham. My concern is as it continues to develop as a town there's going to be insufficient employment land. Because we've got young people coming through and we need to look ahead. And I can understand totally why the applicants did this, but we are to look at it I think from the community. The community looking forward, as it expands we need more employment locally. We do not want some of our people having to travel to Milton Geinz or Ellesby or whatever. So my view would be that this land allocated as employment should remain so. It is in the most appropriate place I think within the town. It's outside the centre of the town, it's on the edge and it adjoins other employment land. For some of those reasons that's why I think I would vote against it. Yeah, I think if we were to go away and come up with some really coherent reasons for refusal. You might change your mind about voting against. I think it's going to be quite a difficult job. And if we were to do that I would like to have agreement from officers that we've done it in a way that will work. But can I just, I've sort of said this already and you've just said it too. As planners we have to look to the future, this is not something just for today. And I think this is such a big deal for Buckingham. Because if we want Buckingham to be a place on its own with its own employment etc. This site is absolutely vital to that. I don't for one second believe that there is no interest in that site as an employment site. That cannot be true and we're not looking at the next month, the next year, the next five years, maybe even the next twenty years. We're looking at the future of Buckingham as a centre in its own right. There's a lot of people here, there's a gentleman over there who would argue that Buckingham is the main town of Buckingham. And you know, we're in danger here of demoting it to a commuter area. And that in my view is entirely wrong. Council has a motion. Thank you very much chair. Can we have the slide that shows the balance of benefits and harm please. Right, I think, well I don't think the tilted balance is against us. I think it's something we should consider. And in my thought process I would consider this. Now we have the housing provision there which is significant times two. And the reason why that's been given is because one, it's providing 300 additional houses and also there will be social housing included. Now if we go to 6.23 of the report, it's clearly stated in there that overall at this point in time there is a surplus of delivery over the anticipated rates. Which is against projected delivery of 415, there's a total of 480 homes. So we can say that at this point in time that need for 300 is not urgent. Right, it is a benefit but it's not urgent. Now if I look on the other side and I do take what other councils have said before as to identifying the flaws or the controversy with the different plans being the vibe and the nibbled plan. But the two things I think we should also consider under this is not only the loss of employment land but also the fact that the residents that will be in there. And can we go to that, the outline map again please. So the whole essence of a plan is to more or less have a layout, know how you want the town to grow. From what I can see here, I can see to the left of that road is an industrial estate, to the right is residential. I'm sure there's a reason for that. And what I can see that this plan is trying to do is to create an enclosure of residents in the midst of an industrial area. Now that gives me great concern aside from the fact that it's a loss of employment land. You also have the individuals who are going to be living in that area and the quality of life they would have because they're surrounded by an industrial estate, which wasn't what the plan is. So there's also not only the change of purpose but also the change that will impact on the residents there. I think that is also extremely significant. Now what I'll also add to that earlier slide is the fact that it's said here, and I'll go to 6.15 of the report. It says that the housing, the council's housing and economic development needs assessment states that there is a lack of supply of suitable B1C industrial purpose. And B2 general industry stock across the functional economic market area, which I'll assume Bockenham is that instance. So we know that if this employment area is changed to residents, the offices have confirmed to us that there is no alternative. This is the last one. So if this is changed the way AussieAway was changed to my understanding, then there is no potential for future employment land in Bockenham. That is also extremely significant. So if we want to look at, like we say, we haven't got the five-year land supply to consider here, I think there's quite a lot of significant things to put on the harm scale. That I think will tilt that balance. I wouldn't want to add the capacity which I raised because I think I've taken the guidance of the offices as to that's a different legislation. But I would also say when this was being planned, we can't blame Anglian Water because Anglian Water wanted to envisage that this would be residential. So that's also a change in Anglian Water's layout because what they will envisage, based on existing plans, is that this would be industrial. So capacity was envisaged to increase that much. So that is also there. And I think in my view, putting all this together, it will be very, very difficult to not only... And I do appreciate the work and diligence the officers have done in this report. I think it was extremely helpful. It was a very good read. And I do commend them for what they've done. But I kind of don't agree with the decision or the approval they're seeking. Based on the facts I've laid out before, I will therefore propose in supporting what the chair has said for us not to approve this plan. We can go back and discuss this in further detail. But I think these are enough grounds, in my view, for us to contemplate not approving this plan. Thank you. Would you be put down for his recommendation with those reasons? That's correct. Seconded? Seconded. So perhaps I can advise you now, listening to the concerns that you've expressed through the debate. It is finally balanced. We've taken you through the reasoning that we've given. But I think that the -- on the points that you've made, I think we just need to be careful. The point that you referenced in the report, that was about the housing delivery of our allocated sites. It wasn't about the five-year housing land supply. But just to take that to one side, I think your concerns are about Buckingham and its need for housing as well as economic growth. So I think you're saying that you're concerned about sort of conflict with the strategic policy, which is an S2 policy, that this is not the right location for the loss -- losing employment land to housing land. So I would suggest that there is a conflict with S2 and that it fails to -- it undermines the requirements of our spatial strategy for growth. I would then perhaps, listening to your concerns, reflect on the fact that there is that loss of employment allocated site in Buckingham. And that that has to be quite a significant issue that you've all been raising and talking about. So there would be conflict with both the Buckingham neighbourhood plan and the Bail of Aylesbury plan. But perhaps if you are looking at that as another reason, I would possibly suggest that we look at the loss -- the conflict with the minerals and waste plan. Not that's about demonstrating that the site hasn't -- its impact on mineral resources. It could be resolved but has failed to demonstrate that. So there are -- through this report we've identified those concerns and I think these are reasons in which you could consider a recommendation of refusal. Okay. Thank you very much for that. So -- Yes, Chair. I'm happy to adopt those. You are? Okay. Howard, Councillor Maud, would you be happy with those? Councillor Gaughan. Okay. I don't know where we are. I'm a bit lost at the moment. No, I'd like just to add, following colleagues there, you know, looking at the bigger picture of possibly losing that employment land is, as I say, looking at the bigger picture, like here in Winslow. Winslow is growing. That's our little heart here. And for us, that area is only 20 minutes away. And we're losing quite a big industrial area in Winslow itself. So there will be a demand for employment land yet again. So as I see it, to lose that for employment on this side of Buckinghamshire would be quite a concern. Okay. Thank you for that. So we've got a recommendation. Councillor Sainsbury. Yeah. I think it's worth reflecting on what's said. And the -- when privileged enough to have worked on the neighbourhood plan when it was drafted in the first place. I think what Councillor Arderboke says is the point is so prevalent to the long-term viability of a community. If we take out the last industrial state in Buckingham, which is planned for growth, and we've already known that we've got growth in Maysmoreton. We've got growth at the Tinduit Road. We've got growth coming at Oseah Way. All those things -- when the development at the Tinduit Road was put in, and the aspiration of the growth which is along the -- this was put in because we anticipated the growth in the local development plan to go across between the Brackley and the A421. And the reason the industrial land was put where it was because it fitted in with where the growth was going to take place, presumably. And it was in the right place to connect the highway and to connect to the M40 and to connect to Owlsbury with what infrastructure is in the town. And it's rather like the last man standing. And the point is the neighbourhood plan was drafted in good reason with consideration, with agreement. And we need to be minded to the fact that if we had an alternative place to put industrial, it would be a different question. But there is no other place. There is no other site allocated. The Vale of Owlsbury plan did not allocate a site in Buckingham. So taking this site out means there is no possibility of future employment in Buckingham. On the carbon footprint for Buckingham, it means everybody's employment is going to add journeys to -- and I think the environmental issues around this is worth adding. That's carbon that each resident is going to add with their journey to go and get future employment. I'm afraid working in the shops in Buckingham won't pay the mortgage for these properties. You need to go further afield to Milton Keynes Oxford and probably -- so I think this is the right way forward. And it is regrettable that this application has come forward. And I think the chairman used the word specative and it is speculative. And we have got enough development going to take place in the short term. So there's no -- we've got no necessity for these houses. Although I'm sure this won't be the end of it. Okay, thank you. Councillor Cooper, last comment? Yeah, thank you for all the comments from the other members. That's very encouraging to hear that they agree with my views on this. But particularly I was interested to hear from Mrs Armstrong about the way that we might be able to oppose this. So that's really encouraging and that helps me make a more positive decision when we get to the vote. Okay, thank you very much. So we have a recommendation before us which is seconded for refusal on the grounds that Councillor Osvaldo has put forward and has been confirmed by Mrs Armstrong. Those in favour of refusal? I think that's unanimous, chairman. So the application is refused for those reasons given. Okay, thank you. Thank you very much. I think it's time for some lunch. And I think there's any other room? I had a pint? In the member's lounge. In the member's lounge. Okay. Is 20 minutes too short? Yes, chair. Chair, I need to pop home. I've got the car and my husband needs to take my son to hospital. So I need to literally take the car home for you to run me back to the council. Okay. How long do you need then? Half an hour. Half an hour. Ten past two? Okay, we'll save you some food. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, good afternoon and we resume our planning meeting for the north area. So this application we had before us now is 23/03977 APP. This is for Wells Street in Buckingham. I'll hand over now to Emma, who's the presenting planning officer. The application addresses Wells Street Centre 61 Wells Street, Buckingham. The application site is located within Buckingham to the southeast of Wells Street. Just outside of the town centre boundary identified within the Buckingham neighbourhood development plan. The proposal is for the change of use of the rear part of the building from use class EF, a day centre. To use class F1A, a sixth form school, including external alterations comprising a new ramped entrance, replacement front door. The removal of existing vehicular access gates and proposed new vehicular access gates and pedestrian gates and a provision of a polytunnel. The constraints of the site are that the building is a non-designated heritage asset within the conservation area, within an area of archaeological significance, within a mineral safeguarding area, within flood zones two and three and within an area at risk of surface water flooding. This is an existing floor plan of the building. Whilst internal works are proposed within the building, these do not require planning permission. This is the proposed floor plan. This shows how the building would be subdivided with the day centre use at the front of the building utilising the door on the front elevation as the entrance. The sixth form school would be to the rear of the building utilising the entrance lobby as their primary entrance with an additional ramped entrance to be installed to facilitate disabled access. This is the proposed site plan. In terms of external alterations within the wider site, there would be a gated access set back from the front of the site with a separate pedestrian gate. The existing wall to the front boundary would be extended with an additional brick pier. There would be an additional gate and fencing further within the site to separate the two uses proposed. Further, belltop fencing would be installed behind the parking area to separate the hard standing from the area of grass. The parking layout would be reconfigured to include disabled parking, a dedicated mini bus space, electric vehicle parking and cycle parking. There would be a temporary waste collection area to the front of the site as well. These are the existing elevations of the building which show the building at present. And then these are the proposed elevations which show the location of the two new doors to be installed and the ramped entrance to be created. In terms of the principal, the existing building is being used as a day opportunity centre providing specialist support for adults with learning disabilities, autism, dementia and mental health needs run by Buckinghamshire Council's adult and social care team. In November 2023, Buckinghamshire Council published a statutory proposal to move Fernsdowne School's thick form which is currently based in Winslow and comprises a special school for pupils with an educational health and care plan to Buckingham Opportunity Centre in Well Street. The Council's SEND education sufficiency strategy identified the need for additional places for children with autism in Aylesbury Vale resourced by Fernsdowne School. The proposal will enable 40 thick form pupils and 15 staff from Fernsdowne School to be relocated to the proposed application site, in turn creating additional capacity on the Fernsdowne School site in Winslow to accommodate additional pupils there. The proposal thereby assists in meeting a key priority within Buckinghamshire's SEND and inclusion strategy from 2022 to 2027 to ensure that there are sufficient educational placements for pupils with special educational needs and disabilities. In parallel to this, adult social care reviewed the use of the Buckingham Opportunity Centre and found that only three to six adults currently utilise the building and as such it has significant capacity available for wider use. The provision of a six form school is considered to be well placed and would be an acceptable use within this strategic settlement. The proposal would retain the existing community facility use whilst introducing an additional community facility use by optimising the use of the site, resulting in an enhanced and improved provision in this location. The works to the building and this wider site are considered to be minor in nature and are supported in principle. It should be noted that the building is a non-designated heritage asset within the Buckingham Conservation Area. The heritage officer did identify limited negative impacts resulting from the subdivision of the plot, changes to the access and the introduction of new structures on the site. However, officers consider that this less than substantial harm to the designated heritage asset of the conservation area is outweighed by the positive benefits that flow from the scheme by way of expanding the community facility use of the site through the provision of the sixth form school. And in the planning balance in relation to the harm to the non-designated heritage asset would be limited and therefore the benefits of the scheme would outweigh the harm in the planning balance when taking a balance judgement as required by the MPPF. Overall, no consultees have raised objections in principle to the development and there are no concerns with the proposed development when assessing it against the development plan and any other material considerations as a whole. The officer recommendation is one of approval subject to conditions. This recommendation has been updated as set out by the schedule of updates to the reports. This stems from further discussions with the highway team whereby it is no longer considered necessary to secure the provision of the travel plan monitoring fee and the provision of a minibus via legal agreement. It is noted that the minibus service is already in operation. Furthermore, educational facilities such as schools are required to undertake a travel plan in any case under the STARS program. Instead, the continued provision of the minibus and travel plan can be secured via a condition which would be within condition 12 subject to amendments to the wording. The changing for the wording is set out within the updated report circulated. There are also, following legal advice in the event of an approval, minor changes are also recommended in relation to the conditions. Officers consider that the doors and gates conditions at conditions 3 and 5 should be reworded to ensure that these structures are maintained in a black colour. Also, as the existing building is in use, officers also suggest that conditions 11 and 12 should be reworded to match the wording of conditions 14 and 15 in terms of stating prior to the first use of the site as a sixth form school rather than reference to development. Thank you. Thank you very much. We did have a local speaker but she appears to have not returned this afternoon. So we have one presentation, which is actually a written presentation from the agent. And Harry will read that out now for you. I just have time myself. The building currently has significant capacity for wider use alongside the continued operation as a day centre, which provides specialist support to adults with learning disabilities, autism, dementia, or mental health needs run by the council's adult social care team. The proposal to move 40 pupils from first down school sixth form in Winslow into the building will assist in meeting a key priority within Buckinghamshire's SEND and inclusion strategy 2022 to 2027 to ensure that there are sufficient educational placements for pupils with special educational needs and disabilities. In parallel to this additional capacity on the existing school site in Winslow will be created to accommodate 26 pupils aged four to 16. The proposal will encourage social interaction and result in employment opportunities and the associated economic benefits. The alterations proposed to the building and site necessary to facilitate the use a minor in nature, and considered by your officers to have no adverse impact on the character and appearance of the existing building or conservation area. No objection has been raised by the local highways authority who have confirmed that the proposal would not have any unacceptable impact on highway safety network capacity or parking provision. A travel plan is to be secured by condition to promote the reduction of single occupancy car journeys and to encourage the uptake of sustainable travel travel modes. This will include a mini bus service between the school and the site. A construction management plan has also been submitted, the compliance of which will be secured by condition to ensure that construction operatives and visitors will park in the existing car park, and no vehicles will be permitted to park on the street. The delivery hours will also be controlled to avoid the peak am period, and school pickup and drop off times. We've worked collaboratively with your offices during the course of the application to address all console t comments, and there are no outstanding technical objections, and no objections have been raised by occupies of neighboring properties of the town council. Thank you for the opportunity, we respect we respectfully request that you approve this important planning application in line with your offices professional recommendation. Okay, thank you very much obviously we can't ask for any clarification on that. Sorry, I saw your hand I thought we keep the sun out. Did you have your hand up. I was privileged enough at the time that Council Patricia Burchley was the cabinet member of adult social care, I attended the opening of this building at the time with the one who then Council Warren white who was then the other Buckinghamshire County Council of Buckingham, and seeing this application come forward in the technical work that went into the previous application. And I think it would be fair to say, in discussion that it laid fallow for some time, in the sense that it's been a facility, which, until I'm proved wrong has been under used. Seeing this application coming forward but the elements around the archaeology, which interests me I'd like to understand what the nature of that is and I think it's it's downward by condition because Buckingham is a medieval town and it states in the report, but there was a lot of work, many millions of pounds are put into that property at the time to actually turn it around to a daycare center at the time. But, so those archaeological bits 4.1. And what's the relevance of that just out of interest, what what's likely to be there, or is it risk. Okay. Thank you very much chairman. Emma what a fantastic report you've done there, and you should be very proud of that report. And also, what a great job. This is how I see it. This is a little bit, you know, for first down to be able to go to a beautiful building like that, that's been restored and looked after in Buckinghamshire, and to go to the state. I know we have to debate it but I'm shocked we are debating it, because it's such a great project, whatever. If I had my way I'd be going straight away to support this, this application but what a fantastic job. Absolutely okay was do on technical so I have to get out. To talk. Is there any reason chair well highways on here to speak to. Just to ask questions to share. In assessing in the way I've read it in the report in the way the highways have assessed this application. I have a few concerns. So, I have a son who's got special educational needs. And so this area is quite familiar to me. And therefore I'm aware that actually over the age of 16 and we're talking about six form students and we're talking about over the age of 16, 16 to 25 transport costs paid costs were cut by this council by the county council. And, and so I know that it says in here about providing a mini bus but I think that's. I don't believe that the highways assessment has been done based on the fact that. How are these children going to get to school, because most special educational needs children, you know, it says in here about it being sustainable about walking about cycling but actually a large portion I would say of the children that attend first down wouldn't be able to do that. So, presumably at the moment they've been transported to first down. Correct. And the other thing I would say is that you do need an educational health care plan to be able to go to first down, which means that they students that go there are not necessarily from the local area. So they would have to come in and they come in from far and wide honestly, across different counties. I think in terms of the question that you've raised counselor Morgan, given the location of site within a highly sustainable location being within Buckingham. I do appreciate the concerns that you're raising and perhaps the proportion of trips that would be by each of those modes of transport. However, the highways team have looked at it and considering that the site is accessible via a full range of modes of transport, whether it then be for staff or for people's attending the sixth form college just given the range of available modes of transport, the highways team raise no objection. And there is obviously a drop off and car parking area associated with the school to ensure the wealth street wouldn't be blocked during drop off and collection times, and they have laid the car park out to make use of really all the site the most efficient use of the hard standing, and that's already there and then relaying out to the best their ability for pickup and drop off so I acknowledge your concerns that highways have raised no technical objection. Thank you. And I know that we have put in a condition around the travel plan, are we able to sort of expand on that in terms of, you know, the number of children are either going to arrive by minibus or by car, you know, can we break that down a little bit more. So I think there are some kind of general assumptions that are made at this planning application stage but really the aim of the travel plan is to promote the use of sustainable transport mode, as much as possible. So through imposing that condition that detail will be known at the condition discharge stage rather than at this stage. Right. No further technical questions. Can we go to open debate. Yes, Chairman, and firstly, I would be proposing that we agree is application having sat through children's services education, read the reports and I know the vice chairman aid is here today have an education select committee. And the fact that the cabinet members put code your report through for the need the fact that the need in North Buckinghamshire is great for special education need and ask numerous questions around this. This delivers special education places in North Buckinghamshire, which are desperately needed if if Buckinghamshire Council are going to improve and support children was sent. So I would propose that we agree is application. Okay. And on that basis that it means what the council is trying to deliver. And this is a way of doing it, and it would be strange to disagree. Okay. You won't second. Yes, I'm sick on that. Okay. Anybody else want to make any comment before go to vote. So we have before us, a recommendation to go the officers recommendation for approval. All those in favor, please show unanimous again chairman so the applications proved subject to the conditions as updated. Okay, thank you. Right. Oh, okay, so we've just gone past happens to, which was a point for the next part of the agenda. Okay. Okay, good afternoon, everybody. Can I just confirm some of the speakers here. Council of Asia, I can see you can support I can see you. A new man when you're gonna create Shelly Edwards. Okay. Right, I just want to introduce some people to you on the far side we have highways people. So we've got Christopher and David Marshall and presenting officer sitting next to my colleague, who's a senior planner. To my right we have lawyers to keep me in check. And Harry Thomas, who's a supporter democratic services. Okay, so the application we have before us is 23 stroke, zero to 966 app is number two pebble more Edelsburg Buckingham chip. With that, I'll hand you over to the presenting officer. Thank you, Chair. Good afternoon, everyone. So this is application reference 23 forward slash oh two nine six six forward slash app to pebble more edlesboro. So the application site is located within the settlement boundary of the village of edlesboro in the north of Buckingham share the map to the right shows. The village of edlesboro with two blue rectangles drawn within the map. The one to the north, shows the location of the village center as per policy, EP five of the edlesboro parish neighborhood plan. We have a member of the audience who said he can't hear I don't know if we're is the loops not working. Can you not hear us at all. Okay, well, that's colleagues might speak up a little bit closer, bring the microphone to start again. Okay, that's fine. So, in this slide you can see the application site is located within the settlement boundary of the village of edlesboro in the north of Buckingham share the map to the right shows the village of edlesboro with two blue rectangles drawn within the map. The one to the north, shows the location of the village center, as per policy EP five of the edlesboro parish neighborhood plan. The other rectangle to the south, shows the location of the application site with the edlesboro Memorial Hall to the northwest, and the scout hall beside the Memorial Hall dwelling houses on all sides of the site, and the green and the public car park to the north, east of the site. So the application proposes the change of use of an existing vehicle service garage to retail convenience store, including associated external alterations plant equipment, parking and service area. So the site constraints are highlighted within this slide. The site is within 12.6 kilometer of the Chilton Beach words special area of conservation zone of influence, but in amber great crested mute impact risk so, and within landscape character area of pitstone edlesboro slopes. This slide shows the proposed site plan for the proposed development. It shows the location of the loading unloading pay in green, which will be used both for refuse vehicle collecting waste and for delivery of goods to the retail unit. Additionally, this plan also shows the location of the plant room adjoining the boundary of the village hall and five car parking spaces and six cycle parking spaces within the front heart standing. This is a comparison of the existing and the proposed floor plans, as it can be seen the plan form remains mostly intact as existing, the real lead to structure will be removed and parking laid out in the front. Similarly, this is a comparison of the elevation drawings, as it can be seen the site elevations will remain unchanged changes are proposed within the front elevation to provide a new shop front and some minor fenestration changes to the rear, following removal of the lead to extension. Now the remaining two slides consist of various photographs showing the relationship of the site with the surrounding area. The left hand photo shows the garage from the front as existing. The right hand top photo is a street view of the garage. The middle photo is taken from the neighbouring property looking towards the garage, and the bottom photo shows the entrance to the public car park opposite the site. So the two photos in this slide show the village hall and the T junction where Pebblemore meets the high street, and this is a street view looking towards the garage. This application has been recommended for conditional permission, subject to the conditions at section 11 of the officer's report. I have a bit of a verbal update on my report. So under section 11, condition 9 and 10, for both those conditions we would like to include the word daily, so the condition now will read, so I'm reading out condition 9, the deliveries and collections serving the retail use hereby permitted, including refuse collection, shall only be carried out between the hours of 700 to 1900 hours daily, reason to protect the amenities of the nearby neighbouring properties, in accordance with policy B3 of the veil of Aylesbury local plan adopted September 2021 and the national planning policy framework 2023. Also, condition 10 will read, the retail use hereby permitted shall only be open to customers between the hours of 700 hours and 2200 hours daily, to protect the amenities of the nearby neighbouring properties in accordance with policy B3 of the veil of Aylesbury local plan adopted September 2021 and the national planning framework 2022. Thank you. Thank you very much. Right. Can I call Councillor Bajer, please? Councillor Bajer, you have three minutes on the clock behind me, and if you don't mind remaining seated for point of clarification after you've made your presentation. Thank you, Chairman. A convenience store at this location will attract more than just local traffic. The B440 used to be the A4146, and it's still the main route for traffic to and from Hemel Hempstead and Leighton Buzzard and the A5 and eventually linking the M1. It will be the only such store between Leighton Buzzard and Hemel. Therefore, parking will be a problem. It's acknowledged that the five spaces are below standard, and I understand it should be 15. That's only a third of the spaces a modern convenience store of this size should have. This fact appears to be brushed away by the assertion that it is a free car park, free public car park opposite. It is not public. It is owned by the parish council, and it is there for the users of the recreation ground and the village hall. There is already concern that the loss of this amenity to shop users would require the parish council to lock the barriers, so the car park can only be used by village hall and rent users. There is a school and scout hut only metres away, and all these generate familiar parking issues. For this reason alone, it should be refused. The drop of creation figures have been inflated. 300 hours is less than nine full-time equivalents, but adding delivery drivers is, I believe, disingenuous. There's no mention of the inevitable closure of the existing store and post office, which currently employs 15 people, excluding delivery drivers. And even the store in Eaton Brae would be at risk. That employs nine people, so there's 24 jobs at risk, potentially. As I said, this development will almost certainly cause the post office to close. It is the only one in the area and serves three villages. It delivers paper. It's a post office. It's the centre of the village, grouped with a hairdresser's florist coffee shop and Jane's, which is a white goods and carpeting and bicycle store. Altogether defining the heart of the village. The neighbourhood plan was supposed to protect this, but it's being misinterpreted to say it's a town and not a village. Thank you. Okay, thank you. What evidence do you have that the post office will close? I don't have, but the post office survives on the business that it gets from the three villages surrounding it. There is a convenience store in Eaton Brae itself, but between the two, one of them will go, if a convenience store of this size opens on that site. Well, I'm sure you appreciate that's not something we can take into account. No, absolutely. Okay. Councillor Brace, you mentioned traffic flows and its relation to Hertfordshire or wherever and people coming back through. Is there any additional information or where, which isn't in the report, that recognises the traffic flow? You mentioned the change of the two road names. One used to be one road and one used to be the other road. But you said that that didn't make any difference because did you say you used the route that they'd always used? Is that correct? Because I don't know the area like you do, obviously, and I'm trying to establish what bearing that has on the application. Yeah, thank you. It's just to make the point that it's a fairly heavily trafficked road. It used to be, it got downgraded when they introduced a weight limit on a bridge further down. And so all the heavy traffic now has to go and they've built a relief road that takes traffic from Leighton buzzed area to the M1. But it's still a heavily trafficked north-south connection. And I was just using it to make the point that people will use this store because it's the only facility that close to the road along that stretch. Lastly, what was the use of the site? You said it, you know, vehicles and parking. What was the historical, what was allowed or what happened by customer practice when it was a working garage in which vehicles come and go and vehicles get parked here, there, because they get serviced or whatever? What would be the systematic difference between a shop and the garage in the amount of vehicles there day to day? I should imagine, you know, I don't have traffic figures for what shops attract as opposed to a garage. But it was a well used but small garage. I can't imagine it having anything like the amount of traffic that a shop would attract. Okay. Council Cornell. Thank you, chair. My question was just going back to the post office. Could you not move the post office into the new shop if it gets permission? The post office. Sorry, could you say that again? You've got a post office at the village store. If this new shop comes in, could you not move the post office into the new shop as well? Would that not solve that problem? Just querying, that's all. Yeah, I mean, if that happens, at least I don't have it. Okay. Council Cooper. I'm interested in the car park opposite. You said that it's not a public car park but it is owned by the parish council. And I'd just like to understand the difference between the two. Are you suggesting that it is restricted in use to people using the village hall and recreation ground? That's the first part of the question. The second part is, when the garage has been passed in operation, has that car park been used by customers of the garage? So the first part of the question is, yeah, it's very much a private car park. It belongs to the parish council. It's actually inset into the village green. The second question was, do people from the garage use it? They actually had an agreement in place that during the day the garage could use it to park cars. So they didn't park cars on the road. But obviously that was a controlled agreement between the parish council and the garage. Thank you. Councillor Norman. Thank you, chair. We had a similar application from enough this morning where it was that issue of the local plan versus the vale of Elsbury local plan. And that I'm just trying to find. But in the application we heard this morning, we heard I'm sure there was a reason in the valve. If this hadn't been advertised adequately as it is. But I can't find which policy that comes under. So I'll have a look in a minute. But are you satisfied that they tried to advertise this as a mechanics garage and tried to find somebody to kind of take it over as a mechanics garage without having to change its use? They actually had to move it to another site that they own. No, I know. But to keep its current use. Did they advertise it to keep it as its current use? To the best of my knowledge, no. Thank you. I'll refer to the policy and technical. Yeah, okay. They wouldn't necessarily have to. It's just that they decided to bring all their garages together and dispose of it. Is it only relevant? I mean, it's a technical question, but it may only be relevant if we're changing it to say housing. No, the site is there and it's going to be used for something else, whatever it may be. In this case, they want to convert it to another shop. Okay, I'll have a look at the policy. Okay, any further council member? Can I just ask, you said that the public car park is used very much by the parish council. What I wasn't sure was whether there were any gates to stop members of the public using it out of hours. And also with the garage, you said they were using it for MOTs, you know, for people to park their cars there waiting for MOT. Is that classed as an overflow car park because there's not enough room on the forecourt of the garage? A member of the parish council is going to be here shortly, so some of those questions should be directed to them because they'll be able to answer it. Your opening statement was incorrect. It is not a public car park. And the garage, there's an agreement between the parish council and the garage to, at certain times, use the car park to prevent them having to park out on the road, which obviously inconvenience everybody. But that enables the management of the use of the car park for its intended use, which is people using the recreation ground and the village hall. Could they not have a similar arrangement with the new owners? Possibly. Councillor Conlon. Thank you very much, Chairman. Councillor Bracey, if you'd like to just confirm for me. So I see where on Google Maps where this is, and obviously traffic flow, they would be assuming it would just come via the high street. Do you think you would do an increase of traffic flow coming into Eddlesboro a different way, coming up, say, Pebblemore? Because it's quite a – the concern I've got, if it brings traffic up, then there's no car park. It's going to block that street. So do you think if traffic was coming in two directions, there could be a traffic problem? Yeah, if you look further out, you'll see that Pebblemore goes back to the main road as well. So there's like a U-shaped. But the main way in and out of the village is – I forgot the name of the road now – is the one that drops down past the school, past the Scout hut, past the village hall. High street. High street, thank you. Thank you very much, Councillor. I just – it applies to me, Chairman – I just noticed that that one road, Pebblemore, services almost all of those houses in and out of that area. Busy road though. Thank you very much, thank you. Busy road. Okay. Thank you for your time. Councillor Powell. So you can answer all of our parish council questions. Whenever you're ready, Chris. Thank you, Chairman. Eddlesborough Parish and Village are different entities. I'm concerned that the Planning Officer has conflated the two. This has been my concern for years. There's three separate villages, so there have been 500 objections to this proposal, which represents 40% of the village electorate, just 13 in favour. The Post Office, as has been said, serves a much wider area. Residential amenity is bound to be impacted. Dozens of quick visits per hour, many just-in-time deliveries. What happens when a delivery arrives early? Where will that remain until it's permitted hour? The location is close to a busy junction, especially at school drop-off times and residential properties next door. I know that's partly been answered, but this is a bad location for a convenience store, which is why EP5 was implemented in the Eddlesborough neighbourhood plan. That EP5 has been misinterpreted, as has E5 of the Valp, more of which you'll hear later. The glossary of terms within Valp and MPPF have been misinterpreted. You'll hear this from the parish council. The inevitable loss of the village shop and Post Office will cause a reclassification of Eddlesborough, Dagnall and Northall to a medium village. The relocation of the garage will create many more and longer journeys. Instead of continuing their day within the village, residents will use other facilities in towns or require a lift back, thereby doubling journeys. We of course cannot compel a private business to operate in a way we would like, but should we encourage the displacement of that business to an out-of-area setting? Thank you. Okay. Any points of clarification? How's the Cooper? You've spoken about loss of amenity and I take you referring to the neighbouring houses when you talk about that. And that would be the result presumably of the number of vehicles visiting the shop, should it be there. So has it not already been a problem with the garage that there's been vehicles coming and going? Is that not an equivalent situation? MOT takes an hour. There are nine working hours in the day. So that's nine visits for MOTs. I'm sure some others for bulbs and maybe a look at some tyres and that sort of thing. But that many will be replicated within an hour or less with a convenience store, I'm sure. That's the issue I have and the house is literally right next door. If you know Wendover, Minitescos, that's a good example of what traffic would be like. Okay. And on a separate question, the loss of the garage here would mean that people have to go where to get equivalent services? So it's Pine Trees roundabout. I think it's just under a mile away. Which is the crossroads of the B488 was the A4146 and the B48, I always get it wrong, nine. The double roundabouts on the Leighton Buzzard Road. Can they get all the same services there? So servicing and MOT? I believe that will be the intended use. They're moving that facility wholesale to their site at Pine Trees, which is an existing sales. Can I ask a question, please? Yeah, go on. Okay, can I ask a question? Thank you very much, Chairman. I'd like you to clarify, you just mentioned that it's not just Eddlesboro, but it's quite a few villages cluster around the area. You said three. What I'd like to know, from your knowledge, from those three villages, do the majority of them use that field facility? Because I notice on there you've got a pet care company that uses it quite frequently. You're going to understand where I'm coming from in a second. You've got a football pitch and tennis court. Obviously, they use that parking area down below. It looks like there's only two entrances onto that field. May I assume that when they say football on, that when that car park is overflow, do they park on that road at the same time? That's the question. So do the cars end up parking on that road? Is it Pebblemore Road when that car park's full up? Councillor Gomm, I'm sure you've got a school in your ward and you know what it's like early in the morning. Yeah, residents use that road, they use High Street, they use Pebblemore. For users of the sports facilities, then that is a popular football car park. There is another smaller car park, which is for Pavilion, which has a very well used gym. But the users of the football facilities and the cricket pitch generally use that car park. So at busy times, I've been there on a summer's evening to a parish council meeting and it's a squeeze to find a parking space. So at certain times, it's very difficult, which is why they had an agreement with the garage to allow, I think it's 10 spaces between certain times for overflow. And people waiting for a motifs and other services to park there so that the road isn't blocked because it is so close to the junction with the High Street. Thank you. Okay, thank you. Councillor Suttry. Thank you, Councillor Paul, for coming in. I wanted to, you in 6.8 of the report, I think it was where you said it was EP5 being misinterpreted. Sorry, 6.18 of the report, you said in your, that you felt that EP5 had been misinterpreted, which takes me to your other point, which is 6.2. 20, which is the reference to proposals for town centres, which takes us then to the policy, which I think is in the policy, which is the Vale Plan policy, which I think is on memory 6.16. It would be interesting to understand what your interpretation, how you said you felt it was misinterpreted, to elaborate a bit on that, because it's important I understand what you meant by that statement, because it was only a short statement, because at the time you had to speak and I want to understand what you meant by it. Thank you, Councillor Suttry. You'll hear more on this from the parish council, but EP5 by chance happens to tie in with E5, if that was just coincidence. But EP5 was about keeping things in the village centre. What's been stated in the report is calling it a town. So that's the misinterpretation. We understand that out of town shopping centres, Cambridge Close in Aylesbury is outside of the town by a quarter of a mile, couple of hundred yards, whatever it is, that makes sense there. The whole reason of having EP5 in the Aylesbury neighbourhood plan was there's a very definite, defined area of village centre where the shops are. The shop and post office, a cafe, a hairdresser's, an electrical bicycle and carpet store, it's a fantastic facility for what is essentially a medium village. It's classified as a large village because it has a post office. It loses that, it moves back to a medium village. Not a large place. You know, 500 objections makes 40% of the electorate. So you'll hear chapter and verse from the parish council about those particularly. But if I may just say the valued asset of the garage being away from the village centre but still within the village is that local people use it and they can go there and carry on their day. And lastly, you said about the post office and what part that plays in the way division. Running a post office we could probably say we read the media, it hasn't been quite that easy recently. But obviously it's an asset and what it does, how that post office's viability is it stood up to time with the community. You said it serves three villages and you said about the application, if I listened to you correctly, was that it tended to forget that it was three areas, not one. Did I hear you wrong and correct me if I am wrong? Thank you. Yeah, my first point was about, even going back to the ABDC days, Eddlesboro village and Eddlesboro parish were always confused. There's three villages and the two other villages are a reasonable size. You know, they're small villages but there are 100 dwellings each and they all come in to use the school and other facilities, the wonderful sports facilities and what have you. But since Eatenbrae, which is just over the border in Bedfordshire, lost their post office, then villagers from Eatenbrae on their way through used the post office at Eddlesboro as well. And any small post office relies on its shop to keep it viable. Post office trade alone is just not enough to sustain a property of that size. Thank you. You quoted earlier about the 500 letters that were objected. Do you see any advantages in this proposal? That's a difficult one but no. Competition can always be good but the whole reason for the parish council going through the whole neighbourhood plan process, which was very expensive, very time consuming, very thorough, it's one of the best ones that I've seen, was that very defined village centre. Now if they want to put a convenience store in the village centre, then that's one thing. That's what EP5 is all about. So competition in that circumstance would be good. But to put it outside goes against that policy. The planning officer has used E5 as allowing that or permitting that to be allowed. But E5 relates to towns, not villages. So for the information we have, it's going to create 15 jobs. Also people have mentioned that the new development is needed because of the infrastructure and how the village is expanding. We've also got the village shop doesn't sell all the provisions you need. So are you saying there's no advantage you can see that would be advantageous to your community? You have the owner of the shop and post office speaking later. I think he's better placed to answer that than I. In relation to what you've just been asked, actually, you as local member will have overseen the development of Edlesborough. I think we're talking only about Edlesborough Village itself here over the last five years. Can you give us some idea of how many new houses that have been in that period? I'm going to have to guess on the top of my head. I think we're at 100. We're around that figure. Thank you. So, yeah, it's grown by 10% in the last 10 years. Can you begin? Thank you very much, Chair. My question is, where is the next or closest garage if you leave this one to the village? So I did answer that. The owners aren't selling the garage, they just wish to move it and then use that site for this convenience store. So the nearest garage then would be from the closest part of the village boundary would be 0.71 mile, but no footpath, 60 mile an hour road. So no one will walk back, they will need a lift or go with somebody if they're leaving their car there. So it's not the physical distance, it's the fact that there's no connection between the two. Thank you. Councillor Gough. Thank you very much, Chairman, for allowing me to come back yet again. So just if you could just help me with this question. So I'm just looking in, I love Google Earth because it helps me so much. You know, where the convenience store is now in Edinburgh, there's quite a nice little cluster of different shops in that area. So it's obviously quite vibrant. I also notice, do they have car parking issues there? Because it's in quite a narrow road and a keep clear area. Do they have any issues like that there, do you know? There is, around the green, there are a couple of sort of pull in laybys, but yes, there is a problem because it's a blind corner on a junction. They have a keep clear area there to stop people parking there. Any village centre has issues at times, but generally, apart from visits to the post office, is local people using the cafe or the, you know, they're very fortunate to have such a wide range of shops, carpets and white goods and what have you. So yes it is. Because it's the centre, most people can walk there within five minutes. Okay, thank you for your time. Thank you very much. Right, can I call John Wilkinson, please, from the EPC? And again, sir, you've got three minutes to make your presentation. Please remain seated for a point of clarification. There are a multitude of issues to consider regarding this application, but in the limited time available to me, I'll concentrate on what I consider to be the major one, namely the dismissal of our neighbourhood policies as not being relevant. The case officer has recognised the existence of the neighbourhood plan and the policies EP10 and EP5, but has dismissed EP10 as not being applicable and EP5 as being trumped by valve policy E5. Let us start with policy EP10. The case officer states that EP10 does not define a community facility other than stating a range of facilities that are important to the community. There can be little doubt from the number of objections that a garage and MOT testing centre within the settlement boundary is regarded by the local community as an extremely valuable facility. However, the case officer argues that because policy I3 of valve does not specifically include garages and MOT test centres in the list of examples, such a facility cannot be considered to be a community facility. That is clearly nonsense because the list of examples included in policy I3, the valve glossary and the NPPF are all different. If they were definitions, the NPPF1 would overrule the others. The list included in the text supporting I3 is simply a list of examples. It's not exhaustive and not a definition as claimed by the officer. The actual wording of policy I3 is, and I quote here, the council will resist proposals for the change of use of community buildings and facilities for which there is a demonstrable need. Consequently, I can't contend that the garage and MOT test centre is a facility that is important to the community and for which there is a demonstrable need. Policy EP10 does therefore apply. As far as policy EP5 is concerned, the case officer recognises the site is outside the village centre as identified in the neighbourhood plan, but argues that the policy is in conflict with policy E5 and consequently policy E5 takes precedence. What the case officer fails to recognise is that policy E5 relates to main town centres and not village centres. It is therefore very questionable if that policy even applies to a village like Edinburgh. However, if for the sake of argument we assume that E5 does apply, then I would draw the committee's attention to the fact that the policy only engages, and here again I quote, if the policy would not have significant adverse impact on the vitality and viability of the defined town centres. So, even if our policy E5 is relevant, it fails at the first test because the proposal would seriously compromise the vitality and viability of the defined village centre, probably resulting in the loss of the existing convenience store and post office. Thank you, thank you very much. Right, point of clarification. Councillor Cooper. Yeah, just looking at the slide that's on the screen at the moment, it defines the village centre as being in the higher of the two rectangles. From what I know of Edinburgh, that doesn't necessarily feel like the village centre to me. I'm just wondering whether you consider that the centre is a bigger area than is shown on that current slide. Or is that it? Do you agree with that? No, the village centre is defined in the neighbourhood plan. It's not the middle of the village, it is the village centre. It is the centre where all the shops are, and it's called that in the neighbourhood plan. Can you hear me all right? Yeah. It's called that in the neighbourhood plan, and it's the area that's shown in purple on that left-hand drawing. It extends from the Heirloom Cafe round to the hairdressers, and includes the Jane's store, the flower shop, the village store, the post office, and of course the Heirloom Cafe and the hairdressers on the other end. So that is the defined village centre as defined in the neighbourhood plan, and that's what policy E5 refers to. In the neighbourhood plan, you talk about a range of facilities. Is it not more defined than that? I'm looking at this from the legal sense. So, for instance, you don't specify a garage in the neighbourhood plan? No. When we did the neighbourhood plan, we didn't see it necessary to identify a whole list of things that could be considered as community facilities. We simply relied on the description facilities that are important to the local community. That wasn't challenged at examination. It was accepted as a reasonable statement to encompass the facilities that we thought were important to our community. Okay, the point I'm getting at is that legally you haven't defined what you meant by that. Actually, I think that's something I'll take up in technical questions when we get to that. Thank you. Thank you. Councillor Sottari? Just one question, sir. Thank you for coming. You said I3, which I missed that. Could you please elaborate what you meant by I3? You said that it was misinterpreted or was it in sync with, if I remember what you said, EP5 and EP10. There wasn't any sync. Now, I3, the policy statement, how that contradicts one to the other. Do you understand what you actually meant by that? I3 is a policy in valve. It's in valve. Yes, policy number I3, which refers to main town centres. Maybe the planning. I may take that. Thank you, sir. It helps me understand. Thank you. Thank you. I understand it's already a community shop in the village. I just wonder what their opening hours were. That's one question. Secondly, the agreement that the parish council has with the garage owners. Is it actually with the garage itself or the owner of the property of the garage? It's with the operators of the garage who are the owners of the garage. It's a strict licence that we grant them every year that allows us to control their use of the car park. It's been allowed over the last few years, as previously explained, to avoid cars being parked for long periods of time in Pepplemore and the surrounding areas. It is something that we can control. If we had a similar, if we had a comedian store there, we wouldn't be able to control it because of the vast number of people coming and going. It would be out of our control. To ensure that the car park was available for the principal users, we'd have to lock it and then provide keys for the whole users. And the opening of the shop that's already in the village? Well, the next speaker will actually be the manager of the shop. But it opens from I think about six o'clock in the morning till about nine o'clock at night. It's still got long hours. Ok, I'd like to raise a point with you. Clearly the owner of the garage wants to move out and move to his other establishment. Do you want the house or the garage just to be sitting there empty? Or would you consider anything to go in there? Well, we're talking about a change of views here. We would be losing a facility. The fact that it's going to move down the road, fairly lengthy walk along, unlit roads, main roads without a pavement, it won't serve the same purpose that the current one does. Because it's very convenient to have that within the settlement boundary. A lot of people take their car there, walk home and then go walk back and collect it when it's done. I do the same. So it is a really useful facility. Now, we'd be very sad to see it go. And certainly the proposed replacement makes sense for the operator because he would have all these facilities on one side. I can see that, I can understand that. But we as a community would be losing out and that's why I'm here today to try and prevent the loss of that unnecessarily. Now, obviously the issue of relocating the facility at the pine trees on the B489 is another issue. And, you know, that's really sort of out of our control and it is a subject of another application. And obviously if they weren't allowed the change of use, then there would be a problem with what to do with that site. But that's a problem for the future. What we're now trying to do at the moment is to do two things. We're trying to retain the garage and MOT facility that we have there now within the village. It's very useful. But you can't do that. You can't do that, can you? You can't stop it. No, we can't. And the point you raise about the inconvenience of taking cars to the garage, they may put on a courtesy car. So there may be other ways they would deal with it from a business point of view. And you could end up, and they would, with a facility that's not used. If they move out of there, there would be a need for a change of use at that facility. Either housing, it wouldn't be another garage because they wouldn't sell it to another garage operator. So there would have to be a change of use. But the issue here is we don't want to lose that facility and we have a policy, E5, which protects it. It doesn't, because the office at the open, the person that operates it, at any stage can pull out. Yes? No, they can pull out. It's the change of use that's there. That's right, and then the building would stay there, not used at all. And you've just said that you would be happy to listen to. It wouldn't stay there indefinitely because it is a valuable plot. Exactly, that's the point I come to. You would be happy for it to be houses. Well. You know, all I'm trying to find is there is a facility there which the owner wants to move out of the village because he's got other facilities. And you could end up then with a building that's not used. It could be boarded up. We could. It could be. Now is that what you want? No, but that would only be a temporary situation. It wouldn't be long lasting. That site would not stay empty for a long time. So what would you want there in place of it? Well, it's not for me to say, is it? Well, you're on the powers council. You must have some views. Well, I mean, obviously, housing in that location, if it was the right sort of housing, would be appropriate. You know, that's the obvious thing. But I'm not precluding other things. But whatever it was, it would be a change of views, wouldn't it? Oh, yes, of course it would. But the village is expanded from what I hear. So there's more demand that you've got an extra hundred houses. We're told here that the Coen facilities don't provide all that local people want. So I'm just trying to find out what you think would be useful. What we don't want to do is we don't want to lose the village centre as a very vital and viable operation, which it currently is. If you take the store and post office out of that, you rip the heart out of it. And it just wouldn't be the same. So even shops like the carpet shop and the white goods shop and the cycle shop, which wouldn't be directly affected by a convenience store, and they wouldn't be angling for the same customers, they wouldn't have the fault for the combined sort of, you know, enterprises that generate. So, you know, we would be losing two facilities. We can't make the garage stay there. But we can hope to keep it if they are not allowed the change of views to something which we think is unsuitable. No, no, I'm just trying to tease it through to find out what the thinking in the village is and what's best for the village. Councillor Gaughan. Thank you, Chairman. You said that the village centre is very vibrant and there's policy that protects that, etc. But you've just stated, and this is going to put a twist to that question now. Just say that the shops stayed open and post office was there, do you feel there would be an effect? If the garage did become a convenience store, would the footfall drop off enough at the village centre to affect that tradiness? In other words, you know, the new convenience store, they're saying, would employ maybe another 15 people, but the trade, it would stop off there by not going to the centre. I hope you're following me on this one. So if the trade dropped off there, could some of the other shops possibly close down by not having odd footfall? You know, someone goes to a convenience store, they go, ah, I need to go get some flowers for my wife next door, or I need to go to the hairdresser. You know, would that vibrant area maybe lose its vibrancy because of a convenience store? I'm certain it would, yeah. Incidentally, on the employment issue, I think the next speaker will mention that. But the applicant is claiming, I think it's 15 extra jobs, which to my way of thinking is a gross exaggeration. But that's what they're claiming. The shop, the existing shop, employs 15 people. That would probably go. And then the neighbourhood, the other shop in the neighbouring village, I mean Eden, Bray and Edlesboro, they're effectively joined. There's just a county boundary running between them. The other shop would almost certainly lose business and would certainly lose employment there. So you would lose more than you gain. So this is a direct question for the parish council in relation to parking. In the event that this convenience store did get permission, and that's only a possibility at this stage of course, would the parish council be willing to give a similar licence for parking as the garage currently have, or would you in fact lock them out? Well I'm just a councillor, I'm not the parish council, so I can't answer that because we haven't asked the question. But my feeling on it is, no we wouldn't, because it would be totally out of our control. You can control the garage operation because it's a small number of vehicles. But with a shop like, well if it's a Tesco Express, which is what everybody is suggesting, we wouldn't be able to control that at all. So you would anticipate that the situation would be the same as it is now for the garage? The situation concerning parking in the parish council car park would be the same as it is now for the garage? Is that what you're saying? No, no it wouldn't. We would not grant a convenient, I'm speculating here because I say I can't speak for the garage house because we haven't discussed it. But the likelihood is that we would not be prepared to offer a similar licence to a convenience store because we couldn't control it in the same way. Thank you, sorry I misunderstood you. So you would take up my second option which is effectively to lock them out? Yes. Thank you. We'd have to. If you were going to the garage you would definitely drive there in a car because you're taking it to be fixed. If you're going to the garage you'd drive there because you're taking the car to be fixed. But in your speech you said, well most people walk to the village shop but all of a sudden you seem to think that there's going to be a lot of parking in the other shop. I don't understand the difference. It's in the same village, in the same street, so the same amount of people must walk where they're going. I'm trying to make out that you'd probably have less traffic if people walk to the shop if there's no car parking facility. Because in the first place they'd take the car to the garage. Yeah but a lot of the trade for the convenience store would not be local trade. It would get some local trade, yes. I'm not quite sure how much because there's been so much opposition to it there would certainly be some boycotting. But if the village store had to close, which is probable, residents would start to use the convenience store. But there'd be a small proportion of the business. A lot of the business would be from outside the village and traffic, as has been previously said, would be drawn off the B440. People travelling between Leighton and Hemel Hempstead would draw off that road, down the high street and up Pebblemore to call in at that shop because it would be a convenience store. So the amount of traffic using that store would be infinitely more than currently uses the village store and infinitely more than currently uses the garage. Okay, Councillor Alderbogan. Thank you very much Chair. I'm quite keen on town centre rejuvenation. Now how much capacity do you have in your town centre for new convenience stores or new shops? We don't have any room for convenience stores because we've already got one. Why do we need another one? You just have one. We have one convenience store. How many convenience stores is a village like? It's my understanding that's a growing village. So you currently have one in the town centre. It's not a town. It's a village. It's a village centre. It's a village of 2,000 people. Right. From the audience I can see there is... It can't support more than one convenience store. Okay. Now if for any reason this application is granted and you have a car park right opposite it, right, which currently is used by the village hall. Will there be any capacity or will there be any possibility for the town or village parish council to generate revenue from that town's car park if that's now a convenience store? No. We couldn't enlarge that car park. We're not allowed to. We tried to a few years ago but it's registered as a common land and there are strict controls and we tried to get it enlarged and we weren't allowed to. So I can take it that there's no benefit to the parish council or the villages to have a convenience store in that location? As things stand at the moment, no. It would not be a better alternative to what we've got now. We would have a convenience store to replace the existing one but it would be in the wrong place. Okay. Councillor Morgan. Thank you. Hello. Just in terms of comparison, the village store that's there now, I'm guessing that gets passing trade as people pass through Eddlesborough. I'm just wondering how many car parking spaces and what are the parking facilities around that village store currently? The only parking at the village school is for staff. There is no parking for general public. The village store. The village store. Village store. Store. Oh, sorry. No, all the parking there is in the street. In the street? Yeah. Okay. So there's no allocated parking? No. And I just want to confirm with you about it being a sustainable location in terms of public transport. The report says the site is located less than 80 metres from a bus stop on the high street and 113 metres from another bus stop with the majority of residential areas in southern Eddlesborough within 600 metres of the site. We've got plenty of bus stops. What we're short of is buses. Could you elaborate on the public transport element? You know, they've said that this is a sustainable location. Yeah, they always say that, don't they? We have an hourly bus service which only runs during the day, doesn't run in the evening. I think there's one early morning one that it's not an adequate bus service. Anybody who needs the bus service to commute to work, it just doesn't serve the purpose, I'm afraid. It's every two hours. Okay, thank you. Every two hours, I'm told. I don't use the bus, so I don't know. Mr Wilkerson, thank you for your time this afternoon. Thank you. Can I call Shady Edwards? Oh, you're speaking on everyone's behalf, are you? Oh, okay. No, do I take it you have something to do with the post office? I'm the owner of the post office. I thought that might be the case. Right, you have three minutes like your fellow. Okay, my name is Melinda Goomer and I've been the owner of Eddlesborough Post Office and Stores for over 12 years. I'm speaking on behalf of Emma Rathram, a local resident, and Shady Edwards, also a local resident and employee in the village. We, along with many residents in the village, have serious concerns regarding the impact of this planning application on the village if approved. Just some of the many concerns raised are increasing crime and anti-social behaviour, given the locality of the application near to the village green playground. The proposed store creating a rat run through the village, increasing traffic near to a school and dangerous junction. I've spoken to local business owners. We are shocked that the planning officer suggested there's no evidence to support the prediction that existing businesses would close. Firstly, may I emphasise that my store, as is the nearby store in Eaton Brae, not just an off licence and post office as the officer suggested, but predominantly a convenience store used as day to day top up, which is exactly the same purpose of this proposed application. We have encountered a number of challenges over recent years, including competing with numerous supermarkets who provide deliveries into the village, the cost of living crisis and increasing price movements in our purchasing costs. All of which we have handled was ensuring we give the best possible service along with competitive prices through promotions by a symbol group premier. Given the size of the proposed store and the architect consultants used, it would be prudent to assume that a national operator such as Tesco Express would occupy the site. We would not be able to compete with the market power of these entities if they decide to undercut us on pricing. Furthermore, the viability of our store has a direct impact ensuring that one of the most valuable community facilities remains open, the post office. There seems to be little regard for the protection of the post office, especially in a village setting, and this is never more important given increasing bank and post office closures nationally. The report by the economic development officer mentioned the creation of jobs, but what about the potential impacts of job losses which may ensue, including both nearby stores which employ 24 staff and the flower and coffee shops, this would far outweigh any creation. To conclude, unlike many villages in the UK, Eddlesboro already has a vibrant village centre which is well provided by a variety of businesses and have served the local community for decades. This must be protected and the sheer number of rejections raises evidence that there is a real concern that this application would devastate businesses and the local community. I am asking the committee as policy makers to ensure that rural businesses have the right and fair conditions to invest and grow, so we have a sustainable future and would question whether this application results in any economic gain that the officers have proposed. Please vote against this application, or at the very least request for a full economic and social impact assessment of the proposal and the village and businesses. Thank you very much. Can you just confirm the hours of operation? Yes, so we are open 6am to 8pm Monday to Saturday and 7am to 1pm on Sunday. The reason why we don't open more on Sunday is just from a personal point of view. We are a small independent store. As far as the staffing goes, how many full-time staff or volunteers do you have? We don't have any volunteers. We have six full-time staff, three part-time staff who work predominantly in the evenings, and we have local young individuals who work in the evenings to assist closing up, but we have a lot of delivery drivers as well. We deliver papers, 250 papers to local villages. That includes Northall, Slapton, Stanbridge, Tillsworth, Ibinghoe, Marsworth, all who don't have local stores, village stores. The last question is according to the Buckinghamshire Council for Economic Development, it says that this application is looking to prevent an employment site from remaining vacant. I assume it is still in operation, the garage? Yes, the garage is still in operation, yes. OK, the other question will be a technical one. Can I just put the same question as I did to Mr Wilkinson? If the garage do move out and is left vacant, what's the future for that area? Well, that's not for me to say, Councillor Feeley. Our concern is that an additional store coming into a small village already, when we have Eatonbury next to us as well, that does have a village store as well, would impact on the business potentially going forward. Turnover would certainly decrease, because although there are a 10% increase in the village over the last 10 years, having three village stores within a close proximity would be very difficult to sustain all of those in one go, if I was asked. So would you consider expanding your operation? On the current site? I don't think there will be... No, on the vacant site? Well, that probably wouldn't be possible, because we are the freehold owners of the current site in the village. We own the building. A, we haven't been approached, and B, because we own the freehold, more than likely, no, we wouldn't want to relocate. So it would be a completely different business model for us. It would be almost starting up again. And then what would happen to the existing business that we have at the moment? What would that turn into? So what other opportunities might there be in it? As in? In that particular property being put into use? As in, what other opportunities, apart from a convenience store? Yeah. I don't know, a bigger village hall, perhaps? I mean, we've been looking at the village increasing, the housing going forward. Obviously, the NVDC plan is for more housing in certain areas. There were other factors, I can't remember off the top of my head, but surely another convenience store in such a small village would be... I know, I know. I'm just thinking, what about coffee shops and things like that? Well, we have a coffee shop in the village, and that's in the village centre. We work hand in hand with other businesses. We have a coffee shop, we have a flower shop. We don't sell coffee. We don't have a coffee machine in our store. We don't sell flowers in our store, because we don't want to compete or make the livelihoods of the other individuals in the village. Do you have a wine bar? We have a very good selection of wine, yes. We do have a nice pretty fume at the moment, if you're interested. But, in all seriousness, I mean, we are a day-to-day top-up convenience store, and this proposal is the same application. We're not just an off-licence and a post office. I mean, we might not sell the range of products, as in, we sell six types of teabags. Will they sell 20 types of teabags? I think that's the argument to be had. Yeah, I'm just really looking to see what the development in the village is going to be, because you've had 100 houses come in. No doubt you'll get more. So, just thinking, what else could be going in there? Okay, thank you. I think it's more for, I mean, I've only been in the village for 12 years. It's probably more for question for the villagers that have been there for a lot more time. Maybe a pub, we haven't got a pub in the village, it's the other thing. Wine, that's why it's saying a wine bar. Yeah, a wine bar. Thank you very much for your time. Thank you. Thank you. Oh, sorry, was there another question? Councillor Stutchbury, how do you stand up? Oh, put your hand right up there. Sorry, you've got a couple of questions. Cancer gone. Oh. Thank you very much. Going in front of Councillor Stutchbury here, which is quite nice. So, obviously you're arching for everybody nearly, by the sound of it, within that retail group. And I heard you talk about rural enterprise there, because that's what you are in the heart of that village. What I'd just like to know to add to that, so what tends to work within rural enterprises like yours? It's not just within that, do you and the rest of the units there, the shops, do they all say for their suppliers, do they use local farm resources and other suppliers, so it's a rural, rural community enterprise? A hard question for you, because you run only one store, but you must know about the others. Yeah, so in our store we support the local butchers in Totterno, which hasn't got a village store, by the way. And we also have fresh bread deliveries the majority of the days of the week from Prudence, which is in Mark 8. So we support those two local businesses. The coffee shop, I'm sure they buy their produce locally, although to be honest I'm not here to vouch for them. But they also buy their bread from us, so it does come from the local bakery, sorry. So I think those two are probably the two shops that would probably look to source things locally. Thank you very much. What you said about, and it's difficult to evidence base it, I know what happens to villages when trade goes, or whatever. But you made statements around if this is full, that would be empty, and free business is not one. And it was laudable to hear how you cooperate as businesses, and the statements you made around supporting the local butchers, and a laudable and good approach. What I'm trying to seek is can you offer some strong evidence around how, if this application went through examples that you've got close to home, which in other villages where this has happened, and that has had a determining factor on what seems to be a partnership between free businesses in a village community, not a town. We're only a small village, that's the first thing to say. We're putting three, the nearby village of Eton Brae, although it's not part of the parish council, the parish plan, it's only half a mile away, within a mile away from our store. So we've got two villages, and we have similar kind of buying powers, and we buy from two different cash, we buy from Booker, they buy from Lisa. So we've got two different entities there, we have different promotions on a regular basis. A Guardian article came out recently, and it mentioned about how village stores have recently sounded out the alarm over what is claimed as a battle for survival against corporates, about squeezing rural independent stores out by undercutting them in prices, and it has been a real concern over the last few years that this has been the case. I mean, we have seen firsthand, with the deliveries that come into the village, we know that not every customer is going to shop at our store. We're there for day-to-day convenience. Our shop in the Eton Brae shop combined in floor size will probably not be as big as this convenience store that will be in the village. Competing against something that big, I mean, it's sure it's going to have a devastating effect on us going forward, surely, on turnover, on profits. And in turn, that will have the viability of the post office will be seen to be disadvantageous as well. Thank you. I probably think it's quite unfair to ask you to give examples rather than hear how you felt about it. We may be able to take that a bit technical. Thank you very much. OK. Can we go to technical? Here we are. Thank you, Chairman. I feel that the road that will be going past this new convenience store is very narrow. If you're going to have a lot of traffic coming up and down and nowhere to park if they're going to cut off the parking opposite, you're going to have a blockage in that road, aren't you? I would have thought asking. So we we tend to get with a convenience store. This is linked trips. So you have it's not a kind of main destination. It's a trip to top up. So you get trips on your way to school, to work, things like that. See the roads, the cars are already on the network, so it's not necessarily going to generate that many new trips. A lot of them, the high percentage are going to be already on the network. So it's not technically going to be new trips on that network. It will it will increase the trip generation. It will increase the trips to the site, but not into the extent that I think people are going to be worried about. But it comes straight up to a main road, doesn't it? The road leads up to the main road, the T junction, isn't it? Yeah. So you're already going to be on that network going where you're going and just going to pop in there, get your shopping and off you go. That's that's that's what the studies show when we're looking at these these kinds of uses. OK, thank you. Thank you, chair. Chair, it's worth noting that I think I'm going to put in an approval or a recommendation, sorry, to the head of planning that the reports are done in the same format. Because I find the different formats for each one actually really confusing in terms of I just feel like if we streamlined it, it's just because this report is set up very, very differently to say the first report that we had. And so there are a few things I've struggled with to sort of get my head around here in terms of the planning balance. There's a weighting and balancing of issues and overall assessment. Then there's the recommendation. But it doesn't give any weight in terms of where those weights have been afforded. So that then leaves a whole string of questions in terms of the policies that it calls to and what weight the office has given to those to those policies. So firstly, I know in the report that there's a significance in terms of the date of the neighbourhood plan and the date of the very, very local plan. In specifically in the local plan, it talks about retail or employment opportunity being from that village centre. What about policy then do you guys think overrides that that local plan policy in terms of its day? And I just wondered why we hadn't engaged policy one or two. And the reason I asked that is is on page 10 of this document when we go back to this morning's application. And again, I'm not sure if because this is a change of use and not a change of change from employment to retail. If this then that's the reason it doesn't engage. But it says page 10. But one of the things we had this morning was about this not being advertised prior to applying for a change of use. And I just wondered if if E2 yes, but if E2 is engaged here in that same respect. So to answer the question, in this case, this is already in other employment land. It's not a designated employment land, but it's already another employment land. It's not going to any other use like residential. So it's still going to be an employment land. There is no change of use in the terms of the employability of the land. It's still remaining as an employment land. So E2 is not going to be engaged in that sense. But it still has a change of use. Yes, but the change of views is in terms of a certain type of employment to another different type of employment, for which reason the different policies of Valpo get involved, which is policy D6 and E5, which I have already assessed against. The reason I asked is because E, an existing appropriate class, E, B2 and B8 businesses affected by the loss of employment land should be relocated to alternative premises so that viable businesses are not affected. In terms of policy E2, it reads outside key employment sites, the redevelopment and/or re-use of employment sites to an alternative non-employment use. So policy E2 is only triggered if it's going to an alternative non-employment use. So policy E2 of the value to be local plan isn't triggered in this instance. And as I say, one of the things, it doesn't explain any of the Ts in terms of how that relates to this application in any of the kind of weighing up. And so I just wondered, T1 delivering the sustainable transport vision, T4 capacity of the transport network to deliver the development and T5 delivering transport in new development, which this isn't. Why those policies then engage here with this application. And actually in light of what we've heard about the parish council and the parking opposite, is there anything in this report that needs to be changed by the officer in light of that information? So within the officer report for the application, paragraph 7.4 within the overall weighing and balancing of issues and overall assessment sets out the officer conclusion that it's considered the proposed development would accord with the development plan policy, some of which are the T policies that you've just referred to. It also then acknowledges where there is a conflict with certain policies as per policy EP5 of the Edinburgh parish neighbourhood plan. So because officers consider that the proposal accords with those policies, we haven't gone into a sort of weighing and balancing as per the application this morning where the tilted balance was engaged because it related to housing. Rather in this instance because the officer assessment is that the proposal accords with those policies listed and then goes on to refer to which policies we acknowledge it conflicts with. That's why it doesn't have the same degree of weighing and balancing as the residential scheme this morning. I appreciate that. Thank you. I just feel as counselors. It's useful. I mean, what I've done is I've gone back to this morning's where it actually states what each policy is for to try and understand because that's what we're here for is to make sure that you know that we're happy that the interpretation of those policies have been made in the correct way and if we don't have an understanding of exactly what those policies say in the report. I just find it very difficult for us to then be able to assess that. Yeah, thank you to send questions, which maybe officers can help me to formulate a view on it. The both counselors in the first session referred to the way around EP5. I think it was around interpretation of it being not a town, it's a parish, and does EP5 cover both parish and towns, which is quite key around their words because if it doesn't, the policy makes some difference the way that you interpret that. And then the planning way around whether it's a consideration that you can consider because it's a, I can't think, a planning term around commercial because what we're talking about is a commercial operation in one part of a community. And a possible probable, if it was agreed commercial operation in another part of the community, where I can't think of a policy and what would cover what would be free trade in a community and how we would, would we then took a decision about the trade in, though we may have sympathies in both ways, would we then have made a decision around the commercial viability of one business over a commercial viability of another business or is it, can it be dealt with just in planning terms, which is an interesting one because it's interpretation of where a decision may go and I need to understand if that's okay. Just on the first point, I think you were referring to policy E5 of the valve, which talks about, it says main town centre uses, but it's basically a term taken from the NPPF. But it does not really means only town centre, it means the heart of any centre, it could be a village centre, it could be a town centre, anything. So that's why I think this policy still applies to Edlesboro Village. And on your second point, I think you were trying to make the point about whether two businesses can operate and they compete with each other. I mean competition is really not a material planning consideration. Thank you for that, may I ask something else after I've listened to other people. Okay, thank you. Yes, I had a short debate with the representative from the parish council about EP10 and a range of facilities. I wonder if you could just give us your interpretation again of exactly what that means and what the legal position is as far as we're concerned with a garage not specifically being mentioned. Thank you, Councillor. So my report at 6.13 talks about this issue. Basically, as we know that within the Edlesboro parish neighbourhood plan, there is no definition of community facilities. So I looked into Valve and the NPPF. Within Valve, we do have policy I3, which tries to protect community facilities, and it gives examples of what we consider as community facilities. We do agree that that's not an exhaustive list. We also went into NPPF and looked at what could be considered as community facilities, and it also gives examples. And none of these documents talks about garages. Then the officers have taken a professional view that we don't think a garage, car and multi-service garage can be considered a community facility in this case. Okay, so is that your professional view, or can we take that as being what is represented by the NPPF? It is guided by the NPPF as well as the Valve. Thank you. Thank you, Chairman. It's a shame that they can't find a solution of another usage for the building, really. But anyway, my technical question is this. So you say that there's a car parking for seven cars, which is under the limit that they were talking about. So under your figures, it should be 12, but with ticking the figures around, you come to say there'd be room for seven cars on that site. That's in 6.49. I think we have mentioned five car parking spaces. Oh, five. Okay, so we're going to go down two more. And there is also a separate loading/unloading bay. Yeah, so that's accommodated at a loading bay for a lorry, of what size? Yes, so it would accommodate a refuse vehicle sized vehicle within that loading/unloading bay. And they have produced a tracking diagram to show how it would come within the site. It can be used, that parking space can be used for collecting refuse, as well as that parking space can be used for supplying delivery to the convenience store. I have to ask that question because a lorry is of different sizes, you know. HGV for selected use for that would be approximately a seven-tonner, no, a ten-tonner upwards, which is quite a sized vehicle, bigger than a bit. So that's why I asked that question. But the other question I want to ask, okay, is if there's 15 members of staff possibly working there and half of them drive there, where are they going to park? I'm not asking that. I just said half of that, say seven, even if they share a care and go down to five. So, yes, in terms of the 15 members of staff, they are not all working on the site. So they have also taken into consideration the people who will be supplying the goods, so they will not be there working in the site and parking. They will probably come, delivery vehicles, so unload things and then they go off and they will be parking in that loading/unloading bays. There will be also staff. So there is an assumption because of the sustainability of the location of the site, as we have seen in the case of the Village Store, people walk, cycle. So because of this site also being a very sustainable location within five, 420 metres of the Village Store, Village Centre and the Store Post Office, so people can also walk, cycle to the site as well. Say they don't, say they five drive. Say they five staff drive, where would they park? So some staff would walk there, I totally get that, but some might not, they might come from Eton Bray or from Layton Bessard. Might be parking in the street. Okay, thank you. So the parking requirement is for all users, not just staff and not just users. But you also find with, as I mentioned previously with the link trips, you find people that will kind of say their parking stops waiting for pick up school or a football match. They will pop into there to use the car park as well, to use the... Sure I'm not into it, I was just interested in staff, that's all I was interested in. Oh there is no put on kind of... It's okay. The staff can park there. Yeah. It's okay, I've got enough. It wouldn't be a good business model to have for your car park filled with staff. I've had enough, you don't need to, thank you. Yes, thank you Chair. I think my clarification is a city neighbourhood plan, right? We all want to protect those because it does take a lot of effort and cost to put them together. Now the calling is with regards to EP5 and EP10. On page 132, paragraph 6.16, you capture what EP5 says. Now correct me if I'm wrong, it's your understanding of this, that to the extent that the new entity or the new business to be put in that site is still commercial, there's no change that impact on EP5, is that correct? So we took the legal view on this one and as per my reports you will see that although EP5 does not clearly state that, but we think that the intention of the policy was not to have any other retail development outside the village centre. And that's why we are saying that there is a conflict between EP5 and E5 of the valve. Right, but how does that, I'm struggling with that interpretation here, because it says proposals to change the use of an existing retail or other commercial units within the centre. The centre is defined as the village centre, right, to a non-retail commercial use will be resisted. That's understandable. Now this is not an existing retail but an existing commercial unit and it's not within the village centre, it's outside the village centre. Yes. Right, so where is the conflict? So the conflict is it is an existing commercial centre as in the car garage, yes, but the intention of policy EP5 is to resist any other retail use outside of the village centre, but this is going to become a retail use so there is a conflict. Right, I think I understand you better now. So you understand that outside the village centre there can be no other commercial or retail outside that space? New. Yes, but this is not new, this is existing. But it's going from garage to a new retail, that's why it's a new. Yes, but this doesn't say change of use of an existing retail or other commercial unit within the centre to a non-retail or commercial use. That's the first part, proposals to change of use of existing retail, that's inside the centre, but there is also a bit that says proposals for new retail or commercial development will only be supported within the village centre. Yes, and I think this is why I'm struggling with your interpretation because if we're saying that this is an existing commercial unit, right, for some other purpose other than retail, right, it's not the commercial purpose isn't changing, it's just the usage that will change. So I'm wondering how this conflicts with that, I really am struggling to understand that. It's because it's a retail use that's proposed and retail uses are favoured in the centre and this is outside the centre, so this isn't the ideal location for a retail unit. So this is an existing commercial unit? Yes, but it's going to change to a retail use and they're saying this isn't the right place, that policy suggests this isn't the right place for a retail use, so that's the element of conflict. I'll defer to you on this point, but I struggle to see how this restricts a change from commercial to retail. The EP5 doesn't say that, from my reading of it I struggle to see how moving from one commercial usage to another would now be restricted on this. It doesn't restrict it, but it's just saying that if you were looking where a retail use should be located, it should be located in the village centre, therefore not on this site, because this is outside the village centre. However, you've also been referred to policy E5 in the VALP and where there are two development plan policies, because obviously the neighbourhood plan and VALP are both part of the development plan, which are in conflict. Section 38 5 of the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act of 2004 says that the conflict must be resolved in favour of the policy contained in the last document to become part of the development plan. So if you feel that there is a conflict between those two policies, you would need to fight in favour of the VALP, because that's the most recent. Thank you, Mr Chairman. As a small business owner, I've just been sitting here listening and saying basically nothing, but I have to now raise a point that I'm very concerned about, and that is staffing and employment. When the existing owner of the retail unit was asked about staffing, I think he said he had nine, of which six was full-time and three were part-time, he made no reference to delivery drivers, only the people that were employed by him. Now, as a retail business owner who owns a pub, I employ four people, and I think the fact of life is that is only four people who would lose their job if I closed down. So I think the planning process here has exaggerated the creation of the amount of jobs that they're saying, and that does concern me. I don't think - it's certainly not officer intention to exaggerate it. I think officers have been transparent insofar as saying that the numbers quoted within the officer report do include the delivery drivers. It's not just those people directly employed within the facility itself. That's been clarified within the discussion with officers today, too. So I accept that the overall number does include deliveries, as well as then people employed on the site, so the number actually employed in the unit itself would be lesser than the overall number quoted. Okay, so then to give this balance, we could then assume that if the existing store and post office went out of business because of this new venture, instead of them losing nine jobs, they would probably lose somewhere in the region of about 20 jobs. Now, the point I'm going to make here as well is that three pubs in close proximity to my pub closed down over the last year. We were all supplied by the same delivery drivers for beverage gas, for ale, for lager, for crisps, peanuts, stuff from cash and carry and whatever. Not one of them persons, because them three pubs closed down, not one of them persons lost their job, because they were still supplying to the likes of me and many others who were still open. So I just don't get this point about creating these jobs. These jobs are already created because it will be existing. For example, if it's a Tesco store, for example, they will already have employed for many, many years probably these delivery drivers who will just be given an extra location to go to. So I think it's been misrepresented here about the amount of jobs that's been created. That's the point I'm trying to make. Just on that, I would like to highlight that I have mentioned 8.6 full time equivalent jobs, so that is without the delivery drivers. So 8.6 full time equivalent jobs, that's been mentioned under 6.8, section 6.8. So it's given a breakdown, so it says 8.6 full time equivalent jobs. Thank you, chair. One of the questions I asked previously, can I just ask again, because I didn't get a response, was based on what we heard from the parish council about the parking opposite, does that change anything in terms of your report? And is there any reason why the Ellsburyville local plan SPD or the HEDNA haven't been mentioned in the report? The HEDNA has not been referenced because that's the housing and economic needs development assessment. So that focuses more on housing in the first instance and then the need for economic and employment land. So in this instance, it's not directly relevant, this proposal, given that the existing building is already in commercial use. Again, we're not looking at a piece of land allocated for employment. So it's not of direct relevance, this proposal, so that's why it's not referenced. In terms of the availability of the car park opposite, I think it has been referenced within the sporting evidence of the application that that could be utilised for car parking. But the assessment undertaken by both the applicant and the Buckinghamshire council highways team notes that even if that wasn't utilised for parking, there isn't a highway safety issue as a result of the proposal. It's considered that the site could accommodate satisfactory parking to avoid a highway safety problem at this site. I can defer to highways if they wish to elaborate further. It's just 6.53. It says the council's highway officer has reviewed the parking demand assessment and considers it acceptable. It goes on to talk about T6. The car park opposite the site would also be able to meet any additional demand on an ad hoc basis, but obviously we've now been told that that's not going to be the case. So what you're saying is that this assessment just excluded that part regardless. Is that right? No, that's not correct. I think the point is that the car park opposite would be a bonus, a nice to have, but it's not essential. The applicant has done a parking accumulation survey which shows that because there's such a high turnover of vehicles coming in and out of the site in a short time, they've done it on quite a robust level of 7.5 minutes when in other applications we've accepted a lot less. So you come in for five minutes, you're in, you're out, you're in five minutes, you're out. So there's such a high turnover that it wouldn't be capable of accommodating all those vehicles. But was this assessment done with or without the use of the other car park? Without. Without? Thank you. Yeah, like I said, the car park is like an extra bonus. I thought you were contradicting what she was saying. No, no, no, no. Right, thank you. Okay, we're going to move on to your opinions on this application. Go on then. I'll give it a stab and see where we get with this one. Now I've listened to all sides of the arguments in the offices and I've listened to the technical sides from both sides. Now, on reflection and conclusion of the application and in the balance of my mind, I feel that the granting of the application or what the application change of use in its present form, prejudices the policies of the valve, and in those policies, which the policies of the value plan about protected defined area of trade, I think that's what we referred to earlier, as I heard that wrong. In that case, if it contradicts the value of our plans, trade, and purchasing and the way we protect the community, and we should protect rural communities. I think I'd like to propose that we look at the grounds around that and explore where there is legal grounds around that to refuse the application or defer the application, because I think the harm that the application is present for outweighs the good of the other one. Now, if that's not possible, we can have that by debate. So I'm trying to propose a way around it, which is using the policy of the valve plan, which was stated to protect communities. I can't remember the term now, I wrote it down and then lost it. So I'm hoping that's a sort of starter for 10 and see where we get. We turn it down on those grounds. Well, thank you, chair. I think it's not been lost on me that there was nobody here today to speak in favor of this application. It's also my understanding that there have been over 500 objectives to it. So I do wonder, as a business case, what the applicant will take from this going forward. But looking at what the recommendation is, and if we're looking at it without that consideration, I struggle to see. And, you know, I defer to the advice we were given before. You know, how this conflicts with policy five in the first place. But I will take on that advice and say, even if it does, I think the FOB policy five also then, you know, trumps that. And the reason why I said EP five I struggle with this, it talks about proposal change of use to a non retail or commercial use, which is not what's happening here. It's my understanding that this application is to retain the commercial purpose for which it's being used and will not change that. Now, whilst I understand that there are other businesses within the town and there's an area the town would prefer to have at the town center. It's my understanding that this location is already a commercial center because it's been approved and it's part of their plan. So I'm struggling to see what the contention, why there's so much contention here. I can understand, you know, residents being worried as to walking and parking and the inconvenience that might come into play. But I struggle to see how this would be a viable business if 500 people who reside in a locality of 600 may be, you know, on opposed to that location. So it might be important for the applicant to take a hint on that. But I will I will reserve my vote on this for a minute. But that's where my mind is going towards that I can't see the grounds upon which not to follow the officer's direction. But I think the business case in its in its sense, you know, is flawed because the residents don't want it. But I will reserve and speak later. And I understand that totally. I'm of the view that the owner, why would he put retail in there is not going to be viable. That's the difference, you know, because yes, he could. There's talk of Tesco's, but there's no evidence of that. So why would you take on a retail unit that wouldn't be viable? Because the other one in the village is still operating and operating successfully. So that's where I have the conflict. And you're right, there was no one here from that unit today to argue the point either way. Thank you, Mr Chairman. I also am concerned, you know, having sat on the committees with my fellow colleagues and yourself, Mr Chairman, since I was elected in May 21. I think this is the first committee I've sat on where a applicant has refused to send an agent or didn't send an agent. They didn't send a representative to answer questions at this committee. As regards the business model and the viability of the business, I totally agree with Councillor Aidee. However, I'm not clear who is going to, is the existing owner who is moving on with his business to another area about a mile outside the village. Is he proposing then, and this is something I don't know, is he proposing to lease the property or sell the property for retail? I don't know. So we don't know whether he's maybe going to run it himself or some of his family is going to run it, okay. My worry is that what really worries me is what happened in my village in Staplet Layden where we built 370 houses, got up to about 1,050 houses. The co-op decided their existing co-op was too small. They got one twice the size on a new build site. They built the new co-op as the chairman can allude to. They closed the old one down and it's now been there for two and a half years because the co-op will not sell to a competitor. I think one of the speakers this evening said exactly the same, that the garage owner would not sell to another garage. So the worry for me here is while I'm still sitting on the fence and I haven't made a decision like my colleague Councillor Aidee, I'm concerned that while you have 500 objections in a relatively small village, that them objections could be turned around after a period of about six months when that property is left vacant, when it's been vandalised, when it's causing problems for neighbours, the objectors now could turn around and say, Oh, please come in and build that supermarket. We cannot stand this vandalism and anti-social behaviour that's gone wrong and empty building. Going forward, I think we need to be careful what we wish for. Thank you very much, Chairman. I'll get my words out at this time. Personally, I'm really struggling with this one because the site owner, as going to Councillor Mahoon says, he won't allow competition to go in there, but he's quite happy to allow competition come in and compete against a vibrant high street. What I struggle with as well is that there is definitely a conflict. You've mentioned that yourself when it goes about this EP this and EF that. I'm not really interested in that because, again, as a council, when we look at it, and maybe you won't say, Phil, this is not down to planning, but what I've been working on is regeneration of high streets again. We've all realised that certain supermarkets can come into the outer skirts of an area and they've destroyed village areas, rural areas that need looking after. It's an area that we really need to look after. It's quite clear that this vibrant area of the high street here in Edlesboro looks after also extra rural enterprises that are out there, like butchers and stuff like that, so there's a bigger answer to this. When I look at regeneration, what are we going to do? We've put, say, in high streets now, in some areas, in Elsbury, Wickham, I'm sure the officers will correct me, but we're working on Article 4, which is to protect those shops that are in place now for becoming houses. We don't want that because we want retail to stay in the high street. So I feel that with this application, it could take that vibrant area to become very elusive and then what's going to happen is going to be quiet. It could be a dead high street. It's a shame that we couldn't talk to the owner and look at a different sort of business. I go back to what the chair said earlier on, when like a wine bar or a restaurant, you know, the area is going to be a vibrant area. A restaurant could bring in some serious money, so it's a shame that we could look at an alternative change of use for that site. Sadly, because I look at regeneration now, the last thing we want is to see lovely, vibrant rural businesses, you know, diminish because of just one unit. And sadly, I can't support this application. It is a difficult one, I accept that. However, you do have to look at each planning application on its own, in its own merit. You cannot use a planning application, to my knowledge, to actually sway the viability of any shopping centre, however much you feel personally. And I do feel very personally about this. However, I will seek to vary condition 10, which says that the closing time is 10 o'clock and we vary that to 8 o'clock in the evening. I'm sorry, Mr Chairman. As much as I like my colleague, Councillor Marjo, I couldn't agree with that because from experience, when the new co-op, which is on the outskirts of our village now, which is not ideal, when that opened, it opened until 8 o'clock every evening. In the first six months, it got burgled twice. They now open it until 11 o'clock at night to save it from being burgled because it's on the outskirts of it. So I can't support amending the condition. What was your intention, Councillor Moody? Was it to recommend it, but would that change? That is my recommendation, that we support the officers and we restrict the opening under condition 10 to 8 o'clock in the evening and not 10. And why are you suggesting this? Because it's in a residential area. OK. Is that seconded at all? Chairman, is that not a licensing issue? It depends what it is. It depends what it's going to be. Sorry, it's not a licensing issue, but I'm assuming that the application has been submitted on the basis of the hours proposed and I've not heard any planning reasons why that would be changed. But it would be a licensing issue if they sold alcohol? It would be a licensing issue if the alcohol, yes. Yes. Chairman, I'm really struggling, actually, as I agree with a lot of what's been said here today. And actually, I propose that we defer this application to come back to committee. I would like personally to see a more detailed report so that we can have a much, much deeper understanding of how and why all of these different policies are engaged. Because I don't have a clear view of that right now from what's in the report. Catherine's looking really confused at me, but I've already said, you know, there's a lot of things that aren't in the report. So I can't understand why they've been given any way. You know, why they've been attached. You know, when you're looking at, I don't know, T5 delivering transport in a new development, this isn't a new development. So why does T5 engage? It's those kind of questions that I have that I can't answer. And so for that reason, I'm going to abstain. But I do propose that we defer for it to come back. Would you like it deferred, then? Councillor Martin. Oh, sorry. Thank you, Mr Chairman. And I don't know what powers we have here, but I would only agree to defer this application if we could summon the applicant to send the representative to the committee. As purely for the reason of maybe there's another retail opportunity here that might not reflect so badly on the centre of the village because of the comments that was made earlier on in the application. We can't summon them in. We haven't got the power to do that. There's absolutely no requirement for an applicant or anybody else to appear before the committee. So it's, you know, and we don't know the circumstances. They might be on holiday. They might have a medical emergency for all we know. You know, you just don't know why they're not here. And so that should not be held against anyone. There's no requirement for them to attend. What you're saying is that, you know, I think there could have been a solution here for maybe another retail, whether it be a pub or whether it be a restaurant, whatever it is, a garden centre, whatever. But I'll just leave it at that. Your duty is to consider the application before you not to come up with an alternative application. Okay. Councillor Gough. Sadly, that was the route I was about to go down and go for that as well, is I can't, I wouldn't agree to a retail unit like a convenience store there. But I wondered, like you just said, we certainly would agree to something change in there, that's for sure. You know, there's a commercial unit there, a good viable commercial unit. But personally, professionally, I don't agree to a convenience store. I would certainly agree to something like a restaurant or, you know, I'm just saying maybe there was an opportunity for the applicant to reapply. Councillor O'Brien. Yes, Chair, I just want to clarify the point, Councillor Maud, you made with regards to the 8 o'clock and I think I might be interested in that. The site is not on the edge of town from what I can see here. I think it's south of town, but there's quite a lot of residential properties around it. To that end, I think the 8 o'clock time may be advisable as well, just to ensure that it does not conflict with the local amenities. So, Councillor Maud, you're putting forward a recommendation to go with the officers to report with that change in it? Yes, I think I will support that. You'll second that? Yeah, I'll second that. Okay. I think you've got Councillor Cooper. Yes, thank you, Chair. I'm also really struggling with this because I can see the strength of feeling within the village and within the parish council. And I know Edlesburg quite well. It's a very strong community. They know what they want, they've got a neighbourhood plan and they know what they intended it to do. However, the problem I have is that the application is for change of use from one commercial use to another commercial use. And I think we can't put that aside, we can't forget that. A lot of the discussion has been about viability both of the existing shop and indeed the new shop. And a lot of it relates to competition as well between existing and future businesses. That is not part of what we can do. Stop planning. Stop planning. So, I think we have to put all of that to one side and just concentrate on the technicalities of the change of use. Now, from all I've heard from officers, I'm going to say unfortunately, unfortunately it is the case that the application is a valid application under those circumstances. And, you know, as always, we nearly always come back to what happens if this goes to appeal. And I think the chances are if this did go to appeal and we were to refuse it, I think the appeal would probably win. That's my guess. So, I do have difficulties with this though because I would really like to be able to support the village. Technically, I don't think we can do. So, I'm afraid I'm going to have to go with Councillor Maudi on this. Okay. So, we've got the recommendation. One thing that's not sitting right with me and I know legally I'm going to be told that, you know, it's the case. But, you know, we have a local plan here that was made in 2017. It clearly states in the local plan this is not what they want. And had FALP not been introduced, this policy would say that and this would be really clear cut. We've introduced FALP and I don't know if neighbourhoods have been told, by the way, there may be another plan that precedes this and you're going to have to update it. Like, I don't know if those kind of lines of communication have even happened. I do wonder why they haven't updated the neighbourhood plan since 2017. But it isn't the will of what's in the local plan. We've come along and we've changed that. And it's very clear, like Peter said, there's a real huge strength of feeling in the community that this isn't what they wanted. It's not what they wanted in 2017. I know that the FALP now precedes that. But that's what doesn't sit right with me also. Indeed the Buckinghamshire plan will trump that again. Unless people, you know, people should be advised to update their local neighbourhood plan. Right. Council starts with the last one, I think. We're going around with sympathies up and amendments to policy. And it's not an application, it's a change of use. I did suggest earlier, I'm going to put something down, if it's not seconded, it's not seconded and that's fine. That we turn it down on the grounds that it contradicts the parish neighbourhood plan. And on those grounds that that interpreted their area of the centre of the village of being trade. And they wish to protect that. If that isn't acceptable in law and that can be told, because we're searching for conditions to recognise the one loss of trade for gain of another. And that's where we are really here. It's like, you know, we may accept it and it may be that more harm will be done than good. So by accepting the change of use. And we can't tell them what to put in it. But we could perhaps do it on the grounds of protecting the rural community, the sustainability of the village. And in those grounds, that's something we should do. Because if it was a campaign to keep a pub open, we'd all be saying that's a jolly good campaign. So I'm putting that forward as a proposal. If we're told it's not legal, we're told it's not legal. If it's not seconded, it's not seconded. And that is to not accept the change of use and go down that ground. And then we can move on if that's not what's done. Can I just seek a point of clarity? Sorry, Councillor Stutchbury. In terms of the points you've just raised around being contrary to the neighbourhood plan and the rural community and the sustainability of the village. Are you saying it insofar as it being a community facility? Is that the loan you're going down? Or are you saying in terms of the rural community and the competition that it creates? I'm really sorry, I was just not very clear around the point you were making. I'm saying it's contradicting the aspirations of the parish neighbourhood plan. That it defined an area in their own plan which they considered was the centre of the community. That this, if agreed, contradicts their aspirations in their neighbourhood plan. And that may not have any legal weight and I can be told that by someone who understands. And if it isn't seconded, it doesn't go forward. And that's where I'm trying to go, on the simple grounds of the neighbourhood local plan. Apologies, that is clear. Thank you ever so much. I think in terms of the point that you've clarified on in terms of policy EP5 of the neighbourhood plan. It's the point that Catherine's stuff raised earlier insofar as because the Fairleigh Balesbury local plan has been adopted since the neighbourhood plan was made. The policies of the Fairleigh Balesbury local plan are the newer ones. So those are the ones that we revert to, in terms of giving those the most weight. So I think it just covers the same points that have already been raised in the debate and my Councillor's already. Thank you. Councillor Turner. Thank you very much, Chair. I think it's quite important that we as a committee are seen to be consistent when it comes to our decision making. I know we have been in support of neighbourhood plans and I did give in my submission earlier on that I do not believe that this application contradicts EP5. And the reason I would even say that is the interpretation being given now, any other commercial purpose other than a garage will not be accepted there. I can't see how that can be the intention of the drafters of this -- of the nippled plan. So I'm saying, based on what I can read here, to the extent that the proposal is not a change from a commercial or retail to a non-retail or commercial use, then it does invalidate this. If we interpret it any other way, then what we're saying is that piece of property can only be used as a garage, which I think is not practical. So I would say the recommendation, in my opinion, they have given -- the officers have given their opinion on this to which I do agree with the part, but I do not agree with the neighbourhood plan aspect of it. I think we are in line with the neighbourhood plan because this has designated this area as for commercial purpose, which is what it maintains. Thank you. We have a recommendation before us, which has been seconded by Councillor Maudou and seconded by Councillor Haselbogen, which is to go with the officer's recommendation with one slight change of the closing hours. Yes? You both agreed that. So can we go to the vote on that? All those in favour of the officer's recommendation, please show. Five, Chairman. Those against? Four, Chairman. Any abstentions? One, Chairman. Okay. And yourself? Oh, sorry. So, yes, then the application is approved as per the officer's recommendation, subject to the alteration by Councillor Maudou. Okay, thank you. Councillors, do you want a small break before we end? Do you want a small break before we end? Excuse me, excuse me. Please be quiet. You can clear the room. Can you please go quietly? Excuse me. Excuse me. We've got business to conduct. Please leave quietly. We should have a five-minute break. Ten-minute break? Ten-minute break. Okay. Good afternoon. Welcome back to the North Area Planning Committee. We're resuming. Can I just check that we have Paul Sharp in the audience? Thank you. And, Paul, you're going to speak on both applications, am I? Okay, thank you. Right, we're now looking at Application 22/00221APP, which is for Thrift Activity Farm Limited. With that, I hand you over to Presenting Officer Fay Hudson. Thank you, Chairman. Okay, so the images on the slide above show where Thrift Farm is located in relation to the settlements of Milton Keynes to the northeast and then Wadden to the north. And the A421 runs east to west across the map with Wadden Road and Codimore Lane running north to south. The application seeks temporary planning permission for the sighting of a childcare nursery with enclosed outdoor play space, associated infrastructure and the temporary change of use of dwelling on site from use class C3 to use class EF. The application is fully retrospective in nature as the temporary buildings are on site and permission is sought for a two-year period. This application is being referred to the North Area Planning Committee as Buckinghamshire Council has ownership interests in the site, therefore, for the sake of transparency, the application is to be determined by the relevant planning committee. On the right-hand side of the slide is the site plan showing the location and layout of the three temporary port cabins with the existing dwelling house to the north and the existing car parking area to the south. So this slide shows the constraints of the site. The site is bounded by the A421 to the north with agricultural land to the west and south. To the east is the wider site at Thrift Farm with woodland beyond. The site is unconstrained, save for its location within a red great crested newt impact risk zone. There are ancient woodlands to the north and east which are unaffected by the development. They're shown in green on the slide and there's also a mineral safeguarding zone to the northeast shown in brown but this does not impact the development. So this slide just gives you an aerial view of the site, approximately showing where each of the elements of the scheme are located. The yellow box indicates the location of the existing dwelling house on site. The pink box indicates the location of the temporary nursery buildings and the green box indicates the location of the car parking on site with the access road heading out to the west. So there are three temporary port cabins on the site and this slide gives you the floor plan and elevations of the cabins to be used by toddlers. And then you've got the floor plans and elevations for the cabin used by preschool children and then finally the floor plan and the elevations for the cabin to be used by babies. So just give you some photos of the site. So this is the access onto Thrift Farm off Warden Road and then these two show you the site of the access road leading into the site. And then these are the remainder of the access road. The image on the right gives you an image of the existing passing place on the road. And then this is the final portion of the access road with the overflow car park on the right and the access into the existing car park on the left. So this image shows the car parking area currently in use with the temporary nursery buildings just visible in the rear and buildings associated with the other ongoing activities at Thrift Farm can be seen on the right hand side of the image. This image gives you an alternative view of the car parking area so we're now looking out towards the agricultural land to the south. As set out in section 8 of the officer report conditions are recommended to secure the car parking area and require details of cycle parking to be submitted for approval and the submission of a travel plan for the temporary nursery. These photos just give you a couple of images of looking towards the temporary port cabins on site. And then again you're still standing in the car park here looking towards the temporary port cabins and you can just see in the background there some of the other buildings that are on Thrift Farm. So this is the view of the left hand port cabin and the associated play area to the side and rear. And then views from the rear of the cabins again showing the outdoor play spaces on the fencing. Again so this just shows the outdoor play areas and fencing in relation to the trees that are on site and you can just see in the background the some of the greenhouses are visible. And again just a couple more views further from the rear of the cabins with the outdoor play areas and fencing again. And then this one just shows the right hand side cabin with the fencing and then the car park is just visible in the background again. Just a very brief update on some of the conditions so following advice from the legal team in the event of an approval there are some minor changes to the wording of a couple of the recommended conditions. The first update is just to condition 7 and officers proposed to add any lighting approved by the local planning authority shall be removed from the site upon the cessation of the temporary nursery to the official site. And then in the second update is just to condition 7 and officers proposed to add any lighting approved by the local planning authority shall be removed from the site upon the cessation of the temporary nursery to the official site. Any lighting approved by the local planning authority shall be removed from the site upon the cessation of the temporary nursery to the end of condition 7. So just to conclude the officer recommendation as set out in paragraph 1.3 of the officer report is as follows. Officers recommend that the application be delegated to the service director of planning and environment for approval subject to conditions to include those set out in section 8 of this report. And recommended conditions include the cessation of the temporary nursery on or before the expiry of two years, car parkings and cycle parking, a travel plan and then ecological enhancement features. Thank you Chairman. Great, thank you very much. Mr Sharp. You still have three minutes to make your presentation and if you don't mind remaining seated for any points of clarification. Okay. So, we run a care farm three farm. We took the care farm on in 2019 from books Council, as you already heard. We look after adults with learning difficulties on a day release basis. Some of what I'm going to say will cover the main application for a permanent nursery on site. But we we prepared a proposal for to the council, which sorry, I would let me start again. The council were disposing of the lease of the farm because it was sustaining having substantial losses through the overheads associated with the farm. And it was costing a large amount of, I suppose, local taxpayers money. We, it was due to be closed. We had we put a proposal to the council as part of a tender application with some others. And the main part of our main part of our proposal was that we would put a children's day nursery on site. Which we have experience of running elsewhere. This would give us an extra income stream, thereby share the overheads to keep the viability of the want to help with the viability and sustainability of the adult care. We were clearly we took on the lease without the planning being in place, but we had we had a we looked at what the planning was on the site and it was for an adult for a rural training centre. And we were also encouraged when we had a we did a pre planning application, which the officers, I think we call it advice on pre planning applications came back, which said they could see no reason why they concluded that it fitted in with the local plans and the development plans. We had a situation whereby a nursery we operated in Milton Keynes was was being closed down and on the back of being fairly confident that we would from the advice we'd had would seek from the council. We did a temporary application and this is what you can see now. Okay, the next application you're dealing with are you doing the same speech? Yeah, we do know we know I personally know your side. Driving tractors and things. Right. Just a point of clarification now for what you've said already. Thank you, Chairman, I still go there drive those tractors as well. One big enough for you. Fantastic asset for the area. So congratulations for for keeping it open on stuff like that personally. So just want to clarify, are those units already in place, they are in place on. We put them in place because the PRI PRI was encouraging that we would have a problem with a location. Yeah, I understand that this is like more retrospective to. So, yeah, quite surprised for a county linked property to have this in front of us. Okay. But so have you already developed the care centres up and running, so to speak? Yes. So we, we had a nursery that was being being or the school was taking the taking the space back within Bletchley. So we moved, moved, moved the children and the team to Thrift Farm. We, we, we specialise in running nursery farm based nurseries. We have one need over farm, which is local and we have one in the farm. So we are very much about our ethos is all about children or early years, children learning about the countryside, where the food comes from the change in seasons. That's that's our ethos. So it was this was a great opportunity for us as well to expand Thrift Farm with something that we are familiar with doing. It's a rural it's a rural setting. Yeah. We need to run it. In and I tell you where you come in from. Yeah. And it's great that further education is going on. So thank you very much. Thank you, Mr Morgan. Sorry, I was just Googling exactly where it was. No, I just see like I go out mostly way out to Milton Keynes. And so I was I kind of got my bearings now. I just wondered actually how sustainable the transport element of it is in terms of public transport. Most people use their cars. Most people do use their cars. And this is obviously something we've we've looked into and we've tried to try to deal with what we've managed to what we've managed to establish from having parents on site. Ready is that they are living in villages. In fact, I have a I have a map of where they where they live. Yeah, that was going to be my next question. So we've got, for example, we've got 10 10 10 parents live in Buckingham. We've got four that live in Winslow. All of these parents are on route in to Milton Keynes to work. So they're already on the highways network on the way to work. And we have we have some actually that we have a small proportion that are in Milton Keynes on their way to Alsbury and to villages to work. Thank you. Is it also the case that you bring young people in from North London? We we don't know. We we we have done holiday clubs in the past from from children from we've helped. We've helped with we've helped with children from Harrogate that wanted to to have holiday club experience because I've seen I've seen a many buses sometime. Yes. Well, yeah. Well, we do have school visits as well. Yes. Thank you very much, Chair. I think my question will just tag on to the last council's statement with regards to transportation. Do you have any plans around? Because I can see the only objection you have here is from the highways. But it objects to it. So what plans do you have for better accessibility for people who haven't got cars? We we have in the past provided transport, not through community transport. But we we have we have random rent rents run a small minibus from Milton Keynes to to the site when we first opened. We also put in electric point for car car charging to try and encourage that. And we have we have quite a quite a green policy with that with our staff, which allows them to buy bicycles if they wish. Fortunately, there is no natural pathway to thrift, which is the problem. OK. Councilman. Thank you, Mr Chairman. Good evening. You said in your statement that Buckinghamshire Council sold sold the lease because it was wasn't viable. That's correct. Yes, they they they and they issued a lease or they put a lease up for tender. Yes. OK. So how long have you had that lease? How long is left on the lease? And I assume it's very viable at the minute. Would that be right? We are lost. We are not loss making. We are making a small profit, but it has strong overheads. We have heard about half a million pounds into thrift farm ourselves. OK. As an investment. Fine. OK. And how long have you left on your lease? I'm sorry. It's a it's a 30 years, 30 year lease. And it started. We took the lease in February.

1. Obviously, we were no sorry, February. When was Covid 19 or 20? We took it February 20 and four weeks later, we were asked to close it because of Covid. Oh, dear. OK, thank you. A lot a lot of local councils got involved in retaining the farm. Very keen on that. Thank you for the point of clarification. Thank you for coming in and giving us explanation. Do you know the site? I remember when they opened the cap there and there was free food on offer and you couldn't get enough counselors in there when there was free food on offer. They came from South Buckinghamshire to get some of your lovely food. And they traveled down. That was when there was 50 or so counselors on Buckinghamshire County Council. So at least it wasn't too many to feed. They all drifted south. It's nice to see them this far north. And but I think the facility is excellent. I just just by securing this, will that secure the I think from what you said, it was the financial viability of it. And of course, it's not too far in advance that it will be close to a large development in any case, which is planned by Buckinghamshire Council in the Vale of Algernon plan, which is around that area. So you won't be short of customers for children going forward, which might mean at some point you may have to expand. And does it work very well with the two very different types of care, one being very small, vulnerable children and one being adults who can be vulnerable. They're not all vulnerable, but who need the same care. The two things work well together on the same site. They work extremely well together. And we believe in being very inclusive. So we we we we weren't ever, ever concerned about what parents views were. But most of the parents, in fact, all of our parents are very supportive. The fact that their children are going to somewhere which is where they can see adults learning and working on the farm. So much of what we do with the adults is they work on the farm in different roles. Often it's just give them life life skills and hope that they will eventually go into either charitable work or work elsewhere. But no, it fits in very well. And both the children and the adults understand what's what's what's what they understand the benefit of the farm. And I must say that that thank you to the council for what you've done to keep it going, because I've been privileged enough to know several carers or parents of people who use the centre. And without that, their life would not be as it ought to be. So thank you for that. You've really showed me about the viability, which is important. Great. Paul, you might as well stay there because we've got the other application coming on. Have we got any technical questions? Can we go to open debate then, please? I propose that we agree the application, the recommendation as such, as it makes sense for the long term viability of the site and for the future education of both prospective parties. Okay. Councilman Mahoney. Seconded. Right. All those in favour, please show. So the application is passed according to the officer's recommendation. Thank you. My colleagues can we now go to 21 stroke 04926. Which is the demolition of the greenhouses. Okay. I will whip through these slides as quickly as I can, because some of them are the same from the previous from the previous presentation. So I do apologize. And so, as before, the site is located adjacent to Milton Keynes and the village of Wadden. So this application seeks planning permission for the demolition of two existing greenhouses and then the erection of childcare nursery without enclosed outdoor play space, landscaping and associated infrastructure. Again, it's coming to planning committee because Buckinghamshire Council has ownership interests in the site and therefore, for the sake of transparency, the application has to be determined by the relevant planning committee. And on the right hand side of the slide is the site plan showing the proposed layout of the development with the car park to the southwest and the nursery building to the northeast. Again, site constraints remain the same as last time. So this slide provides an aerial view of the site approximately showing again where each of the elements of the schema to be located. So the yellow box indicates the location of the existing greenhouses to be demolished and where the proposed childcare nursery building is to be cited. The pink box demonstrates where the current temporary buildings are, but these will be replaced by the nursery car park drop off zone. And then the green box indicates the location of the car parking on site with the access road to the west. So during the lifetime of the application and the design of the nursery building has evolved and so this plans on this slide show the original design of the building. This was not considered to be of high quality and therefore in response to officer concerns and the building was redesigned and officers are now content with the new design of the building. This slide just gives you shows you the 3D views of the building proposed and it will benefit from an asymmetrical roof shape accommodating both solar panels and a green roof. The building has been designed to reflect the constraint posed by the A421 to the north with the majority of the glazing located on the southern elevation which reduces potential noise impacts and increases solar gain. So this slide just shows the floor plan of the proposed nursery building with rooms to accommodate babies, toddlers and preschool children along with kitchen facilities, toilets, a reception area and an office. So just starting from the right, that's the preschool room, then you've got two adjacent toilet blocks, a toddler room and a pre toddler room. Kitchen is located in the northwest corner with the entrance lobby area offices and staff room below and then the baby room on the southern end of the building. So this slide shows the north and south elevations of the proposed nursery building. As mentioned previously with the redesign of the building, the northern elevation now reflects the fact that the A421 is located adjacent this elevation with the majority of the glazing now on the south elevation. This just shows you the east and west elevations of the proposed building. Photos again, so this is obviously the access off Wadden Road, then you've got the access road itself. And then this, as I mentioned previously, there's an existing passing place which is shown on the right hand image. An additional passing place is required as part of this development. It will likely be located on the same side of the road as the existing passing place but closer to the access point off Wadden Road and details of this can be secured by condition. And then the final portion of the access road, overflow car park on the right and existing car park on the left. So again, you've got the car parking area currently in use with the temporary nursery buildings and visible in the rear. So this area will remain as car parking as part of the permanent nursery scheme. But as the hard standing shown in this photo will become a permanent feature of the site should permission be granted and conditions been suggested to require the submission of a formal car parking layout. EV charging spaces, cycle parking, blue badge spaces and motorcycle parking in line with the standard set out in policy T6 and Appendix B of the Balb. Again, no view of the car park looking towards the agricultural land to the south. So here we have one of the existing underutilized greenhouses to be demolished and that will accommodate. That's the west where the permanent nursery building will be located. This image just shows you the relationship between one of the greenhouses to be demolished and then the A421 to the north. But it also shows some of the trees on the northern boundary that will need to be removed to accommodate the building and replacement planting can be secured by condition. So these photos look south and east across the site from the northern boundary. One of the greenhouses to be demolished can be seen on the far left of the left hand image and beyond other greenhouses to be retained are visible and then the right hand image provides just a clearer view of the greenhouse one of greenhouses to be demolished. So this is depicting the relationship between the greenhouses to be demolished on the right, and then the A421 beyond the hedge hedge line on the left. The trees visible in this photo will be removed to accommodate the building. So this is photos of the second of the underutilized greenhouses to be demolished. And then here we have it for looking from the eastern boundary of the site towards the second greenhouse to be demolished and the existing dwelling house on site is just visible in the rear of the left hand photo. And then the final photo is just looks northeast towards the second greenhouse and with the A421 behind the hedge running east to west. Just quick update on one of the conditions so again following advice from the legal team in the event of an approval a minor change of the wording of recommended condition 11 is proposed the tweak to the condition wording is as follows. So the first sentence of condition 11 should now read no development shall take place above slab level of the nurse of the childcare nursery building here by permitted until the trees to be impacted by the proposal have been removed. So just to conclude the officer recommendation is as set out in paragraph 1.3 of the officer report, and it's as follows officers recommend that the application be deferred and dedicated to the service director of planning and environment for approval subject to the satisfactory completion of a section 106 agreement seeking to secure a monitoring fee for a travel plan. The provision of a great Crested newt district license and subject to conditions to include those that are in section eight of this report, and those required by the great Crested newt district license, or if these are not achieved the application to be refused for such reasons as the service director of planning and environment considers appropriate and recommended conditions include highways and parking details including a travel plan ecological mitigation and replacement tree planting. Thank you. It's the way it's the white water is the building at the south of the picture. Okay. And that's a new one that's no that's been always been there that that was granted I think previously. I think probably 10 years ago, that was granted before we were involved. They used to be that used to be the entrance into the place. That's right. Yeah, so now is the other side. So we now. So, so when we start when we took over the site, there were four for greenhouses, two very large ones which are the sort of double shaped ones you can see, but the two smaller ones had actually been. They were, they've been condemned because they were dangerous. So they were actually taken down by the council after we take taken over. We have replaced one with a poly tunnel, because one of the things I wanted to reassure you all was that there. We are. We're not, you know, we're not losing this greenhouse, which will prevent more adults coming into us. Sorry, coming into us. We've actually spent quite a lot of money, creating converting one of the greenhouses into a area where the adults can help within a garden center. So the adults are now working within our garden center, and there's an area at the back of the garden center where they do potting plants and things. So, and the one that was condemned to remove, we have replaced with a poly tunnel so that there's still plenty of facilities for the adults, we call them clients, the adults with learning difficulties. There's plenty of facilities for the clients to do. Okay. Council's got any technical questions. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just can you clarify. So we've just approved a temporary planning application. And we're now looking at this permanent application. So, if we're mindful to approve this permanent application, are you saying that it's going to take you two years to build the permanent center. I'm hoping it will. Yes, we, we, we're used to doing this and converting, and we're used to having nurseries built so I think we can do it within two years. Yes. Okay. That's fine. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Okay, Mr. Morgan. Yeah, it's completely gone out of my head now. It's been a very long day today. We come back, come back to me. Thank you. Sorry. So, yeah, I know there's two greenhouses quite well that'd be great to see them disappear. I'm a bit sad to demolish them you sound quite a green person, maybe someone would like to come and remove them for you. If they're not in too bad condition, just food for fall. So, and I certainly like the design of the building, and the efforts that have gone into that make a great asset to the site as you pass that there. I'm really struggling now I propose we should visit the site because the chairman needs to go try to cafe out again there so I'm just joking. But they want a fantastic opportunity is this. Just, just clarify that only my clarification. So next on the building. Is that like a green space up there and environmentally friendly green space you got the solar. Yeah, so, what I'm sorry that so what's one of the, one of the problems, problems with the problems with the previous design it was really just a square block that we've done elsewhere. But because of the noise from the road. We worked with one of your previous officers who we then discussed what he thought we needed to do. And we work with an architect would use before. So it's been created and the whole idea of the butterfly roof is to shield the noise from all to stop us to stop the noise from the road coming into the garden. And we shifted the building close to the road, and then the garden, the children's play area is to the south of the nursery. And the other side of it was to try and help with the, the, the green roof is to try and help with dealing with flood flooding and the investment of water. You know I like that I did we proposed it in quite, quite a lot of places and it's great to hear the officers worked with you on that. And just on those set of panels, do they just look after that unit or do they help produce enough well proposed to be able to produce enough electricity for the site or during, during the summer, they will have some extra some extra be extra capacity, which we can use during the site for other parts of the site. And obviously during the winter, it was just about yes, cover our Thank you very much. into the other thing. Yeah, because that green water is much better than anything at the top in it. Yeah, especially if it's coming off that roof, it will be environmentally clean for the roof. I think, I think the proposal from for the drainage includes a harvesting scheme. Yes, it does. So, and the development process to manage surface water runoff generated by the proposed development by using brain harvesting to reuse runoff on site. Okay. Yeah. Or was there anything else you want to tell us or not? Not really. No, I mean, it's it's the only thing I would add is this is slightly will have a higher capacity than that than we would in the in the temporary unit, which will help with help with the growth of the government's policy for there's more and more grandchildren that we can take. So, nurseries aren't growing, particularly ones that are on rural sites. Okay. Okay, I asked my question now to come back to me. Go credit that the difference between what was and what is now is incredible. Honestly, that that's, yeah, that's absolutely fantastic. My question, and it may seem very strange, but does it 100% meet ofsted requirements? Oh, yes. Yeah. In fact, one of our directors who's sitting behind us is an offset inspector. Great, because when when Kingsbrook did the original plans for the community center, it didn't meet ofsted requirements. So it sounds really stupid, but actually, it's a really genuine question. RMD is an offset inspector. So that's that always, I always, I always, always make us very nervous. Well, it helps. It helps. So I will with six schools. I've met your colleagues. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I've got one word for this development. Amazing. And I've no hesitation in proposing we approve this magnificent application. Thank you. Okay. All in favor, please share. Thank you very much. Listen to. Yeah.