Transcript

My name is we're going to start now. Good evening and welcome to the Strategic Development Committee meeting. My name is Councillor Jahad Choudi and I will be chairing this meeting tonight. This meeting is being held in person. Committee members and key participants are present in the meeting room. Only the committee members present in this meeting room will be able to vote. Other person may be also attending remotely. Committee members and others who have chosen to attend remotely have been advised by the committee officer that should technical difficulty prevent their full participation in the meeting, it may proceed in their absence if I feel it is necessary. I will ask everyone to introduce themselves shortly, but before I do this, I would like to briefly confirm the protocol for addressing the meeting, including the virtual meeting procedure. Participants must address the meeting through myself as chair. If you are participating online and you experience any technical difficulty, you must contact the Democratic Service Officer as soon as possible via email. However, Officer may not be able to respond to all such requests on time. You should keep your microphones and cameras on time. You should keep your microphones and cameras switched off all the other times. Please do not use the meeting chat facility. Any information added to the chat facility will be discarded. If you experience any technical difficulty, you must contact either myself or the Democratic Service Officer as soon as possible. I will ask now committee members present to introduce themselves. Please, can you also state any declaration of interest that you may have in the agenda items and the nature of the interest? Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. – I have nothing to declare. Thank you. Iman Rahman, nothing to declare. Thank you. Councillor Rebecca Sultana from Bethnal Green East, I have nothing to declare. Thank you. Good evening, everyone. Councillor Iqbal Hussain from Lensbury Ward, I have nothing to declare. Good evening, everyone. Councillor Goulam Kibriya Choudhury from Poplar Ward, nothing to declare. Good evening, everyone. Councillor Lillu Ahmed, my landlord, nothing to declare. Thanks. Good evening, everyone. My name is Amadur Khan, I am councillor for Black Young Kibiktar, nothing to declare. Thank you. Councillor Kibriya Choudhury from Bangalore Ward, nothing to declare. Councillor Shubha Hussain from Bombay South, I went on a site visit with some of the presenting officers. That's what I'm going to declare. Thank you. Councillor Hussain, sorry to interrupt, which site was that? Both. Both. Both? Yeah. It's all right. Thank you. So, so did I. I visited the site as well. The councillor in Kamul Shubha. He said recently, yeah, he was there as well, and councillor Iqbal Hussain was there as well. So, and I received his real call, but I didn't answer. Thank you. Justine, do we have any apologies? Yes, Chair, we have apologies from councillor Kamul Hussain. Councillor Amadur Rahman Khan is substituting today on his behalf. Agent item two is the minutes from previous meetings. Can we approve the minutes from 15 January meetings? Yes. Yes. Yes. Thank you very much. Agent item three are the recommendation and procedure for hearing objections and meeting guidance. And last, I will now ask Paul Beckerham, head of development management, planning and building contract, to present the guidance. Paul Becker, thank you very much, Chair. Good evening. Good evening, committee members, members of the public and officers who are joining the meeting this evening. So, item, this item on the agenda just sets out the standing advice for determining planning applications, including the legal advice that decisions must be made in accordance with the relevant development plan policies and relevant material planning considerations. When we come to the reports for decisions, the running order will go as follows. So, I will introduce the item with a brief description of the application and a summary of the recommendation. And officers will present the report. We would then normally hear from registered speakers, but I think I am correct in saying there are no speakers this evening. So, I will sort of skip that bit because it is in your pack anyway. The committee will then consider the report and recommendations, including any questions, debates, and further advice from officers. And the committee will reach a decision based on a majority vote, and I will confirm that back to the chamber and everybody joining the meeting. If the committee propose changes to certain aspects of the officer recommendation, for example, to add or delete or amend planning conditions or obligations, then the task of formalising those changes is dedicated to the director of planning and building control. And in the event that the committee do not accept the officer recommendation, they must give their planning reasons, propose and agree an alternative course of action, and the committee may be adjourned briefly for further planning or legal advice. And the task of formalising the committee's alternative decision is also delegated to the director of planning and building control. If the committee propose to make a decision which would seem to go against the provisions of the development plan or could have legal implications, then the item may be deferred. for a further update report from officers dealing with the committee's proposed decision. There's no update report this evening, Chair. There are a couple of minor updates, but I'll do those orally when we come to the individual items. Thank you. We now move on to Agenda 4. We have now deferred items to consider. This application was deferred on the 15th of January in order for officers to prepare a supplementary report. Paul will introduce the application for consideration, and Robin Benner, planning officer, will summarise. Paul, can you start now? Thank you, Chair. So, I will present the whole item for you. It's a fairly short item. So, as the Chair has explained, this planning application, which was for the redevelopment of the sites at Whitechapel High Street and Commercial Street in Cunna Barnard Primary School, was deferred at the last committee meeting with officer recommendation to refuse planning commission. But the committee, having visited the site, came to an alternative view and gave their material planning considerations for going against the officer advice and indicated they were minded to grant planning permission. Just a couple of slides, which I probably, as we have seen this before, don't need to dwell on too much. But you can see the site outline there in red on the corner of Whitechapel High Street and Commercial Street, including the Cannon Barnard Primary School at the rear, which would be subject to some alterations to facilitate the proposed development. Just as a reminder, if you can see my cursor briefly, sort of broadly two plots, an office building and a community facility sitting on the sort of western part of the site, and then following demolition of an existing school extension and reprovision of an existing playground, that would form what's been described as plot two in the application. And then just a couple of visuals showing the site looking down Whitechapel High Street towards Oldgate and then from the other direction, sitting behind the frontage buildings that are part of the conservation area. I will just come on in a minute. So the purpose of this report really is to confirm the committee's decision that you're happy to grant planning permission, but because planning obligations and conditions are part of your determination, and we didn't have all of those in the necessary place last time. These are all in the report. I'll go through them very briefly in a minute. Just to, as part of this process, we also identify any implications arising from the committee's decision. These are in the report. There's probably two planning implications to be aware of. One is to do with the council's approach to the provision of tall buildings. You'll be aware this is outside of the tall building zone. So there could be implications around the spatial approach to tall buildings on elsewhere in the borough in the future. And secondly, it is within a conservation area. If permission is granted this evening, and if the development was to go ahead, then it probably would prompt a review of that past conservation area. And it may be that the conservation area boundary changes and takes this site out of it. So it would be a smaller conservation area as a result. But just so you're aware of those potential planning implications that would arise. So moving on to the main issues, just to update you this evening. So your report sets out the planning conditions and planning obligations. So I'm just going to really deal mainly with the planning obligations that would be part of the, if permission is granted, sorry, if your resolution is still to grant permission, then these are the items that the applicant is prepared to enter into a section 106 agreement to cover. Some of these are fairly standard contributions that are derived from formulas set out in the planning obligations SPD. So matters A and B are generated through a formula approach based on the amount of floor space. C, which is development, coordination, integration, similarly calculated. Heads of term D is a financial contribution which has been arrived at to mitigate the impact of the development. But bearing in mind those members that went on the site visit highlighted problems of antisocial behaviour in the vicinity. So it would be a contribution to the council to support projects which could be fairly wide ranging, but any projects or initiatives that would be targeted towards reducing antisocial behaviour in the area. We've got the standard calculation towards carbon emission offsetting and a contribution towards TFL to support an extension of existing cycle docking provision in the vicinity given the scale of the office development and the need to promote sustainable transport and the standard section 106 agreement monitoring fee. And then we've got some other obligations which are not so much financial contributions come into the council, they're more obligations that the developer will have to perform as part of their development or indeed within the site. So we've got standard contributions towards promoting access to employment and access to construction jobs with item B is on-site affordable workspace. This is 10% of the office floor space but with a 37% discount which is significantly more than the 10% discount that policy requires. And that's something the applicant is able to enter into. Sitting alongside that would be an affordable workspace strategy. And a local talent incubator. So this is all aimed at making sure that the office development sort of gives back to the local community in terms of jobs and employment. You'll remember there's some businesses that sit at the base of the existing building. So there would be a relocation strategy to support any of those who are not already catered for in terms of moving out of the site. Transport matters, just to highlight a slight change there in your report, it says that there would be a travel plan for the school as well as for the office development. Having looked at that with our legal colleagues, the school won't be part of the Section 106 agreement so we can't secure that with the school. So just to highlight, that's not in my slide here, it is in your report but it's a slight change that will come out. The community hall, the applicant has agreed to a first refusal arrangement so that the council would have the first right of refusal if it wished to occupy that space and again on a peppercorn rent which is something that is starting to emerge in terms of community facilities. And then arrangements for public realm access and maintenance and safeguarding possible future connection to a district heat network. So there's a whole range of public benefits there. Finally, the development will attract requirement for community infrastructure levy. So there's two amounts there. So just over 4 million would be the Tower Hamlets sill. The Mayor of London sill comes out at 7 million. That's simply because the rates are slightly different between Tower Hamlets and the London Mayor for office development. But both of those would be triggered if the development was granted permission and went ahead. So the officer's recommendation, obviously our original recommendation stands, which was to refuse, but we acknowledge that the committee felt that it was appropriate to grant permission. So really we're just asking you to confirm your decision and subject to the Section 106 agreements with all those different heads of terms that I've mentioned. There's a whole list of about 42 other conditions that apply to the development that are in the report, which I don't propose to go through now, but happy to talk about it if you have any questions. And that's really, I think, Chair, all I have to say at this stage. So thank you. Oh, obviously I think you've probably got a list of the councillors who, so obviously only councillors that were here previously would be able to vote on this item. Okay, thank you, Paul. The constitution does not allow public speaking for deferred application, so I'll now move on to member questions. Do members have any further questions for our pitches? Councillor Shubo. My question is, you mentioned that the, is there going to be other contributions outside of that agreement? The issue around the school, so the only requirement for this, if permission was granted, is that the, you'll know from your site visit, there's a more modern annex extension on the western side of the school. That would be demolished to allow for the office development. The local plan obviously has policies that resist the loss of education floor space. So within the planning application, a different extension has been designed in on the eastern side. There's no financial contributions within the scheme towards that. That's a separate arrangement that the school would need to come to around how that's funded. The only issue is condition number 13 in the PAC is a phasing condition, which simply requires that the, because obviously there's a lot of disruption there to the school, so it simply requires that the playground works and the extension works are done as part of the first phase before the office is built. So that's the only requirement. So that's more about controlling the timing. It's not controlling anything to do with how it's funded. That's a separate matter. So who phase would be extension number? Well, that would be a matter between the applicants and the school, and the council is the landowner, so they would have to come to that agreement. That's not something that we've factored in. And the role of the planning process is simply to make sure that there's a mechanism to ensure that that extension, A, has permission, and B, is delivered at an appropriate time. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. Under training and employment, there is a commitment to spend over a million pounds. And I just wanted to know, this money will be spent on local residents, strictly for the local residents of Trahamla, and how many jobs will be created through this training and employment training program? Thank you, Councillor. So I think that 1.2 million is towards end-user-phase employment skills and training. So, as I mentioned, the actual amount is generated sort of through a formula, so it's quite a standard approach for commercial developments. In terms of how it's used, it's well sort of tried and tested with our growth and economic development team, and that supports a lot of the work that they do around getting people within the borough into employment. So it comes to the council to support all the work that the council does around that in terms of employment skills and training. Precisely how many people it would support, it's really, really difficult to tell you that, because in a way, it depends very much on what is the council's program at the time. It would almost certainly go into more of a pot that would be used by that team to keep their work ongoing. So I wouldn't be able to tell you precisely how it's done. However, the team do monitor all of the work they do across the board, not just for this development, but any commercial development. Thank you, Chair. Just to understand, as far as my understanding, there will be two playgrounds for this school. One is on the ground floor, another one on the roof. That's correct. So there would be, if I just go back very quickly to this diagram, so you can see just in this area is where the new ground floor playground would be. I'm just going to defer, because I don't want to mislead you in any way, but Mr. Gwynn may be able to confirm that the roof of the proposed extension, or? Because we did have a discussion about this last time, didn't we? I think that's correct. I'll just confirm that. Because there's no existing upper floor playground. I would now like Paul and Jan to share any final advice before I move on to a vote. No, the only thing, Councillor, is to remind you that to vote on this, you must have been present at the last meeting, which I think is six of you, and I think you've got the list there to remind us. Thank you. Thank you. Please note, only members physically present at the meeting held on 15 January are able to vote. So, namely, Councillor Rabaka-Sultana, Councillor Lillou Ahmed, and Councillor Ahmed de Rahman Khan cannot vote on the present. So, can I see all those in favour of the application? Okay. All these against? Any abstention? Paul, can you please confirm the committee decision? Thank you, Chair. So, amongst those members who are able to vote, that was a unanimous decision to confirm your intention last time to grant planning permission, and it would be subject to the list of conditions in the report and the heads of terms of planning obligations, some of which I've gone through for you this evening. So, the next stage now will be to complete the Section 106 agreement with the applicants and do the Stage 2 referral to the Mayor of London before issuing a decision. So, thank you very much, Chair. Thank you, Paul. From Agenda Item 5, at the Planning Application for Decision, we have one application to consider this evening. We now move on to Agenda Item 5.1, a planning application at 100 to 136 Cable Street. Paul Buckingham will introduce the application for consideration, and Adam Hustane Planning Case officially presents the application. Paul, can you introduce it? Thank you, Chair. So, as the Chair said, this is a planning application affecting 100 to 136 Cable Street. The planning application proposes the redevelopment of the site with the demolition of the existing building and construction of a new building ranging from five to nine storeys plus a basement to provide life science space, along with roof terraces, roof level plant enclosures, refuse and recycling facilities, cycle parking, servicing and landscaping. A recommendation to your committee this evening is to grant planning permissions subject to planning conditions and obligations. Chair, I did say there were just a few things just to update the committee on, which I'll do just briefly, and some of these will also be in Mr Hussain's presentations. So, firstly, in terms of representation, since publication of the committee report, one additional letter of support has been received from Secretary of Ford Road Mosque on behalf of the mosque. We've also, just a correction, that when we reported that there was one objection to the application, it's actually a letter on behalf of two individual people, so in a way it's sort of two objections. So, just to clarify that. The report references in the National Planning Policy Framework 2023, it was, the MPPF was actually updated in 2024, so that's a typo on our behalf, so I apologise for that. However, just for clarity and for the sake of the minutes, you can rest assured that the officers have assessed it in accordance with the 2024 version, not the previous one. There's also some slight changes around the carbon reduction benefits of the scheme. It's increased ever so slightly from 21.9% to 22% over and above the baseline that the application is required to assess. That means, as a result, the amount of contributions to offset that has come down ever so slightly, but you'll see that in the presentation. And finally, just a very minor thing, I think we mentioned a floor-to-ceiling height of the existing development, which was inaccurate, so the existing building has an internal floor-to-ceiling height of 4.15 metres. I can make sure that, I can work with Justina just to make sure those are all captured in the minutes. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, councillors. This is the site location plan. The application site runs along the east side of Coel Street. A moment, just get my pointer. Along the east side of Coel Street. The existing building is approximately 120 metres long. Whitechapel Road is at the north. Stepney Way is at the south. The hospital is out of shot at the west. And the Silk District residential development is at the east. This is an aerial view. You can see the two towers of the Silk District development. The Silk District is divided into three blocks. Block A here, with a tower. Block B at the back. And then block C here, with a tower. You can see the hospital building, the post office building, Whitechapel Road, and residential properties to the south. This is the application site, looking south, down Coel Street. This is the application site, looking east, from Stepney Way. This is looking south from Raven Road. You can see the existing building on the application site, on the right. The Silk District flat, on the left. In between, you can see the public space, which has landscaping, a children's play area, and some table tennis tables. This is within the Silk District public space, looking west at the application site. The proposal is for demolition of the existing building, construction of a new building, part nine storeys, part five storeys, to provide life science space. The proposal includes a ground floor venue for seminars, exhibitions, and community use. This is called the Knowledge Centre. The proposal includes new public realm. There would be a new route through the middle of the building, linking Covell Street and the Silk District. And there would also be a new public realm at the north of the building, at the corner of Raven Road and Covell Street. There would be on-site cycle parking and a dedicated servicing yard. This is the proposed west elevation. This here, at the top, is the new public realm at the north of the building. The Knowledge Centre would be approximately here, that opens onto the new public realm. And here in the centre is the new link through the building to the Silk District. You can obviously see the nine storey part of the building and the drop down to five storeys. This is the proposed ground floor plan. Here is the link through the middle of the building to connect Covell Street and the Silk District. On this side of the link would be the reception to the new building and a cafe. And on this side would be working laboratories. And to the north, this is the Knowledge Centre, which I've mentioned, and then the public space. The ground floor also includes a servicing yard, which is here. It's internal. So the vehicles would enter the yard from Covell Street and they would leave the yard from Stepney Way. These are two of the proposed upper floors. The floors are flexible and they can be arranged to accommodate small, medium or large-sized businesses. This is a 3D model of the proposal in its location. Whitechapel Road at the north, Stepney Way at the south. I'll now show some visualisations of the proposal. So this is from Stepney Way. Sorry, one second. This is at the north of the building and shows the public space, which I mentioned, and then the Knowledge Centre would open out onto it. Again, this is the north of the building, a slightly different angle, looking south down Covell Street. I mentioned previously the route through the centre of the building, connecting Covell Street and the Silk District. This image shows the start of that link on the Covell Street side. And this image here shows that link on the other side from within the Silk District. This is the same view, just slightly further back, just to show the context. So the route through is here. And the proposal includes a number of roof terraces with trees and planting, as shown on here. The council sent 926 letters to neighbouring properties, displayed three site notices, and put a press advert in the local paper. And this map shows the application. The council received one letter of objection on behalf of two people. And the issues raised were the impact on daylight and sunlight, building next to the children's playground and disruption from the construction. In support, the application received eight letters of support, and a petition of support, with 122 signatures. Two of the letters of support are from residents in the Silk District, and six are from the following organisation. The BART's NHS Trust, NHS Property Services, Queen Mary University, Queen Mary Bioenterprises, Capital Kids Cricket, and Ford Square Mosque. Capital Kids Cricket is a charity that provides services, including a youth club, an IT training for adults, and it is temporarily located in the existing building. The petition, the 122 signature petition, accompanies the letter from Capital Kids Cricket, signed by residents and Capital Kids Cricket. The issues raised, as on the screen, the building has been carefully designed. It will bring jobs and opportunities. It will be a significant contribution to the Whitechapel Life Science Cluster, and will contribute to the revitalisation of Whitechapel. The application is for a life sciences development. The definition of life sciences for the purposes of this planning application is commercial, institutional, and public sector occupiers with significant activities in the fields of life sciences, living organisms, life processes, healthcare, pharmaceuticals, life science-related academic study, research, technology design, innovation, and engineering. The application site is within the Whitechapel South site allocation. The map for the allocation is shown here. The site is also within the Whitechapel local employment location and the City Fringe opportunity area. The local plan vision for the City Fringe says one of its objectives is to create a new civic centre and a world-class life science research hub at Whitechapel. The local plan states that within the site allocation, within the area shown in this image here, the land use requirements are employment-led, providing suitable units for the needs of life science, medical research, and educational uses associated with the MedCity. So the proposal is in accordance with the land use objectives for the application site and would make a contribution to the life science cluster in Whitechapel. The proposal is a purpose-built design for life sciences. The proposal would have flexibility up to a maximum of 70% wet lab and 30% dry labs. So a wet lab is a laboratory where chemicals, drugs, or other biological matter are tested and analysed. And dry labs are similar to office spaces where data analysis and report writing with computers will take place. The building will have all of the plant and mechanical equipment to operate for wet labs. And as I mentioned before, it's a flexible floor plate so it can accommodate different businesses. As set out above, the application includes a new venue for seminars and exhibitions called the Knowledge Centre. This will be primarily for the occupants of the building. However, the proposal includes free community use for science, technology, engineering, and maths training. So this Knowledge Centre, as you can see in the image here, it would be secured for 20 years. And there would be science and technology activities in place for all ages, funded up to £200,000. And that facility would be available to the community Mondays and Friday evenings and weekends. The proposal includes discounted work space. This will include incubator space, which is for small and emerging companies or groups of individuals. The incubator space will be fully fitted out laboratory space with all the services to support these groups. In addition, the proposal will provide grow-on space. This is targeted at companies that are more established. I'll now move on to design and heritage. So the design of the building reflects the architecture of warehouses, but with a modern style. The elevations are divided into window bays, as you can see, with brickwork piers and stone panels. The architects for the proposal are AHMM, and they are the same architects who design the town hall. And as mentioned before, the building would be part nine-storey, part five-storey. In terms of scale, the building would be mid-range. It would be significantly lower than its two tall neighbours, the towers and the Silk District, and the hospital building. I'll just show you some townscape views. So this is a view from Lindley Street, looking west. You can see the Silk District towers here, and this is the proposal in the centre. This is a view east from the hospital car park. In this view, you can see the architecture of the building, the post office building here. This view is taken from the north side of Whitechapel Road. You can see the market in the foreground, and you can see the proposal next to Silk District towers. As a new public realm, the proposal would create, as I mentioned, a new route through the application. site connecting to the Silk District. There would be a new public realm with Raven Row, which is shown in this image. At the south, the building line would be set back, creating a wider pavement with Stepney Way. The proposal would, what's termed as, put science on display. What this basically means is that the knowledge centre and the laboratories would all be visible to pass us by as they walk past the building, so they'll be able to look in and see what's happening. The proposal includes a financial contribution to public realm improvements in the wider area. There's a £250,000 financial contribution for pavement widening and tree planting in the surrounding area. In terms of heritage, you can see on this image, the purple is the conservation areas. You can see that the proposal is set away from conservation areas. There would not be any harm to them. And also, there are no listed buildings on or near the application. It's moving on to the neighbouring immunity. So, in terms of neighbouring immunity, a key relationship is between the application site and the Silk District residential development. The Silk District was granted planning commission in 2017, and it was completed and occupied last year. In the Silk District, there would be an 18 to 20 metre distance between the buildings and the application site on the north end. And there would be a 13 to 16 metre distance at the south end. So, this is the east elevation of the proposal. So, this is what you'd see as you're looking from the Silk District. The building has been designed to respond to the closer relationship at the south end. So, you can see here clearly that the building drops in scale. Also, at this southern end, there is a cutout from the building, a two-storey cutout. And the intention for that is to reduce the mass and the bulk of the building at this southern end. In respect of privacy, all the windows marked in red, they will have obscure glazing. So, you wouldn't be able to see out of them. And this, again, will protect the privacy of the residents at the southern end where the relationship is closer. This is a visualisation of that five-storey part with the two-storey cutout. There would be trees and plants in that terrace area. But there would be no access to the people who work in the building. So, there would be no issue with people standing on there or looking. That would be inaccessible to occupants of the building. In terms of daylight and sunlight, this is a 3D model of the proposal. To the west is the hospital building and the post office building. And there would be no impact there. To the north on Raven Row, along here, there would be no significant impact. To the south, on Stepney Way, there would be a reduction in daylight. However, it's noted that this is the lowest part of the development. And it follows the height of the Silk District next door. The main impact of the proposal would be on the lower floors of Blocks A here and Blocks C here of the Silk District to the east. The proposal would result in a major adverse change to properties at the Silk District. The impact on the Silk District is summarised in this image from the committee report, which shows the Silk District blocks and that Blocks A and C would have a major adverse impact. Key considerations for the daylight assessment are, firstly, the application site is within a site allocation. So there is an expectation of development to deliver the land use requirements of the site allocation. The existing building is two storeys in scale, so an increase in scale will reduce the daylight levels. It's obviously low-lying compared to its neighbour, the Silk District. The Silk District itself, as I said, was approved in 2017. That has been designed and it's been laid out with an expectation that the neighbouring site, the application site, would get built on. The planning application for the Silk District in 2017 included daylight assessments that were carried out on the basis that the application site, 100 Covell Street, would not stay as it is, but that it would be redeveloped. So the, as I mentioned, the daylight levels on this west-facing elevation, they would go down, they would reduce. However, it is important to note that the daylight levels that would be remaining here, they would be similar to daylight levels or better, similar or better, than daylight levels that we can see elsewhere in the Silk District. So, for example, if you see on the screen where my pointer is, for example, we have a location here, which is tucked in down behind the tower on the Silk District. Um, and also the, um, uh, location here with the courtyard, um, the daylight levels that, um, uh, exist already would be similar to the daylight levels that would result from this proposal. So, essentially, this relationship here in the proposal is similar to other relationships throughout the Silk District. Obviously, the daylight assessment is set out in detail in the committee report, um, and officers recommend that the daylight levels are acceptable in this case, um, obviously taking into account the wider benefits of the scheme. Uh, and this is just an aerial view, just to, um, show you, um, a bit clearer some of the, the relationships that you see across the Silk District and the distances between the buildings that is established. So, essentially, this proposal is looking to follow, um, some of the approach that's been, um, set out already in the Silk District. Uh, lastly, I will just touch on financial and non-financial obligations. So, in terms of financial obligations, uh, as set out on the screen, um, I will just, um, highlight that, um, in addition to, um, obligations from the Council's SPD, um, this proposal includes, uh, £300,000 contribution to the Council's Education Maintenance Allowance Fund, which is for sixth form students, for those students who will be studying science and technology subjects, and also a £300,000 contribution to the Council's, uh, University Bursaries Fund, um, again, for students studying STEM subjects. Um, and, uh, uh, uh, so this is obviously part of, um, um, the, uh, uh, approach of this scheme with the, um, life science floor space, um, what will be going on in the Knowledge Centre and these contributions as well to promote, uh, science, technology, engineering and maths training, uh, for, uh, uh, young people in the borough. Uh, and then we have the non-financial obligations, which include the discounted laboratory workspace, the free use of the Knowledge Centre, and then, uh, standard, uh, obligations, which you'll be familiar with, uh, including the travel plan, section 278, highways, works, and, uh, energy reporting. Uh, so, in conclusion, um, the recommendation is to Grand Planet Commission, uh, subject to any direction by the Mayor of London conditions. Thank you. Thank you, Alan Hussain. Thank you, Alan Hussain. As we have no registered speakers in objection to this application, I will proceed to members' questions now. Do members have any further questions for officers? Um, I saw, um, yeah, the petition has names and addresses and signatures. Um, I would say about, uh, two thirds are postcodes in the borough and then maybe a third are from outside of the borough. So, um, the, the majority are from, uh, residents, um, in the borough. As I mentioned, the petition is related to, uh, people who live in the borough, but also people who are participating in the charity, Capital Kids Cricket. So, it's, it's potentially likely that, you know, there'll be some people who are part of that. Any more? Thank you. Thank you for your presentation. Um, uh, just a quick one on the, uh, 6.31 environmental health. Um, I think, can you, um, maybe explain that a bit more? Because I feel like the environmental health are saying they have raised some concerns on that. Uh, thank you for your question, Councillor. Um, yeah, so, yeah, I know in 6.33 it says the preliminary risk assessment that has identified potential contaminants. Is that sort of, yeah. So, um, so it may often be the case that with a development that there are, there is contamination in the ground. Um, but it's, it's a question of whether it can be appropriately, um, dealt with, um, safely dealt with. So, what the comment is saying here is that the applicants have carried out their assessment. They've said there may be some contamination. Obviously, there would be a, uh, a full strategy about how to, um, deal with that when they do the building works. And you can see the, uh, the environmental health officer has no objection. So, the officer is happy with the, um, the approach that's been set out for how the remediation of the contamination would be dealt with. So, um, yeah, so, uh, I guess it's just quite an honest observation that there might be contamination, but that there, we can, we can, uh, address it appropriately. And that there might be a private sense. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I can see paragraph 7.77. There is a, uh, financial contribution for sixth form and university bursaries. I can see the figure for EMA 300,000 pound and also the university bursary 300,000 pound. and also it's for the specific students who study science and technology it's great they're offering the money is there any way we can increase this figure I mean those figures have emerged out of discussions with the applicants during the assessment of the application and were considered an appropriate level to ensure that the benefits of the scheme were being shared so as officers we're happy with that with that level that's what the recommendation is based on that's fine thank you we understand our students our children we encourage them to go to the university they can study science and technology my suggestion is there any way we can push through to 500,000 to 500,000 for each scheme year anniversary is there any way we can recommend to the applicant so that way we can encourage more students to study science and technology and this is a great project I believe the community will be benefited I think you should take a counselor committee to the negotiations next yes Paul thank you counselor understand the points and the motivation this one I think is a little bit tricky for us simply because this is something that's kind of been negotiated with the applicant based on what they feel they can offer uh the council doesn't actually have a planning policy that that calculates it so in a way it's been arrived at by negotiation it's where we got to at the point where the report was completed I mean I have no idea whether the applicant would be able to change that or not and we don't really have much power to our elbow if you see what I mean because there is not driven from a formula or anything um it was something that the committee felt very strongly about I mean I suppose it would have to be a deferral to allow that discussion to happen really so um I think would you would you agree as Paul has indicated um this is really as a result of a negotiation it's not like the affordable workspace contribution or the employment contribution where we have a formula um uh thank you chair um adam could you please so this this slide the the numbers oh the numbers sorry yeah yeah but reduction of daylight and sunlight how many plants are there affected how many flats affected yeah so um council what you see on the screen is as you can see it's a percentage this is done in a percentage so um so for block a um the first column is the number that meet the criteria um so um block a 54 percent meet the criteria um in terms of the number of flats um that's the equivalent of so 300 for block a 340 what this is in windows so 340 windows were assessed and 183 passed um and then uh eight windows had a minor adverse 16 had a moderate and 133 had a major yeah so this is uh paragraph 7.288 of the report yes 259 uh we've also calculated it by uh rooms so we are getting too complicated obviously some rooms have more more than one window so um the equivalent here is 81 rooms were assessed sorry 151 rooms were assessed 181 passed and 53 failed um just as another example so for the silk district block c2 c3 you can see that's 38 percent of past um so that's in relation to a smaller number of windows so uh 78 windows in c2 and 3 were tested um 30 of them passed uh 10 had minor impact 11 had a moderate uh excuse me um so through the planning process that we they wouldn't receive compensation so it's it's our job to um assess the impacts and then consider the benefits of the proposal um so um um we obviously uh so the answer is no there would be no compensation uh but adam you say that it's already in the you know significant development there are some adverse effects already on the development itself if you just saw we just go back to the see uh slide that are showing there's already there like to this yeah behind him again yeah then so we thought the development there are some chat i mean it might be helpful just context just to bring up this um image here um just to remind you that the sort of history of this urban block here is as i mentioned the silk district came in for planning they got their planning permission in 2017. i think ideally at the time they would have bought this application site and then built right up to the edge of cavale street but for whatever reason there was no agreement between landowners so they didn't have control of that site so when the silk district were planning their proposal they were thinking through what's at where on our neighboring site and the the local plan policy says that when you are when you are designing a development you must design it in a way that does not stop development at your neighboring site so for example if you built your building right up to a neighboring site and put all the windows there then they could never do anything now obviously this is not as extreme um but you can see here i mean for example like there is a missing piece here so what the applicants have done in this case is that they've approached this to effectively complete the scheme here so the residents who live here on the west obviously have reasonably good daylight and the reason for that is because there's a two-story building next to them but unfortunately it's not realistic that it would stay forever as a two-story building it's likely to get developed in some way as the silk district's been developed so that's the sort of balancing act and consideration that we have to do thank you uh i think one of my colleagues spoke to you about regarding the petition can you give me okay um while he's uh well office is looking for that on paragraph 7.6 it says about accommodating new housing can you explain why we cannot get more new housing thank you councillor um so just to refer to my slides on land use um so in land use terms the proposed use the life science is wholly appropriate and acceptable as one of the uses that could go here so the the local plan and the planning policy document says that this is an area for life sciences um and um specifically in the local employment location so this is within the local employment location now that doesn't mean that you couldn't necessarily have housing so in policy terms it's more of a case of um you could have housing rather than you should have housing so um the site allocation also includes housing but the site allocation does very clearly include life sciences um and there's there's no history of housing on the site there are like no planning permissions um and obviously it's been a commercial building so this is a location a situation where the person who owns a site is looking to develop life sciences this is an appropriate life science uh location for life sciences and so um in our assessment we can ration we can rationally object to that um in principle as i said you could potentially have housing although there will be a lot of um so obviously i've discussed in some detail the challenges around the look the relationship between the site and the silk districts and that especially at the south that close relationship that would get even more difficult if you had housing because whereas we've we've obscure glazed the windows on hot like many of the windows on one side to keep the privacy you obviously you couldn't do that if it was a residential scheme um because they need to both look both ways and you'd have balconies you know balconies on the edge so um uh yeah so there would be a lot of challenges but the the application before us is for a life science scheme and it's i mean it's supported and um kind of welcome but don't you think um even the life science is too close to the residential area like the district isn't it too close don't you think i mean our assessment is based on looking at these things very closely um and the um the main consideration is daylight sunlight i mean in terms of privacy that's been addressed and outlook um and obviously i set out in the committee report um we're comfortable that it is acceptable um it would probably have been better if the silk district buildings of the south were not as close to the site boundary as they are if they were a bit further back but that is where they are so i've got a follow-up yeah so what so if say for example the life science goes ahead and i think um would there be any concerns like for example if there was a like leakage around it because oh um so there is a whole um sort of regulatory regime around the safety and security of buildings like this and it's much i mean it's very similar to the regime that you have for the hospital obviously the hospital is right there and they have an infectious disease unit there and things like that so um it's not within the responsibility of planning and it's certainly not within the responsibility of counselors and on the committee um but the safety and security is managed uh primarily by the health and safety executive uh the uk hazardous substances authority um and the environment agency so there's a there's a huge number of um uh policy and statutory protections around that um in terms of the air quality uh our air quality officer has considered the application and is comfortable with it so and i think it's also the case you'll find across london there's lots of examples now of life science schemes side by side with residential it's quite common but in short what mr adam is saying is that those concerns that you express which are understandable concerns are managed by a different regulatory system they're managed essentially by hazardous substance the hse and it's it's not a material planning consideration for the decision maker either for yourself as well and you want to go meet i think adam and gareth have more than explained what i was going to say so the very very thorough explanation is to separate the question was about the leakage of kobe and things like that um we've especially with more life science we've just given i think nine units of life science around the area recently as well so it's going to be full of surrounding of life science that's why i'm just trying to think about um the whole thing that's what it is yes counselor just to um try and explain and hopefully hopefully assist um as a planning committee you're looking at the planning use of this land so you understand you completely got that you've seen it sits well within the site allocation um there are differently different regulatory regimes that are responsible for um disability of another body not this planning committee thank you thank you thank you thank you chair um on paragraph 7.76 um i understand there will be a knowledge center for community use and i can see um the community can use mondays and fridays after 7pm till 12 11 and also weekends um what time to what time and just to understand who will maintain and manage those timetables is there any procedure for hiring the hall or anybody can get you know work in and just doing the activities just just need to understand a bit more because the community hub uh thank you chair uh sorry councillor excuse me uh thank you councillor um so that there would be a some sort of booking system arranged um obviously we would ensure that the legal agreement is clear about uh the parameters of what's what what the basis of what it is and so essentially it's um the community would have first refusal after seven o'clock i mean up to probably 10 o'clock or 11 o'clock or something like that um if the community were not using it like that week for example and the occupants had something they wanted to do then that would be okay again it's daytime during the weekends any more so if there's no more questions for members then shall we move to would you remember like to share their thoughts or debate on the reports okay thank you um yeah i've i i i feel like um where the royal mail is the hospital with the car park the housing it's it's going to be too much for yeah councillor yes so just put your thoughts yeah uh just give just give my thoughts um i agree with councillor i mean that we first of all i don't want to be in another situation where we have to sort ourselves out again but number two is i think it's not a bad thing and well-being thank you chair i want to echo with amin rahmat and councillor hussain and i thank you good evening yes as have colleague have said that a few months back we have uh passed another application which was nine life science uh facility will be built between new road and white chapel so another life science uh in in this area i think is is not appropriate at the moment what is needed actually is that more residential units because this when you provide a money for bursary when you provide money for ema where the student gonna they're gonna go home and they're gonna study if you provide money to to ema and bursary and then when they go home they will go no place to study because of the overcrowded so in that issues any application whichever coming in the in this house should come with some residential unit so that the community can benefit also the commercial that the community can benefit as well i've seen and now we need housing as well because we have severe housing charge particularly on this development uh i think i'm going to go with the official recommendation because i believe this development will bring more opportunities to our world rather than negative impact and uh i have quit councillor iqbal hussain's concern that the leakage of uh from the you know but because we have a very vegan hospital surrounded and they're you know they have think alcohol with the recommendation officers have uh thank you chair i think this is a great opportunity for our children for our next generation to see there is something and yes we we do need housing but same time we do we do need education we do need jobs and we do we need to flourish our generation to see there is something to achieve and yes this this project i think it's fantastic opportunity for children for next generation to see there is something i fully agree uh agree with officer recommendation thank you thank you chair um not too much to add we hope we have detailed presentation and a very healthy debate uh across across the the committee i mean just to touch very briefly on the on the land use issues um i hear obviously some concerns from some members around whether this is the right land use for this location but in essence we can't as a planning authority um direct what people apply for so if they if they if they make an application then our role is to assess is it in accordance with the policy or not and i think as you've seen from the reports in the presentation there's a whole raft of policy support of life sciences so we couldn't object to the principle of life sciences even even if you are concerned there's an intensification in the area because all of those sites fall within the same site allocation so they're all being assessed under that under that same policy um the issues that the members quite rightly have raised concerns around um health and safety but as we've said that the if permission were to be granted in the development if the development were to go ahead there's a whole separate licensing regime that's in place to control that protect uh people from from from any any any adverse effects around health and safety um the the relationship to the silt district is quite tight in terms of daylight and sunlight there's no doubt about that and we've we've been through that in some detail but i suppose what i would say is look at it from the other points of view is that the the impacts on daylight and sunlight the remaining daylight and sunlight if this was to get permission if it was to be built would be quite similar to other blocks in the same development so it would be wouldn't necessarily be any worse so from a design point of view you could you could argue that it is fitting in and it is it is quite a low building so any development there is going to have some some impact um in terms of the planning obligations we've tried to secure um the best package that we can applying policy but also mindful of the of the applicant's willingness to add some additional issues in there that they feel will mitigate the impact um including the the bursaries and the ema scheme so overall i would say complies with the development plan policies we're taking into account the other material considerations uh we've applied the various you know recommendations the various conditions and obligations and we're happy to to you okay okay thank you bull so now we're going to move on to boat can i see all those in favor of the application okay all those against okay are there any abstention okay paul can you please come from the committee decision thank you chair also on a majority vote of five in favor and four against the committee has resolved to grant planning permission for the redevelopment of 100 to 136 cavell street in accordance with the report item 5.1 of the agenda and subject to conditions planning obligations and any direction by the do you turn it up