Transcript

and so we'll make a start and we are being recorded or published at this moment. So good morning everyone and welcome to the meeting of Southern Planning. I'm Councillor Joy Braberton, Chair for today's meeting. In addition to the members of the Southern Planning Committee, also present are the following officers who are here to advise regarding the items on the agenda. To my right I have Richard Taylor, who is the Principal Planning Officer, Andrew Gallagher, the Highways Officer and Andrew Poynton, Planning and Highways Lawyer and to my left I have Rachel Graves, Democratic Services Officer. So I'll now briefly explain how the committee operates. The Planning Officer will introduce the item, show slides, photos and plans regarding the site. I will then invite any registered public speakers to address the committee. If anything the public speaker has said was unclear, I may allow members to ask questions of clarification. The Planning Officer will respond to any issues raised by the public speaker and then members will be able to ask the Planning Officer questions before moving to the debate. When the debate moves to a close I'll check whether the officers have any final advice to give that the terms of the resolution and so on which will have been moved and seconded are clear to all. A vote will be taken and the result of the vote will be reported to the meeting. Please note that there is a test of the fire alarm expected at 11. Also note that the meeting is being audio webcast and recorded and the recording will be uploaded onto the Council's website after the meeting. So if that's clear I'll move to item 1 and ask for any apologies for absence please. Yes Chair, we've got apologies from Councillor John Byrd, Councillor Rod Fletcher, Councillor Roger Morris and Councillor Mike Muldoon. We have substitutes Councillor Garnet Marshall, Councillor Janet Clowes and Councillor Anthony Harrison. Thank you and welcome to the subs who are here today. Item 2, declarations of interest. Has anybody got any declarations on the items on the agenda? I will make a declaration as I did the last time the item on Middlewich Street came before us. It is very close to the back of the house where I reside but it is not going to affect my property in any way and I am not predetermined in the decision one way or the other. Anybody else? No? Okay, that's fine. So we'll move on to item 3 which is the minutes of the previous meeting. These fall on pages 3 to 6 of your agenda pack. Can I take it that you have all read them and ask if somebody can move them as a correct record please? So Councillor Crane, do we have a seconder? Councillor Gage. Thank you. So all those in favour of those as a correct record please show. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. Any against? Any abstentions? Okay, so we will move on and we come to item number 4 which is an explanation again of the public speaking. There is a total period of 5 minutes allocated to each of the planning applications for the following people. Ward councillors who are not members of the planning committee and the relevant town and parish council. There is a total period of 3 minutes allocated for each of the planning applications for the following. Members who are not members of the planning committee and are not the ward member, objectors, supporters, applicants. I think that's clear to all. So we will move on now to item number 5. Item number 5 is land at the rear of 203 and 205 Middlewich Street and we have had this item before us in the past and we deferred it for further reports. So I will hand over now to Mr Taylor to take us through. Thank you, Chair. Yes, just as the Chair was saying this is deferred from the March meeting of the planning committee and it was to enable a site visit by the public risk officer and the centre of the ward drainage issues to be addressed. In terms of a site, just a reminder of where we are looking at. The site is to the south of Russet Close which is here and that's access to Middlewich Street. Access to the sites between these houses here through an existing driveway arrangement into a car park here. The site will accommodate a couple of houses. The blue edge is the land ownership from 203 Middlewich or 205 Middlewich Street and effectively it's former garden land has become overgrown and as you can see from the plan it's surrounded by residential properties on the north side. Again just a photograph broadly just to show the general context of the site that I said before. There's the access coming in, there's the small car park, access coming in here, existing property surrounding it, you can see the overgrown nature of the site. And just the existing site plan just shows the issues arranged already. You can see the garden land is here, the existing properties surrounding it, the access here. Site plan, again the access coming in, the site with a pair of semi-detached houses here, a park in the area opposite and a large turning area provided within the site. Just to say that there are significant separation distances between the properties to the front and the rear and also there's a relationship there offset with the existing properties 14 and 15 of Russet Close. This is the drainage layout, I'm just going into a little bit of detail about this because this is one of the main issues which have actually arose in terms of the deferral of this application. So for the risk officer as carried out a site visit as requested, soak away tests were carried out by the applicant to see if infiltration was possible. The tests however confirm that the soakaways would not have been soaked full because the nature of the ground conditions is quite clayey and a detailed drainage design was then submitted for consideration by the footprint officer. In terms of the main features, you can see the blue lines here, this takes all the water from roof slopes, gutters etc, all coming in also from the parking area into the channel here, all the way down into what's there, a storage tank. Which then winds up as a public sewer which runs down Russet Close and connects into that. It's a combined sewer existing and effectively surface water discharges from this tank when it fills at a reduced rate so that it attenuates and you don't cause an issue further down the line, I think it's 2 litres per second that it discharges at. It's just enough to stop blockages or just above rebuild rate of discharge so it's not particularly hard coming off the side. The blood risk officer assessed this particular plan, has considered it acceptable, looked at the drainage strategy, there's a drainage layout which you can see and also accompanying surface water calculations which are entirely appropriate for this site. So no blood risk or drainage issues data now but of course the blood risk officer can resolve it. Moving on, this is what we're looking at in terms of the elevations of the properties, they're quite simple, quite small scale, you can see the existing property of Russet Close, which is gabled here on this right side, you can see it's reasonably consistent with that in terms of form and scale. Again similar to some of the few there, shows the levels are reasonably flat. This is just to show the nature of the accommodation, the reason here is it just complied with the national spacing standards in terms of housing standards. And again just a few photographs just reminding them of the context of the site, you can see this is the nature of the access coming into the site, the small car park at the back. It's the fence and the car park where the site will be accessed, you can see the nature of the site behind. The site itself, you can see how overgrown it's become. Again just views, this is from the 205 slide in the gardens with 205 Middlewich Street, 203 Middlewich Street and so forth. So in summary, clearly the site is within the crew settlement boundary, sustainable urban site and a principle of residential development as acceptable, proposals as stated in the presentation will achieve regional separation distance of the existing properties and overall will not have an adverse impact on amenity. She's an acceptable standard design, respecting the character and form of the existing area, including the sit close and so the application is recommended for approval for the conditions listed. But I just want to mention chair, there's the two conditions for drainage at the end of the old conditions, being 16, it's recommended that that condition is amended to one condition, which refers to the details of the drainage which have been submitted. So basically development even to take it in according to the drainage strategy. Thank you. Okay, members, we have one public speaker who is registered for today, and that is the agent for the applicant, Sarah Foster. And Miss Foster, you have three minutes in your own time. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak to you today. I was just concerned about the agent on the application. Members will also be aware that this is actually the third time that this application has come to committee. The concerns were raised at previous meetings about potential for these two dwellings to affect local employment and drainage, which you just heard about. As you've seen on the presentation, significant investigations have been undertaken to a level of detail much greater than would normally be provided at application stage. More condition discharge stage, hence the change to the conditions. Council's flood risk officer has also visited the site to robustly assess conditions on the ground against the submitted data. The consequence of this is that we have the detailed drainage and surface water risk analysis with 13 by officers, and that concludes there is no additional risk of increased flooding in the local area as a result of this small scale application. Because infiltration rates are slow on this place up straight, a holding tank is proposed, as you've seen, that will prevent surface water entering the local sewer network at a rate greater than two litres per second. That's the one in 100 year flood, plus a 45% climate change factor, so it's huge, pretty effectively. As a result, there are no objections from United Utilities or the Council's flood risk team. Overall, therefore, there remain no technical objections to this application. As set out in the reports, it fully complies with development plan policy. National guidance advises that the supply of new homes should be boosted, and where development proposals accord with an up-to-date development plan, as this does, then the development should be approved without delay. We're noting that this minor application is now being under consideration for 12 months. Approving it in accordance with the development plan will allow two new homes to be brought forward in a very sustainable location. Thank you for your time. Are there any questions from members for Ms Foster at all? No? Okay, thank you. Can I just remind you that the questions for the Speaker are for clarification of what has been said. Okay, I just had a quick question, were you actually going to have access to the property in my life to ask for that? In one of the statements written by one of the local residences, they raised all that access and, obviously, an easement with restrictions on it. How were you planning to carry out this development without, obviously, impacting the local residents negatively and without, obviously, infringing that? As far as I'm aware, it's obviously a civil matter in terms of being able to access and find some access and so on. The applicant has retained the right of access to the site, and so it's between the parties. The owners, both owners and the applicant have actually come up with a satisfactory solution. As I said, it's not a material consideration, it's a civil matter, but it is confident that he has right access to that land and that they can transfer it to each other. Okay, any further questions? No? Thank you very much. Mr Stoeger, do you want to add anything? Briefly, the question that was raised by the Councillor, it should also be noted that the applicants also serve notice in terms of land ownership, in terms of all the people who may have an interest within the access, which is of course planning legislation. So from a planning point of view, they discharge all their necessary responsibilities. As the agent said, we play this matter of negotiation in, should there be issues between them, and it's ultimately a civil matter between the parties. Okay, and continuing on from that, are there any members questions to the officer? Councillor Colker? Thank you, Chair. This application was referred for drainage and flood risk assessment, so I'm just going to speak on that. I note in the report that the tank is designed for a 1 in 100 year return period with a 45% climate change factor. A 1 in 100 years, that's a zone 2, I believe, a zone 2 flood risk. Would we normally build on a flow of zone 2 flood risk? Right, well it's not a zone 2 flood risk area, a zone 1 flood risk area, it's a small site, so it oddly doesn't actually come within the normal flood risk. We ordinarily need a flood risk assessment for this particular site. What we've done here is come up with a drainage design, which is fairly typical and common for a site like this, where you've got no other means of draining the site. There's no sustainable drainage system you can employ, there's no water course you can go to, you can't do it in a so-called area because the ground conditions are poor. So broadly speaking you are a little restricted and it's basically linking into this domain sewage network. And the reason why you're talking 1 in 100 and so forth is to make sure this tank is future proof. So if there's a storm, a lot of water coming in all in one go, the tank has sufficient size to accommodate it, and then the attenuation of it means that it's really effective. The attenuating bit of it just means that the flow rate from it doesn't then cause a problem, it's limited, so it can cause a problem down into the network, further down in those sort of conditions. So it's quite technical, but broadly speaking, as the owner said, it's been future proof and designed to affect in 1 in 100 years storm effectiveness. Can I just scrutinise that a little bit further? We've been told by residents that the site is almost permanently waterlogged, and this tank is designed to alleviate that problem. But the size of the tank gives a 1% chance of overflow and flooding, does it not? Is that how I'm reading it? And so in the life of the property, 100 years, it's almost certain to overflow at some point and flood the house. Am I looking at this correctly? You are. And as part of that particular data collection, they looked at those scenarios and modelled those scenarios, and within the flood risk strategy, the drainage strategy, you look at a situation where you've got a flood exceedance plan, so effectively where your storage tank reaches capacity, what happens then. And what they've identified within the site, there are certain low points that they will devise within the site which will affect you in that thing, and the eventuality that water then would be stored within the confines of the site without necessarily draining onto other people's properties. So overall, this is not an untypical situation, it's something which is extremely common, and it's probably the vast majority of urban sites will need to be drained now on these sort of systems. Okay, any further questions for the officer before we move to the debate? No? Okay, so looking around, I think I'm probably the closest, sorry, I'm probably the closest counsellor to this particular development, so the only thing I'm going to say, because obviously I am conscious that it has been before us twice before, this is the third time, but I personally feel completely justified that we asked for this to be looked at, the drainage situation. We're on clay, it's always a problem in Cottonhall, so I'm just saying as a committee, I feel that we are justified for having that, and it seems a very, very good piece of work that the flood risk officer has done. So, I hope we've got to anybody else, please. Councillor Gage. Thank you, Chair. Incorrect on the other issues, I think the refinement last time was just the drainage. I said I couldn't support it without that detail, and then the main concern there was for the existing residents that they wouldn't be actually impacted by this, and from what I've seen today, in both one of them at the time, it was a 45% climate change factor, which I don't think I've seen come to this committee, because it would be for a small development like this, so I'm 100% satisfied with this, I'm happy with those that we accept the planning and approval of this year. Thank you. Does Councillor Gage have a seconder for that? Basically, I'll go second it, but in terms of reading through the notes and previous applications for this, I don't think of any material ground for this now, and I would concur with your appraisal that it was right to get this kind of detail, it's really important. And I think the other question I need to ask, what else would happen with this really quite unusual site, which is sort of land law, which has to work, which is only going to be an area of overgrowth and quite good for nature, but it's got to be used for something, so I think this is a good option in that context, so I'm happy to support it. Thank you. Any more questions? Anybody want to say more in the debate, or can we move to the vote now? So, we have it moved, we have it set and did, that we accept the application with the revised condition, with the revised condition as printed in front of us. So, could all those in favour please show? One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine. All those against? Any abstentions? One abstention. Okay, thank you. So that is carried. Thank you members. Okay, we come on to the second application today, Yew Tree Farm, Clay Lane, Haslington. This was called in by Councillor Edgar, and we have had a site visit out there, so again I shall ask Mr Taylor to lead off on this please. Thank you, as I just said it's a retrospective application, it's for a B8 storage and distribution use at Yew Tree Farm, it's a new warehouse, it was constructed in 2023 and the site lies in open countryside. The site is implicated in red on this location plan, the rest of the ownership's in blue, but Yew Tree Farm and existing forest uses live in the air, built into a mark on here. You can see the main features, clay layers here, the access into the site there, and the Haslington bypass from here, and the overhead power lines on the very large pylon which cross the site here. In terms of some context, it would be useful just to show the site's pre-construction, just sort of say show what was used at that particular time. So we think this is pre-2023, probably 2022, I'm not quite sure, but it doesn't really matter. It just shows broadly the nature of the operation, so you can see the existing forest buildings, the collection of former agricultural buildings as part of the new, so the existing forest use of the site has been operating on the site for some time, essentially 40 years. And you can see the trailers and so forth from the hard areas, hard standing. You can also make out the site about here, and so there's some storage here. But just moving on, you can now see as we are today, more or less, you can see the building in the white has just been constructed within that area just beyond the road. Traders are shown on there, you can see the existing buildings, which have just been slightly rerouted in the meantime. Broadly, you can see this is an active site, and the new building is required to support the existing use. It is currently in storage use as members saw on the site visit, and is required to support the expansion of the applicant's existing activities within the site, such as providing additional security. Secure storage, preventing the need for any external storage, and again, you can see the access from Clayway, which isn't changing, that's the main access, and there's a circulator outside. There is another application at the moment, I should just add, that there's a hard sounding to the south of the building, which is this area here, separate to a subject, to a separate application for storage of vehicles that have yet to be determined. Moving on, again, this is the proposed site plan, you can see the access coming to the site, you can see the circulation areas, the area in grey, the existing, and the browns, the existing area, the retrospective buildings, and that's the permission, and again, the green area is what I referred to for the separate application. Again, the elevations are pretty typical for a building of this kind, they're needed for warehouse operations, so it's about 11 and a half metres tall, and on the smaller site these sort of buildings, but that's about the minimum in terms of the warehouse use. Again, big open footprint, hard on storage. Again, just an interesting one, this is taken from Google, but it's because the hedges along Clay Lane have grown a bit over the years, and members have encountered the difficulty of viewing the site from the night of the other day. So we're just going to look at this, now this is interesting because this is 2023, before the building was built, and you can see the nature of the storage and the nature of the trailers and things on this particular site, so it supports the argument for the essential need for the building. This is either pylons or the usual features. And again, this is since the building was built, I can just make it out between the trees, the intervening trees and hedges, and again, the relationship between the existing buildings and the pylons and so forth. So it gives you an idea of the sort of context we're dealing with, and then again, remember you can see this is on the site itself proper, you can see the nature of the existing uses here, and the new buildings over here. And again, another shop, nice one with the cables. So, broadly, in summary, it's important to note the site is within the urban countryside, where development that is essential for the expansion of an existing building is acceptable in principle, so it represents an exception to the normal policy of restraint under Policy PD-6 and Local Planner Strategy. In terms of the visual impact we saw from the photographs, you can see the intervening mature hedgerows, trees, sort of filter the views of the building to a degree. And again, views into the site are framed by the existing college buildings that you can see, and power lines, and the other hard standing trailers, etc. So for those set in the urban countryside, the building was adjacent to this cluster of industrial buildings, and consequently, the visual impact on the landscape and amenities of the area is considered acceptable. The report does mention that a condition is recommended in relation to the colour of the buildings, at the moment it's sort of light grey and white, and I think the landscape officer has taken the view that it perhaps should be green to match the colours of the family with this construction site. This report is quite as obvious if you like, from a landscape perspective, so it's up to members whether they want colour in one, but we can impose a condition, we can have a discussion, lots of members can discuss whether that's required, and what sort of colour is necessary. The highway impact is also considered acceptable, as we've said it's existing access from Clay Lane, it filters from the Passington bypass when there's significant junction arrangement, and on-site parking division and access to the belt that is therefore considered acceptable. And as set out in the report, it's not considered being harm to residential amenity, trees or ecology, and matters of flood risk and drainage are controlled through recommended conditions. So overall, the development is considered to be in compliance with the development plan and therefore recommended for approval subject to the conditions it's doing for. Thank you. Right, we have no members of the public to speak on this, so we can go straight on to members questions for officers. Chancellor Clines. Yeah, I noticed that the flood officer's response came in on the 3rd of June, is that right? Because again, he's got quite a lot of things that he wants to say about this and concerns about what needs to be done before we can offer approval. So I just wondered if Mr Taylor could give us some clarity on that, because obviously the strategy that the applicant has submitted was made up on the last week. Yes, I think it might just be an issue when it was indexed. I think the comments that you can see on the website in the consultation response are included within the report and the LFO officer is purely recommending conditions within the conditions which are listed. So the usual things about full details of the training scheme and additional issues about pattern intercept and being provided and so forth. So, and those conditions are retrospective, clearly one of those done within a relatively short time space details can be submitted, approved and implemented within a time scale to a job, etc. Did you want to come back on that, Councillor Taylor? No, just double checking that they were one of the things I was saying. I suppose the only other thing is, whilst we have to deal with every application on its own merits, and we're looking at this particular one, I'm a little bit perturbed that the officer has then mentioned this other one that is coming forward. It is quite clearly when you talk about a hard standing area, that is something that also has been done already. And so this would be another retrospective application, which effectively doubles the size of the whole site in total. And I just wondered at what point it's expanding the site for legitimate business reasons, going over and above what is acceptable and what is a greenfield area. Yes, it's always problematic, isn't it? But clearly in this case, we're going to deal with what's in front of us in this particular application, any issues arising from the additional hard standing. Clearly, I've not made any judgement on because I've not made that recommendation yet, but it needs to be considered in terms of the essential operation of that business. So we'll be doing a similar assessment in terms of open countryside policy for that application as we have the analysis of this particular application. So it's very careful about how you judge what's essential for the expansion of an existing business to justify its development in the open countryside and to positively reduce it. Thank you very much for that clarification. And also, as you quite rightly said, already commented on access and has said that the area available at the moment is acceptable to accommodate this building. So, yeah, I'll leave it like that for the moment. Councillor Martin. The applications for a temporary structure, and I know that Mr. Taylor's now, when we went down Friday, said that he would treat it as a permanent structure. If you look at the building, clearly established hard standing and the walls are definitely permanent. However, this temporary structure, it's not made of anything substantial. It's actually a kind of tarpaulin. I'm wondering if we ought to be putting some kind of condition that if that's ever damaged in any way, it should be repaired instantly so as not to be a blot on the landscape. If you can see what I mean. Yes, you're right. I think that we've taken the view that, like you said, the amount of infrastructure that that's done, this stair-regging operation to get this building onto the site is quite a substantial building. It requires a lot of infrastructure to get in and out of the building, which you can see on the plan, and the site does have that to be put together. The roof is, I was having a look at myself, it is quite lightweight. It's not, I have seen roofs like this, it's not untypical. It's quite a, it's quite robust in terms of the nature of the material. The general appearance of the building is a permanent building. It would be very difficult for us to report, to sort of say, well, tell you what, let's remove it in ten years time. We've been there for ten years. It's very difficult for us to, there's a reasonable condition to then stop enforcing the exact building. All we probably would get is an application at best to retain it. On the basis of a necessary and enforceable condition, there doesn't appear to be a need to do that. In terms of long-term maintenance, well, I'm afraid we have to be a matter for the applicant. It's not really a matter for the committee to take a view, in my view, in terms of securing that through a planning condition. So, I think overall, it's probably viewing the application as seen, taking a view that it's permanent and substantial construction, and there's no reason to believe that it can't be kept in a reasonably tight condition. Can I just ask the question of the colour, which I don't find particularly obtrusive to the area at all. But how would you go about enforcing the occupier, the owner, to actually physically change the colour of it now? Because if that is only a canvas come tarpaulin-type roof, that would probably need a whole new roof putting up, which you're not going to do because of the cost. You can't paint it, I mean you can paint the sidewalls I think, but I'm just thinking it's quite a big undertaking. I think from a practicality point of view, this suggestion came from our landscape officer who was taking a view point, an overall view point, and looking at it in terms of the family of buildings, and took the view that it might be less prominent if it was of a darker colour. Now clearly, the roof's going to be a challenge to change the colour, and I think what we were referring to was to try and minimise the impact a bit slightly further by just looking at the walls and maybe the ends of the building to try and mitigate it. So it's really a matter of the members really to determine whether that condition is actually necessary and whether you're, bearing in mind we've always looked at it as seen and we don't think it's a particularly significant feature and it does relate reasonably well to this particular site. Then is the condition actually necessary? Councillor Fionn. It's quite an interesting one, it reminds me of an application we had in Colton for warehousing, just off the bypass, I don't know if Councillor Colker remembers this one, where we actually looked at it and accepted, I mean you can see it here, that the roof blends into certain kinds of cloud cover. And actually we determined that doing the sides and the label ends was sufficient, so that if you were actually on the ground, it would be more accommodating within the context of the other buildings, but actually from a distance, or if you were at a higher elevation, it would probably still settle into the landscape and the skyscrapers better. So I'm quite happy, just painting the sides and the ends, a similar green to the others, I wouldn't bother trying to touch the roof at all. I don't know if that's a proposal or an acceptable suggestion, but that's what we decided on that one and it seems to have worked quite well. OK, so we have a proposal before us, have you any further points to make? Does anybody want to say anything else within the debate? Sorry, are we within the debate? We are now within the debate, yes. Well, coming back to the colouring, I went on the side of it and I didn't think it stuck out like I saw before. It'd be quite an element, as the gentleman said, a pretty onerous thing to do to change the colour of that building. You might as well lock it down and put it in your building, you wouldn't be able to paint those steel sheets on the side, it would flake off and so on and so on. That's a practical idea and I think it would be easily challenged to appeal if that condition is on, if I were the applicant, and certainly appeal against that condition, it makes it impractical to use the building or those things. So I'm quite happy to propose approval of the application as set out in the report, which I do propose now with the proposal that we removed and the condition about changing the colouring. I don't see it's really necessary, there are lots of industrial buildings around that colour and it doesn't stand, the photograph there doesn't stand out, I think the darker buildings stand out worse to be honest. When you look at that and see a grey sky and grey building and these black block sheets and buildings. So I don't think it's practical, reasonable or necessary and I think it would be easily challenged by the resident people. Do we have anyone who wants to second it first of all? I've got speakers so I'll call you in. Do we have a seconder? Councillor Colker. Yeah I'll second Councillor Raye's proposal. Thank you and I'll call you back in after Councillor Crane because you're on the list. So, Councillor Crane. I was basically going to propose that, happy to second it but it's already been seconded. I was expecting us nearest ward councillors to be called to propose. Sorry, sorry. Yeah it's alright I can virtually see it on my background. Okay, so Councillor Colker you've seconded it, anything you want to say on it? No, I can't speak anyway. Just to say that in my opinion it fills the requirements of PG6. It's the expansion of a legitimate business in the open countryside and so I'm very happy to go for it. We have gone down the speakers so we have to wait a moment. We might have to switch them off and switch them back on. Of course I'm the only one that's got speakers working again. Are they okay now? Okay, so Councillor Burton did you want to come back in or was it just because you wanted to second as well? So many people wanting to second it. Okay, that's great. Right, so we are in a position where we've had the application approved as it stands with the exemption of that provider painting it and colouring it. So let's move to the vote then. So all those in favour of accepting the application as it is? One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine. Okay, any against? Abstention. Any against? Do we have an abstention? Thank you. Okay, so that concludes the meeting. They'll have some more like that. So thank you all for your attendance here. I'm sure you have all got other things that you could be doing. So I will release you all into the ether again. Thank you very much and we'll see you all next time.