Transcript

to be some of the windows such as the kitchen window could be considered, but it is an opinion that these would not, views from the kitchen would not be much dissimilar from views from the office uses and the meeting rooms which would already have views over the site. In terms of the, I believe the noise conditions have been discussed, but in terms of the physical security, I'll just touch on it a bit. We did secure metal gates at the rear of the site so that the whole of the rear of the site is also physically secure. I believe the Afghan public has outlined that a number of the staff would be trained in terms of dealing with the residents that would be coming to the site. Whether a number of the staff would be security personnel in particular, I believe that might be a question best answered by the housing team. And in terms of the average length, the scheme has been outlined to be based on a 28 day target temporary model. So it's anticipated that that would be, the maximum stay, however, each case would be assessed in its own individual merits and so there could be cases where that could be longer.

• Have I got used around, or Mr. Cord, I need to say about the Richmond involvement. I was going to then hand over to maybe Ms. Worth or Mr. Chirren Weller to sort of pick up on firstly, the police issue and their relationship with the police and then maybe pick up on the Richmond and Wandsworth and other examples coming forward of this, if that's okay with the chair and with members.
• Members are happy about that, yes.
• Hi, Michael Schirren Weller, a sleeper coordinator for Richmond and Wandsard Councils. So yeah, just on referencing the question about interaction with the police, we actually met with the chief inspector for Battersea around the same time as the public consultation event in early December. Mr. Worth and I also attended the Safe Neighborhoods panel, which was an online forum, which I think Councillor Pritham was also in attendance for just to speak to local residents and yeah, and involve the police. So we've done those two things.
• Thank you. No, I had Councillor Justin.
• Councillor, just on the SSA issue.
• Mark Justin, Ward Councillor for Nine Elms. We're reading in the notes here that this will be the first rough sleeper hub in the borough. But what about other boroughs? I mean, I'd like to ask the officers, have they looked at other boroughs where there is a preexisting rough sleeper hub? 'Cause I would have said that it would be very helpful to find out how other people have got on with this kind of centre. May essential to have found out what other boroughs, and if there isn't one in the London mirror, I'd stretch out further into other outer London. For something that's new, how do we know that if the 500 objectors knew that there were several of these hubs across London and they found them running perfectly well, it would go a long way to allay their fears. So I would have said that some kind of investigation to other rough sleeper hubs, wherever they may be, would be actually essential in assessing this application.
• Well, if it's the first, it can't be a sense, I mean, if you see what I mean, but Councilor Owens, your questions?
• Yes, sorry, Councilor Owens, Northcott Ward, I didn't explain that earlier. Just a bit about picking up on Council of Priddham's comments and then following the presentation, the consultation process, I actually did attend the residence meeting, through the three hour residence meeting, and there were an awful lot of people there. And one of the reasons I attended is because this, the nursery that has affected and impacted by this, also parents of my own ward send their children there. And I just didn't feel that in the presentation that that was particularly alluded to, it was almost like, well, we had this consultation, we then had this meeting, it's all fine. I mean, I'm not entirely convinced that the businesses' concerns are addressed, and I'm not sure the consultation, which was very quick. I mean, we've had 500 objections, we might have had 1,000, but I'm interested on that. Thank you. Did you want to come in, stick all the way in?
• Yes, I don't think we answered the SSA point before we moved on, and then we'll take pick up the Councilor Justin's issue about other examples in London, I'll hand back to Mr. Worth to start with.
• Thank you, Chair. So dealing with the point about other schemes, there are a couple of long running schemes, which we have visited. My colleagues have been in visit to them. There's one in Lambeth by Vauxhall bus station, which has been running for a long time. And I think from my knowledge, it's 30, 40 rooms. So bigger than this, there's also another one called the Passage up in central London, in Westminster, there's been running for a long time as well. So we've gone out, a lot of the stuff you see here in terms of the management plan, the eligibility criteria, the households, if you like, have been plagiarized from their best practice. And also, we've been advised through this process by government officials at D-Look, Department of Leveling Up, et cetera, and they're roughly a specialist. So we think at this stage, it is new to the borough, it's new to us. I will fully accept and apologise to the committee and the wider community as we did previously, that the initial consultation was not what it should have been, and more than happy to own that one. We hope we've improved it through the events that have been described. So we've been out and we've seen other boroughs, and we will look to take their best practice and build on it. That was one point. On the sharing with Richmond, this is increasingly roughly per services are looked out on a sub-regional, or even Pan-London basis. Richmond, obviously, is, we also run the same services, Richmond, on behalf of the SSA. And to an extent, when we bid for the funding for each borough, which was a very successful bid against the D-Look government funding, we similarly bid in the Richmond bid for some space in this facility for Richmond. The Richmond residents would be a minority of the nine, maybe one or two at any time, and that's reflected. The joint funding package makes this work. So that's the answer on the SSA point. The other point, more generally, if I may chair, is that our intention here is to be a good neighbour. So more than happy to take away the point about noisy works, if I can use that term during those hours, and if subject to approval, we proceed to appoint contractors, we will use our best endeavours to make sure that they honour that and do the quieter works during those periods. One other thing on the nursery is it was raised. We met with the nursery management previously. We've kept in touch with them. And one of the things we did to try and mitigate their concerns is our opening hours are longer than theirs. So we will have what I would call our daytime staff, our professional staff there, before they open and after they close. We will appoint, again, subject to approval, a four-time hub manager, and we expect that person to be talking to the nursery manager, probably on a daily basis, and trying to develop that good neighbour relationship. So I think, chair, I've answered most of the points, maybe not all of them.
• Thank you. - Thank you.
• Thank you, indeed.
• I appreciate that you've used your own words, plagiarised the applications from Lambeth, which, of course, is a neighbouring brother. But more specifically, since it has been in operation some time, as you say in Lambeth, have there been complaints about it? On going, since it opened, ours hasn't opened yet, so we haven't got any complaints. But did, when it opened in Lambeth, or on an ongoing basis, have there been complaints about the unit?
• It can't, thank you, Councillor. I think it's inevitable there will be complaints. This client group is not a easy client group, and that's why we've put the 24/7 cover. So there will have been complaints. They are slightly different. The one, if you ever use Vauxhall bus station, it's facing the bus terminus. So overnight, you know, it's a very different environment. But what we are planning here is to have two staff on through the night every night, one performing a kind of security concierge role, and the other being a trained roughly per support worker. So that will be two members of staff to nine residents. That's not what you get at these other larger hostels. So we think, again, taking that best practice, that we are putting an adequate provision in for that. And if there are complaints, we will deal with them. And what we said to neighbouring residents, neighbouring businesses, is we, you know, need this to work. And we will not allow, if we put somebody in there who's caused it, you know, raising hell with the neighbours or with our staff or with the other residents in the scheme, we will invoke, you know, the eviction process. Because it's not in our interest to see the scale by any measure. There's a lot riding on this for the department and for the council. Can I got one more contribution? No, no, no, I don't want to go all around this again. At the moment, we've had a very positive discussion discussing real concerns and being very reasonable. So I don't want to go around and round it. But you haven't, both Councillor White and Councillor Boswell I think have not had a go. Councillor White is giving away to Councillor Boswell, I think. Thank you very much. Sorry, just, I can't hear both of us. Thank you very much, Councillor White. I'm Councillor Sheila Boswell, Tutu Beckwood. Yes, I'm so pleased to see such a big section on this, on community engagement. Because, of course, we all agree that this is something that is much needed and that we need to do. But obviously, when these things come about, they have an impact on the local area, as all planning does. I wanted to ask about the local residence forum. I know it's been covered with quite a lot of questions from particularly Councillor Vindia. But we know that local residence forums on the estates, for example, are notoriously difficult to set up and it's difficult to get engagement. So I wanted to know a little bit more about how we're going to go about making sure that's successful, that there is some way that businesses will also be able to be included in that. Because I know there's a lot of businesses around that area, including local independent ones that are quite community-minded. And then finally, it's just a suggestion, really. And again, thinking about community engagement, perhaps the local residence and businesses might be invited to visit before it opens, so that they can actually come in and see what's inside and what's being offered, because fear of the unknown also can be huge. And when you actually see what's there, it isn't quite such a worry. Thank you very much. Someone's going to say, someone on my left is going to say to me, you've got to distinguish between planning issues and the housing management issues. But just ignoring that particular complaint, it's good we're having an open discussion about it. Any response to that? Yeah. Oh, sorry. I'm sorry. Do you want to go ahead, Erica? Sorry, I was just going to say that in terms of the forum, as Mr. Kalda said, we can have a separate condition in terms of that, in terms of getting that secured under its own separate condition, and potentially having further details as to how it's set up and the way businesses will be involved in contributing to that. Yeah, and just to come in on the forum, that was one of the things that was agreed with them. Councillor Dickardam at the in-person consultation that happened in December. I know you say about it's potentially hard to get people to attend. That certainly wasn't the feeling that I had when I was at that public consultation. And certainly, just repeating what my colleague was saying before about wanting to be a good neighbour, we essentially want this scheme to be something that the community is proud of in terms of getting assistance to the most vulnerable people in that specific community. So we certainly want to be able to achieve that by involving the local community. And yeah, I think it's certainly a really good idea to do a tour when it's a little bit better than it is right now, but yeah, certainly. That would be our idea of doing that, yeah. Thank you very much. Great, thank you, Councillor Gavinde. So there were some specific points I'd raised in my series of questions, which probably because of the barrage of them, they got forgotten. So one was about the average length of stay, and we don't know that. I think there's a 28 days. Thank you. And then the dining and kitchen facilities, whether that is adequate, because 28 days, without food or whatever, it's not a prospector, I expect. So there's that side. The other one was the police reference to engagement with street pastors and the drugs team and so on, and whether that's being taken, and whether that's something that, again, could be communicated to the local community about the way in which that's being handled. And the other point about the police reference to physical security, and whether that's been included in the design of the facilities, and whether they already got comfortable with that. I know there was kind of general engagement with the inspector, but was that general engagement with the inspector specifically addressing that point or not? I don't know. Well, perhaps we can have an answer to that, but I thought we'd rather had to be fair, but try again. Just in relation to the kitchen and dining facilities, there are only nine bedrooms there. So we've got a kitchen, and we've got a table in the communal space. We're also going to be working with-- (muffled speaking) The updated plans show a bench in the corner that can seat, I think, five people. But again, if we wanted to have something where everyone was eating at one time, the communal space would allow that. In terms of food, we certainly want to make things that are the sort of the bare essentials, things like clothing, food, that sort of thing, something that people don't have to worry about and think about in those first days of being hopefully assisted off the street. So we will be looking to work with charities on that, and I would also include the local pastors in that thinking as well. Obviously, at the moment, all of our thinking is about getting this project off the ground, and today is a big part of that. From now until when it opens, if, you know, given being granted permission today, that would give us essentially between four and five months to work with partner agencies that are outside of the services that we direct the commission at the moment who are all on board, but certainly the wider third sector who I think would absolutely have a vital role to play in everything that all the good that we're hoping to be able to do at the scheme.
• I think we've had a pretty good council light, just as I were always about to say, when the hand goes out, go on.
• You should always look up.
• Go on.
• So I wish on. Yeah, notwithstanding, I think the locality issues, it's really good to see that we have a venue that we can provide a housing first holistic approach to this, which is very successful in getting people off the street. So, you know, there are other areas in the borough, my own ward and wards around it, which do have a lot of rough sleepers. And obviously, this is a really good attempt to try and reduce that issue. And also, the other aspect around this is the wet shelter, which some mungos who are in seeders road have been calling for something like this for a very, very long time. It's when you have a judgmental approach to people and you exclude people from hostels and hubs, because they have alcohol problems, where they just return to the street causing more problems on the street and the locality. So, another really, really good step in the right direction for ones worth. I have two homeless hostels, at least two homeless hostels in my ward, not run by the council, but they're not allowed to consume intoxicants and they can be loitering outside and they can be loitering from a distance outside as well. So, could I ask what daytime activities are arranged? And also, what arrangements are being made to ensure those people distant from the building, not just outside, but distant to the building that may go to ensure that they are kept inside. I'm sorry, not kept inside, but they aren't misbehaving as well.
• Just before you come back on that, I don't like this one to one, it's because it's too long-winded. Councillor Cooper.
• Thank you. I'm not really the only member of this committee who's run facilities like this. Much larger facilities in the centre of town, but also of about this size down residential streets in a house next door to ordinary dwellings converted into schemes for about this number of people. And I've asked a lot of questions about it, and I think some of the conditions, including the obscure glazing, so they won't be overlooking into the nursery facility next door are excellent. I think the restrictions on the use of the back garden are also excellent because I can see that that could create problems between this property and because there is the nursery next door. So I think the points that Councillor White is just making about loitering on the doorstep and people being able to drink and smoke in their own rooms, which is another area that I'd ask some questions about. And I think the issues about the other agencies that are involved to provide support to people, to help them to move on with their life and to remove the sticky label of rough sleeper, which is applied to people, hopefully on a temporary basis, he'd come through the facility. I'd like to hear a bit more about that 'cause I think it's really important for us to approve this with these conditions applied, knowing that they're going to work. And the other issue, which I'd already asked about, was that the staff are definitely going to be awake at night. They're waking night staff not doing sleepovers and the issue about guests and people who are visitors. So guests and visitors can be problematic and it's really important to know how that process is going to be managed. Certainly don't want guests and visitors hanging around on the doorstep, but also some guests and visitors can be exploitative or disruptive and certainly guests, so-called guests who turn up, who are going to potentially exploit vulnerable people as a situation I have to deal with on a number of occasions. So some answers on that because I think that will make the difference for the people that live there in terms of potential success for the purposes of this facility and for us to be happy as a planning committee that this facility can open in this location and that it will be a good decision that we've made. I'd completely disagree with the idea that you could go through all of this and then review it in six months' time. I think that's frankly nonsense, but some answers to those would be very helpful.
• Thank you.
• Mr. Sheeran, will I? Is it always, the people calling guests Mr. Weller by Mr. Sheeran or is it always Michael? Because we don't do first name terms and committees.
• Oh, I don't think my dad would be happy if he just called me Mr. Weller. (laughing) Okay, go on. So yeah, thank you for raising that. I think just firstly on the point about guests, it's a short stay assessment centre, so guests staying as completely, we feel inappropriate and not really necessary. I think it's the kind of thing that you introduce when you're looking at longer term support accommodation, perhaps in the daytime, but no, we would be having no guests at all. The way that we've designed the security access is that you would have to enter the first door. The first door would have to close. They would have to come across and then the person on sort of duty would open the second door. So you couldn't have someone sneaking anyone in either. So we've covered all of that on those basis. Thank you for the questions about the smoking and drinking as well. We have consulted with places like The Passage in Westminster and other schemes that do allow that in the rooms, but not in the communal areas. I think because we know that the success of the scheme is very much dependent on what is happening on that quite large pavement area outside the front. Having an option where people don't have to go outside and drink and smoke on the street is actually probably quite a good thing in terms of security and minimizing the effects on the local area. And yeah, for people that don't drink and don't smoke, the communal areas will all be, yeah, you wouldn't be able to do that, but certainly in their rooms. Also for people with alcohol dependencies, it could be quite dangerous to require someone to stop drinking completely. So we wouldn't be encouraging that either. I think we've had a pretty fair discussion and I think people have made up their minds one way or another. I'm gonna put the recommendations now. I understand Councillor Pritham's concerns on those who is residents, but I'm confident from what I've heard that we can make this work and that the officers concerned will be very intent in doing so. So I would certainly strongly support the recommendations. Councillor Humphries.
• Sorry Chair, just for clarity, voting on the recommendation with those changes to the conditions that we've discussed so far. So making it a separate part for the section on the rise and wear floors and also the thing about setting up the forum as a formal basis that we've got those covered off.
• Let's be precise for the committee class, sorry, committee class. The Democratic Services Officer to recall. What are we saying about the conditions as amended exactly?
• We'd have an additional condition which had the details of the management plan in a separate condition which should pick up all of those matters into one document.
• You and I can see afterwards, agreed.
• Yep, yep.
• Okay, subject to that is it's agreed. Agreed.
• Let's have a vote on this, please. Those in favour of the recommendations? And one against. Thank you, I think that was a very helpful. Councillor Pritter, my hope. I know you previously supported it because I hadn't used it because I think it would be slightly unfair but you produced a leaflet a few months ago. You and your colleague saying you supported this initiative coming largely because the government was funding it. So I appreciate, and I'm not inviting you to join me.
• I didn't say that in my speech.
• Sorry?
• I did mention that.
• Yeah, okay.
• Which I, yes, you did in passing, you know, that's true. So I appreciate that there'll be, I have been in similar situations in the past myself. So thank you for your attendance. Okay, we'll move on. Are you staying or you leave, you're leaving. Arif, are you going? Yep, okay. Right, moving on to application number one, garage is west of 48 and 50 lit and grove. It's a minor amendment. Being pushed, that has to be considered by the committee. Are there any comments at all or is the recommendation accepted? Councillor CUMBINDER.
• Thank you, Chair. I mean, I know the site and I know the previous approval and I know that there was considerable correspondence around the previous planning. The planning history of this littered with a lot of correspondence and the same people have actually taken part in the correspondence around this application. And I looked at it very carefully and I can't see any physical changes to the scheme that might require the amendment on the windows. So the amendment, the window of obscure windows and opening of windows was put in at the time we gave permission in order to safeguard the privacy of the neighboring properties. I don't see any physical change in the proposed building. And so I don't understand why now we are going to remove it. If we proposed it because it was deemed necessary, what is the basis for removing it other than the applicant would rather that he didn't have to deal with it?
• Logically I have to confess as I thought exactly the same. So the conclusion must, the only conclusion must be that, well, that's what we did but it was unreasonable and not really necessary. Now I don't know if that's fair but Mr. Richards perhaps you'd like to say introduce yourself.
• Thank you. I'm Ellen Richards. I'm the team leader for the West area. So yes, you're quite correct. Planning permission was first granted for this house. We all remember the debates that occurred and it was first granted in August 2020 and there was a blanket condition attached to that permission that all windows on the first floor should be fixed shut and obscurity glazed. That was probably in direct response to the level of objection that we had received at that time. That condition was repeated again when it was amended in 2022 and nothing was changed as far as that was concerned. However, the applicants came back and they did originally what they had sought was to remove the condition completely so that there was no restrictions on the windows. However, the application is before officers to consider and we didn't think it was appropriate to remove the condition entirely. We thought it was still reasonable and necessary. In particular, there were some windows like the bathroom windows. One of the windows to the bedrooms, we felt that would impose too much on neighbors and so we've agreed that those windows should be obscure but they can be openable. The bedroom window that's gonna be openable and non-obscure, again, we considered actually in its location and the distances from various windows and garden areas that that one would be okay to be fully openable and non-obscured. And then there's one last one that is intended to be fixed shut and obscure still. So as far as we were concerned, the condition was very much still necessary. So we haven't done as the applicant first intended, if you like, which is to remove the condition completely. That's not what's before members. It's still to be varied as set out in the report and also to vary condition two so that we can approve the new set of drawings and the new set of drawings basically have annotations very clearly showing which windows are to be doing what. So there's no ambiguity for future inquiries or enforcement.
• I see where it's coming from but I do think that as far as the objectives are concerned and oddly enough, over the last four years, those objectives have remained the same. So this is a very static community which has made the views known in 2022 and 24 now. And I therefore think that nothing has changed as far as the impact on their amenities to allow us to lift the condition that was correctly and properly imposed on two separate occasions and therefore I would suggest, I would certainly want to wait against this on those good basis and that basis.
• I understand the logic of that, your position but don't accept it, none of those. So it's the application agreed, those in favor. Five, those against, four, I'm smartly surprised but okay. Move on to the next application which is Granard Avenue. Okay. Mr. Chis.
• I don't have a presentation for this.
• Okay, so the application, I don't know.
• The recommendation is to accept Granard Avenue. Any observations? Councillor Humphrey's, Councillor Givindia, Councillor White, Councillor Humphrey's.
• Thank you Chair. Before we start the sort of debate in general, I just wanted to bring up the point that we've had communication about about any conflict between just all with Councillor and neighbors and things like that. I think you said Mr. Moore's was perhaps going to have a discussion about what we can and can't say, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
• I certainly suggested to him that might be raised, so Mr. Moore.
• Just for the benefit of those, some people that won't pass you to the discussion, you know? Okay.
• And presumably, Councillor Humphrey's is referring to the fact that the neighbor is an elected member. I think there are two principal issues, really, for members to consider that they can take part in the debate and vote on this. And firstly, it's the Council's Code of Conduct. There are a number of references within the Code of Conduct, particularly relating to, firstly, the seven principles of public life, integrity and objectivity. And that feeds into the Appendix A disclosure of interests, part of the Code of Conduct. And I'll just read from paragraph seven. This is a relation to the disclosure of non-registable interests. It says, Where a matter arises at a meeting, which directly relates to your financial interest or well-being, and is not a disclosable pecuniary interest set out in table one, or a financial interest or well-being of a relative or close associate, you must disclose the interest. You may speak on the matter only if members of the public are also allowed to speak at the meeting, otherwise you must not take part in any discussion, although it's on the matter, and must not remain in the room unless you've been granted a dispensation. Now, I think the number of this is whether the Council in question would be considered by members to be a close associate of theirs. Now, the Council's Code of Conduct is based on the local government association model code of conduct, and there's no definition of what a close associate would be. Some local authorities have sought to define that. I'm not suggesting that those definitions are those that should carry forward, but it can be a person whom you're in regular contact with over a period of time that's more than an acquaintance. Now, I don't know the relationships that members have with the particular member here, but if members would consider that the neighbor, can we call it the neighbor councilor to be a close associate? Then under the terms of the Code of Conduct, there you wouldn't be entitled to take part in the debatable vote, and you ought to leave the room. The second consideration would be just the general law relating to apparent bias. So if a member of the public, a reasonable member of the public sees with all the information would think that your judgment will be clouded by your relationship with the neighbor councilor, then you may take the view that you ought not to take part in the debate or the votes. So I can't be more definitive than that, but it's for individual members to consider their position in relationship with the neighbor councilor in accordance with the advice I've just given and see whether it's a matter they ought to take part in. So this is a fellow member of the council. So in one sense, it could be applied to any others. So I'm just asking everyone to consider in all honesty, whether they consider themselves to be a close associate and judgment affected if they don't, or that's their decision, and I am certainly not going to challenge it. So I just leave it to people. Councillor Humphries.
• Sorry, Chair, I don't want to drag it out unnecessarily, but there's a slightly wider point here, which is applicable in this case, and I would have thought most cases where there's a situation like this with accounts, because it's not just about the councilor being a neighbor, it's about who's going to be the advocate and representative for those other people who have made objections to the application, and should the councilor, by merit of being a councilor, but still a neighbor, have less rights as a object or a neighbor than any other resident of the borough, by nature of being a councilor. So there's a slightly broader point there, which I'd like a bit of clarity on, just so that we make sure Vinnie was in the future in a similar situation. I wouldn't want anybody, particularly the other object as an other neighbor, is to feel that being disenfranchised from having a property base and just got a dead genuine or not concerns about any application, do you see where I'm coming from?
• I'm really, really, Councillor Humphries. This has happened to me, and I had the wit to say you have better find someone else to talk on your behalf. I mean, that's as easy and I've done. It's not that great a problem. If you feel that you're a closely associated and would be affected, then I think you ought to take it on board, if you felt that strongly, then you should get someone else to, but we've heard the advice, can we just leave it at that?
• Sorry, Councillor, you're missing the point. The point is, who would that other person be? If all Councillors are in the same situation.
• If it's your, you were talking about the three other people sitting around you, for instance. Okay.
• Would you want me to?
• I mean, I don't, you've got anything to add.
• I just think on that broader point, the neighbor Councillor isn't a member of this committee, so she won't be determining or having a say in the determination of the application. I think in those circumstances, if there isn't anyone who's able to advocate on the part of the wider community in the area, then provided the neighbor Councillor made it very clear that she's speaking on behalf of residents, not necessarily herself, then I wouldn't have thought that there would be a problem, because she's not voting on the application. But I think it would be better if another advocate could be found in those circumstances.
• Can we get on with the application? Councillor, give me a minute.
• I've got a couple of questions to ask. Firstly, the application is described as a six bedroom single dwelling with a basement, and yet when I looked at the plans, there are seven bedrooms, so is that a correction that we need to make?
• The second question is about whether the land along Granite Avenue sort of falls from sort of chart field, as it goes north, and whether that fall in land, and therefore the relative position of properties is adequately reflected in the drawings. And my third, which is not probably a question, but it's about reading through the local concerns about basement. I recognize that our policies don't allow in a sense a ban on basements. So I'm not suggesting that there's a ban on basements, but that the specific concerns about basements in the area, and therefore whether there is, say according to the plans, whether that will cover specifically the drawings about the basement, whether it's large enough, small enough, deep enough, and all of those things which are matters of a concern. So is that going to be in the conditions safeguarded, that it's according to the plans as drawn, and no more?
• Mr. Gess, any comment?
• Thank you. I was just going through the plans, and I don't have the basement, but it's certainly six bedrooms that I've counted, unless there is a guest bedroom at basement level that's proposed, but it wouldn't be a specific, yeah, it's not a habitable bedroom, if you like, in terms of what the family would use. So it is considered a six bedroom dwelling.
• Chair, I mean, when I look at the plans, there's a bedroom, and there's a bed in it, and it's shown as a bedroom. I mean, it's not discovered as a cinema room, which is the other euphemism. So I mean, it's plain as a bike stuff, that there are seven spaces in that house, which have got bedrooms beds in it, and therefore, I would call them bedrooms.
• The point being, in a sense, the description is misleading in saying it's a six bedroom property, when the plans show that there are seven bedrooms. Well, if the point is the description and just the description, I'm sure Mr. It is cool, we'll check on it, and convince you that you're wrong.
• No, I'm sorry. I just don't have the basement plan in front of me. I've got all the other plans. I just don't have the basement.
• I was saying, I was saying. I'm sure you convince the council committee of these wrong offline on another occasion, or you'll eat humble pie and say to him tomorrow, I'm sorry, you were right. But it doesn't make any substantive difference to the application. Does it? It's a descriptive background. Okay, can I suggest, Chair, that there's adequate Wi-Fi in this building, and it's perfectly possible to interrogate council's website, and look at the plans which are on the website, and the plans on the website do share the basement level, and do share the bedroom. So that can be done without having to wait for tomorrow morning.
• Thank you, Councillor. I have just brought that up, and I can see that there's a small bedroom at the basement level, so you are correct that it's probably misleading description to be six bedroom dwelling.
• Thank you for that. Right, so, go on, continue, or have you--
• Sorry, so it's my other two points. One was about the topography of the area.
• So, plan on, Councillor, Mr. Richards, would officers not please assume that they're chairing the meeting? Councillor, what were you saying, Councillor Minnan?
• My other two points was about whether the topography of the area is adequately reflected in the drawings. That's a question, and the third one was about the basement, whether the conditions are billed as on the drawings, adequately ensures that the basement will be built as shown.
• Mr. Councillor, any comment?
• Thank you, Chairman, and apologies for interrupting. The land does rise from the north end to the southern end of Granad, and I think the elevational drawings that have been submitted and assessed have that line indicated on the ground level, as well as across the roof levels to indicate the way that the buildings would change, if you like, as the land changes.
• Councillor White?
• Yep, and--
• Oh, sorry. - Sorry.
• No, go on, have you not finished, carry on?
• And the information that's been submitted, there was a very thick document that's been submitted in terms of geotech report that's been submitted in relation to the basement, and what all the various, the basement impact assessment that's been submitted, but in any event, the basement would have to comply with building regulations, approval, and structural approval that is outside of planning.
• Thank you. Councillor White?
• I think if we keep allowing basements in partly, it'd be back down in the sixth bedroom soon enough, anyway, but the--
• So it's a very, if I may interrupt, sorry, Councillor White. It's a very good job that you're in once with not in Kensington where the basements go down about six stories, you'd have a really tough time there, but sorry, I interrupted you, go on.
• Kensington on times and in times, possibly something. But, yeah, and there can't be too many areas where water can actually seep away anymore and partly, but anyway, that's another point. The one thing that I've found puzzling here is that the heating system hasn't been agreed yet, and whether we could ensure that the heating system as agreed would be a renewable system. I know we have to reach 35%, but sometimes that can be achieved in other ways, and really it would be a missed opportunity for a renewable system in this house, which would have to be done over time anyway.
• Mr. Chazani Cohen?
• The applicants have submitted an energy statement, which is the basic requirement of policy LP10 for new dwellings. That document indicates that they are thinking of using ground source heat pumps, also considering solar panels as part of their overall energy strategy and small hydro generation as well. But, as you've said, the condition requires them to meet with 35% reduction in terms of energy, consumption in any event, and that is conditioned.
• Have you got any comment?
• That's all right, I might certainly go on.
• Yeah, I've just filled it. They should have agreed a system, I think, before coming forward with the--
• I think it's unreasonable to expect a developer, private, or company to apply standards, a particular member of the committee, you, or me, find appropriate as opposed to what's approved in policy. After all, that's what they commissioned an architect, presumably, to do. However, I agree with your comment entirely, that I think you need to get through the, at least planning policy committee and not through here, so you can follow that hint where you like. Councillor Justin.
• I've been on planning for two years now, and I treat every meeting as part of my learning curve. Can someone explain to me why this application is liable for the community infrastructure? I thought that kicked in at nine bedrooms. Nine. And this is this, only got six, stroke seven.
• I think the chair has invited me to my own education.
• So, the infrastructure levy is on additional floor space, so anything over 100 square metres when it's added, we get that on residential developments. The need for affordable housing is when you get over 10 units and things like that, so that's the difference. And that's when we turn into a major application where we have the higher standards for energy sustainability, those sorts of things. They will pop in at a major level. Still pops in anything over 100 square metres.
• Councillor Perks.
• Thank you, Chair. Just to drag us back to Councillor Wight and the source of energy, whatever. Can we just be reassured, whatever system they choose, 'cause I'm thinking it's an air source heat pump, they can be quite noisy and stuff, and the river's fixed on how close it can be to the neighbours, the noise output and stuff like that. So, whatever system they do go for, can we be reassured that they will meet the necessary criteria for that kind of thing, like sighting, location, noise, all that kind of stuff. And I prefer the same kind of thing. Is it right? Because I've been told that both the energy assessments and the fire strategy statements are from the old, the previous application. So, just again, to make sure that before this is dotted and crossed T's, it will have currents up to date ones that do reflect what we've actually got in front of, as well as what was being proposed, which isn't in this application.
• Thank you. Condition five has been recommended to ensure that we do get an updated energy statement. They use the one that they submitted previously that was withdrawn and just before the policy changed.
• Okay. Is the recommendation agreed? Agreed. Is that unanimously agreed or unanimously? Thank you. We move on to Septon Street. Any comments, observations? Is the recommendation agreed? Move on to Bellamy Street. Again, recommendation to approve the counts for the owns.
• Yeah, sorry, I just wanted to just add a bit about the impact, obviously, on neighboring properties and a request about the air conditioning ducting, not crossing the boundary between number 15 and number 13. That was raised, obviously, under some of the residents' concerns. Thank you.
• Sorry, I was somewhere else. Could you repeat that?
• No problem at all. I was just raising the concerns that had been raised with me. I'm in a neighboring water ballon about the air conditioning ducting, which is currently, obviously, there are units being moved, but the concern is that any air conditioning ducting could possibly cross the boundary wall into a neighboring property. I'm wanting to ensure that doesn't happen. Thank you.
• Do we have a?
• Yeah, I'll have to go.
• Mr. Golder, my understanding is that there was amended and it's not, it's just at the rear of the property first full level, and it's enclosed now.
• Councillor Guindia.
• Thanks, Chair. I mean, it's a general observation about air conditioning units. I mean, it's continuing with our sustainability. And I appreciate it. It might be a policy matter rather than a planning matter. But I just wonder whether the department could give some thought to creating some kind of general guidelines on air conditioning unit, the placing of them and the noise levels expected, et cetera. Because I do know of how antisocial there can be at the same time how, sort of, can some high demand and energy levels it can be. So I just wonder whether there's a piece of work that the department could do that might create clearer guidelines for both applicants and neighbors.
• Now, if you ask me, and people hate to hear this, my views about air conditioning are, well, I'd be at one with a dinosaur, I suspect, on this. I mean, it's, that uses more energy and creates more goodness knows what than in summer in the United States and winter, for instance. We ought to be forced to put up with the heat until we know how to control it in some way or other. So my view is on it really a dinosaur like, but you suggesting that we need to change the policies?
• Well, I mean, I think in a way that there is a proliferation and it's about where they are positioned on a site. It's about some sort of basic guidelines. Air source heat pumps are coming up with their own, sort of where it would be best an ideal place to have them. It's just helpful to know that somebody's complying with the guidelines and therefore we're doing our job and they're doing their job.
• Can we do such a thing within the guidelines, within the policies that we have now?
• I think it would be very difficult to, because there's lots of different types of air conditioning units. And that's why we have to go to our special advisors to have them assessed, different locations, whether they're in an acoustic enclosure, for instance. There's a lot of different parts to it. So I don't think you can have a general, if you put it here, it's gonna be fine. Because I think in some circumstances it might be, but there's different windows and different parts of the borough with different background noise levels, it might have different effects. Just going back to the issue about air source heat pumps, similar sort of issues. But I know that the government are actually looking to really relax the rules about where those can go. So we are likely to end up with a lot more, perhaps enforcement complaints with those going closer because they don't need planning permission. But obviously they do cause concerns to neighbors, don't they? So this is all sort of evolving. But yes, if we could just ban air conditioning units, it would take those out. But I don't think we can.
• I hesitate to do that.
• Okay, subject to all these interesting discussions about how planning is evolving. Which I know people like Council writers who are dead keying on in terms of basements and heating or that sort of stuff. Is that agreed?
• Right.
• Move on to, can I just like something?
• You certainly can't, I do apologize. I keep intending to, Mr. Calder's got something to say about recent applications.
• Yes, at the beginning of this meeting, I asked the chair if I could say something.
• I have five, yeah. - He's fine, is that me?
• We've got, we've had two applications recently have come, gone through this committee, which we're referable to, to the mayor's office, the GLA. The first one, the ALTEC application, the Law and Tennis Association was called in back in March. They have now made some amendments to that application and that's out to public consultation. So you might well have received letters or be aware of it from local members or residents. My understanding, well, we've been consulted as well and we've got until the ninth of June to respond with any comments that we have. That's not gonna give us enough time to bring anything further to committee before the June committee. But what we're suggesting is that we'll draft up a letter and if Councillor Belton's chair is happy with that letter, he'll send it on. Obviously discuss it perhaps with Councillor Hunt-Fries in advance and then we'll put it for information on the next committee so it's public and publicised. It'll be put on our website as soon as it signed off anyway. The second application I wanted to talk about was the application at Springfield Hospital that we had. I think it was in the March committee for 449 units. That has now been called in as well. The information of why the reasons we've been called in by the GLA are up on our website. So again, I think we'll end up with a similar process where they will look at the scheme, whether they can address some of the concerns that members have when we discuss and resolve to refuse it. And there will probably be a further consultation and there will be a further hearing, probably not until I would have thought after the summer, probably late summer, early autumn time. So I just thought I'd update you all because those are all decisions that you as a committee have made and may be interested to hear where they're going, or indeed attend the here in the GLA offices. I'm sure Councillor COOK will be there, particularly for one of them anyway. Do you want to say something about it? Councillor BEE.
• Thank you. Yes, having made my declaration at the beginning in relation to the Greater London Authority, it is my intention to attend for both of those hearings and as the assembly member for Merton and Wandsworth, I will have the right to speak. So obviously as well as submitting further representations from this committee, should anybody here wish to express a view that they would wish me to go through in the committee, then I can do that wearing a different hat, not the hat that I'm wearing this evening. And I did actually draw the attention of the ward Councillors to what had happened with the Springfield application because obviously I was informed as the assembly member, but that is my other hat, not the one I'm wearing this evening. Thank you.
• Thank you, interesting. Oh gosh, Councillor Vintour.
• Just on the all England application, I mean, I know that that's been happening, but I have no sight of it. Is there somewhere where you can actually see what they're proposed? I mean, that's, and if you could just circulate it offline, that'd be fine, I'll read it on my own.
• I think there is.
• Yeah, yeah, there is, it's on their website. I'll send round the letter we've received which has the link to it. I think it's on the GLA website, isn't it?
• They've also got some public consultation meetings. I can ping it on, the first one was last Friday, and I think there may still be others that you can attend, but I've also got the link to all the paperwork which I can share with you. I just didn't realise it was something that you would want, otherwise I would have sent it onto you.
• Okay, tree preservation order, anyone going to vote against a tree preservation order? I suspect it not, no, that's agreed. Moving on, we have, decisions paper, paper 24141, any comment or agreed? Agreed, noted, the closure of investigations file, noted, noted, closed appeals, noted, and we've already done with the tree preservation order. Thank you and good night.
• Thanks for that, maybe, Dr. Fissen.
• I must apologise all around.
• I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry.
• Bye.
• Bye. [BLANK_AUDIO]

Transcript

Good evening. Are we live and online? Yes, here we go. Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the May meeting of the Planning Applications Committee. My name is Tony Belton. I'm the chair of the committee, and I represent Battersea Park Ward, which surprisingly enough is in Battersea. I will not ask as the custom is to members to introduce themselves now because I think it's impossible for the public to remember, but when they speak, I'll ask them to introduce themselves then. I've got apologies from Councillor Colle, any other apologies? It doesn't look like it. No. I've got a couple of messages from the chair to the public at large. It will appear, or it might appear, as though we go through an item or two very quickly. I can assure you we've all read our papers, and if we do go through them very quickly, then that's because we have no disagreement with the recommendations as they stand in the paper. I have one other comment to make, and that is I'm sorry to say personally, I'm sorry to say that this will be Councillor Cooper's last meeting on the Planning Applications Committee for a while at least, and that is a pity because she's made solid contribution, to say the least, during the course of the last year. Apart from that, I don't think I've got any other announcements other to ask if I can sign Councillor Humphries, the minutes, as a correct record. Thank you. I'll sign that afterwards, actually. Oh, there's one other introduction I always do make, and that's the people on this table because people watching might wonder who on earth the other people sitting up here are, so Nick Calder, Head of Development Management in Wandsworth. Good evening. My name is Duncan Mors. I'm the External Legal Advisor. Good evening. Callum Warren, Democratic Services. And that rather silly title, in my view, Democratic Services, sorry, doesn't mean that he's the most important person because he takes all the minutes and tells everyone what we decided, whether he agrees with us or not perhaps. Are there any declarations of interest? Councillor Owens, then Councillor Cooper. Thank you, Councillor Belton. Just on number 4, Lavender Hill, Linden Tree Nursery, that the sister, one of the sisters of this nursery is on Webb's Road, and the Battersea Conservative Association have the freehold for that. Thank you. You have a freehold for one of the? One of the sister nurseries. Right, okay. I think the legal advice is that's fine. And Councillor Cooper. Thank you, Chair, and thank you for your kind words earlier. Leonie Cooper and I represent the Fersdale Ward, which is in Tooting, just for transparency, but there's no pecuniary interest. I am the London Assembly member for Merton and Wandsworth, and therefore I sit in City Hall, and just in case there's any references to the GLA, either around its planning responsibilities or TFL and transport or anything else, I just want to make that declaration. Thank you. Oh, and also I am a director of crew energy, just in case anything comes up about renewables. Okay. And that inspires Councillor White to jump in, as I thought it might. I was going to put my hand up anyway. I'll always leave it to last. I'm far too polite to go first. Councillor Paul White of Tooting Beck Ward, and I am a member of community renewable energy Wandsworth crew, and by draw no pecuniary or financial benefit from my involvement. Okay. Thank you. Let's move on to the planning applications. You see the order of the agenda. There is, however, one Councillor who is visiting to give presentation about application 4, item 4, amongst the applications. I suggest that we take that one first. Everyone agree? Right, Councillor Britten, I think this is your first time presenting to the committee. We won't be too appallingly rude to you, but you have five minutes and that's it. Councillor Britten. Thank you, Chair. I think it's important to state at the outset that initiatives to tackle rust sleeping are incredibly important. It's a subject that both Councillor Cook and I, as ward Councillors, care very deeply about, and we're supportive of the Government's approach on this issue, in particular its willingness to support local authorities in tackling it. And indeed, we were also initially supportive of this particular project on that basis, and on the basis that residents would be fully and properly consulted. It's therefore a matter of regret to both of us that the Council has so badly lost the confidence of the local community through what I regard to be a fairly shambolic process, I think made all the more disappointing by the fact that it is the Council's own application as well. The first issue that I'd like to highlight is a lack of consultation with business. So the Linden Tree Nursery next door understandably have a few concerns, no doubt accentuated by the fact that they didn't feel they were consulted proactively enough. And indeed, as I understand it, Council officers only met them after residents and us as ward Councillors pointed this out. I've discussed the matter with the nursery over the last few days, and it's their view that the application does not take into account the operational needs of their business and also prejudices the activities of their operations. As I see it, this could contravene the Wandsworth local plan, specifically the general development principles set out over pages 288 to 289. And in light of the strength of feeling that we've all seen conveyed in the objections, they believe it will become much more difficult for them to attract customers, and that current customers will leave. I know that they've checked with their insurers and discussed this issue with them, and unfortunately there's no cover for this situation, and as a result they believe it's quite likely that they will have to close. Now, the papers from tonight's agenda state that there is no evidence for this assertion, as comparable operational experience is not available for a location such as this. Now, forgive me if I've misunderstood, but the Council's position appears to be that because there is no other example of this kind of initiative being placed in a similar location, the concerns about the viability of the nursery's business are therefore not valid. I don't think that's really a sufficient answer, and I think it's regrettable that these concerns have been dismissed rather out of hand, rather than addressed properly in a straightforward and direct fashion. One factor mentioned as favouring the site is that Lavender Hill police station is nearby, not just up the road. Now, ostensibly I think this seems very reasonable, but I'm afraid I don't really have much confidence in the Council's ability to liaise effectively with the local police on this issue, given that the first the local police team heard of it was from us as ward councillors at a quarterly meeting of the Safer Neighbourhood team. Now, as I understand it, there have been no previous communication with the police on this particular issue. Similarly, whilst the consultation meeting at Battersea Arts Centre was I think an excellent idea, it should have happened well before it actually took place. It would also have been appropriate for me and Councillor Kirk as the ward councillors to be invited. Instead, we only found out about the meeting from a resident too late for us to organise our attendance. Now, I know that this was not intentional at all, but I have to say it doesn't inspire confidence that the site is going to be well run. The information booklet that was distributed to residents was I think in some ways very helpful in setting out more detail and answering a few questions that people had. However, it was presented very much as a fait accompli and it didn't mention that the hub requires planning approval. Whilst I really don't think there's been any conscious attempt to prevent or minimise engagement from residents, I can understand why someone could reach that conclusion having read the booklets. Now, in light of all of this, it's therefore my view that the committee should reject this application and the council should explore other sites. Now, however, if the planning committee is in spite of all these issues still minded to approve the application, I would ask that the following conditions be imposed. The first is that there should be no building work between noon and 3pm each day. That's because these are the core hours when the children at Linden Tree Nursery tend to be asleep. The second is that the formal consultative mechanisms that have been discussed be included in the planning conditions, so in my view that should include a hot line set out in the planning conditions and also I think a set cadence of meetings, perhaps quarterly, which would allow residents' concerns to be addressed in a timely fashion. And then the final point is that actually the planning commission should be, in my view, be temporary planning commission and would come up for renewal after six months of the site being in operation. And what I believe that would do is it would give the committee the opportunity to consider whether the site works in practice, not just in theory, and also give residents a degree of reassurance that there's a formal mechanism and a waypoint for considering whether the site works as it should. I thank the committee for their time. Thank you, Councillor, and thank you for the very balanced way you put what is obviously a tricky application from your point of view as a ward Councillor and indeed from all points of view. I would normally at this point ask the local planning officer, Nigel Grainger, to give the position as far as the planning department is concerned, but Nigel's son had a serious accident just over a week ago and is not well and Nigel is with him tonight. I'm sure the committee would wish us to send our best regards to Nigel and hope for his son's reasonable recovery if you could do that, please. But in his absence, we have very capable, of course, Miss Bruhammond, Araba, would you like to put your recommendations to the committee? Yes. Good evening. My name is Araba Bruhammond and I'm a senior planning officer and the case officer in this application. I did prepare a quick overview of the site just to run through some of the key planning considerations before potentially, you know, offering comments back to the concerns raised. So this is Item 4 on the agenda and it's at 201 to 203 Lavender Hill and it's a change of views from existing office buildings to the Rough Sleepers Assistance Hub office suite generous classification. In terms of the site context, the application site, which is the red star on the map, is a currently vacant mid-terrace four storey office building with an existing basement level and it's located on the south side of Lavender Hill. The building was most recently occupied by the Wandsworth Council leaving care service but has had historic uses as a community centre with some accommodation for the elderly in the 1960s, 1970s. In terms of the local context, the site is located just outside the Clapham Junction town centre boundary, which is the blue line on the map and there are some heritage assets of notes within the local area including the Batsy Arts Centre which is grade two star listed, hashed out in pink opposite the red star and it also falls within the town hall road conservation area and the Clapham Common Conservation Area is also further to the south west. The conservation areas are the areas outlined in yellow on the map. So the proposal will primarily involve internal alterations and refurbishment works in connection with a change of views. As set out in section two of the officer's report, the proposal does not include any new external alterations or extensions to the facades of the main building, therefore the proposed development is not considered to have a material impact on the setting of the identified heritage assets nearby. These are some of the existing site street views. The site adjoins mixed use buildings along the terrace with some commercial and educational uses at ground floor and basement floor levels. So from the photos, you can see that the sites are the two white storefronts in the middle and of notes, the nursery is directly to the left at ground and basement levels and then there are residential uses above. On the west side, which is the right side, after the Mysore Road Junction is a six storey mixed use contemporary building with estate agents offices at ground floor and residential flats above. The areas to the south and north of Lavender Hill are predominantly residential in nature. As previously mentioned, there's not going to be any external alterations or extensions to the main building, however bulk waste and recycling will be located to the rear of the site. So new metal gates are proposed to the rear alley behind the site to restrict access except for in case of waste collections and emergencies such as fire exits. The corporations of the hub will be run from ground floor levels and above with cycle parking and a laundry room at the basement level. The hub will contain nine short stay rooms across first and second floor levels with meeting rooms and staff offices located at ground and third floor levels. The principle of the loss of existing office use has been set out in the officer's report. This sets out how the application site is not included in any areas with policy protections for existing office floor space. It's also noted that the nature of the hub would incorporate a mix of uses including office and meeting rooms with assessment of rough sleepers. It's therefore acknowledged that the hub would retain some services which will not vastly differ from its former use as a device centre and offices for the leave-in care service. As it's out in the report the proposed three generous use would also meet the policy requirements of policy LP 31 which relates to specialist and supported housing. It's acknowledged that the initial application submission did not include sufficient detail on the proposed hub use and management. As such, officers requested for further information in relation to the nature and the operation of the site as well as further details in terms of the internal layout, accessibility and standard of accommodation proposed. Consultation letters were then reissued once all this additional detail was received and the relevant responses have been outlined in the report. After reviewing the information the proposed hub has been identified to serve an urgent local need, serving as a local co-ordinator facility to address a gap in homelessness outreach services and temporary accommodation provisions. The quality of the temporary accommodation has also been fully assessed in section 4 of the officer's report and is considered to accord with the relevant amenity standards in terms of room sizes, layouts, wheelchair accessibility, disability accessibility and communal facilities on the site. In terms of its location, the position of the site just outside the Clapham Junction town centre, an excellent petal of six affords occupants a wide range of local shop services and leisure facilities within walking distances and well linked public transport options. The proposal is not a major application nor does it provide self-contained permanent residential dwellings and therefore does not trigger any affordable housing requirements. A high number of objections have been received in relation to the application. However, it was noted that the majority were received in the initial consultation period where concern was expressed over the lack of any pre-application consultation and discussions with local residents and businesses. The applicants, the ones with housing department, have since engaged in further consultation with local residents, including holding a three hour public consultation event in December 2023. In line with the management of the proposal, the impacts of the neighbouring amenities and the impact on local businesses and on their operations has been fully assessed in section three of the officer's report and it has been found as acceptable. In terms of the initial management plans for the hubs, it's indicated that well considered strategies in terms of managing noise, safety, security within the local area have been proposed and officers have recommended conditions which would secure privacy and amenity for neighbouring properties including condition three which restricts the use of the rear garden area for any amenity purposes or access to residents and condition four to obscure/glaze any of the east facing windows which would directly overlook the neighbouring nursery and also condition five to restrict the use of any amplified sound to limit noise disturbance. Condition six has also been recommended in terms of the installation of CCTV in locations to the front and to the rear of the site for security purposes and this is in line with consultations with the Met Police designing an out crime officer and the applicant has also outlined that they have met with the inspector, the Met Police inspector for Battersea as well to work with them moving forward on the application. It has also been outlined that the on duty staff from the hub will have specific responsibilities to uphold the safety and wellbeing of staff and residents as well as neighbouring residents including conducting daily room checks, regular floor inspections and walk arounds in the immediate area. As part of the rules for the hub it's also proposed that any undue noise and disturbance and unruly behaviour will be strictly monitored. If any such behaviour is noted warnings and afflictions would be issued in line with the draft of extreme procedure which has been presented within the application report. In terms of managing the impact on local community and continuing an open communication with local residents and businesses, the applicant has outlined that there would be a hotline provided and the details of this has been set out in the application report and also a local residence form has been set out in application reports which have been included as reports to be secured as details under condition 2. These avenues would allow for the local community to be informed of project updates and expected time scales and will also serve as a platform for local residents to ask questions and raise concerns during the lifetime of the application. So in conclusion, the material planning considerations have been set out within the officer's report. The hub has been shown to cater to an identified need and would have an acceptable standard of location in an appropriate edge of town centre location. The retained building form would not distract from the local streetscape nor would it harm the setting of the nearby heritage assets and subject to the recommended conditions that pose development should not cause any significant harm to the amenities of neighbouring properties and all waste, transport, sustainability and fire safety impacts have been considered and found as acceptable. Thank you. Thank you very much. Before I open it up, whilst people are having time to think about the details of that, can I just ask about three conditions that Councillor Priton suggested. First of all, in terms of the construction works, all the work involved in this change is interior to the building, is that not correct? Yes, that is correct. So the proposal does not include anything external to the building form but in terms of the internal refurbishments basically these will be, you know, reviewed and will be form part of the environmental health legislation in terms of building control. What the Councillor suggested was a condition that there was no building work between 12 midday and 3pm when understandably the nursery kids are doing what all sensible people should be doing, and I never do, and having a snooze. I'm not sure that would be practical in a working day which presumably goes from, I don't know, 8 to 4 or something like that for most construction workers. Do you think that because it's all internal that it can be contained? What do you reckon on that condition? Um, because building works fall outside of the planning process it's not something we could condition. Okay, well we'll consider that. You did mention that, going on to his second point which is about consultation, you did mention clearly that there had been some movement on that including a hotline. I heard that correctly didn't I? Okay. And the third bit he particularly mentioned was a temporary permission six months. Now I'm not asking you to give, but like your opinion on that I would have thought that six months is really unrealistically short for a department to set up a facility like this. I can understand the reason for having a temporary permission. I'm not necessarily supporting that as a condition, but I understand the reason, but six months shortly is unreasonable would you not think? I believe because of the way we've assessed the application in terms of it being a permanent use of the site, it was not our consideration that a temporary condition would be required or relevant in this case, because suitable management strategies have been outlined for the site that would manage noise and privacy and any other impacts to local businesses. It was not considered that that would be necessary. That was our opinion. Okay, thank you. I'm sure we've got, I'm sure we all understand that this is a very serious problem, that is homelessness and how we handle homelessness. It's also a very serious community concern and therefore if we're going to make this work properly we want the very best possible treatment of it by this committee and in every other way. I open up to questions, questions and comments from anyone at all. Councillor of India. I just take your guidance and I got some comments on the conditions Councillor Priton mentioned. I just want to explore those, but I also have other questions about the application, so shall I do the conditions related questions first? Just on the question of afternoon working, and I recognise internal works are different from external works, but just as an example, we have recently some works done to our own flat, all internal, but actually some internal works are noisy. They just have to, by nature of the things, and so I wonder whether if the blanket ban is not practical, whether mechanism could be considered whereby any noisy aspects of internal fitting out is excluded from the afternoon work. I mean, it's a works management thing. I appreciate planning may not be the vehicle for it, but I think the council as the applicant in this case might want to take a lead in being a good neighbour when it comes to this thing, so I'll just explore that. I should say, by the way, sorry, I should have said that we have, as I'm sure some people know, but we have council observers here closely associated with the working of the applications. I'm sure they'll take note of what's being said. It would be worth hearing from Mr Wirth if what I'm suggesting is deliverable. The second suggestion I'd like to make is that in my own ward, and you will be familiar with it, the Gressenhall Road Mosque created quite a stir when it came for various planning approvals here, and again, through both the council's intervention and the mosque's willingness, a community forum was set up which regularly met and it was not necessarily a forum where the council was necessarily represented, but it created the platform for councillors, for the mosque community and for the local neighbourhood community to sit around, and whether that is something that, once again, Mr Wirth's good offices could explore and emulate, because I think it will go some way towards strengthening the hotline and the quarterly meetings already suggested. The final point on that was I think the suggestion was not that those quarterly meetings and hotlines have been offered, that's right, but it's whether it could be turned into a condition so that it's a planning requirement rather than the goodwill of the applicant, and I wonder whether that's something that this committee should consider. Sorry, do you want to move on? So those are my three points about the condition. Just turning on to the actual facilities, and perhaps this is where Mr Wirth might be able to help, I looked at the plans and I see that there are nine bedrooms, so I don't know how long, what would be the average length of stay for each person, and whether the dining and kitchen facilities are adequate for the nine people, but that's in a sense considered to be adequate. So that's the kind of question about the internal facilities in there. The other point is the police suggested kind of a linkage with things like street pastas and so on and whether that's been explored, the report is silent on whether there's any work done around it, and similarly the police talked about CCT, which we picked up, but they talk about physical security, and I don't know what they mean, but I'm sure that that was set out to the housing team, so I wonder whether whatever physical security has been embedded in this plan has met the approval of the police, and my final point is really about the involvement of Richmond Council in this application. Now I appreciate the council has a shared staffing arrangement and all of that thing, but this is actually providing a facility for Richmond in Wandsworth, and some local residents might say to the detriment of the local community, and I just want to understand an explanation for it as to why, is it just simply because the funding is done by joint councils, and why is that done by joint council, why could it not have been done by just Wandsworth in order to keep this Wandsworth facility as a Wandsworth facility? It's not as though homelessness is not a significant enough problem for it to be a sole single borough facility here and Richmond can do their own. Please don't take this amiss and get into one of our standard Ravi-Tony arguments, but I find that very amusing given a question coming from one of the main architects of the set up, don't rise. Any other specific questions or comments? Councillors? I'd like to support the idea of restricting the noisy works between 12 and 3. I'm sorry, my name is Finna Ayres, I'm East Patney Councillor. It's quite common that you have the word noisy put in front of works and that you have, in brackets, no use of power tools. It's really quite a common thing to see in a building contract with some restrictions. I don't think that's an unreasonable thing to ask for. I have a separate point which is not to do with whether I'm going to support it or not, because I am going to support it. I think it's a very significant and useful contribution to our services and I think that adequate ameliorating actions have been taken to reduce some of the problems which will undoubtedly occur. My comment is about the planning, the building inside. I was absolutely furious to see that the smallest room of all the rooms is the female room. And I'm sorry, I know you're wrong. Sorry, that's not funny. Not only is it the smallest room, but it has one corner taken off it with the existing fireplace and the boiler is in this smallest room. I cannot understand how that escaped the attention of the planners. I think it's outrageous. The awareness of what you're providing and what it means, what you're doing, is horrible. So I'm very cross about that and I think that there's quite an easy design solution to improving that wretched little corner and I'm delighted to show you how it could be. Thank you. I don't know whether I should declare an interest, but I have actually employed Finna as an architect and I know she's very inventive about solutions of that kind. So people should note that. Anyone else? Councillor Humphreys. Can we perhaps answer some of these questions before we move on to some more. Well, no, because they're general. If you allow me to. Councillor Humphreys. As you wish, Councillor Guy Humphreys, Office of Speaker and Councillor for Southfields in Putney. I wholeheartedly support the idea of the forum being somewhat more formally set up, principally because it gives them an opportunity to be more proactive in their discussions with the obviously understandably concerned businesses and residents nearby, rather than just issuing a bulletin. There's a bit more to it about it and the hotline is something we frequently use, but it's kind of reactive, if you know what I mean, as far as responding to individual concerns. I think if you had a forum, whether it's quarterly as Councillor Priton suggested or something like that, more formally set up, then it gives an opportunity for the hopefully words of it being the good progress being made to spread to the wider community and also a wider forum for people to have those probably mutual concerns addressed in one place. I think as Councillor Karynga said, the model that worked really well in Gresham Road was something where a lot of the concerns that were initially raised found to be resolvable, the work of good will of both parties. I'd highly recommend that be more formalised and I think it is a good idea to put it as a condition as a specific kind of thing, is one thing. On the noisiness stuff, I'm in a bit of a cleft stick here, aren't I, being a contractor myself, so I get it both ways around. When you're working, it's true internal stuff can be very noisy. So again, even if it's not possible to completely restrict works during those hours, anything that could be done, I think, to do that. And also I think if there was stuff that was unavoidably going to have to happen, again, if that could be flagged up to the nursery particularly so they could make arrangements to try to ameliorate it from their side as well, so proper dialogue on stuff like that, because it is going to be impossible to manage that completely satisfactorily to both sides. As you all know, with party walls and such, you start drilling into a wall to do anything, it's going to reverberate throughout the whole building and those old buildings, the acoustic properties aren't brilliant, so I think that's something that would be worthwhile doing. That's on that stuff so far. There was a suggestion, again, from the applicant actually, which wasn't picked up by officers completely, which was interesting, about obscure glazing some of the windows, so we've heard that they're going to be obscure glazed on the side facing the south east, isn't it, I think, facing directly onto the nursery, but it was also apparently an offer from the applicant to obscure glaze some of the other windows and south facing windows that might have some possibility for overlooking, and officers in the report took the view that that wasn't necessary because of the vulnerability of the residents and the fact that some of those were bedrooms. I can understand perhaps the bedrooms, but some of those rooms are kitchens, and I don't see any reason why the applicant's offering shouldn't take them up on their offer to obscure glaze those kitchen windows. Again, just in the nature of the fact that it has been something of a controversial thing, I think any gestures the applicant could do to assure residents that the council is doing the best it absolutely can in those circumstances to moderate things would be really helpful. On a more general point, I just wanted to ask about - a lot of work's gone into this, we all understand that and appreciate you put a lot of work into trying to make this work. We have to be honest, though, don't we? This is a first, really, for this kind of operation. Unless I'm wrong, I don't think there's anybody else doing that kind of thing. So, again, I would like to hope that the council can be agile and flexible moving ahead with these things and have much well-made plans made. Sometimes things don't work out necessarily quite as you expect. As Councillor Greenlee's comments about some of the police responses, it would be good to know that the council is willing to be flexible and moderate or change plans if things aren't working according to exactly how it is in reality. Thank you. I'm sure we've all learnt a lot, and I'm sure the people in the housing department have learnt a lot, too. The officers are eager to get in with some comments before we get run away, but Councillor Owen's, you're all lined up ready. Well, I just wanted to pick up firstly on the hours of works. Noisy works are normally outside the hours of 8am to 6pm, because that's when people are at home. Building works tend to happen during the middle of the day. I don't think I've ever seen a contract which would say you can't do building works within the middle of the day. It wouldn't be able to be controlled through the planning process, but as you know, Mr Wirth and his team are here today, and they might be able to come to some sort of arrangement directly where they inform the nursery at times when they're going to be doing noisy works, and there can be some sort of relation that way. On the point of the management plan is approved as part of Condition 2 in accordance with the documents. If you feel that that is not sufficient, we could put that into a separate condition and have it as a separate workship carried out in accordance with the management plan. That doesn't make a difference, but maybe it provides members with that extra security that we've got that extra condition on it. I think those are the ones I want to pick up. I think the other point, the earlier scheme had the ladies' room as the smallest. I think that's been amended out, but I'll confirm that with Ms Bruhammond, if that's okay. Sorry, yeah, that's fine. Yeah, so in terms of the standard of accommodation, the female only room has been amended out, and now all the rooms are gender neutral. I believe this was the first illustration of the scheme because I believe research has shown that the female only offering was not as high as male rough sleepers. However, now all rooms will be gender neutral to allow for females to sleep in any of the rooms should they be a higher number. In terms of the obstacle glazing, yes, officers did consider the option of obstacle glazing all the rear windows as suggested by the applicants. However, striking the balance between having some of these being habitable rooms and these vulnerable people having to stay in these much smaller rooms in comparison to permanent residential dwellings, it was considered that the views out of these windows would not be dissimilar from what are currently available from the office use of the site and as well as other neighbouring residential flats that have views over this nursery space. So it was considered that these rooms do not require obstacle glazing to safeguard the existing privacy levels, given there's a lot of mutual overlooking. However, the option to obstacle glaze maybe some of the windows such as the kitchen window could be considered, but it is an opinion that views from the kitchen would not be much dissimilar from views from the office uses and the meeting rooms which would already have views over the site. In terms of the, I believe the noise conditions have been discussed, but in terms of the physical security, I'll just touch on it a bit. We did secure metal gates at the rear of the site so that the whole of the rear of the site is also physically secure. I believe the applicant has outlined that a number of the staff would be trained in terms of dealing with the residents that will be coming to the site, whether a number of the staff would be security personnel in particular, I believe that might be a question best answered by the housing team. And in terms of the average lengths, the scheme has been outlined to be based on a 28-day target temporary model, so it's anticipated that that would be hoping that maximum stay, however, each case would be assessed in its own individual merits, and so there could be cases where that could be longer. Have either you, Mr Brougham, or Mr Cawle, got anything to say about the Richmond involvement? I was going to then hand over to maybe Mr Wirth or Mr Sheard and Weller to sort of pick up on firstly the police issue and their relationship with the police, and then maybe pick up on the Richmond and Wandsworth and other examples coming forward of this, if that's okay with the chair and with members. Members are happy about that, yes. Hi, Michael Sheard and Weller, Ross Sleeper Coordinator for Richmond and Wandsworth Councils. So, yeah, just on referencing the question about interaction with the police, we actually met with the Chief Inspector for Battersea around the same time as the public consultation event in early December. Mr Wirth and I also attended the Safer Neighbourhoods panel, which is an online forum, which I think Councillor Pridham was also in attendance for just to speak to local residents and involve the police. So we've done those two things. Thank you. Now, I had Councillor Justin – Just on the SSA issue. Mark Justin, Ward Councillor for Nine Elms. We're reading in the notes here that this will be the first rough sleeper hub in the borough, but what about other boroughs? I mean, I'd like to ask the officers, have they looked at other boroughs where there is a pre-existing rough sleeper hub, because I would have said that it would be very helpful to find out how other people have got on with this kind of centre, nay, essential to have found out what other boroughs – and if there isn't one in the London borough, I'd stretch out further into outer London. But for something that's new, how do we know that if the 500 objectors knew that there were several of these hubs across London and they found them running perfectly well, it would go a long way to allay their fears. So I would have said that some kind of investigation to other rough sleeper hubs, wherever they may be, would be actually essential in assessing this application. Well, if it's the first, it can't be a sentence, I mean, if you see what I mean. But Councillor Ayns, your question is? Yes, sorry, Councillor Ayns, Northcote Ward, I didn't explain that earlier. Yeah, just a bit about – I'm picking up on Councillor Pridham's comments and then following the presentation. The consultation process, I actually did attend the residence meeting, the three-hour residence meeting, and there were an awful lot of people there, and one of the reasons I attended is the nursery that is affected and impacted by this. Also, parents in my own ward send their children there. I just didn't feel that in the presentation that that was particularly alluded to, it was almost like, well, we had this consultation, we then had this meeting, it's all fine. I mean, I'm not entirely convinced that the business's concerns are addressed, and I'm not sure the consultation, which was very quick, I mean, we've had 500 objections, we might have had 1,000, but I'm interested on that. Thank you. Did you want to come in, Mr Gordon? Yes, I don't think we answered the SSA point before we moved on, and then we'll pick up the Councillor Justin's issue about other examples in London. I'll hand back to Mr Wirth to start with. Thank you, Chair. So dealing with the point about other schemes, there are a couple of long-running schemes which we have visited. Michael and his colleagues have been and visited them. There's one in Lambeth by Vauxhall Bus Station, which has been running for a long time. And I think from my knowledge it's 30, 40 rooms, so bigger than this. There's also another one called The Passage up in central London in Westminster that's been running for a long time as well. So we've gone out, a lot of the stuff you see here in terms of the management plan, the eligibility criteria, the house rules, if you like, have been plagiarised from their best practice. And also we've been advised through this process by government officials at DLUC, Department of Levelling Up, et cetera, and they're roughly the specialists. So we think at this stage it is new to the borough, it's new to us, and I fully accept and apologise to the committee and the wider community as we did previously that the initial consultation was not what it should have been and more than happy to own that one. We hope we've improved it through the events that have been described. So we've been out and we've seen other boroughs and we will look to take their best practice and build on it. That was one point. On the sharing of Richmond, this is increasingly roughly the services are looked at on a sub-regional or even pan-London basis. Richmond obviously is, we also run the same services in Richmond on behalf of the SSA, and to an extent when we bid for the funding for each borough, which was a very successful bid against the DLUC government funding, we similarly bid in the Richmond bid for some space in this facility for Richmond. The Richmond residents would be a minority of the nine, maybe one or two at any time, and that's reflected, the joint funding package makes this work. So that's the answer on the SSA point. The other point more generally if I may, Chair, is that our intention here is to be a good owner. So more than happy to take away the point about noisy works, if I can use that term during those hours, and if subject to your approval we proceed to appointing contractors, we will use our best endeavours to make sure that they honour that and do the quieter works during those periods. One other thing on the nursery is it was raised. We met with the nursery management previously. We've kept in touch with them, and one of the things we did to try and mitigate their concerns is our opening hours are longer than theirs. So we will have what I would call our daytime staff, our professional staff there before they open and after they close. We will appoint, again subject to approval, a full-time hub manager, and we expect that person to be talking to the nursery manager probably on a daily basis, you know, and trying to develop that good neighbour relationship. So I think, Chair, I've answered most of the points, maybe not all of them. Thank you, thank you indeed. I appreciate that you've, to use your own words, plagiarised the applications from Lambeth which of course is a neighbouring brother, but more specifically, since it has been in operation some time, as you say, in Lambeth, have there been complaints about it ongoing? Since it opened, ours hasn't opened yet, so we haven't got any complaints, but when it opened in Lambeth or on an ongoing basis, have there been complaints about the unit? Thank you, Councillor. I think it's inevitable there will be complaints. This client group is not an easy client group, and that's why we've put the 24/7 cover. So there would have been complaints. They are slightly different. If you have used Vauxhall bus station, it's facing the bus terminus, so overnight, you know, it's a very different environment. But we are, what we are planning here is to have two staff on through the night every night, one performing a kind of security concierge role and the other being a trained, roughly per support worker. So that will be two members of staff to nine residents. That's not what you get at these other larger hostels. So we think, again, taking that best practice, that we are putting an adequate provision in for that. And if there are complaints, we will deal with them. And what we said to neighbouring residents, neighbouring businesses, is we, you know, need this to work, and we will not allow, if we put somebody in there who's causing, you know, raising hell with the neighbours or with our staff or with the other residents in the scheme, we will invoke, you know, the eviction process. Because we, it's not in our interest to see this fail by any measure. There's a lot riding on this for the department and for the council. Can I, I've got one more contribution. Now, I don't want to go all around this again. At the moment we've had a very positive discussion, discussing real concerns and being very reasonable, but so I don't want to go round and round it. But you haven't, both Councillor White and Councillor Boswell, I think have not had a go. Councillor White's giving way to Councillor Boswell, I think. Thank you very much. Sorry, just I can't hear both at the same time. Thank you very much, Councillor White. I'm Councillor Sheila Boswell, Tooty Beck Ward. Yes, I'm so pleased to see such a big section on this on community engagement. Because, of course, we all agree that this is something that is much needed and that we need to do. But, obviously, when these things come about, they have an impact on the local area, as all planning does. I wanted to ask about the local residents forum. I know it's been covered with quite a lot of questions from particularly Councillor Govindia. But we know that local residents forums on the estates, for example, are notoriously difficult to set up and it's difficult to get engagement. So I wanted to know a little bit more about how we're going to go about making sure that's successful, that there is some way that businesses will also be able to be included in that. Because I know there's a lot of businesses around that area, including local independent ones that are quite community minded. And then, finally, it's just a suggestion, really. And, again, thinking about community engagement, perhaps the local residents and businesses might be invited to visit before it opens so that they can actually come in and see what's inside and what's being offered. Because fear of the unknown also can be huge. And when you actually see what's there, it isn't quite such a worry. Thank you very much. Someone on my left is going to say to me, you've got to distinguish between planning issues and housing management issues. But just ignoring that particular complaint is a good way of having an open discussion about it. Any response to that? Oh, sorry. Oh, sorry. Do you want to go ahead? Sorry. I was just going to say that in terms of the forum, as Mr. Calder said, we can have a separate condition in terms of that, in terms of getting that secured under its own separate condition and potentially having further details as to how it's set up and the way businesses will be involved in contributing to that. Yeah. And just to comment on the forum, that was one of the things that was agreed with Councillor Dickerson at the in-person consultation that happened in December. I know you say about it's potentially hard to get people to attend. That certainly wasn't the feeling that I had when I was at that public consultation. And certainly, just repeating what my colleague was saying before about wanting to be a good neighbour, we essentially want this scheme to be something that the community is proud of in terms of getting assistance to the most vulnerable people in that specific community. So we certainly want to be able to achieve that by involving the local community. And yet, I think it certainly is a really good idea to do a tour when it's a little bit better stay than it is right now. But yeah, certainly, that would be our idea of doing that. Yeah. Thank you very much. Great. Thank you. Councillor Galindale. So there were some specific points I'd raised in my series of questions, which probably because of the barrage of them, they got forgotten. So one was about the average length of stay, and we don't know that. I think it was 28 days. And then the dining and kitchen facilities, whether that is adequate, because 28 days without food or whatever, it's not a prospect, I expect. So there's that side. The other one was the police reference to engagement with street pastors and the drugs team and so on and whether that's being taken and whether that's something that, again, could be communicated to the local community about the way in which that's being handled. And the other point about the police reference to physical security and whether that's been included in the design of the facilities and whether they got comfortable with that. I know there was kind of general engagement with the inspector, but was that general engagement with the inspector specifically addressing that point or not? I don't know. Well, perhaps we can have an answer to that, but I thought we'd rather have to be fair, but try again. Just in relation to the kitchen and dining facilities, there are only nine bedrooms there. So we've got a kitchen and we've got a table in the communal space. We're also going to be working with the updated plans show a bench in the corner that can seat, I think, five people. But again, if we wanted to have something where everyone was eating at one time, the communal space would allow that. In terms of food, we certainly want to make things that are sort of the bare essentials, things like clothing, food, that sort of thing, something that people don't have to worry about and think about in those first days of being hopefully assisted off the street. So we will be looking to work with charities on that. And I would also include the local pastors in that thinking as well. Obviously, at the moment, all of our thinking is about getting this project off the ground and today is a big part of that. From now until when it opens, if given being granted permission today, that would give us essentially between four and five months to work with partner agencies that are outside of the services that we direct the commission at the moment who are all on board, but certainly the wider third sector who I think would absolutely have a vital role to play in everything that all of the good that we're hopefully going to be able to do at the scheme. I think we've had a pretty good Council-wide, just as I was always about to say, and the hand goes up. Go on. You should always look up, Tony. Go on. Yeah, notwithstanding, I think, the locality issues, it's really good to see that we have a venue that we can provide housing first, a holistic approach to this, which is very successful in getting people off the streets. So there are other areas in the borough, my own ward and wards around it, which do have a lot of rough sleepers, and obviously this is a really good attempt to try and reduce that issue. And also, the other aspect around this is the wet shelter, which some mungos who are in Cedars Road have been calling for something like this for a very, very long time. When you have a judgmental approach to people and you exclude people from hostels and hubs because they have alcohol problems, well, they just return to the street, causing more problems on the street and the locality. So, another really, really good step in the right direction for Wandsworth. I have two homeless hostels, at least two hostels in my ward, not run by the council, but they're not allowed to consume intoxicants, and they can be loitering outside, and they can be loitering from a distance outside as well. So, could I ask what daytime activities are arranged, and also what arrangements are being made to ensure those people distant from the building, not just outside, but distant to the building that may go, to ensure that they are kept inside. Oh, sorry, not kept inside, but they aren't misbehaving, as it were. Just before you come back on that, I don't like this one-to-one. I think it's too long-winded. Councillor Cooper. Thank you. I'm not the only member of this committee who's run facilities like this, much larger facilities in the centre of town, but also of about this size down residential streets in a house next door to ordinary dwellings converted into schemes for about this number of people. And I've asked a lot of questions about it, and I think some of the conditions, including the obscure glazing so they won't be overlooking into the nursery facility next door are excellent. I think the restrictions on the use of the back garden are also excellent, because I can see that that could create problems between this property and because there is the nursery next door. But I think the points that Councillor White is just making about loitering on the doorstep and people being able to drink and smoke in their own rooms, which is another area that I'd ask some questions about, and I think the issues about the other agencies that are involved to provide support to people to help them to move on with their life and to remove the sticky label of rough sleeper, which is applied to people hopefully on a temporary basis who come through the facility. I'd like to hear a bit more about that, because I think it's really important for us to approve this with these conditions applied, knowing that they're going to work. And the other issue which I'd already asked about was that the staff are definitely going to be awake at night, their waking night staff not doing sleepovers, and the issue about guests and people who are visitors. So guests and visitors can be problematic, and it's really important to know how that's process is going to be managed. Certainly you don't want guests and visitors hanging around on the doorstep, but also some guests and visitors can be exploitative or disruptive. And certainly guests, so-called guests who turn up who are going to potentially exploit vulnerable people is a situation I had to deal with on a number of occasions. So some answers on that, because I think that will make the difference for the people that live there in terms of potential success for the purposes of this facility, and for us to be happy as a planning committee that this facility can open in this location, and that it will be a good decision that we've made. I completely disagree with the idea that you could go through all of this and then review it in six months' time. I think that's frankly nonsense. But some answers to those would be very helpful. Thank you. Mr Sheeran, will I? Do people call you Mr Weller for short, or is it always Michael? Because we don't do first-name terms in committees. Oh, I don't think my dad would be happy if he just called me Mr Weller. Okay, go on. So yeah, thank you for raising that. I think just firstly on the point about guests, it's a short stay assessment centre. So guests staying is completely – we feel it inappropriate and not really necessary. I think it's the kind of thing that you introduce when you're looking at longer-term supported accommodation, perhaps in the daytime. But no, we were having no guests at all. The way that we've designed the security access is that you would have to enter the first door, the first door would have to close, they would have to come across, and then the person on duty would open the second door. So you couldn't have someone sneaking anyone in either. So we've covered all of that on those bases. Thank you for the questions about the smoking and drinking as well. We have consulted with places like The Passage in Westminster and other schemes that do allow that in the rooms, but not in the communal areas. I think because we know that the success of this scheme is very much dependent on what is happening on that quite large pavement area outside the front. Having an option where people don't have to go outside and drink and smoke on the street is actually probably quite a good thing in terms of security and minimizing the effects on the local area. And for people that don't drink and don't smoke, the communal areas will all be – you wouldn't be able to do that, but certainly in their rooms. Also for people with alcohol dependencies, it can be quite dangerous to require someone to stop drinking completely, so we wouldn't be encouraging that either. I think we've had a pretty fair discussion. I think people have made up their minds one way or another. I'm going to put the recommendations now. I understand Councillor Priton's concerns on those of his residents, but I'm confident from what I've heard that we can make this work and that the offices concerned will be very intent in doing so. So I would certainly strongly support the recommendations. Councillor Humphries. Sorry, Chair, just for clarity, voting on the recommendation with those changes to the conditions that we've discussed so far, so making it a separate part for the section on the whys and wherefores and also the thing about setting up the forum as a formal basis so we've got those covered. Let's be precise for the committee clerks – sorry, committee clerks – the Democratic Services Officer to go. What were you saying about the conditions as amended exactly? We'd have an additional condition which had the details of the management plan in a separate condition which should pick up all of those matters into one document. You and I can see afterwards agreed? Yeah. Okay. Subject to that, is it agreed? Agreed. Let's have a vote on this, please. Those in favour of the recommendations? And one against. Thank you. I think that was very helpful. Councillor Pridham, I hope – I know you previously supported it because I hadn't used it because I think it would be slightly unfair, but you produced a leaflet a few months ago, you and your colleague saying you supported this initiative coming largely because the government was funding it. So, I appreciate – and I'm not inviting you to join me. I did say that in my speech. Sorry? I did mention that. Yeah, okay. Yes, you did in passing. That's true. So, I appreciate that there will be – I have been in similar situations in the past myself, so thank you for your attendance. Okay, we'll move on. Are you staying or you're leaving? Are you going? Yep. Okay. Right. Moving on to application number one, garages west of 48 and 50 Lytton Grove. It's a minor amendment being pushed that has to be considered by the committee. Is there any comments at all or is the recommendation accepted? Councillor de Vindo. Thank you, Chair. I mean, I know the site and I know the previous approval and I know that there was considerable correspondence around the previous planning history. The planning history is littered with a lot of correspondence and the same people have actually taken part in the correspondence around this application. And I looked at it very carefully. And I can't see any physical changes to the scheme that might require the amendment on the windows. So, the window of obscure windows and opening of windows was put in at the time we gave permission in order to safeguard the privacy of the neighbouring properties. I don't see any physical change in the proposed building and so I don't understand why now we are going to remove it. If we imposed it because it was deemed necessary, what is the basis for removing it other than the applicant would rather that he didn't have to deal with it? Logically, I have to confess that I thought exactly the same. So, the only conclusion must be that, well, that's what we did but it was unreasonable and not really necessary. Now, I don't know if that was fair but Ms. Richards, perhaps you would like to say. Can you introduce yourself? Thank you. I'm Ellen Richards. I'm the team leader for the west area. So, yes, you're quite correct. Planning permission was first granted for this house. We all remember the debates that occurred. And it was first granted in August 2020 and there was a blanket condition attached to that permission that all windows on the first floor should be fixed shut and obscurity glazed. That was probably in direct response to the level of objection that we had received at that time. That condition was repeated again when it was amended in 2022 and nothing was changed as far as that was concerned. However, the applicants came back and they did originally, what they had sought was to remove the condition completely so that there was no restrictions on the windows. However, the application is before officers to consider and we didn't think it was appropriate to remove the condition entirely. We thought it was still reasonable and necessary. In particular, there were some windows like the bathroom windows. One of the windows to the bedrooms we felt that would impose too much on neighbours and so we've agreed that those windows should be obscure but they can be openable. The bedroom window that's going to be openable and non-obscure, again, we considered actually in its location and the distances from various windows and garden areas that that one would be okay to be fully openable and non-obscured. And then there's one last one that is intended to be fixed shut and obscure still. So as far as we were concerned, the condition was very much still necessary. So we haven't done as the applicant first intended, if you like, which is to remove the condition completely. That's not what's before members. It's still to be varied as set out in the report and also to vary condition too so that we can approve the new set of drawings and the new set of drawings basically have annotations very clearly showing which windows are to be doing what. So there's no ambiguity for future enquiries or enforcement. I see where it's coming from but I do think that as far as the objectives are concerned and oddly enough over the last four years those objectives have remained the same. So this is a very static community which has made the views known in 2020, '22 and '24 now and I therefore think that nothing has changed as far as the impact on their amenities to allow us to lift the condition that was correctly and properly imposed on two separate occasions and therefore I would certainly want to wait against this on that basis. I understand the logic of that, your position, but don't accept it nevertheless. Has the application agreed? On to the next application which is Granard Avenue. The recommendation is to accept Granard Avenue. Any observations? Councillor Humphries, Councillor Gavindia, Councillor White, Councillor Humphries. Thank you, Chair. Before we start the debate in general, I just wanted to bring up the point that we've had communication about, about any conflict of interest or with Councillor neighbours and things like that and I think you said Mr Moore was perhaps going to have a discussion about what we can and can't say, et cetera, et cetera. I certainly suggested to him that might be raised. So, Mr Moore. Just for the benefit of those who weren't partied to the discussion, you know. Okay. Okay. Presumably Councillor Humphries is referring to the fact that the neighbour is an elected member. I think there are two principal issues really for members to consider that they can take part in the debate and vote on this and firstly it's the council's code of conduct. There are a number of references within the code of conduct, particularly relating to firstly the seven principles of public life, integrity and objectivity and that feeds into the appendix A disclosure of interests part of the code of conduct and I'll just read from paragraph 7. This is in relation to the disclosure of non-registrable interests. It says where a matter arises at a meeting which directly relates to your financial interest or wellbeing and is not a disclosable pecuniary interest set out in table 1 or a financial interest or wellbeing of a relative or close associate, you must disclose the interest. You may speak on the matter only if members of the public are also allowed to speak at the meeting, otherwise you must not take part in any discussion or vote on the matter and must not remain in the room unless you've been granted a dispensation. I think the nub of this is whether the councillor in question would be considered by members to be a close associate of theirs. Now the council's code of conduct is based on the local government association model code of conduct and there's no definition of what a close associate would be. Some local authorities have sought to define that. I'm not suggesting that those definitions are those that you carry forward but it can be a person whom you're in regular contact with over a period of time that's more than an acquaintance. Now I don't know the relationships that members have with the particular member here but if members would consider that the neighbour, can we call it the neighbour councillor to be a close associate, then under the terms of the code of conduct you wouldn't be entitled to take part in a debate or vote and you ought to leave the room. The second consideration would be just the general law relating to apparent bias. So if a member of the public, a reasonable member of the public sees with all the information would think that your judgement would be clouded by your relationship with the neighbour councillor then you may take the view that you ought not to take part in the debate or the vote. Sorry I can't be more definitive than that but it's for individual members to consider their position and relationship with the neighbour councillor in accordance with the advice I've just given and see whether it's a matter they ought to take part in. So this is a fellow member of the council so in one sense it could be applied to any of us so I'm just asking everyone to consider in all honesty whether they consider themselves to be a close associate and judgement affected. If they don't well that's their decision and I am certainly not going to challenge it. So I just leave that to people. Councillor Humphries. Sorry I don't want to drag it out unnecessarily but there's a slightly wider point here which is applicable in this case and applicable in I would have thought most cases where there's a situation like this with the councillor because it's not just about the councillor being a neighbour, it's about who's going to be the advocate and representative for those other people who have made objections to the application and should the councillor by merit of being a councillor but still a neighbour have less rights as an objector as a neighbour than any other resident of the borough by nature of being a councillor. So there's a slightly broader point there which I'd like a bit of clarity on just so that we make sure of any of us in the future in a similar situation. I wouldn't want anybody, particularly the other objectors and other neighbours to feel they're being disenfranchised from having a proper debate and discussion of their genuine or not concerns about any application. Do you see where I'm coming from? I'm really, really, Councillor Humphries, this has happened to me and I had the wit to say you'd better find someone else to talk on your behalf. I mean that's easy enough done. It's not that great a problem. If you feel that you're a closely associate and would be affected then I think you ought to take it on board. If you felt that strongly then you should get someone else to. But we've heard the advice, can we just leave it at that? Sorry, Councillor, you're missing the point. The point is, who would that other person be if all Councillors were in the same situation? If it's you we're talking about, there's three other people sitting around you, for instance. Okay. I mean, do you have anything to add? I just think on that broader point, the neighbour Councillor isn't a member of this committee and she won't be determining or having a say in the determination of the application. I think in those circumstances if there isn't anyone who's able to advocate on the part of the wider community in the area, then provided the neighbour Councillor made it very clear that she's speaking on behalf of residents, not necessarily herself, then I wouldn't have thought that there would be a problem because she's not voting on the application. But I think it would be better if another advocate could be found in those circumstances. Can we get on with the application? Councillor Givindja. I've got a couple of questions to ask. Firstly, the application is described as a six bedroom single dwelling with a basement and yet when I looked at the plans there are seven bedrooms. Is that a correction that we need to make? Second question is about whether the land along Granard Avenue sort of falls from Chartfield as it goes north and whether that fall in land and therefore the relative position of properties is adequately reflected in the drawings. And my third, which is not probably a question, but it's about reading through the local concerns about basement. I recognise that our policies don't allow, in a sense, a ban on basements, so I'm not suggesting that there's a ban on basements, but that the specific concerns about basements in the area and therefore whether there is, according to the plans, whether that will cover specifically the drawings about the basement, whether it's large enough, small enough, deep enough and all of those things which are matters of concern. So is that going to be, in the conditions, safeguarded, that it's according to the plans as drawn and no more? Mr Gizzani, comment? Thank you. I was just going through the plans and I don't have the basement, but it's certainly six bedrooms that I've counted, unless there is a guest bedroom at basement level that's proposed, but it's not a habitable bedroom, if you like, in terms of what the family would use. So it is considered a six bedroom dwelling. When I looked at the plans, there's a bedroom and there's a bed in it and it's shown as a bedroom. I mean, it's not described as a cinema room, which is the other euphemism. So, I mean, it's plain as a pike stuff that there are seven spaces in that house which have got bedroom beds in it and therefore I would call them bedrooms. The point being? In a sense, the description is misleading in saying it's a six bedroom property when the plans show that there are seven bedrooms. Well, if the point is the description and just the description, I'm sure Mr Gizzani will check on it and convince you that you're wrong. No, I'm sorry. I just don't have the basement plan in front of me. I've got all the other plans. I just don't have the basement. As I was saying, I'm sure you'll convince the Council to convince you he's wrong offline on another occasion or you'll eat apple pie and say to him tomorrow, I'm sorry, you were right. But it doesn't make any substantive difference to the application, does it? It's a descriptive fact. Can I suggest, Chair, that there's adequate Wi-Fi in this building and it's perfectly possible to interrogate Council's website and look at the plans which are on the website and the plans on the website do show the basement level and do show the bedroom. So that can be done without having to wait for tomorrow morning. Thank you, Councillor. I have just brought that up and I can see that there's a small bedroom at the basement level, so you are correct that it is probably misleading description to be six bedroom dwelling. Thank you for that. Right. So seven, go on, continue. Sorry, so it's my other two points. One was about the topography of the area. Hang on, Councillor. Mr. Richards, would officers not please assume that they're chairing the meeting? What were you saying, Councillor? My other two points was about whether the topography of the area is adequately reflected in the drawings. That's a question. And the third one was about the basement, whether the conditions about build as on the drawings adequately ensures that the basement will be built as shown. Mr. De Seney, come in. Thank you, Chairman, and apologies for interrupting. The land does rise from the north end to the southern end of Granad and I think the elevational drawings that have been submitted and assessed have that line indicated on the ground level as well as across the roof levels to indicate the way that the buildings would change, if you like, as the land changes. Councillor White. Yep. Oh, sorry. Sorry. No, go on. If you've not finished, carry on. And the information that's been submitted. There was a very thick document that's been submitted in terms of geotech report that's been submitted in relation to the basement and what all the various, this basement impact assessment that's been submitted, but in any event, the basement would have to comply with building regulations approval and structural approval that is outside of planning. Thank you. Councillor White. I think if we keep allowing basements in partner, you'll be back down to six bedrooms soon enough anyway. It's a very, if I may interrupt, sorry, Councillor White. It's a very good job that you're in Wandsworth and not in Kensington where the basements go down about six stories. You'd have a really tough time there. But sorry, I interrupted you. Go on. Kensington on Thames and in Thames possibly soon. But yeah, and there can't be too many areas where water can actually seep away anymore and partly burn away. That's another point. The one thing that I found puzzling here is that the heating system hasn't been agreed yet. Yes. However, we could ensure that the heating system as agreed would be a renewable system. I know we have to reach 35%, but sometimes that can be achieved in other ways and really it would be a missed opportunity for a renewable system in this house, which would have to be done over time anyway. Mr. just any comment? The applicants have submitted an energy statement, which is the basic requirement of policy LP10 for new dwellings. That document indicates that they are thinking of using ground source heat pumps, also considering solar panels as part of their overall energy strategy and small hydro generation as well. But as you've said, the condition requires them to meet with 35% reduction in terms of energy consumption in any event and that is conditioned. Have you got any comment? I just feel that they should have agreed a system, I think, before coming forward with the plan. I think it's unreasonable to expect a developer, private or company, to apply standards that a particular member of the committee, you or me, find appropriate as opposed to what's approved in policy. After all, that's what they've commissioned an architect, presumably, to do. However, I agree with your comment entirely that I think you need to get through the at least planning policy committee and not through here. So you can follow that hint where you like. Okay. Councillor Justin. I've been on planning for two years now and I treat every meeting as part of my learning curve. Can someone explain to me why this application is liable for the community infrastructure? I thought that kicked in at nine bedrooms. This only got six strokes seven. I think the chair has invited me to respond. The infrastructure levy is on additional floor space. So anything over 100 square metres when it's added, we get that on residential developments. The need for affordable housing is when you get over ten units and things like that. So that's the difference. And that's when we turn into a major application where we have the higher standards for energy, sustainability, those sorts of things, they will pop in at a major level, still pops in anything over 100 square metres. Thank you, chair. Just to drag us back to Councillor White and the source of energy, whatever, can we just be reassured of whatever system they choose? Because I'm thinking if it's an air source, heat pump, they can be quite noisy and stuff and the restrictions on how closely it can be to the neighbours, the noise output and stuff like that. Whatever system they do go for, can we be reassured that they'll meet the necessary criteria for that kind of thing, like siting, location, noise, all that kind of stuff. And I prefer the same kind of thing. Is it right? Because I've been told that both the energy assessment and the fire strategy statement are from the previous application. So just again to make sure that before this is dotted I's and cross T's, it will have current up to date ones that do reflect what we've actually got in front of us rather than what was being proposed which isn't in this application. Thank you. Condition 5 has been recommended to ensure that we do get an updated energy statement. They used the one that they submitted previously that was withdrawn and just before the policy changed. Okay. Is the recommendation agreed? Agreed. Is that unanimously? Agreed or unanimously? Thank you. We'll move on to Sefton Street. Any comments, observations? Is the recommendation agreed? Move on to Bellamy Street. Again, recommendation to approve, Councillor Owens. Sorry, I just wanted to just add a bit about the impact obviously on neighbouring properties and a request about the air conditioning ducting not crossing the boundary between number 15 and number 13. That was raised obviously under some of the residents' concerns. Thank you. Sorry, I was somewhere else. Could you repeat that? No problem at all. I was just raising the concerns that had been raised with me in the neighbouring water ballum about the air conditioning ducting which is currently obviously there are units being moved but the concern is that any air conditioning ducting could possibly cross the boundary wall into a neighbouring property. I'm wanting to ensure that didn't happen. Thank you. My understanding is that it was amended and it's not. It's just at the rear of the property at first floor level and it's enclosed now. Councillor Galindale. Thanks, Chair. It's a general observation about air conditioning units. I mean it's continuing with our sustainability and I appreciate it might be a policy matter rather than a planning matter. But I just wonder whether the department could give some thought to creating some kind of general guidelines on air conditioning unit, the placing of them and the noise levels expected and so on. Because I do know of how antisocial they can be. At the same time how sort of can some high demand and energy levels it can be. So I just wonder whether there's a piece of work that the department could do that might create clearer guidelines for both applicants and neighbours. Now, if you ask me and people hate to hear this, my views about air conditioning are well, I'd be at one with a dinosaur I suspect on this. I mean it's this that uses more energy and creates more goodness knows what than in summer in the United States and winter for instance. We ought to be forced to put up with the heat until we know how to control it in some way or other. So my views on it are really dinosaur-like. But are you suggesting that we need to change the policies? Well, I mean I think in a way that there is a proliferation and it's about where they are positioned on a site. It's about some sort of basic guidelines. Air source heat pumps are coming up with their own sort of where would be the best and ideal place to have them. It's just helpful to know that somebody's complying with the guidelines and therefore we're doing our job and they're doing their job. Can we do such a thing within the policies that we have now? I think it would be very difficult to, because there's lots of different types of air conditioning units and that's why we have to go to our special advisors to have them assess different locations, whether they're in an acoustic enclosure for instance. There's a lot of different parts to it. So I don't think you can have a general, if you put it here it's going to be fine. Because I think in some circumstances it might be, but there's different windows and different parts of the borough with different background noise levels that might have different effects. Just going back to the issue about air source heat pumps. Similar sort of issues. But I know the government are actually looking to really relax the rules about where those can go. So we are likely to end up with a lot more perhaps enforcement complaints with those going closer because they don't need planning permission. But obviously they do cause concerns to neighbours, don't they? So this is all sort of evolving. But yes, if we could just ban air conditioning units it would take those out. But I don't think we can. I hesitate to do that. Okay. I mean, subject to all these interesting discussions about how planning is evolving, which I know people like Councillor White is dead keen on in terms of basements and heating and all that sort of stuff. Is that agreed? Right. Move on to. Can I just like something? You certainly can. I do apologise. I keep intending to. Mr Calder's got something to say about recent applications. Yeah. At the beginning of this meeting I asked the chair if I could say something. He's finally let me. We've had two applications recently that have gone through this committee which were referable to the mayor's office, the GLA. The first one, the Altec application, the Lawn Tennis Association was called in back in March. They have now made some amendments to that application and that's out to public consultation so you might well have received letters or be aware of it from local members or residents. My understanding, well, we've been consulted as well and we've got until the 9th of June to respond with any comments that we have. That's not going to give us enough time to bring anything further to committee before the June committee, but what we're suggesting is that we'll draft up a letter and if Councillor Belton's chair is happy with that letter, he'll send it on. Obviously discuss it perhaps with Councillor Humphries in advance and then we'll put it for information on the next committee so it's publicised. It will be put on our website as soon as it's signed off anyway. The second application I wanted to talk about was the application at Springfield Hospital that we had. I think it was in the March committee for 449 units. That has now been called in as well. The information, the reasons for it being called in by the GLA are up on our website. So, again, I think we'll end up with a similar process where they will look at the scheme, whether they can address some of the concerns that members had when we discussed and resolved to refuse it and there will probably be a further consultation and there will be a further hearing probably not until I would have thought after the summer, probably late summer, early autumn time. So I just thought I'd update you all because those are all decisions that you as a committee made and may be interested to hear where they're going or indeed attend the hearing at the GLA offices. I'm sure Councillor Cooper will be there, particularly for one of them anyway. Do you want to say something about it? Councillor Cooper. Thank you. Yes, having made my declaration at the beginning in relation to the Greater London Authority, it is my intention to attend for both of those hearings and as the Assembly Member for Merton and Wandsworth, I will have the right to speak. So, obviously, as well as submitting further representations from this committee, should anybody here wish to express a view that they would wish me to go through in the committee, then I can do that wearing a different hat, not the hat that I'm wearing this evening and I did actually draw the attention of the ward Councillors to what had happened with the Springfield application because obviously I was informed as the Assembly Member that that is my other hat, not the one I'm wearing this evening. Thank you. Thank you. Interesting. Oh, gosh. I'm sick of it. Just on the All England application, I know that that's been happening but I have no sight of it. Is there somewhere where you can actually see what they have proposed? If you could just circulate it offline, that would be fine. I'll read it on my own. I think there is. Yes, there is. It's on their website. I'll send round the letter we've received which has the link to it. I think it's on the GLA website, isn't it? They've also got some public consultation meetings I can ping it on. The first one was last Friday and I think there may still be others that you can attend but I've also got the link to all the paperwork which I can share with you. I didn't realise it was something that you would want, otherwise I would have sent it on to you. Okay. Tree preservation order. Anyone going to vote against a tree preservation order? I suspected not. No, that's agreed. Moving on we have Decisions Paper, Paper 24141. Any comment or agreed? Agreed. Noted. Closure of investigations filed. Noted. Noted. Closed appeals noted and we've already done with the tree preservation order. Thank you and good night. Thanks. Thanks for letting me be a doctor. I must apologise all round. I... Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. [BLANK_AUDIO]