Transcript

[Applause] >> District Council Planning Applications Committee on June the 12th, 2024. I'm Councillor Lucy Agaiz, chair of this committee. I have with me today officers from the planning and the legal and democratic services with me up here. Please note that this meeting is being webcast. In case of any emergency, please use the access doors closest to you and then proceed down the stairs to the car park. So on to item one, the election of deputy chair. Councillors, please may I have your nominations for deputy chair of the planning applications committee for the remainder of 2024/2025 municipal year? I have one nomination and that is for Paul Keane. Do I have a nominator, please? Yes, Councillor Meek, thank you. And do I have a seconder? Thank you, Councillor Davis. >> Any other nominations?

And you're all happy that he's the deputy chair? Yep, yep, that's great, thanks. I can confirm that Councillor Paul Keane has been elected as the deputy chair for the planning applications committee for the remainder of the 2024/25 municipal year. Thank you. Item number two, the minutes from last meeting. Councillors, do you wish me to sign the minutes of the meeting held on the 17th of April 2024 as an accurate record? Thank you. Thank you very much. Item number three is apologies for absences. >> Through you, chair, we have apologies for absence from Councillor Ian Alexander who has a substitute, Councillor Paul Davies. We have apologies also from Councillor Graham Amy, Councillor Roy Clay and Councillor Stella Spiteri who has Councillor Daniel Stewart Roberts as her substitute. What's the word? Thank you. Thank you. Item number four, declarations of interest. Do any of you have any declarations of interest for any of the items on the agenda this evening you'd like to mention? No, thank you very much. Okay. Item number five is urgent items and we have no urgent items this evening. Item number five, number six, I beg your pardon, is any petitions. We have been given no petitions. Item number seven is written questions from Councillors. We have none of those this evening. And item number eight is officer update. Councillors, can you please confirm that you've read the supplementary report that was given to us yesterday? Thank you. You haven't. You have a copy. I'm sorry, I've been at work for 24 hours, I haven't had a chance. I didn't even know it had come in, I haven't had a chance to look at it, I'm sorry. Do you want to get that to him? What we need to do is just give him five minutes to read it. I can make reference at the end of each presentation. If you just give that a read, Councillor Meek please, we'll just wait for you to have a quick read there, thank you. Okay, take as long as you want and we'll just, we'll stop for the moment while you do that because it's imperative that everyone's read it. Thank you. Thank you very much, Councillor Meek. We now move on to the planning applications and for those of you unfamiliar with the procedures, I'll just go through them quickly now. First there is a presentation from one of the planning officers and then we hear the public speakers. Any speech will be heard in this order. A representation from the town or parish council and they will have a maximum of five minutes. Up to three speeches from any objectors and they will have a maximum of three minutes. Up to three speeches from any supporters and they will have a maximum of three minutes. And a speech from a ward member and they will have a maximum of five minutes. Speeches will be timed and when your time is up I will politely ask you to finish. The timers are in the front here, it's very easy for you to see. Councillors are then invited to discuss the application and I will ask Councillors to raise their hand if they wish to speak. It's essential that Councillors are present for the entire presentation in order to be able to discuss the application and vote on the item. Moving to the planning applications, this evening we will only be dealing with planning applications outside the South Downs National Park. Item number nine, application number LW240282. Location is multi-storey car park, Daker Road, Newhaven BN9QX. Proposal is for 10 single head lampposts, four twin head lampposts and four bulk head fittings to be added to a top storey of open aired car park with the addition of two new car parking signs on north west elevation and greenery walls along the north east and north west elevations. The applicant is a Mr Stevens of the Lewis District Council. The ward is in Newhaven and the recommendation is to grant planning permission subject to conditions. I now hand over to Mr Mark Dorfman to present this to us. Thank you chair, so on the screen at the moment is the location plan. Those of us who know Newhaven, it's in the center of the town center. On the location slide in front of you, in green I've put the on the north side of the car park where the green wall is proposed and you'll also see a green cross in Meaching Road where we've had an objection about concerns about lighting glare and concern about whether or not the extra lighting that it proposed to be put on the renovated car park would be asking the local authority to take some care about that and I'll come to the supplementary report at the end of the presentation. So there's where my cursor is is the car park. North side would be the green wall and the single object single main objection we've had is from Meaching Road in this location on the other side of the A259. Okay a series of views of the car park just to make sure that you recognize it and understand it from each of the sides. And now to the elevations. So existing elevations to the northeast so the big changes are and here we go proposed more lightings more lighting columns on the top floor and a green roof to the green wall to the northeast and then to the southwest certainly signage and car park renovation but again it's more lighting columns and repainting and redecoration. We're looking at the proposed top floor plan and now we're looking at an indicative picture of how the scheme will look. Sorry not to have one of before so this is what's proposed. The key the key issue here is concern about any impact of the extra lighting and there will be significant extra lighting and if I could just take you to the supplementary report. Councillors at the briefing were particularly concerned about the objection from Meaching Road as a result the applicant which is the local authority has now agreed to put light guards or cals on all the perimeter lighting so on every all the lighting that goes around the perimeter will have light guards but notwithstanding this it's important to understand that the new lights are first of all led and much more focused on what is to be lit and not the dark areas outside of the car park plus the new lights will be controlled by photo cells triggered by movement as well as on the top floor there's a time lock so full controls are available to the local authority should in the future there be significant concerns and complaints about glare outside of the car park but having looked at engineer lighting engineer reports and having looked and considered those your officers are recommending that what we expect is for the car park itself to be much better light much better lit for there to be therefore greater safety for that light to come on when there is movement and need notwithstanding that the car park is going to be 24-hour car park and that the cals or the light guards are an extra precaution to ensure that there's no light spillage but in any case the lighting is designed compared to what we have at the moment much more focused on what needs to be lit and as I've already said there's motion sensors so that's the presentation chair back to you for questions and comments thank you very much so councillors do you have any questions sorry no I'm not there yet councillors do you have any questions or comments that you'd like to make or ask the officer yes Councillor Meek I've been looking at this thank you chair if you could go back to the picture of the side on elevation just I'll run through it you tell me when to stop oh proposed elevations yes okay sorry there and the other the other side probably as well it just strikes me I'm not technical with lighting but you've got lighting in the bottom two stories the top story the lights are about twice as high above where the cars are as the enclosed areas what seems to me is the higher you have lights the more potential light spread you're going to have why can't the lights be about half that size they're only going to be parking cars up there so why do they have to be so high and if you want enough spread surely you can have more lights so that they're lower down so therefore the spill isn't going to be so great I don't understand why they have to be so high when you think of aircraft runways where the aircraft coming over the fence the lights are really low they still light the road I don't understand why they have to be so high because then you've got the problem of having a sufficient cowl cover to make sure the spill isn't so great do you see what I'm saying yes so if you have some technical knowledge and evidence that that's all that's needed then by all means put that forward and this application has been out of consultation we've we've consulted with environmental health we've consulted with the developer we've asked for the Chartered Institute of Lighting to comment on this all all contributions have said that this is professionally what should happen this design is what's appropriate for the top story of a car park and we've taken on extra concerns about light spillage outside what needs to be lit um so at this point in time the officers are absolutely recommending the scheme to members we can't see a reason for either refusal or for deferring the scheme but obviously it's for committee to make a decision thank you officer yes carry on this can let me sorry can I come back on that I wouldn't be proposing to to to you know stop the scheme but I'm just wondering if that could be not a condition but it could be a suggestion to look into that it might appease some of the concerns that are held by neighbors there I understand what you're saying but it seems to me that that alternative may not have been looked at just because oh we always have them this high but why always it just seems to me that there's not a kind of rationale necessarily for considering an alternative that it could be lower and there could be maybe more lights is it is that fine maybe a financial constraint I don't know I'm just making suggestion it's not I wouldn't go against the proposal on those grounds but it's just a I'm putting something into the mix here thank you chair thank you Councillor Meek any other thoughts questions anyone okay we are we ready to vote do we have a proposer to accept the officer's recommendations yes Councillor Sharkey I am happy to propose that we accept this application thank you very much and do I have a seconder Councillor yes Councillor Keene thank you okay so could you please raise your hands if you're in favor of this application thank you that's unanimous chair thank you very much so application number lw 240282 has been confirmed as accepted thank you right on to item number 10 application number lw 230360 location south down goat lane ringma proposal demolition of existing dwelling erection of one dwelling detached dwelling and two number semi-detached dwellings outline application with landscaping details reserved application is a mr p norris ward is ooze valium ringma and recommendation is to approve subject to conditions I will now hand it over to officer Dorfman thank you thank you chair so you have in front of you quite a substantial supplementary report which I'll refer to at the end of the presentation but in addition to the supplementary report we had some blips with online objections running from the end of May to the 11th of September so I just want to read out first some extra comments that were received that I've now been able to read and understand and that are now in the public domain the report refers to and comments on an 18 signature petition in support of the scheme but the report doesn't refer to 147 objection petition which has also been received I've read that petition I'm going to tell you about it now all the points in the petition are covered by the officer's report that 147 objection scheme a petition rather talked about unacceptable backland and tandem development contrary to dm30 and poor design country contrary to policy dm25 and harm to neighbor properties non-specific so that's what the 147 objection petition related to there was also a single objection an extra single objection which said that there was going to be harm to the setting of the south downs national park in the in the picture in front of you the green is the boundary of the national park and you can see where my cursor is now is the site of the scheme the objector also said and the scheme was over development concern about overlooking and overshadowing all those matters are dealt with in the officer report and then finally we've had an extra letter of support received and that letter of support said the proposal comprises modest properties new small homes on a brownfield site which is a good idea good for young people and potential retirees and the scheme would integrate well into the village so those are the extra consultations that we've received that weren't referred to in the officer's report okay so we're talking about a residential plot on the north side of goat lane and you can see it outlined in red in the slide just taking you to a couple of uh shots of the inset plan the the ringmer inset plan so the the site is here where the cursor is on the right hand side and then if you pull out the site is is here the reason for these two slides are to show first of all the relative proximity of the site to to what we could refer to as ringmas town center obviously the relationship to the south downs which is gray and the relationship which i think is quite important that we for all of us and for the assessment to understand between the character area to the west of the scheme which are large houses in large countryside plots and the the application site where my cursor is is not part of the character area it's to the east of spring get avenue and you can see that the character of this part of goat lane is a mixture of properties in in terms of small and large with different different frontage positions usually with gardens at the back and which makes the plot that we're dealing with unusual where the the the garden space is to the front but it does have a garden to the back and it's important to understand that to the rear of the property are bungalows and to the to the west of the property are two-story buildings on springlet road and then immediately to the east of the property is a bungalow absolutely and then after that there are a series of usually two-story detached and semi-detached houses so that's the urban design context that we're looking at apologies the the red line boundary has slipped should be to the front of the site so those are the bungalows behind the goat lane property here's the bungalow immediately to the east it's very important to consider the amenity of that property further to the east are generally speaking two-story detached and semi-detached and then to the west is springard avenue which is uniquely two-story and this is the area of character which the site is not in and of course the south downs national park which begins here originally the scheme as submitted was for four dwellings and the design which was not supported by the local authority officers in in negotiation with the applicant now we have an app now we have in front of us an application for three authorities so three bed to the front utilizing the existing access which would have to be widened slightly to 4.5 meters and that would impact somewhat on the frontage landscaping and then two cottage-like properties two beds at the back with with rooms in the roof starting with the front property no windows in the side only windows in at the front and the back going to going to the cottage properties that propose cottage properties at the back no windows at the back looking onto the bungalows to the rear and windows only at the front and the side but only at ground floor level and so the certainty of big concern to local authority officers as on negotiating this application and to objectors was the relationship between this first door first story dormer window looking onto the rear of the bungalow to the immediate east which also has a and a rear extension i'll show you that in the photographs the other thing about the scheme is that garden space is kept at the front and that the frontage sight line splits the position between the frontage that you have on spring it and the frontage position of properties which is slightly hildy pigledy along goat lane as i said the existing access would be retained that access exists at the moment with car parking at the rear and as a proposal for five car parking spaces not six plus which would be advised by um the ringman neighborhood plan and indeed east sussex county highways calculations for car parking so the car parking would be two for the three bed one each for the two beds and one single visitor car parking so that's five to be shared between the three properties okay so um officers feel that the design of the three bed is now more in keeping more emphasis on a well-designed roof with dormers acting as eyes and the cottage two-bed properties at the rear lower than the three bed to the front but certainly higher than the bungalows to the rear but a more substantial roof with with dormers in the front and this is the rear so no overlooking windows on the bungalow properties to the rear and those are roof dormers that's that's the calculation from the east sussex highway authority it's a bit sorry it's a bit hard to see on this but their recommendation is sort of 6.2 6.3 car parking spaces as i've said your officers are recommending that five would be sufficient so let's have a look at the site so we're looking we're standing in goat lane looking north and that's the and that's the entrance which would need to be widened by about 0.7 nearly a meter so um something like that but the rest of the frontage would not be touched and the landscaping frontage would not be touched apart from that widening as you can see there's a drive already and car parking at the rear next to the garden of the bungalow to the east so we're now in the front garden and that's the bungalow that's due to be demolished the bungalows behind two story to the left and single store a bungalow to the right panning to the left now to see the rear of the two-story in springet avenue um and now a direct shot from the east side of the front garden over the two-story and spring it and with gardens at the back and play equipment and garden sheds now we've swiveled around so we're on the west side of the front garden and we're looking at the bungalow and where we need we certainly need to consider amenity so as you can see it is a bungalow with a fence so important important in the three stories certainly to have windows only at ground floor level and so there's that concern that i talked about the easternmost dormer window and in the second of the two-bed properties and whether or not there's any significant harm to the amenity of that of that that overlooking um i think that's a repeat oops i'm pressing maybe i'm pressing the wrong buttons yeah so i am so now in the now in the rear garden of the of the site um on the right hand side of the photograph is the existing bungalow that the rear of the existing bungalow and we're looking at the effectively bungalows um to the rear of the site um and now we're looking um a couple of photographs of of the of the goat lane itself um your officers and so the site is here where the cursor is in between those two trees that's the that's the site entrance um goat lane um paving on one side not particularly wide um so appropriate parking off site is it is important but still no yellow lines no restrictions and no parking stress and now we're at the corner of goat lane and spring it avenue um we do have we do have um pedestrian footpaths we do have on-site parking but no yellow lines and no parking stress um at this point just be worth me only briefly referring to the six important points that members brought up in the briefing and asked officers to comment on so first of all members asked about density and whether or not the scheme is over dense you'll see from the supplementary report um that at one home on the plot um it's effective it's effectively equivalent to 10 dwellings per hectare and generally speaking in settlement boundaries in villages we're looking to support 20 to 30 homes per hectare so that we can get the amount of housing that we need and we can focus development in villages where you have access to most facilities four homes would be on the plot would certainly breach the density guidance and that's both in the ringmer local plan and the lewis local plan three would be somewhere between 25 and 30 units overlooking um the distance between let me just get the slide up so the distance between that dormer window and um the the rear of the neighboring property is some 15 meters which we think is um perfectly sufficient um to prevent unacceptable overlooking and impingement on privacy it's quite normal in all urban areas that first floor windows overlook gardens the issue is you don't overlook directly habitable rooms and we don't think that that um we don't think that's um unacceptable and we think that the privacy of the home on the right the bungalow would be maintained and a lot is made of whether or not the scheme is backland development and whether it should be accepted so it's important to understand dm 30 the policy seeks to prevent garden developing having an unacceptable adverse impact on neighboring amenity and the policy talks about noise light or other disturbances so it's quite a broad argument can be made about disturbances in in the policy and it seeks to prevent loss of privacy and the policy talks about loss of trees shrubs landscape features and that can that contribute to the local character and biodiversity um so officers are arguing that this is not unacceptable backland development it's important to understand that backland development is not prevented by your policies it's just it's prevented if there there's unacceptable environmental harm so we've got to remember that this is already an existing driveway with parking at the rear this is already a site that has building at the rear albeit a bungalow um there would certainly be more vehicle movements um but not excessively as far as officers are concerned and a landscaping buffer condition um will mitigate further um the extra movements um we believe the loss of privacy will be prevented by distances that i've just discussed and they're in fact two landscaping conditions a reserve matters landscaping conditions and then a boundary landscaping condition and there's a um a pre-commencement um planning condition on further that assessments in terms of ecology but generally speaking the existing site has not got a huge amount of ecological value apart from as far as officers concerned the frontage the frontage is important as you've seen in the pictures um and that'll be impacted on slightly but not significantly and in terms of the character of the plot external lighting will be controlled in terms of the character of the plot we it's oh is that better is that better whoa whoa okay um the officers are making the point that it's um it's in an urban area it's in a residential area and that it the site is unusual in terms of its neighbors and and could support um two two developments one at the back and one in the front um the off other issues that came up in the briefing were whether or not this is greenfield certainly not greenfield it's brownfield land and also what came up in the briefing was the importance of protecting the frontage landscaping which can be done by conditions subject to the importance of widening the access by somewhere between 0.7 and a meter um and then there's um you know important argument about car parking certainly objectives have been concerned that there is there is insufficient on-site car parking um as set out in the supplementary note officers have looked carefully at the balance between development and car parking spaces and we feel that five is certainly enough um given the balance that needs to be made to provide gardens um appropriate densification of homes and and the fact that there's there there as far as we can see knows no parking stress either on goat lane or um in spring at avenue um so on that on that basis um the local authorities making a recommendation to committee to approve thank you chair thank you officer doorman i can now invite the public speakers and i would like to firstly invite on behalf of ring parish council dr john k you have five minutes thank you um this site is on goat lane on the very southern end of ring the village and it's just across the lane as you've heard from the national park boundary and it currently houses a rather decrepit and doubtless thermally inefficient bungalow which the application proposes to replace by two small two-bed houses and a larger three-bed house the two-bed houses are potentially suitable for first-time buyers and that's a category of house that's in particularly short supply in ringma it's a category that's actually more expensive in ringma than in many parts of louis because of the shortage so the parish council agrees with the officer's report in paragraph one three that this should be given limited positive weight in the planning balance it's only given limited weight because there are only two and because of their desirable position with views to the south downs they're likely to be more expensive than most first-time buyer two beds similarly we agree with a number of the officers other assessments but there are three assessments that in our judgment should be reconsidered and the first of those is in paragraph one five of the report before you which is place making the existing bungalow set well back it's low it's behind higher managed hedges it's actually trees it makes a positive contribution to the goat lane scene and this is a lane that's heavily used for recreational purposes which are valued by residents with the best will in the world and despite improvements such as removing the rubbish bins from the front of the site this appearance will not be retained after development the houses will be marketed on their views and the views work both ways the new residents will be determined to retain these views and the wider driveway will have its own impact so the lane will be less attractive after such redevelopment and given its importance to residents we believe this must carry negative weight limited negative weight the second paragraph which we believe should be reconsidered is 1.8 on neighbor immunity the original proposals would have had a completely unacceptable impact through overlooking on neighboring properties in church park to the west and mill gardens to the north and these impacts in particular the overlooking have been ameliorated but clearly some negative impact on these properties will remain if these were the only impacts then limited negative weight would have been a reasonable assessment but the impact on the immediate neighbor to the east which is called home cot is much more severe and that remains and you'll be hearing about that i believe i recognize the residents as one of the speakers there this will suffer a substantial loss of privacy and overlooking into their rear living rooms and gardens and disturbance from increased motor traffic just feet from their principal bedroom window you'll have read more about this in the comments and you'll hear about this from other speakers but ring the parish council fully endorses this position and we respectfully submit that this impact on the neighbor immunity should be given significant not limited negative weight in the planning balance and the final point relates to paragraph one seven highways which mr doorman's gone into particularly parking provision the original plans for four houses provided eight parking spaces two per house and that's what the east sussex county council planned for these villages like ringma says and it's what the ringman neighborhood plan which is based on ringma data also says in order to increase the size of the three-bed detached house and that's an increase that of course takes it way out of the price range of those lewis district residents affected by the housing crisis three of these parking spaces have now been lost the big house gets its two but the two-bed houses get only one each with a third unallocated for them to fight over and as you've heard that's a lower level of parking provision than either the neighborhood plan or the county council plan now this type of house is likely to be bought by first-time buyers which are likely to be two-income households they're very likely to need two incomes to two cars to get to work and they're very likely to have two cars to get to work if they're only given one space each then they'll fight over that and one will be left parked on the front you're told in paragraph 86 which we believe to be wrong that the parking needs inflated by inclusion of more remote rural villages that's actually not the case ringma has more cars per household than any other or as many as any other parish in the district it has more people commuting to work by private motor vehicles than any other parish in the ward so we believe the consequence of this would be parking on goat lane at a place where as you've seen it's particularly narrow and goat farm is here much of goat farm is down there and it's very large tractors and kits go backwards and forwards along goat lane at very regular intervals so parking on goat lane is simply not acceptable that's why it doesn't happen sorry can you wind up or yes so we believe that the planning balance we ask you not to approve this planning application without amending these things particularly the planning particularly the parking i now move on to the next speaker could i invite janet russell immediate name to speak you've got three minutes thank you i live in the bungalow home cot immediately adjoining the eastern boundary of the application site we bought our home for its privacy outlook and surroundings we are appalled that this could be taken away by an inappropriate development that does not adhere to the national planning policy framework and local planning policies dm25 and dm30 whilst that south down may not be in an area of established character these policies still apply the proposed development includes inappropriate access parking and layout which will clearly cause an unacceptable loss of privacy outlook and light and an increase in noise and disturbance to us and others the layout is incongruous for the semi-rural location at the front aspect of the two semi-detached properties will face the rear of our bungalow in close proximity we use our conservatory at the rear of our property as a main living space which along with our patio and garden is currently private and has an open outlook first for all windows of the semi-detached dwellings will overlook our conservatory patio and garden and importantly the only windows to two of our bedrooms causing a loss of privacy this will not be at an oblique angle as the supplementary report suggests but almost head-on and within 15 meters this will be highly intrusive overbearing and harmful to our living conditions the report states that the impact upon local amenities should only be accorded limited negative weight i would urge you to come to the view having regard to the harms to existing residents and the significant number of strong objections that they should be afforded significant weight the report makes several assumptions such as refuse vehicles not entering the site and boundary screen screening being adequate to mitigate the impact on neighbors yet these cannot be guaranteed a decision should not be based on assumptions the proposed backland development is at odds with the layout spacing and low density of housing in goat lane and would change the character and appearance of the locality to an unacceptable degree this application is unique and exceptional due to its location and the eight adjoining properties the limited benefit of a net gain of two dwellings does not justify substantially harming the living conditions of so many when national policy does not require development to be permitted where its adverse impacts would significantly outweigh the benefits contrary to the conclusions in the report the proposed development does not respect the character and appearance of the surrounding environment and does not preserve the amenities of neighboring residents and for those reasons should be refused thank you for listening thank you i would now like to invite juliet lion to put her views across my name is juliet lion i live in mill gardens and my home and living conditions will be affected by this application i along with many neighbors are very concerned that the officer's report understates the extent of the harms this development will cause and the conflicts that exist with local and national planning policy 52 individual objections a petition against the plans signed by 147 residents as well as the strong objections submitted by ringmer parish council reflect the strength of feeling against this application south down is an unobtrusive bungalow that blends in unassumingly with neighboring properties and with the unique and charming character of goat lane the proposed background development is not sympathetic towards the eight surrounding properties or its unique location the sighting layout and density of housing is out of character its scale form height and massing are incompatible with existing buildings building lines and skylines this contravenes dm25 of the local plan the application further fails dm25 as well as dm30 of the local plan as there are multiple significant harms that will impact on the living conditions amenities and privacy of existing residents including a new overlooking loss of outlook daylight and sunlight in addition the proposed houses will be overbearing cause overshadowing and an unacceptable increase in noise disturbance and light intrusion from people and cars these harms will be significant and permanent for the eight adjoining properties which includes four bungalows as well as impact other close neighbors in the vicinity gardens are now seen in planning policy as being undeveloped the application will have a considerable environmental impact the hard standing access road and parking leaves little amenity space the proposed properties are very close to existing boundary lines and in unreasonable proximity to adjoining dwellings the officer's report understates and does not give sufficient weight to the harms that this development will cause the policies it contravenes or the strength of feeling of those affected while lewis district council has a shortfall of housing supply the national policy remedy for that known as the tilted balance does not require development to be permitted where its adverse impacts would significantly outweigh the benefits as is the case with south stone thank you and i now invite katie nailer to speak you have three minutes hello i'm speaking on behalf of mr and mrs jack who live at two church mead mrs jack is a chartered planner and strongly objects to the application the amended plans would result in significant planning harms which are underplayed in the committee report weight is for the decision maker and the committee is asked to assign greater weight in the planning balance to the harms this development would clearly cause importantly you will note that the site is highly unusual in having so many properties immediately neighboring it this creates a unique situation it is not just another infill site hence there are 52 objection letters including from households whose lives would be directly and permanently impacted by it harm to residential amenities is a substantial issue here particularly in relation to loss of privacy and noise and disturbance the most private garden and living areas including two bedrooms at homecot would be directly overlooked from the first floor windows at plot 2 only about 14 to 16 meters away this would be highly intrusive other neighboring properties would also be overlooked harm to neighbors living conditions should attract substantial negative weight the preliminary roost assessment didn't record bats present but it concludes that south down has moderate suitability for roosting bats and crucially that further surveys are required to assess the likelihood of a roost and to inform mitigation and compensation measures these surveys have not been provided as there are no exceptional circumstances it is wholly inappropriate to leave necessary further surveys to condition this would be contrary to natural england's standing advice british standard 42020 and neglect the council's statutory duties there is insufficient information available for informed decision making about protected species which should attract substantial negative weight this alone is reason to refuse the application licensing is a separate regime not an alternative to proper planning biodiversity loss is likely only a very narrow strip is identified for planting and the existing frontage hedge and trees are likely to be removed this would also significantly harm the appearance of goat lane and should attract significant negative weight there would be harms to residential amenity biodiversity in the character of the area potential harm to protected species and insufficient parking the plans are clearly contrary to policies dm25 dm30 and the nppf the benefits would be very limited so in the tilted balance the multiple harms identified would significantly outweigh the benefits this is not sustainable development please refuse this harmful application without prejudice to residents objections if permission is granted it is essential that a condition is applied to removal limited development rights for additional windows openings and roof alterations including dormers and roof lights to prevent further harm to neighboring amenities thank you very much there's no i now invite louis district wall councilor johnny denny to speak i'd like to now to invite uh for a supporter's side uh clive stillman good afternoon ladies and gentlemen my name is clive stillman i'm a chartered building consultant and a partner in delaval to design the agents for this application ladies and gentlemen please remember this is only an outline application and will be subject to a number of conditions which will have to be discharged before work can commence on site your officer's report is both thorough and robust and recommends approval the officer has addressed in great detail all those policies and procedures that need to be addressed when considering an application this application was originally submitted in june of last year and we have worked closely with your officers since then to arrive at the scheme we are considering this evening the present dwelling occupies a large footprint on the site but the property is old and lacks energy conservation measures and furthermore is suffering from structural failure the proposal offers three modest dwellings built to a high standard with all the benefits benefits of energy conservation including air source heat pumps for heating and hot water these three dwellings occupy a smaller footprint than the existing property whilst the parish council objected to the application i'm not sure they were in full possession of all the factual information when they made the recommendation a thorough investigation by a registered ecology team found no evidence of the alleged bat colony there have been no objections from any of the other statutory consultees planning is frequently frequently contentious in some way or other but it's a great shame that an orchestrated campaign has been waged against this small development whilst there are a number of objectives to the proposal a good number of the signatories to the recent petition are living in houses that were originally built on a greenfield site however these dwellings are not being built on a greenfield site they are using an existing residential site and making much better use of the existing residential curtledge is it not reasonable that a young family have an opportunity of getting on the housing ladder by buying one of these two-bedroom cottages or allowing a long-term residence of ringmer to downsize into a three-bedroom unit within walking distance of all the facilities including public transport your officer has recommended this application for approval and i would urge you please to support that recommendation thank you thank you i'd now like to invite mr gavin stillman you have three minutes and i'm a partner at delaval's design the agents dealing with the application this application was first submitted to the council on the 13th of june 2023 since this first submission we have subsequently worked closely with the officer in charge to amend and produce a scheme that addresses issues that were raised through the public consultation process in turn maximizing the potential of the site and ensuring the new development makes an efficient use of the land as previously stated our initial scheme has now been amended numerous times showing a proactive and collaborative effort both on behalf of the design team and the local authority taking into account and considering the site existing local residents and the ecological effects on the site and on the surrounding area the ridge heights of the proposed dwellings are below that of existing properties on the opposite side of goat lane and of adjacent properties on springer avenue the proposed buildings on the site fall below the parameters for density of new development in villages set out in policy cp2 of the lewis district local plan and policy 9.2 of the ringman neighbourhood plan the site does not fall within the area of established character with this being confined to a group of seven houses to the southwest a planting buffer around the entire site will aid in reducing any noise and light spilling in to neighboring gardens and will also encourage more wildlife to be present on the site which at the current time is mainly laid to lawn bat boxes and bird boxes could readily be incorporated into the trees and onto the buildings themselves i feel it is very important to remember that this is an outline application and as such conditions can be introduced to maximize the landscape potential of the site and in turn minimize the built impact we strongly agree with your planning officer that the development would be visually consistent with the surrounding built environment and would have no unacceptable impact upon visual amenity furthermore we contend that this development will have the effect in the long term of enhancing and benefiting the character of the goat lane street scene i urge you please to support the application thank you mr zelman i'd now like to invite mrs sandy bone to speak you have three minutes good evening everyone thank you for this opportunity to put a point of view please be aware that both the proposer and the opposer of this application are friends of mine however i'm speaking on behalf oh sorry however i'm speaking on behalf and in support of the natural world this planning application is for a brownfield site the building currently occupying this site requires substantial removed remedial works to the structure if renovated it will still only provide one poorly designed very poorly designed dwelling for one family this application for this brownfield site will provide three modest sized new homes at this point in our history the need for modest new homes is great unfortunately this often means that greenfield sites are the subject of planning applications however let us be clear that once a greenfield site is developed it is difficult nay impossible to ever restore it as a fully functioning green area even when the remains of previous structures are removed and fresh topsoil is introduced it is never the same soil as the original type that the area had and thus the habitat is permanently lost permanently lost to many species of plant and animal life i speak from experience in trying to reinstate four acres of land once an industrial chicken farm to an area of natural countryside despite many people's efforts it will never be the beautiful productive soil and greenfield that it once was thus making the absolute most of any brownfield site to assist in alleviating a housing problem and preserving our precious green landscape is and should be an imperative thank you very much for listening thank you very much now we come to louis district wall councillor johnny denny you've got five minutes uh thank you chair um good evening councillors um so i'd like to first of all like to acknowledge the fact that it is a brownfield site and that providing um homes that uh as has been described more modest that um people in ringmer need i would now like to contend i can take into contention the executive summary uh particularly 1.2 and 1.3 um because i think that i i believe that you should object to it you should you should not uh accept this planning application i think that it's it's not there's not been enough consideration of the national park boundary which is just 30 meters away and the area of character which is i think about 25 meters away it's you know really not very not very far either of them and the line uh the line of the housing the frontage uh which currently is like way back away from the road is actually um at the at the front of the house and if you were to draw a line between the two neighboring properties it would be um it would be oh sorry not don't forget the red line isn't right it goes right to the front of the property so it's it would be right up suddenly have the bulk and the massing right up against the road which doesn't exist at the moment so that's that's not i don't think that's been given enough weight um so that height of the proposed and the um i think this counts as an overdevelopment and as i'm fitting on the street scene i think there's another issue is about the particular loss to homecarts of their privacy uh it doesn't i think it doesn't take into account the fact the use of their outdoor room their conservatory as an as an external space that is useful at the time and their rear bedrooms and i think that's um i think that's significant i really would like you to take that into account um looking at 1.3 of the executive summary which talks about parking um and i've got a note here so just let me get my note up um so it clearly doesn't comply with ringman neighborhood plan and it's just ringman neighborhood plans barely mentioned in it is about this there's talk about it not meet not quite meeting east sussex standards but they don't apply here we're talking about ringman neighborhood plan which should be we should all be paying attention to what our neighborhood plans neighborhood plans say sorry it's my voice um and it clearly doesn't meet that and to suggest that the additional parking is available on the street fails to take into account the the the extremely large farm vehicles that have to use it from meters one side up for the next half a mile going you know going to accessing their various fields all along goat lane and beyond and that's so just to say you could park outside at this narrow point of goat lane is just not factually correct it's you know well you could do it but then you'd either be blocking traffic blocking emergency vehicles blocking anything else and certainly not allowing access for a farm vehicle so it's just it's it would be inconsiderate to be parking on this stretch uh where people do it causes problems and they are at wider stretches of this lane so i really think that that needs to be taken into account and it hasn't been um and i'll just go back to executive summary um uh 1.1 because i think it needs to be mentioned that about effective use i think there is there is there's clearly an argument for infilling rather than greenfield site development and there is a need for new houses but to describe um this talks about a sustainable location and yet the very the very description of this as being sustainable i don't know what that means in this context this is a a a village that is dependent on the private motor vehicle because the inadequate utterly inadequate services available locally that don't require getting to somewhere else so to describe it thus and and it is often described as being part of the you know high up in the sustainable development hierarchy as a sustainable development and it just ain't which is why we're getting all this ridiculous amount of development happening in being proposed for ringma um and i think this just this just outlining it just annoys me because it clearly isn't and i just wanted to just want to vent a little bit on that point but the other two points are particular points that you know rather than the generalized unsustainable development of ringma thank you thank you councillor denny so we now go to um questions from the councillors for our officers please and comments of course yes council frankham um there's been quite a lot of mention of um landscaping buffers and so on and i think one of the main objections is the potential for loss of privacy so um i've also heard that there's some concern that these landscaping buffers uh planting and so on may not um exist in the long term so i i'd just like to to to try and understand if that was a condition of this development what measures are put in place to ensure those landscaping buffers that could improve privacy do continue in the longer term thank you thank you officer could you answer that um yes it's a good point that you make the officers arguments are make two points first of all the distance and the orientation between the high level dormer window on the east side of the proposed two-story the distance between that and the back of the bungalow including a rear extension is is significant enough for there to be no significant no uh impinging of of privacy it's it's absolutely normal for rear for second story rear windows of all terraced semi-detached and detached buildings to look over the neighbor's garden what we aim to avoid is direct looking into habitable rooms and 15 meters is a sensible and realistic distance supported by the national model design guide it can actually be smaller and it can be bigger so it's part of your judgment about whether that's sufficient or not in terms of the landscaping that because it's an outline application as explained that landscape there's going to be landscaping on that boundary indeed there's still a landscaping scheme to be understood for for the whole of the site in addition to maintaining undoubtedly maintaining most of the landscaping on the front so that's that is to be um should you move to approval that that detail is to be submitted and to be approved and we put it in as a reserve matter so nothing can happen no start on site nothing can happen until that's been submitted in terms of um augmenting the condition that you've got in your report to say and cannot be removed that that's easy to do however it's important to understand that usually lands boundary landscaping isn't removed it goes in because both sides not just the neighbor but the applicant and the people living on the plot they all want that landscaping they all want that boundary landscaping they all want slightly more privacy and and so it's it's very unusual that we have enforcement requests to investigate a site where the landscaping boundary has been cut back and destroyed we hardly ever have those so yes we can augment the condition to say and shall not be removed but it's very unlikely that once in place it having been agreed by us that it that it will be changed um there's an issue about how heavy the landscaping should be between homecot and this because there are there are windows um in homecot on that boundary so that there will be bush landscaping and there'll be i imagine small trees that would go up that would increase the privacy on both sides and it's highly unlikely that they would be removed but we can put that into the condition thank you could you just bring up the photograph the slide of the internal upstairs of the plot two please so so it's the main bedroom okay yeah so here yeah it's a it's a bedroom sorry it's a it's a bedroom and you can see there's no overlooking at the back so it yes it is a bedroom absolutely thank you any other comments yes councilor stewart robertson thank you chair um first of all i want to clarify one thing from my understanding in terms of the impact on the national park because looking at the plan it appears there are quite a number of houses on the other side the other side of goat lane and we were told that the ridge height of these houses is less so which would seem to point to the fact that there is built environment between this this site and and the national park i want to understand to what extent there is a an impact on the national park and the other things it does seem to me that particularly with references having been made today by two speakers which had not previously been mentioned in respect of agricultural vehicles going along goat lane and then and the and the issue that creates for parking um is there genuinely no solution that can be found to to to to adjust the plan to meet the at least the say six six parking places that would be the requirement of the of the the algorithm that you were showing us earlier thank you so on the south downs issue first of all and there it is in front of you what would be happening with the proposal is simply in terms of setting you would be getting a frontage building on the front of that plot there would still be a garden in front of the frontage building and there would still be substantial landscaping boundary fronting fronting onto goat lane the impact on the south downs is negligible if anything so that then then to the south of goat lane as you said there is housing development so either viewed closely from the south downs but certainly viewed from the hilltop to the south once it's bedded in you're not going to notice it that's the view of the officer report and your officers we can't see how there's going to be an in an impact on the south downs the setting appreciates that this is inside the settlement boundary and the settlement boundary appropriately densifies over time going to a more difficult and complex issue which is goat lane and and parking we thought about this carefully the what happens because of its narrowness goat lane is that people carefully use goat lane they they don't park all over goat lane and and we went there several times sometimes sometimes there is a problem as as mr k said you know someone does park because they're moving or because there's an agricultural vehicle but soon that obstruction moves because it's not particularly wide and people understand that you have to be careful so there isn't stress on goat lane and there certainly isn't isn't that anywhere near that stress on on spring it generally speaking people use off-site the we've had to make a decision about how you balance the allocation of development on the site what we would like to see is sufficient we'd like to see the densification we'd like to see sufficient garden space for all three properties and we we considered whether it should go to two and we think that's well below the density that we we need in order to get appropriate housing in the village but if you're able to allocate landscaping at the front landscaping in the middle front and back garden for the three bed and then side and rear garden for the two bungalows you get a nice urban design balance for the three properties and this we don't think the sacrifice of car parking one or two spaces is is significant that there are arguments to say that there are many planning authorities around the country that limit car parking in order to move to push people to further sustainable travel more walking more cycling and certainly the distances that we're talking about between this site and the center of ringma in other planning authorities would would warrant a limitation of car parking not an increase in car parking i i think that dr k is right in the way in which he describes the likely people who are coming but increasingly young people as a result of survey data are quite happy to have less cars quite happy to cycle more quite happy to use public transport more also recent evidence from the um census shows that actually car parking use particularly in the am and the pm peaks has gone down and that that evidence is now starting to be published i don't want to pervert council and neighborhood plan policy this would breach that policy on the balance of material considerations we would argue that we would support the densification support a better urban design allocation on the site and downgrade the need for six or seven car parking spaces five would be sufficient that's your officer's opinion and you can make a different decision on that thank you for your explanation um council shark would you like to speak no my question was actually virtually the same about parking so now it's been answered really thanks council meek thank you thank you chair uh i'm i'm very minded that the first application for this site was much more extreme in density and in height and and and total you know perception of the whole thing was very different and i'm minded uh of what the developers are saying they've they've done to try and bring this in line with the officers uh suggestions and requirements to alleviate uh local people's concerns um and in that way i think i think it is much much better design i think you've covered the the the backland development issue um i was going to mention what council frankham said about uh you know the the mitigation from planting along the boundaries and i can see that that that would help i'm going to ask a question that you may not be able to answer i don't know if members of the republic are very aware of this but this council as planning the committee has turned down a lot of developments and we're now in a situation where you know we're seen to be failing in our ability to allow planning to go ahead so we're in a cleft stick where we need more houses and it needs to be on brownfield sites and we want smaller houses and that seems to be being fulfilled by this application we're in a situation where if this goes to appeal mr dorfman uh and from what you've said from your uh you know experience and your your wisdom on on planning policy and everything there don't seem to be a huge number of grounds for turning this application down apart from the ones of overlooking and and amenity loss and things like that in your opinion if this went to appeal and the inspector sees the amount of uh work that's been done to try and make this a very acceptable proposal do you think uh that the government inspector would just say no this is ridiculous this is a perfectly perfectly good application and it's been modified etc etc do you see what i'm saying so it's um an interesting but an unimportant question um so first of all the local authority being designated and as failing because of our uh loss of major planning applications so this is not a major application secondly um your officers are absolutely committed to hearing what people say about planning applications understanding the planning relevance of that and supporting you as a planning committee to make decisions that you want and that you believe based on what you think and your understanding of planning policy we're absolutely committed to once you've made a decision fighting for that decision and as the debate has been going on as you can imagine the head of development management and and i have been furiously writing draft reasons for refusal based on our experience about how you would defend a refusal we don't want you to use the issue of designation to color your view about how you address the important comments that have made been made from the floor and your view about planning policy and what's needed your officers haven't made a recommendation for approval because we're worried about designation we've made a recommendation for approval because we think it's a very good design and the negotiation between us and the applicant has been good and we've produced something that we can recommend we don't mind whether or not um where this is a designated authority or not we've done that on the basis of our assessment of your policies and comments from the floor so i'd like you to put that aside and just concentrate on whether you think the arguments made by officers and are sensible and appropriate or whether you think arguments from the floor are stronger in which case we will design a reason for refusal around them in terms of whether or not i think i think an inspector and would find arguments on both sides and i i completely understand that if you're going from a bungalow to three houses there's going to be there's going to be more activity on that access road but how substantial is it going to be i don't think it's going to be particularly substantial an inspector's decision and indeed your decision needs to be needs to balance that with the fact that we do need more housing whether or not we're designated thank you do we have any more comments yes we do councillor keen thank you chair um i've been listening to various commentaries from the councilors dr k councilor denny we just heard the exchange here with councilor meek various questions especially from councilor frankham the first query is around the traffic um i hear and see what everyone has said so far related to that and i see the lane there are only five slots allocated here in the design that doesn't necessarily speak to the volume or the time or the numbers of things which could potentially happen whoever would potentially buy these homes has there been any sort of investigation from highways or any sort of thing taking into consideration farm vehicles which is someone has mentioned is a new new factor here there is the width of the road difficulty in on-site parking has there been anything done towards that to see numbers to see long-term observation of that and the second thing i would ask around is the privacy aspect of neighbors but especially the 15 meters um sound overlooking and i understand everything that's been said so far but anything to maintain that privacy to speak to the commentary that's been voiced thus far what other measures might be um brought in would officers mention that's been considered in concert with working with the developers um again so on parking and there are no yellow lines on goat lane and there are no yellow lines on springet avenue yellow lines is an indication that there's parking stress things are going wrong so you don't want people parking on the street you can't get people going up and down the street there aren't any yellow lines there's not parking stress and with with as you can see from the site this is it it's going to be very difficult to change any more sites on goat lane that there are not going to be very many development opportunities possibly in the character area on the left um change of use from single-family dwelling houses into flats but they have front large frontage gardens lots of space to park so the goat lane it because you're going to put two more houses on that plot i can't see that the stress of goat lane and spring is going to go up no we don't have any detail um calculations about agricultural vehicles and we don't have that on the overlooking your officers are arguing that the that the amount of overlooking that exists that that that would pertain if that development went ahead is not significant um and it's normal for first floor windows to overlook neighboring gardens what we're trying to avoid is direct overlooking and we don't see that there is direct overlooking here and we think the distances are are sufficient and significant so we don't think there is would you consider uh yeah um so our argument is that there isn't uh there isn't going to be a significant loss of privacy and there there was a there was a recommendation for two extra conditions should the scheme move to approval what about the removal of permitted development rights um and the other one was to make sure that all high-level windows can't open um i wouldn't support the second um as a means of reducing privacy i think windows should be able to open the local authority wouldn't have a problem of withdrawing permitted development rights that's not a problem at all thank you thank you any more thoughts questions okay do i have a proposal to accept the officer's recommendation plus pd removal plus the pd removal because we've got landscaping conditions in it's actually in there oh that's right and and sorry that's the frankham the extra words to go into the condition that says landscaping not to be removed thank thank you thank you do i have a proposal to accept the officer's recommendations as just pointed out to you councilor frankham thank you and do i have a seconder council sharky thank you i'll now go to the vote please indicate by show of hands those in favour for approval and those against and anyone who wants to abstain through you chair um that vote was passed five four and one against thank you the outcome of the vote is the application number lw 23 0 3 6 0 location at south down goat lane ringmer has been granted the proposal is the demolition of existing dwelling erection of one number detached dwelling and two number semi-detached dwellings outline application with landscaping details reserved and the aforementioned details by mr stone thank you we will now take a short five minute break thank you which is application number lw 230699 location is 18a furl road seaford the proposal is rebuilding of the front garden wall relocation of vehicle vehicular and pedestrian access points including associated landscaping the applicant is mr d wood it's in ward seapord north and the recommendation is approval subject to conditions i'd like to invite our officer mr doffman to show this application um this time chair i'm going to go to the supplementary report first um in the briefing council has brought up concern about um planting behind the wall that we're going to look at in a minute and whether or not the planting and the the trees are going to be kept and obviously because the scheme is demolishing the wall rebuilding it and moving the access to the south and that planting and small trees are going to go i think in the briefing i might have said that they're going to stay so i need to correct that there is a landscaping condition that would compensate for that but absolutely the planting and existing trees would go the other compensating factor is the design aims to increase the the grass verge which as you'll see in pictures is very common in furl road and is one of the qualities of the conservation area the other thing in the supplementary report which is worth noting at the beginning is that there's been a further late cons late objection by seaford town council who submitted a page i've decided to summarize that page and that is that the the loss of the length of the flint wall serious adverse impact on the conservation area it's an important heritage asset over 200 years old no evidence has been put forward to justify its replacing which would inevitably detract from the special character of the area and as we will see it is in the conservation area and my comment on that is that the heritage consultant has reviewed the proposal and supports the positive rebuilding subject to appropriate design and materials and that there's no significant impact on the setting of the conservation area in particular the conservation officer argued for a change in the design to remove an incongruous stone planter and then put back more grass verging which is a common design and environmental feature of the conservation area so here we have the site plan and here we have a here we have a google picture of the site but it's not up to date because whilst this is 18 furl road planning permission has been granted for 18a which is a bungalow at the back and the whole aim of this application is to improve access to both 18 and 18a at the back and we've got photos to show you um here we have the site where the cursor is at the moment so that's 18 furl road and now there is a proposal for the proposal is to change the frontage we've now granted planning permission and that's been implemented and built for a bungalow at the back mirroring development to the north but you can see from this that it's definitely inside the conservation area now we're inside the site looking north and there is the bungalow that's been built and we're on the access road with 18 to the 18 to the left and 18a and to the north northern part of the site so a form of back land development which is a common theme for this committee and here's the existing layout with 18 at the front and 18 at the back now built and as you can see in plan form this is the and we'll show you a picture at the moment this is what the conservation area officer thoughts rather in congress and would like to would be happy to see this access road move to be more direct off furl road certainly moving it further to the south and near nearer to the nearer to the property that's to the south but only at the access point and and therefore that planting the existing planting sitting behind the existing wall would go because that that roadway would be moved to the south and here we have a picture of what is being proposed and we'll show you some photographs in a minute that whilst where the where the cursor is is hard is hardscape but here where the cursor is there and there would return to grass verge because this would simply be a door and pedestrian access so vehicles would go in here park here for 18 and carry on and park here for 18a so at the top of the screen is the existing situation where you have what our conservation officer thought was an incongruous planter and vehicle access that winds around the back with that planting and a pedestrian access there and effectively at the bottom is what's proposed the access and the pedestrian access would be handed and so you have the access here and the pedestrian the pedestrian entrance moved to the north with a new flint wall subject to conditions built either side of both the pedestrian access and indeed the new vehicle access things become much easier when we look at the scheme on site so this is obviously existing there's the there's the vehicle access and there's the planter that the our conservation officer thought was rather incongruous preferring grass verging which is more common in in furrow road and now we're south of the site so the site site is here and this is a picture to show our conservation officers look carefully at the at the wall now see for town council feel that it eat this wall in its entirety including poor repair and poor maintenance is still an important heritage asset which needs to be retained the heritage officer advising us says not at all absolutely nothing wrong with a modern rebuilding of the wall particularly if we're strict about the design and the composition of materials which are going to be flint what the heritage officer wants to see is this grass verging continue continuing north and that that rather incongruous stone planter removed oops no yeah we've seen that picture so that's that's it we're we've got five conditions on the officer's report that recommends approval time limit at closing off of the existing access so making sure that the we don't we don't get two vehicle accesses so a condition that says once the new one is built the other one has to be closed by a particular over a particular time period of course we've got a condition on materials on landscaping and on drainage and the officer report recommends approval thank you chair thank you mr doleman um we now move on to public speakers and for this application i'd like to start with um a speech that's going to be read out by jen thank you on behalf of isabelle mouland who's a town clerk for seaford town council thank you chair uh the town council has asked me to read the following statement on their behalf the town council would like to reiterate its objections to planning application lw stroke two three stroke zero six nine nine on the following grounds the loss of the length of flintwell involved in the provision of separate accesses would have a serious adverse impact on the east blanchington conservation area and would be totally contrary to the conclusions of the inspector in the decision dated the 30th of may 2019 on planning application lw stroke 18 stroke zero six five three appeal reference app stroke p one four two five stroke w stroke one eight struck three two one five two zero six the wall is an important heritage asset with local ground show is over 200 years old other similar lengths of the wall in the locality are listed in their own right and no evidence has been put forward to justify the replacing of this heritage asset with a new wall which would inevitably detract from the special character of the area the proposals would therefore be contrary to policies dm33 of the lewis local plan and sca3 of the seaford neighborhood plan as well as paragraph 207 of the mppf thank you thank you very much i now i would now like to invite brendan francs to speak you have three minutes hello i live at 16 fell row that's next door um the wall is a continual continuation of our wall um we've had ours maintained which cost us a lot of money and so there's nothing wrong with most of that wall including their bit of war so it seems to me that if we allow the current applicants to destroy this part of the wall when we refuse the previous applicants to do the same thing then they were could could claim compensation from this authority and us taxpayers because they've undersold their property that's the first thing to be said we've had two planning inspectors refused the original planning application the original two applications the inspector specifically mentions this flint wall and and says it shouldn't be touched um now unfortunately you you as a committee never got to see you never got to see the backland development um being approved because it was approved by the planning department without ever coming to you and um our seyford town council were appalled as were a lot of people and our mp said i do very much share your concerns this is about a third case in which the council planning department have made such errors and i am taking these up with the secretary of state you can understand that we are very very annoyed at what the planning department have done to us you should all have been able to decide on the original um back land development and our seyford town council said you almost certainly would have refused it um but we're not at that position anymore so what i'm going to ask you to do is to make sure that they do not destroy blatchington conservation area anymore and that try and stop them from talking it down as well um it seems to me that they don't rate our conservation area at all in the planning department um that it's like destroying a piece of a piece of flint walls all right well we'll build one in a different place some caricature of a flint wall in another place it's not just the flint wall it's the flint wall it's the gate it's the bank they're all original it's continuous as you could see from that picture and our planning department don't seem to understand that in 1976 the conservation area when it was it first came about very clear meaning to what what they intended and they keep watering it down put a piece of flint wall in that that's just a caricature of the of of a flint wall in the area they're they've got particular stones in them they've got iron stone and all sorts of things in them you can just like to remind you you've gone over a bit is that okay or have you got no i'm sorry i'm sorry i'll just no that's okay mr franks we understand have already stated very clear they have indeed thank you i'd like to invite daniel wood to speak please good afternoon members of the planning committee thank you for allowing me to speak today my name is daniel wood and i'm here to advocate for approval for my application concerning the rebuilding of the front garden wall and relocation of the vehicular and pedestrian access points the proposed development involves reconstructing the boundary wall using recovered materials from the existing structure as well as new materials that will match its historical characteristics these will ensure the wall maintains the aesthetic and historical integrity of our area additionally by removing unsympathetic modern additions and reinstating grass verging we will enhance the semi-rural character of east blatchton conservation area addressing concerns of suburbanization the current state of the wall is a concern it exhibits significant leaning and cracking posing potential risks reconstruction reconstruction of the wall will improve its structural integrity ensure its long-term preservation and safety for both residents and pedestrians the new wall will be designed to reflect the original character providing a safer and more aesthetically pleasing boundary for the property while the wall does possess some historical interest it is not sufficient value to warrant statutory listing however our proposed reconstruction respects the historical context whilst addressing practical needs um that's where i lost my place by addressing practical needs for modern vehicle and pedestrian access by aligning the new pedestrian access with the entrance of the main property we reinforce the relationship between the wall and the principal residents enhancing the overall heritage value of the site repossessioning the vehicle and pedestrian access points is designed to enhance the highway safety the new access points offer improved visibility and reduces potential conflicts between vehicles and pedestrians by ensuring vehicles can enter and exit the property in forward gear we enhance the safe operation of the highway network in this area the proposal includes the removal of an appropriate inappropriate planters and reinstatement of grass verge contributing to the the site's semi-rural character and biodiversity our development plan also incorporates appropriate drainage arrangements to prevent surface water runoff benefiting both the local environment and the neighbouring properties in my conclusion my application presents a balanced and thoughtful approach to preservation of enhancement of the east blatchton conservation area it respects the historical context improves safety and functionality and aligns the key planning policies i strongly urge the committee to approve this application recognizing the benefits it brings the community and the local environment thank you for your time thank you very much i'd now like to invite darren moore to speak thank you you've got three minutes yes hello darren moore the agent for the application um just want to address some confusion which seems to be around seifertown council saying that and referring back to a previous application where there was a an increased drive width and double drive which of course was refused because you know the wall is a historical part that keeps the properties private from the road this this application is just to flip the location of the driveway and the pedestrian gate not increase the overall amount of openings so the amount of wall after the works are done will be the same in fact that's that's very specific that we've kept everything the same width we haven't even tried to get a wider access through there so that's that's i think the most important thing um the existing arrangement if you can see the photographs you kind of see the property in its full light uh and i think the conservation officer has has kind of sort of gone along the lines that this wall is an important feature because it screens the properties from the road the new arrangement will mean that the driveway is in front of the access road to the drive to the new property and will screen the existing property furthermore so in actual fact it's sort of helping the situation in that regard yes historic interest in the wall but it has been maintained quite badly and if you look closely at the wall it isn't in quite a bad state of repair and obviously what we'll be doing is recycling the flints and rebuilding with the same materials using a blend of mortar which is a heritage mix which will actually be subject to conditions so that will all be in keeping other walls along this stretch have also been maintained and approval is not necessarily required for maintenance it's it's only because we're altering the location of the vehicular access that we're talking about these details um so a lot of other walls have been maintained and repaired and will last a long time this will probably has got about 10 years before you know serious frost damage gets hold of it so in in approving this application will be enhancing the conservation area for a considerable amount of time and given it longevity if we don't do anything with this there's going to be a problem without wall sympathetic materials as i say and yeah the the horrible planter at the front has been identified as a bit of an eyesore and as part of this application as recommended by the conservation officer that will be removed and grass verde is reinstated just one last point uh with this photo here if we look at the large trees to the left it's really important to say that anything from the left of the existing driveway is remaining exactly the same that's that's not altering it's everything to the right of that is being slightly changed same size width access thank you thank you very much that's all from the speakers so uh councillors i'd like to hear your comments and questions please yes councillor meek thank you chair um this is in my ward i'm a ward councillor for seyford north i know this area very well um this is a very old flint wall uh flint walls have inevitably sometimes been taken down without permission on the edge of conservation areas this is right in the middle of a conservation area um i'd like to disagree with some of the points just raised um yes it may be in a bad state of repair but it can be repaired where it is uh what i'm upset about is uh if this gets uh given the go-ahead you have a long length of flint wall that suddenly gets broken into two so uh that will change the nature of the conservation area and i'm afraid i don't see that it's improving the conservation area why because when you drive when you come up the road you will then look to your right and there'll be an opening and you will see the back development as it is at the moment you can't see the back development in other words if you leave the wall where it is like it is you will not see that there is backyard development behind that house and that will screen and protect the visual impact of the conservation area which to all intents and purposes you will think is is a conserved area even if unfortunately it isn't anymore because it's it's got a now a building right in the back lot but from from this view now that you can see you can't tell that there's a bungalow behind there and i think that is important because that house has been there for a long time now in as part of the conference of conservation area where you can see that there's a house beyond the gated that beyond the beyond the entrance and that will now if you leave it like it is now that will remain the same as it is in the conservation area so i i don't see any reason to to to to break open that old flint wall yes it may be in a poor state of repair that is the fault of people not maintaining it but i think what you do is you rebuild it where it is and then we still have our whatever it is 100 100 feet 200 feet of flint wall otherwise you then you then section it and you can see right the way through to the back lot where there's now a new albeit flint and brick building but it's still a new building with a rather rather modern driveway i would say so i i i oppose this i mean you talk about it's going to make better visual i don't think that's going to make any better visual access at all i mean you've got you've got perfectly good visible visible so people don't tend to walk up there's no pavement on that road admittedly but people tend to walk up the other side of the road i understand yes water runoff you would mitigate i can see you would do that and water down blackington hill is a big problem but these can be mitigated anyway you could take away the planter if you wanted but actually that's that's kind of part of the heritage of that area now that's what happens you know people now prefer preserve 60s buildings because they kind of came along that kind of came along so i'm afraid i don't think the argument stand up and i would prefer to say no to this and keep the wall as it is and just renovate it and quite frankly if the people have got a problem with their with their privacy they should have thought of that before building a bungalow in the back garden that's my view thank you thank you Councillor Meek do we have any other questions of anyone no okay any comments for the officers at all back on that so heard the tension in the in the comments from the the neighbor and so i'm just that that's obviously concerning but it's important to understand that in conservation areas um conservation area is not designed to keep everything in aspect conservation areas are designed to protect the quality of the conservation area and also allow change and the position of the backland bungalows undoubtedly backland simply mirrors and replicates something that already exists to the north um so that's the only comment i have on that um and sorry it's okay but you're you're so on the screen you can see this is this is the site where the bungalow went and these are the properties to the north you can see there's properties both at the back of the plot and at the front so that's what i have to say on that um so the principal the backland development as a as we've we've discussed in the previous item and i'm saying again is is not prevented by conservation areas um it's about how you manage how you manage it the other certainly note the comments by council amic and the officer the officer's report still supports or continues to support the repositioning it seems the repositioning of the or the handing of the vehicle access and pedestrian access seems eminently sensible in in terms of operational access to both houses um officers and the conservation advisor to officers agree that the gas the extension of the grass verge is important and the loss of the planter is important um and the design of the of the wall granted the length of the wall will reduce and it is something that can completely be accepted as far as protecting the quality of the conservation area thank you chair thank you mr doleman any more comments by anybody no okay thank you very much um we'll move forward now to the next part for do we have anyone to who with proposal to accept the officer's recommendation no proposal to accept the recommendation okay do we have an alternative proposal or something that you'd like to add or yes councilor meek i would uh propose to reject it um is that what we do chair can i well a different proposal would you accept a different proposal is the question can i recommend a wording for a reason for refusal would that help members um so the proposal by reason of repositioning can you hear me the proposal by reason of repositioning the vehicle opening will reduce the length of the flint wall and reduce the screening of 18a um backland development to the detriment of the concept of the conservation area contrary to i can't remember the policy number but i'll put that in okay so that's your that's the reason for refusal are we all what did we vote on a refusal i'll just is that what reflects your what you wanted to say councilor meek pretty much thank you yes yeah is there anything you wanted to add to that reason well and as taken as that i don't see why the the argument that the wall's falling down doesn't stand because it can be it can be mended it could be renovated i think that's the thing that's a point but not necessarily needs to be reflected in a reason for refusal that that's that's the helpful thank you do i have a seconder for that yes i do councilor keen okay so i need to have a show of hands for those who want to vote yes to refusing this on those grounds please raise your hand if you want to say that's unanimous okay that's unanimous and and so chair we will your delegator officers to put in the appropriate um policy reference and that protects there'll be a local plan one and a local plan two policy and we just we'll just put that in if you delegate that to your officers to do that yeah can the committee just confirm that they're happy to delegate two officers to put the appropriate local plan references within that reason for refusal yeah thank you thank you so um application number lw 230699 has been refused on these grounds the proposal this is the 18a fell road seaford and the proposal was rebuilding of the front garden wall and relocation of the vehicle and pedestrian access points including associated lamb king landscaping thank you we move on to the next item item number 12 application number lw 230372 location is land adjacent to tie chalet tie close saltine proposal is erection of three-story dwelling the applicant is a mr r monday the ward is east saltine and tells come cliffs and recommendation is to approve subject to conditions i would now like to ask officer doorman to present to us please thank you thank you chair so we're going to the last bit of the um supplementary report which actually i'll come to at the end of the slide presentation so here we are in saltine we're literally on the cusp of the settlement to the left and the south downs to the right and you can see the sea in the bottom of your screen so it's a very important site and it it absolutely needs to be designed to make that boundary appropriate and it's inside the settlement boundary it is grassed it is undeveloped it is undeveloped but it certainly needs to be looked at carefully because it marks that boundary between settlement and national park and here we have it in planned form so here's the site where the cursor is it grays south downs a countryside policy begins on the south side of the 8259 not on the south side so that that is the plot and that's the settlement boundary in blue and yellow marker identifies the plot it's certainly going to be easily viewed and from the south downs and of course from the coastal walks and here it is showing that the developed the south dean at the top of your picture and of course the stark linear appearance white of the chalk coastal embankment that leads to the sea and here we are looking south that's the site and now we're looking sorry that was east now we're looking south towards the sea um this is how you get up to the site a narrow private access route not maintained by county highways that winds up to the site and here's the top of at tie close and with developments either side and this is the beginning of the site on your left and we're standing just in front of the gate which is at the end of tie close that leads you on into the south downs and now we're looking south that's the site with the neighboring property to the right and now we're looking west we're in the site now and at the top of the embankment before we go down to the a259 on the left and then the coast further to the left now we're looking north with the south downs to our right and the top of tie close is about here and there's a there's a gate access to the south downs and now we're in the south downs looking south towards the site which is where the cursor is now um now we're looking west the site is to our left and that's the picture the reason reason for this picture is to show the gate at the top of tie close that access axes the south downs um now now we're on the coastal path on the on the south side of the a259 looking towards the site which is here and and you can see that um that's the development next door that there will be no development um to the east that's the south downs um so this is the last piece of development before you get to the south downs and an another shot more recent of the same view showing the um development to the left of the existing house that's been granted planning commission is currently being constructed so this is the this is the frontage of um the proposed scheme and it's important to understand that a third of this embankment would go the top third of this embankment would go um because of the because of the design of the proposal so it won't sit like um this scheme it will cut into the embankment by a third probably just just just around where the um chalk begins um now we're it's very unlikely in this photograph will you see the proposed development because it sits back from the front of the embankment unlike um unlike this house so it'll sit behind its neighbor okay so in plan form tie close comes up to the north of the site you get access into the site two parking spaces a pitched roof garage a walkway through to the house which is a substantial house um and it's two story at this level and three and it has a lower ground level so they're steps down from the ground floor level down to a lower ground level and the scheme will dig into the rear of the embankment um there'll be a there'll be a patio and a small garden and then you'll and then and then you'll see the rest of the embankment um this is the original scheme which officers rejected um practically nearly four story which we which we rejected and then we discussed the possibility of the lower ground or the third floor being dug into part of the embankment and this is the scheme isn't that is now before you that is now before you we supported the concept of um a linear you could call it boxy look because we thought that um it having a stark finish of the settlement and the start of the south towns would be an opportunity for a landmark building and we like the linear look of the scheme to replicate and be similar to the way in which the coast appears from the south but you hear hear the steps down to the lower ground level let me just um it's worth noting that we're liking and accepting the pitch of the garage garages which are to the north of site which more replicates at the form of roof that you see in and around saltine particularly in this area but as you come to the front of the building um officers are happy to accept something different in design more more modern more linear um um and one that with regard to its neighbor it it'll have a similar if not the same height and that third story that lower ground story would be dug into the embankment um i suppose i'm slightly disappointed that this section doesn't properly show the um properly show the lower ground um that that boundary exists but obviously what what happens here is that the lower ground i'm tracing it now with the cursor um that comes comes to about here obviously the whole of the embankment is not destroyed it's just the top third that would be taken away and you'll be able to see the scheme and from the road just to remind you we thought that's important um moving to the supplementary report um we've enhanced the external materials condition because we actually think that the materials that clad this what what inevitably will be a landmark development need to be incredibly sympathetic to the landscape surrounding it particularly to the south downs and overall we've decided that those materials ought to be light and and not dark we think that that would blend in better despite being a modern building blend in better with the south downs so the supplementary report asks you to accept a change to condition 10.5 in terms of external external materials um the developer has also agreed um to ensure that the public access from a private road and to the south that to the south downs is maintained so that's um in the supplementary report an additional condition and we've had email confirmation from the applicant the applicant not the agent that is acceptable um and at the briefing we had concerns correct concerns voiced by members about are we sure that um the chalk embankment can take this kind of development um on the good advice of um the head of dm we've consulted um building control um and i refer you to c of the section c in the um supplementary report and head of building control says that in terms of building regulations and building regulations will absolutely require ground investigation report and any foundations will be engineered designed those two things can stop the development going ahead and that'll be controlled by a separate set of regulations and but the head of building control did say it might be sensible for there to be a condition whereby the local authority looked at the design the look the design as well as the construction of retaining walls and so that would be nor that would be east west and south around the patio and the garden so we've added a condition to understand we want to see and understand that's prior to any development um the design of the retaining walls between the proposed house and the bank and the embankment fronting onto south coast road and that needs to be submitted and approved in writing by the local authority before development goes on site that that that condition will be part design and part engineering and we'll be able to consult the head of building control and he's explained that he'll from that he'll be able to tell us in advance of building regulation work whether or not um the um the construction of the building whether it's going to work and whether or not it's going to harm the rest of the embankment and he said that in principle that if you build it right there's absolutely no problem about making sure that the rest of the embankment is safe and and doesn't um you know there won't be any impact so we're we're we would recommend that condition in the in the briefing um one of the other things that was mentioned was concern should you move towards approval there's the the issue of of construction and whether or not the 8259 is going to be significantly disrupted when building this so the the you'll see that there is a construction environmental management plan and we'll use that we'll use that condition to first of all understand what the plans for construction the time scale delivery of construction material and we'll also use that condition to control that and we'll look at whether or not there should be any need to access the site from the 8259 or rather as we expect and hope for it to come off the side road to the um west um so overall the officers are recommending approval with with um some 14 conditions plus the change to 10.5 and these additional ones on access to the south downs and retaining walls thank you chair thank you mr doffman right i would now go to um speakers and i'd like to invite louis district wall councillor councillor christine robinson to speak you have five minutes thank you thank you chair and good evening councillors um i'm speaking against this um development and i'll just uh although i have been reassured by the supplementary that come out today i just would like to bring a few things to you please the committee has been asked to agree this application on the basis that is considered that the proposed development would integrate well with the existing built environment strengthening the definition of the urban edge whilst not compromising the character and setting of the adjacent downland it is it is considered that the amenities of neighboring residents will be protected the good quality living accommodation will be provided and overall the scheme represents a sustainable form of development i would ask the committee to consider this statement very carefully whilst i accept that the officer has made this judgment based upon all the facts there is an element of judgment involved which i would ask you to examine before coming to your decision does it integrate well the fact that it's a three-story building right on the edge of a national park and will be the very first building next to telschem tie it means it is a critical cornstone building which helps define the link between the town and countryside therefore i'm really concerned that this buffer of the south national park and the tie will be lost as such we should insist upon the very best in architecture wherever possible so i was pleased to see that supplementary change to condition 10-5 external materials has been implemented or suggested and this will ensure that it blends better from a distance especially from the distance at the top of telschem tie where it would be really visible but it is still a three-story house does this proposed development provide a gentle transition from the urban to the national park i ask the proposed dwelling will be positioned in a sensitive location adjacent to the edge of the south down national park on the urban edge of salt dene and on the raised ground close to the coastline stroke cliff top all other buildings at the top of this road are set well back from the boundary shared with the south down national park are dug into the hill and thus reducing their visual impact so i would say no this proposed development would not provide a gentle transition with regards to the objections that have been raised including but not limited to i do have concerns on the following the depth of the excavation and the impact on land stability on neighboring properties and on around the a259 although reassured somewhat again by the supplementary and again the frontage embankment is going to be reduced by 30 to 50 percent which could be argued it's not in keeping with the surrounding area uncertainty around impact on public access could i officers please note that the maintenance of the gate is fund by tuscum town council so it just must be the access that has must be there permanently and concern that the garage will be used for commercial purposes while this may not be a material consideration i would query why the pitch roof especially when you consider the previous application showed this to be a two-story garage garage inverted commas with all the necessary residential amenities like bathroom etc etc however should the committee be minded agreeing this application i would ask that they consider amending or strengthening some of the conditions on the following 8.8 landscape ecology and sustainability this should be an actual condition if this application is approved which is the information of solar panels hard and soft landscaping trees are not suitable for a cliff top location so need to be replaced with suitable native bushes and the semp if i could ask 10.13 noise and vibration it's a very small community confirmation of no burning there's a massive pile as you saw on the photos of wood there already uh and operating hours insist on strict timings to include no weekend working and 10.17 top site site waste management plan more details must be included included please on how the chalk spoil will be reused and would be particularly useful for it to remain on site i respectfully ask you consider this application really carefully before making your decision thank you for listening thank you councillor robinson councillors um you've heard everything um do i have any comments or questions from anybody with regards to this application councilman curthy thank you thank you very much um i was and i am cycling along there quite a bit and uh what i remember is well and when when i remember and the area is with quite a few houses which look almost like shoeboxes so from a design point of view what i've seen so far it looks from my from my design understanding quite pleasant however i understand what the local councilor um yeah and considers because it is the first point you see however when you cycle down towards saltine lido you see these big houses which look just dumped there uh most like in the 70s or maybe in the 50s or 60s like i i don't know so um i see the points that are raised and i am very pleased that they have so many um how do you say um conditions put here so this is what i want to say thank you um councillor frankham did you want to say something thank you um yeah i i'm struck by the lavish use of land for one dwelling with a seven meter garage it just seems incredibly extravagant um and i can't help thinking about the previous case when we've been talking about trying to support you know um densification modest homes for local people and this just seems like an incredibly extravagant plan um that is really i doubt going to be a benefit hugely to the local community that is my key concern um i say even the garage potentially i could see that being converted at a later day to a nice to an airbnb i mean i might be jumping the gun but there you go um so that's one worry having lived in the area for many years as well i'm really conscious of the traffic that trundles up and down that road and the vibration that's caused and the potential damage to the chalk particularly now with climate changing and large long periods of dry and then very wet and i do share the concerns about the stability of that bank but also i'm reassured about the engineering reports that are to come i would strongly support the conditions that have been um raised by council robertson and um and um yeah my concern is is this the best that may not be a material consideration but uh as we are trying to support a densification uh this doesn't seem to be working to that aim thank you thank you very much councillor um council sharky yes please um yeah i think the uh report calls a bold design i know it's subjective um but i think you could also call it quite stark and i think the way it does um form like the first thing you see when you travel from talscombe to saltdean um i understand that you want something that looks very nice but this looks so different from the other houses in that little part of salt in that particular road it's very different from that and i think it is quite overbearing on the neighboring property particularly with the balcony um around the edges there even though it is going to be screened it is still quite overbearing i think on the on the neighbor um what's it called uh tie uh tie bungalow or something the next one down um it seems to be quite close to that from that point of view that's my concerns thank you very much yes councilor still roberts yes i realize the more i look at it i don't quite understand what it's going to look like from the road and particularly is the is the patio going to be sunken below a bit of so it's actually going to be dug into the chalks actually from the road what you'll see is print initially will be just the the existing the existing embankment or be it lower you you won't have a balcony protruding straight out onto the onto the road that that that's correct um i would agree we don't have uh well particularly from the section but that's more that's more what you're going to see from the road um the the green wavy color is in effect the embankment and then you'll you'll see what you'll see is everything above that green wavy so i go back to the um if i go back to this picture you can you can imagine that top third going and the rest of the embankment staying and then you'll get a bit of the lower ground floor and then you'll get the ground and the upper floor reaching a height to the same as the pitch um in this in that location it it will be stark you know you could you could use the word in congress um the um the local authority officers like the idea of a landmark scheme here making a strong distinction between um the pitched roofs of the neighbors and the rest of salt dean and then the open green flat landscape rolling landscape of the south downs to the right we don't see anything wrong with that we can obviously support you developing a reason for refusal if you feel that then it needs to be more blended um but as we think there's as long as that height is respected it'd be actually interesting to see something linear something light and something with with glass and light hard materials and that actually would be would be reflective of the of of of the chalk embankment immediately to the south and then much more significantly and as the chalk embankment is exposed as you get closer to the sea one could argue you know that it's there's a design link there and a stark white and green tension between what actually exists um you know the earlier photo every day we see um sorry about this every day we see that picture don't we and we understand that color relationship um that that starkness and um officers feel that there is architectural integrity in in the design we we we think that the building ought to be of a lighter material but otherwise we like the idea of it being linear modern and being bold about the relationship between as it were linear white and green which you which you get there's there's there's no doubt that the the majority of the homes in saltdean are pitched roofs and white walls and terracotta red pitched roofs and this would be different there's no doubt about it we like that idea but equally we could make an argument against it if that's your wish can i just clarify you you mentioned that some of the cliff uh not the cliff edge is going to be removed like a third so what you're saying is going to be removed and then put back so that we don't see the glass at that lower ground level no no so it'll be removed in its entirety yeah because it'll be it'll it'll be making way for the lower ground level to be dug out yeah so then then there'll be a from about this point going north there'll be a gap and then the house will begin and rise up from the lower ground level up to a height no higher than that pitch so it'll be exciting and interesting that those are my words you know you could you could describe it as precarious um but it it'll certainly be a different type of house and compared to what you would normally see in saltine so that would be completely flat then from that point all the way back there'd be a void behind this embankment because behind the behind the embankment would be the small garden and grass yeah small garden and a patio yeah and then the building would begin the building begins the building doesn't begin where this building begins it begins further back yeah understand thank you yes i think we're getting there so so the the patio and the small bit of garden will actually be at a lower level behind a kind of berm so so you you won't see them at all from the road not at all okay yes council davies i'm sure i i've got concerns going to say the character can i say of the building can i say blended into all the other properties actually around the area and i'm still not convinced can i say is by the officers can i say i do apologize can i say when you're digging out actually the rocks can i say the problems and issues that's going to cause can i say can i say to the road can i say is it all his and the surrounding area can i say is as well uh and to uh and as well as as the officers pointed out if you look in that area we live in that area can i say is i don't live far from there can i say is at all it's it's gonna it's gonna stick out like a sore thumb can i say is it all is it's not going to be part of the character of the building can i say is at all it's okay is it's going to be too tall can i say is as well is um as well and i think the comments that have been made by um uh councilor christine roberts could i say needs to be taken into consideration to the area can i say it and people who actually live in the area can i say is as well as and how that's going to be affected can i say is to people who actually live there can i say is at all and i think the officers need to look at that thank you very much councilor meek uh thank you chair um i've got no i quite agree with officers i don't mind the linear context of it but i think if you if you imagine what that's going to look like next to that uh apex roof next door the the original house next door yep you're gonna have a huge block there at the actual top of that neighboring properties height there it's gonna be a vast block of building what i would like to see is yes keep it dug down but take one story off the top and have it low because then you you come out of the south downs and it's not such an abrupt height that you suddenly go my god this is okay it might be an iconic statement building but you might not want that you're trying to blend into the national park i would think it'd be better you've already got two stories which you've sunk one down that's great but if it could be so that it wasn't so high i i feel it needs to respect the neighbor property next door not just say oh that's got a roof height the ridge height is so much so you can come to that but the bulk of it i think it's overbearing in bulk and i would prefer it to come down to the gray level next to that uh in relationship to the ridge of the next property then i think that's acceptable because and particularly with the amelioration of of color and how you go about blending it with the national park that i would i would pass it through on that but i just think it's too overbearing as a block of it looks like a block of flats which we don't want right there thank you chef thank you any other comments would you like to come back on those comments mr doldman um so reading the temperature of the room i've got an option for a reason for refusal um i i stand by what i've already said i like the scheme i i i think this site deserves a landmark development it should be strong um it should be very strong um i so your officers are supporting that it's set out in the officer's report but i'm reading the temperature of the room so i've got a draft of a reason for refusal if you'd like me to read that out they look like they're nodding would you like to hear it um the scheme proposes an incongruous and out of character design that does not respect either the pitch roof design of the to the east in saltine nor the southbound landscape um to sorry to the west and the scheme is overly stark and overbearing contrary to dm25 and local plan policies um to respect the landscape character of the neighboring southbound neighborhood neighborhood national park that last bit is because i i can't remember the policy reference for the national park we we we will have a couple of policies there shall i read that again i was a bit a bit yeah yeah sorry the ski the scheme proposes an incongruous and out of character design that does not respect either the pitch roof designs to the east in saltine nor the southbound landscape to the west the scheme is overly stark and oh and overbearing contrary to dm25 which is our design policy in llp1 and to policies that require respect of the landscape character of the neighboring south downs national park thank you mr dorfman so as before if the committee reminded that you'd indicate that was the way you were considering and then delegate to officers to to complete the the correct policy references thank you chancellor me you were going to just just just just to say sorry um i do apologize for coming back i i don't think a reason for refusal around stability of the embankment or the chalk it would be sensible um uh i i think the head of development management and i have been convinced by building control that a building could be built here a building sunk into the embankment could be built it's all about design and engineering so for planning to take that position it would be i don't think acceptable i don't think it would be a reasonable reason for refusal um but is is that is that what you feel neil yeah please sorry through you chair neil collins head of planning uh sorry head of development management um just i think it'd be worthwhile just putting a few things on the table here for members i'm what i'm hearing is there's significant concern around particular elements of the proposal that being the the design mainly the design of the roof uh and the impact of that design upon the surrounding area and how that is cohesive and blends in is it respects the character of the surrounding area that's what i've heard um and so there are a few options open to members one of them is to refuse this application on vote on perhaps for the reason that's been outlined by mr doorman another option here is to provide some delegated so for us as officers to go away and look at this design again with the applicant because what i'm also hearing from the discussion from members is that actually there is some support for the provision of a house in this location and the main area of concern is around the design of the roof so perhaps officers could negotiate that as we have a duty to do to overcome these issues and bring this back to you at a later date with a revised design thank you very much mr collins um does that seem yes council keen please thank you chair also um i would like the comments of council frankham taken into consideration uh of the extraordinarily large garage and the character within the comments here character yeah when i think we had a provision already didn't we have a condition that they couldn't ever develop it into a living living space nevertheless but yeah through you jay evoca just coming on that so so um the the use of a garage for commercial use would require planning permission so that would be something that if it happened if it came forward we would enforce and seek to rectify that where that was the case but otherwise we could if there was a particular concern on that attach some conditions around its use but i'll be would like to hear more from members on that if that's the case yeah i'd like to see that as a condition yes i would like to see it as a condition i i think my my problem with the scheme is the extravagant use of land for one dwelling um which i i acknowledge the uh access road is far from ideal but it still seems like a very extravagant way to use a piece of land and you could have a landmark design building that would allow for uh multiple uh apartments um and that's that's my key um issue with this current application um thank you yeah thank you council franken um any other yes council meek thank you chair and i just wanted to i don't know what other members feel but but um i'm sorry uh mr i didn't i didn't for you personally i didn't feel you quite reflected my comments which were that i'm not against a linear development i just felt it's too the bulk is too big and i wasn't against it being different from the neighboring properties it's just that the neighboring property has has got some amelioration because it's because it it's not so bulky but that sticks up when you look at it from the side view which you'll get from the south downs national park the bottom picture i presume uh it's a big block sticking up you know and i know you you're wanting to make a landmark development but i i feel that it it's it's too imposing on the national park whereas i would prefer to see it occupy a bigger footprint if you and keep it lower do you see what i mean so so that then i feel we get we blend into the national park better i know from your point of view it doesn't make such a statement but i feel it ameliorates the situation of this enormous block of bulk thank you thank you councilor me yes councilor councilor vong councilor sharky yeah um bearing in mind what uh councilor meek just said can i propose that we do accept the second option that we've just been given and that we do delegate officers to go back and talk about design is that what what you meant by what you said yeah that we these sort of points can be taken on board and you go back to them through you chair just to just to clarify so it wouldn't be delegated authority to take away the uh the application to determine uh it would be for uh members deciding for officers to go away look at this scheme look at the design uh together with the applicants and bring something back for consideration for members so that ultimately you can make a decision upon uh this application well i would propose that and could i just following off council sharky and mr collins the headings really our design needs to be more in sympathy particularly the issue of bulkiness and height and inefficiency in inefficient use of land and whether or not there's an opportunity for more units on site better housing mix on site and and thirdly is the issue the issue about um linking with the south downs national park so you you go from green flat and then you rise up so that it's not so high so those are the things that we would take back to negotiate on lovely thank you so we we have on the table a proposal from council sharky to accept the deferral um and do we have a seconder yes councillor meek um thank you so i'll now go to the vote um those please indicate your acceptance of this new ruling um please raise your hands if you're accepting to defer as i've just said five and those against the deferral two that's okay thank you chair that that vote is passed five to two thank you very much so application number lw 23 0372 which is land adjacent to tie chalet ticlos salt dean has been the decision is to defer this to officers on the grounds that we've listed already um thank you very much could check would it be possible just to ask a question just while we have the officers here will this come back to the town council for for consultation and it will come back to this committee so i could come back to this committee and speak thank you if i could just answer that through you chair um we will consult again on any revised design thank you thank you item 13 is date of next meeting it's noted that the next meeting of the planning applications committee originally scheduled for wednesday the 10th of july 2024 has been postponed until tuesday 23rd of july 2024 in the council chamber county hall st anne's crescent lewis east sussex bn71 ue commencing at 5 p.m so we're now closing the meeting at 803 well eight o'clock and thank you all very much for attending