Transcript

The 2nd of April, 2025. I'm George Richardson, Chair of the Committee, and I'll be chairing today's meeting. This meeting is being broadcast live on YouTube. Before we commence the formal business, can I make sure everybody's got their mobile phones and electronic devices switched off, please. So we're now live. Thank you. We'll have a number of officers with us this morning who will now ask to introduce themselves, starting with Kirsty, on my right. Kirsty Charlton, Committee Services Officer. Neil Carter, I'm the solicitor to the Committee. Stephen Reid, I'm the Planning Manager, Chair. Chris Shields, Senior Planning Officer. Steve Pultington, Strategic Development Manager. Phil Harrison, Highway Development Manager. Thank you, everyone. Moving on to the agenda, are we any apologies for absence, Kirsty? Councillors Bell, Joplin, Shaw and Zare. And any substitute members? No, Chair. No substitutes. Anybody got any declarations of interest? Thank you. No, we can move on to the minutes of the meeting held on the 5th of March, 25. Could we approve those minutes? David? Thank you. Moving on to the applications to be determined. Now, there's been a slight change in the order. We're starting with 5B. Some gentleman needs to go or come back from Newcastle Hospital, so it's to facilitate him. So, Chris, whenever you're ready. Thank you. Thank you, Chairman. This application is for the proposed eastward extension at Helan's Quarry for the winning and working of 9.7 million tons of carbon-infraste limestone, continued use of the site offices, a mineral processing plant, including the asphalt plant, and the recycling of imported road planings and road base until 14th of September, 2057, and the completion of restoration by 14th of March, 2059. This is a resubmission application of one we had a year previously, which was slightly larger. Following comments from our landscape and policy teams, the site was slightly reduced. Now, I do have a little update for you on the conditions before we move any further. If you want to follow along, it's conditions 31, 33, and 34. And the very minor change is that the schemes referred to in those conditions should refer to those submitted under condition 3A rather than 3B. It's just a slight change while we're drafting the report. Okay. So, this is where the site's located. This is the existing site and the extension on the eastern side. The scale's quite broad here because of how remote the site is, but you can see Barron Castle to the northeast and then Bowes out to the west. And the site's sandwiched between the A66 to the south and the A67 to the north. Look on the aerial. You can see the existing site, and the proposed extension is to come out east into this area here. Current working is more or less in the southeast corner of the site. And this is a slightly out-of-date aerial now, but you've got Kilnwood Quarry also to the south, which has actually progressed further to the east now. Note that those sites are working together there. So, we've got a drone shot of the site here. This is the current processing area. You've got the A66 road in the background over here, so you can see the orientation of the site there. The processing area, as described in the original to the first slide there, would remain throughout the duration of the full application. This is the current working area, and you're looking into the extension area on the east here. And then this is looking directly east across the extension area, and you can see here, this is Northside Farm, which would be demolished as part of development in the Phase 2 time frame. This is the site access from the A66, and the access from the A67. So, we're into the Phase 1 area time frame here. You can see the orange is the stripping of the soils. Northside retreat that we just showed in the previous slide is located here, so that will be retained throughout Phase 1. Phase 1b is the extraction of stone from this area. As we move into Phase 2, you can see the Northside Farm has been removed now. Again, stone extraction in this area. Into Phase 3. Phase 3b, reaching the final extraction point at this time. And then the site restoration. Generally low level, with a water body throughout most of the sites. And pasture land, tree planting, etc. Now, we've received no objections from statutory and internal consultee, subject to conditions where appropriate. I've had three representations, which is two objections and one letter offering comments. Objectives cited concerns over noise, dust, and wildlife impacts. Longslide increased HDV traffic and road safety risks. Potential effects on a Roman road and the A66 stability are also raised. The quarry's high visibility from surrounding landscapes and potential property devaluation add to objections. Residents seek strong environmental protections, screening, and responsible site management if approved. Now, the Campaign for Protection of Rural England, they've raised no objections but request compliance of policies on landscape protection, limestone extraction, and biodiversity net gain. They've called for screening, biodiversity safeguards, and policy adherence. You can confirm that we've addressed all those issues throughout the report. But if you have any questions, any of those, I'm happy to address those. So, in summary, the MPPF gives great weight to the economic benefits of mineral extraction while requiring consideration of environmental impacts. Hewland's quarry needs additional reserves to maintain aggregate supply. The proposal would contribute to the 14.3 million tonnes required by County Durham Plan Policy 49 and sustain long-term production. Chair, we've moved past the summary slide. Could you just... Oh, I do apologise. Most of the extension area falls within the preferred area allocated under the County Durham Plan, as confirmed in the 2024 Local Aggregate Assessment. CDP Policy 51 prioritises future crushed rock supply from allocated sites, but allows extensions where needed. The proposal ensures a steady supply for 32 years, mostly within allocated land, and supports the County's long-term carboniferous limestone reserves. This aligns with the MPPF by maintaining an adequate land bank. While there are some adverse impacts, they do not outweigh the benefits of maintaining limestone supply, jobs, and the site restoration. The proposal would cause some localised harm to the AHLV, the area of high landscape value, and non-designated heritage assets. However, the benefits, including aggregate supply, employment, and biodiversity gains, would outweigh these impacts. Environmental effects, including noise, dust, traffic, and cultural heritage, are being assessed and are manageable through conditions. Public objections are limited, with concerns on amenity, traffic, and environmental impact addressed through mitigation measures and planning conditions. The development broadly accords with the County Durham Plan, minerals and waste policies, and the MPPF. Thank you. Thank you, Chris. Now, we have no parish or town councillors, no local members to speak, no objectives to speak. We have the applicant's agent, I think, to speak if there's any questions for them, or do you wish to speak? Thank you, John Dickinson, on the basis nobody's looking to speak against the scheme, I'll not speak, but I'll answer questions as necessary. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, John. Does anyone have any questions for the applicant, or John? There's nothing for you to come back on, Chris, if we will move straight into the debate, then, please. Craig. Craig Martin, thank you. Thank you, Chair. Craig, Councillor for North Lodge and Chesty Street. As I pointed out, we don't have any objectives to this. Well, we do have objections, but no one's come along to speak against this. I think, you know, our planning policy shows that when it comes to the extraction of minerals and goods and stuff like that for use for the industry, for jobs, et cetera, et cetera, there is an even higher bar in the planning balance situation than just a normal sort of housing development and stuff like that. So, really, objecting to something like this, which has large economic advantages for the long term for the county and the wider country, I think it's almost nearly impossible to object to. I'd move that we accept the planning officer's recommendation and that we accept this application, Chair. Thank you, Craig. Anyone else wish to – oh, Jonathan, welcome. Jonathan Elmer, thank you. Thank you, Chair. Can I ask you to put that photograph up that shows the farm building and the woodland area in front of it? That's it. That looks like a deciduous, potentially quite old woodland to me. Now, I'm absolutely happy to accept that there's an overall net gain, but presumably that has an ecological value. So, I'd be grateful if you could perhaps just describe to me how a gain has been achieved, considering the fact that that's been lost. Yes, Councilor, I think there's probably a question for John within that as well, but the application is supported by a biodiversity net gain metric, and within that we do show a net gain overall with the planning that comes through the restoration, which I'll show you at Phase 3B. So, there's planning throughout the site there. Yes, agreed, it is lost throughout the development, but then brought back towards the end. I don't know if that's sufficient to answer your question, but – Well, it's all about planning balance in the end, but I would say that it's not simply – when it comes to very old woodland, replanting, you know, some of these – it's not always feasible to regain the value of what's been lost. They're very ancient sites that take hundreds of years to mature, so simply replanting isn't necessarily the answer. No, I agree on that point, although this isn't actually identified as ancient woodland. I do accept your point that it is a well-established woodland in that location, but the metric shows that there would be an enhancement over above what's there now. Thanks for that, gentlemen. Anyone else wish to contribute? Jimmy, Jim Atkinson. Just a last second, a proposal, Chair. It's fine by me. That's great. Thank you. No one else wish to contribute? Well, I've got a mover and a seconder now. All those in favour, please raise your hands. Thank you. That's unanimous. Now we can move on to what is item 5A in effect. Stephen Pilkington will present it to us. Yeah, thanks, Chair. Yes, so this application seeks planning permission to improve agricultural land, utilising imported soil material at Spring Garden, Lanchester. The application site, edged in red, is located on Maidenlow Bank, north of Lanchester. For a closer view of the application site, you can see the highway to the west, the residential dwelling of Howden Byrne to the south-west, and the residential dwellings of Wildwood and Sycamore Lodge to the north of the site. So we've got an aerial photograph, so you can see the residential dwellings. You can also see a number of agricultural buildings on the site, and there's also a public right-of-way running along to the north of the site and also to the east. So we've got a site photo looking down the bank, the location of a proposed temporary access is approximately round about here. Yeah, and you can see the property of Howden Byrne just through the trees there. Here's an additional photograph looking into the site. This is an existing access into the agricultural field, and that's the property of Howden Byrne. The proposed access would be just off the photograph there. We've got some photographs on the site. You can see the site is in poor condition. It doesn't really lend itself to agricultural production. Again, just some further issues. You can see some previous material that has been deposited on the site. And that is the property of Wildwood to the north of the site. The levels of the site fall in a southern direction. So we've got a topographical survey. You can see the level changes across the site. As I say, falling in a southern direction. There's also a small sort of valley feature, if you like, centrally within the site. We've got some proposed areas of fill, mainly centred around, mainly centrally within the site. This is used, the proposed material would be topsoil and subsoil only. Approximately 15,000 tons of soil is proposed to be imported. Estimate that the importation of the soil material and regrading works would be completed in around three months. This is the proposed restoration final levels of the site. You can see that the site would be regraded slightly. This would allow the, you know, the planting of a crop likely to be hailage for livestock. And one of the existing agricultural sheds would be rebuilt on the southern boundary. You can see that. So temporary access is proposed. This will be located to the north of the existing access, serving the site. And would be removed no later than six months from the commencement of development. The condition proposing limiting traffic movements to a maximum of 50 per day is recommended. This would equate to 25 in, 25 out. So we've had objections from Lanchester Parish Council and Greencroft Parish Council on highway safety, landscape impact, and also questioning the need for the development. With the exception of the Parish Councils, we have no objections from statutory consultees or internal consultees, subjected conditions where appropriate. We've had 44 letters of representation received from members of the public. These are detailed in the report, but are summarised on the screen. Principlely relating to the need for the development, visual impact, ecology, residential immunity, flood risk, and access issues. We've had an objection from Lanchester Partnership and CPRE, sorry, campaign to protect rural Lanchester. They've objected to the scheme. In summary, planning policy is generally supportive towards sustainable waste management initiatives, permitting recovery using inert material where agricultural land could be improved and environmental criteria satisfied. The scale of the development and timescales for completion has reduced during the course of the application. The applicant has sought to demonstrate that the minimum volume of material would be imported, and this would be the most appropriate method to improve the land. If the development is carefully considered and subjective conditions where appropriate, the impacts are considered to be acceptable for the temporary period, including the impact on the HE, higher landscape area designation, and the non-designated heritage assets. There would be some disturbance to residential properties in the vicinity of the site. However, through conditions, these impacts would seek to be reduced and not considered to be unacceptable for the temporary period in order to achieve the benefits associated with the proposed development. Overall, the applications recommended for approval is considered to comply with relevant planning policies. Thank you, Stephen. We have four speakers on this item. From the parish council, we have Paul Jackson, no local members, two objectors, Gordon Oliveira and Simon Graham, and the supporters, Barney Corrigan. He's the applicant planning agent. So, we'll start with the parish council, Paul Jackson. You'll have five minutes to speak, and Kirsty will let you know when you've got one minute remaining. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. We've, uh, this is a long and detailed report with many contentious, uh, issues in it. We have studied the application from the start and consider the planning balance. Our judgements differs from the officer. Nothing leads us to change our conclusion. We strongly object to this. The application should be refused, and we totally, we've been totally consistent throughout the time in fighting this development. Counties are in plan and policies about waste, and the officer's report are both clear. There is no short to medium need for this site. There's no market needed to use for waste disposal. The proposal is low in the waste hierarchy. The soil is currently going to other sites within the county and can continue to do so. So, we say there's no need to put soil on this area. Both ourselves, together with Greencroft Parish, and are in total agreement in this opposition. There's three main concerns remain in Pacific County Derry policy and planned, policy, sorry. Uh, waste policy 47, 60, and 61. Delivering sustainable transport, highways, and traffic, policy 21. Other areas where the application does not conform to county Durham plan policy includes landscape, flood risk, and I think everybody in this room knows the problems Lanchester has with flooding, and drainage. Also, cultural heritage and agricultural land policy 10, as well as the Lanchester neighbourhood plan policies 4B, 4C, and 4D. The site is identified as an area of high landscape value, and Lanchester Parish also defines this in the same way. Proposals, as they stand, do not conserve or enhance the special qualities of this landscape, and in short, medium term, stated by the Council's own officers. The location of the site is problematic. Its history goes back decades. Related to dwelling planning, not implementing the planning approval conditions. Land drainage, culvert partly collapsed, no remediation taken. There's a listed building, model dairy, which is now in a deteriorated way, and is almost derelict. The site is being invaded by Himalayan balsam, and heading downstream towards Lanchester. Unlawful deposits in recent years, no enforcements has occurred. Officers report their ignorance is no defence. A pattern emerges, a prolonged period to fail to look at the land and maintain its condition and productivity. No surprise, then, that the report concludes that if it is approved, it will likely, sorry, likely to be better than it is now. Yes, we understand that, but years of neglect should not be a reason to improve things, enabling planning policies to be ignored. Delivering sustainable transport policy 21 and MW7, the traffic information is not always reported nor up to date. Howden Bank is a very steep bank, and has numerous areas where dwellings or off-takes come and go onto the bank, and there's potentially accidents likely to occur. Turning off onto the main road also is a major problem. The application adds up to, say, 25 lorries in, 25 lorries out. Yes, we understand that, and could last for four months plus, depending on the contract. So, it's a significant time period. The crossroads at Maiden Law, which is just above this area, encounters traffic incidents, and there's been numerous accidents there, to such a degree that new restrictions and signage will be implemented soon by the county. Lower down the bank, we have the Simbeed School, and during the morning rush and the afternoon rush for children coming and going, this is a tremendous area of congestion, cars parked on either side of the road, restricting access. Wagons going on this route would have great difficulty. Access has been reworked several times on this site, and we feel that proposed access does not allow for additional traffic and was safely accommodated. Unacceptable adverse impact to the highways, we believe MW7 will apply. Amidities. The applicant describes the project as small scale of short duration and low impact. Well, we disagree with that. Not the residents in the area don't feel this at all. It's not an area we're looking forward to. Also in this area is a local hospice, and this will obviously be affected by the traffic movements and will disrupt people with end-of-life difficulties, not a thing that we look forward to happening. Agricultural land policy 10. We challenge the applicant's reasoning. The land was productive in past years under previous ownership. It could be again in the future without the need to change anything. So why has the application come forward now? We believe that after so many years, the benefits to agriculture is in fact a secondary requirement here, and contrary to policy W16. And the primary intention may be financial gain or to facilitate other potential development in the future. We have no confidence in the applicant, and to satisfy deliver either technically or financially, contrary to Planning Rule W16. We believe approval would set an alarming precedent for other similar schemes throughout the county. We ask the committee to take full account and the significant adverse impact and harm resulting from this application. and vote, please vote to refuse this application. Thank you so much. Thank you, Paul. We've got no local members, as I said, but we've got two objectives to speak, Gordon Oliveira and Simon Graham, and you'll have five minutes between you, two and a half minutes each, or if one of you goes over, the clock will stop on five minutes. Okay, who's going first? Okay, are you Gordon? Yes, I am. Nice to meet you. Thank you. Go ahead. Thank you very much, first of all, for allowing me to give this speech in opposition to the proposal. I want to say how much I agree with the comments that Paul's made. In fact, he's stolen a lot of my thunder. But I had identified policies 31 and 21 as being very important contraventions by this proposal, and also either one of those by itself should be sufficient to blow this proposal out of the water. There are three others, 47, 25, and 10, covering water management, waste management, the hierarchy that Paul referred to, and also the necessity or benefit of doing this in the first place in an area which has been allowed to decline over many years. Let me just explain my personal interest in it. I live in Howdenburn House, which on the map shown on the screen there is in the extreme southwest corner, and it is within 12 meters of the entry and the exit point of these 25 lorries. In other words, there will be 50 lorries passing my house at a distance of 12 meters every day, except Sundays, for four months. I calculate that to be one every 10 to 15 minutes. I am also suffering from cancer, and I think that having to cope with that plus hospital visits and everything else is something more than anybody in this room would be prepared to put up with. In fact, the reason why, and thank you very much again, Chairman, for reversing the order today, the reason why I'm late for this meeting, or was likely to be late, is that I've come from the Freeman Hospital where I've had radiography. Now, I agree that in many cases personal considerations have to be overlooked if there is really a benefit arising out of the proposal. But I see no benefit. I really do not see any benefit. The poor state of the land in that football pitch area close to the applicant's residence is down to the applicant himself. It's nothing to do with ambient conditions. I have been there 40 years in that house. I have known three separate landowners of that property. The first one rented the land from NCB. I think the name was Jackson, actually. Unfortunately, the farmer died at the age of 41, and he had to move away. The father-in-law of the current applicant, Roy Clifford, purchased the land from the NCB. He was not a farmer, but to be fair, he was a good man, and he made every effort to use the land productively. There were cattle, and there were sheep, and there was regular hay marking. None of that, since he himself died, and the ownership passed to his son-in-law, there has been no farming of any kind other than the sustenance of six or so horses which belonged to the wife of the applicant. There is no attempt to grow hay. All the farm buildings are in a state of disrepair, and I honestly think that any... I mean, let's call this what it is. It's not agricultural improvement. At the very best, you'd call it land management proposal, and one which is going to cause significant damage or, well, in two areas. One is what you call amenities in council language, which is the health and lifestyle of people that live in the local area. Number two is the actual impact or the danger to public safety that arises from having an entry and an exit point off the main road of one of the roads, in fact, the road that is described by the AA as the most dangerous road for 17- to 24-year-old drivers in the entire country. You can check that out. Just Google AA Road Safety Lanchester, and you'll see that this is, in fact, the case. There are 10... This does not mean that the road has the greatest density of road traffic accidents. There are other roads that have more. But in terms of the danger to young people, this is the greatest. Not to mention the fact that down about 100 meters south of my house, we have 47 new houses and a hospice entering the road. There is very poor visibility down the length of this road, pretty well all the way from Anfield Plain down to Lanchester. But particularly on the bend, 150 meters north of my house, any kid speeding down that road, and it is used as a racetrack to some extent, would be turning a bend 60 meters away from where the lorries are entering and exiting from the site. So I just think on public safety grounds, it is just absolutely crazy. It's ludicrous. I'm unbelieving... I really don't believe that this proposal has gone as long as this without some kind of somebody stepping in and saying this is nonsense. It should not be allowed to go forward. All the other points that Paul mentioned, including the water management, there are two streams that pass the area. One comes north to south past my house and then goes underground. The other one comes across from where Wildwood is, immediately across, straight across, diagonally across where the site works are proposed. It also goes underground. We all know about the water management problems that are faced, not just in the immediate local area, which is a high-flood risk area, but also Lanchester down below. And if you recall, when the applicant commenced dumping waste in this area in 2020, I think, for a period of months before residents objected and it was stopped. And that was without permission, by the way. It was without permission. The land... The applicant actually said that this was because he was in ignorance of the need to get permission, which seems to me pretty bloody weak, if you're honest. I think... You have to put some faith in public bodies like Durham County Council to protect residents and also to protect road safety in the area. I think it's been amply demonstrated. I hope I'm approaching my last five... my last minute or so. I come back then to the necessity. We would be able to put up with... residents would be able to put up with inconvenience if there is a demonstratable benefit, but there isn't. This is a land management proposal in which the only beneficiaries are the building contractors themselves, obviously, and the no doubt well-remunerated landowner himself. So, really, I have to rest my case on that. You, as a council, have to look after your residents and you have to make sure that road safety is observed. I rest my case. Thank you. I hope you realise I've given you far extended time to what I should have done. Do we have Simon Graham here? I can't allow you two and a half minutes, but I'll allow you an extra two minutes. It's OK. I'm not objecting. I ask you for it. I'm the applicant. Oh. OK, you're down as an objector on my sheet. But I've... Have I got Barney Corrigan? Barney is my representative, but I'm speaking for him today. You're speaking for him. Yeah, so you'll get the same amount of time as Gordon had. I don't need that. You're OK. It's fine. Will you knock your microphone off, Gordon, please? Sorry? Will you knock your microphone off, please? Oh. My apologies. Right, OK. Good morning and hello. My name is Simon Graham and along with your wife, Gillian, we're applying for the plan and approval. The reason for this application started over six years ago, possibly more, footpath between the fields collapsed, which was due to storm. The erosion has eaten away the fields, causing the trees and surrounding areas to die and fall, resulting in damaging our fences' gateways. This has made the area in question impossible for grassland management, harrowing, topping seed and fertilising sprain. This is not only cosmetic, but necessarily able to move forward and be able to rotate the livestock and grass and haylage. The area in question is the most important field to the farm. It connects the adjacent fields, the access to the yard, the sheds and the handling and moving of livestock. And finally, I would like to say the length of time misleading comments from surrounding neighbours and areas and the mental impact has been exhausting, let alone the cost of the application exceeding £37,000 when all we want to do is improve the betterment of the land our development farm business and move forward as a family, whilst also putting back to the countryside with new hedges and trees, replacing all the old ash dieback trees. Thank you. Thank you, Simon. That was very brief. Do you want to come back with anything, Stephen? No, I think if we just answer members' questions as and when they come. Thanks, yeah. It's over to members' questions. Craig, and then Jonathan, you have a question. Yeah, Chair, I have a question to the objectors. So, just to put a bit of context to the question, I don't know the history of this land, apart from what I've read, et cetera, et cetera, in the documentation and driving past it. To me, this looks like wasteland. Yes, it's got grass growing on it, it's green, but it doesn't really serve any purpose. And to me, anything could be done to this land. There's a risk that could build houses on it, et cetera, et cetera, do anything with it, all right? The objectors listed loads of issues with the land about how it's not been maintained, collapsed COVID, et cetera, et cetera, years of neglect. So, I just don't quite get the arguments that the objectors are giving in terms of, you know, don't get me wrong, of all planning applications, there is always some form of harm. And as set out in this application, there is, there's going to be a four-month period of harm that they will have to live with in terms of, as the work is done to this site. But with that harm, effectively, what you're doing with this land is giving it long-term agricultural sustainability. And, you know, the number of applications we see here where we're losing agricultural land and people are up and jumping up and down and saying, we can't lose agricultural land, it's terrible, et cetera, et cetera. And so, I just, in a couple of sentences, why are the objectors objecting to the long-term sustainability of agricultural land that protects this land, that protects the view and everything like that for the long-term, Chair? Thank you, Craig. Jonathan, over to you, next, please. I'm afraid I've got a completely opposite take on it than the one you've just heard. It's left me with quite a lot of confusion because, to the quantity of soil being imported onto this site would be extremely expensive and would no way it would be possible to ever cover that cost through future use of the site for haylage. So, there's an odd situation going on here and what is actually being imported onto that site is key to the question. Obviously, the application actually talks about importing utilised imported soil materials but can we potentially use a condition to ensure that that is what is imported onto the site? So, I guess my question actually in relation to this is that is this an application for agricultural improvement or is this actually an application to enable waste management? Yeah, well, I'll answer the best I can as, you know, maybe the applicant can clarify that but, yeah, ultimately, the end result is that there is an agricultural improvement to the land but clearly, in order to achieve that, the applicant would be importing this waste in terms of soil and topsoil which I think comes off development sites and housing sites that needs to be managed and that would, yeah, that would facilitate that improvement but clearly, there's a, yeah. Soil and topsoil isn't waste. Yeah. It's extremely expensive to purchase. Yeah, and I think what you find is a lot of development sites will, you know, they will retain some topsoil or some of the more quality soil on the site to reuse on the site. I'm talking about housing development sites or, you know, commercial sites where they're, you know, they're removing a lot of the subsoil and the topsoil and we do find across the county that it is needed to be, you know, treed as waste and accordingly sort of managed. I mean, as I say, it's expensive to purchase soil, especially topsoil. The proposal for agricultural improvement by importing topsoil is simply not financially viable so I think it's likely that something else is going to be put in this site which makes it actually an application for the disposal of waste. Yeah, I mean, I don't think it's for me to sort of comment on this or the viability of that. You know, clearly the, I'm sure the applicants, you know, has some sort of agreement with some sort of developer or what have you to sort of import that material. But what I can say is that in terms of the planning conditions, so condition 16 limits that to the material that's imported to be soils in terms of topsoil and subsoil and before the importation of that soil, you know, that testing is required to make sure that that is appropriate. So there is some control on that but, yeah, I can't really answer in terms of the viability of that exercise. Thank you, gentlemen. Jim, Jim Atkinson. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I have to say that's a bit of a curveball for me that I was looking at an application here for a site where a family live and they want to improve it and looking at the pictures looks like it could do with a bit of improvement. Any family that's paid to live there is entitled to tidy up or, you know, improve it, improve the conditions for themselves in and around themselves. So, from that perspective, I mean, I was thinking at that point there where we're talking about waste, soil and topsoil, all the involvement I've ever had with soil and topsoil was just soil effectively for the use that it's in the application for. We're still asking questions, Jim. Can we have your question, please, before we go into the debate? Well, this would end up with a question being, are we talking about soil or some demolition site, waste disposal site? Soil. Yeah, so it is soil. That is the proposal and the application. That's what the conditions would restrict to. And I think just for clarity, you know, in regulatory terms, you know, the removal of soil from a development, you know, and, you know, let's just say I'm generalizing a strip of a, stripping of a sort of a development site, it is classified as waste, you know, that has been discarded and becomes waste until it has a future use. So, although it is soil, technically, it is classed as waste. Thank you, Jim. Simon, can you add anything to that to benefit us or not? Well, yes, it's going to be whack-tested. It's clean soil and clear. We're not using it to do anything else. We're just level the fields so we can have hailage to horses and the reason we're putting it there is because we have other fields but at the minute the fields are used by horses and we like livestock, we like some cattle again as my father-in-law had it but you can't move one to another field to another field because there's no other fields to move them to. We've got three fields at the bottom which isn't enough to bring in cattle and livestock so what this field would be would be a holding field and there'd be access to the other fields and purely it's outside our house as well. It's very unsightly, I agree. It's not what I want to look at every day but at the minute I've got an opportunity to level it with clean soil and that's it. Put a new fence around, hedges and at some point maybe next year once the soil's settled and the seed's grown through and you'll have cattle and have horses on it. That's all we want to do. Thank you, that's a good explanation. Any further questions before we go into the debate? No, well we'll now open it up to the debate for the committee to discuss. David, David Boyes. Thanks Chair. I'm David Boyes representing Easington but I'm very familiar with this area because I've got connections here. My concerns are twofold. One, the traffic and I think it was mentioned by the parish councillor and the objector just how dangerous this road is. It's a winding narrow road and it goes from 30 up the top of Maiden Law but then it goes to 60 and there's somebody who's been involved with driver education for a long time. I won't take people on that road. It's just far too dangerous as a driving instructor. Now, if you're going to have this volume of wagons coming in every few minutes I think this is going to be an accident waiting to happen especially in the winter when the roads are slippier and icier. I think there could be major, major problems on the traffic perspective. The other issue I'm not really happy with the reports so far in terms of flooding. Now, it's well documented what happened to Lanchester two summers ago when, in fact, it received international coverage the flooding down there. Now, if this could contribute to the flooding that's coming down the hill to Lanchester I can't see how this is going to help so I've got my issues which I've got concerns about so I would like the officer to sort of see if he can answer those for me. Philip, you're sitting there doing nothing. It's time we had some highways info. Please. Thanks, Chair. I'll just say we have to acknowledge that this is an A-road. It carries over 8,000 vehicles a day so in terms of the two parts of the bit of the MPPF that we need to be looking at if members were minded to go for refusal the first one is cumulative impact well actually the percentage of vehicles 50 vehicles a day two-way movements is very, very small so I think that would be very, very difficult to substantiate. Secondly, I've heard what the objectives have said but this is not supported by accident data that we hold as a council. We have an accident database which is maintained by the council's road safety and the police and what we have is one minor accident in the last five years in the vicinity of the site so again I think the road safety issue would be very difficult to substantiate based on the records. Quickly come by is that where the blue light services have got involved is that where your data you're collecting because I know of three accidents that's happened there in the last few weeks. It is, yes that's how it's collected but they're the official stats so it's very difficult to support a planning application where an appeal where an inspector will be looking for accident statistics based on anecdotal evidence so we have to go off the official database which shows one minor accident. And that's where the blue light services have been involved? Yeah, or there's notification of damage, yeah. Thank you gentlemen. Anyone else wish to contribute? It's about the flooding whether, you know, the second part about effects on flooding. Yeah, sure. Just before I get the flooding I'll just point out the screen on the projector there. So new access is proposed to the site this would be created before the development commences and would be removed after so so, you know, this would, you know, be an improvement over that existing access but that would facilitate that there's vehicles coming in and out. In terms of the drainage so yeah, flood risk assessment has been submitted by the applicant which has been reviewed by our drainage and coastal protection team who ultimately don't object to the application. There is some water course on the site that would need to be modified and they'd need separate consent through our drainage and coastal protection team. through that but yeah, the advice is that this wouldn't need to increase risk of flooding elsewhere. Just a question from myself for you Paul Jackson. I've been in Lanchester when there were floods I've got a largest vehicle so I could get through whereas other cars were fizzling out. With you being a local person does the water come from every angle or does it come from Maiden Law in particular or Kajabank area in the other? Sorry Chair. Unfortunately Lanchester being in the position it is the bottom of the valley every bank that we have in Lanchester it comes from. Howden Bank particularly is one of the major banks and a long bank itself and water does come down that way significantly affect the village area. So yes it's a serious problem. Thank you. Who else wants to Jim? Jim Atkinson. Thank you. We are on the debate now George. Yes. Great. Well just from what I've listened to this morning I see a family trying to do something with a space that they own and there is a big distinction as far as I'm concerned relative to what's waste I mean I can see where you would class soil as waste but I would never class top soil as waste but I class as waste as something with tin cans in it waste to make this looks like a genuine attempt to tidy up a property that they've spent money on and I mean there's also been the suggestion this is going to cost money somebody's prepared to spend a fair bit of money on this and it'll tidy the whole place up and as far as far as that goes and the roads coming in we all live in places where it's difficult to get wagons in from time to time but when people are improving the properties around about them it improves the value of everything around them not just the property that they tidying up for themselves and getting I mean we've just built two or three schools in my ward and we've got another one getting built now and there's a bit of inconvenience but it goes away when everything's finished and when everything's finished everything looks good it benefits most of the people around about it's not often it doesn't benefit anybody at all so and unless the officer can tell me some of these policies that alluded to being breached are correct then I would go with the recommendation that the officers have approved you're proposing that thank you Jonathan Jonathan next yes I guess I'm still left with some residual concerns in relation to this it's a void and the proposal essentially is to fill that void and level it out using high quality agricultural materials now that's just not what you would do in order to fill a void and make it agriculturally improved at the end of the day you'd use an inert material and then top it with a high quality material would go to that's just what's been described they've talked about putting subsoil in you wouldn't put subsoil on the top you'd put subsoil waste as it's called on the bottom and then top it off with topsoil I don't think that has been what's described here unless I've misinterpreted things dramatically we haven't been told about the grade of the soil and what will be placed where it feels to me that this is an attempt simply to gain an income from enabling people to dispose of inert materials Simon are you purchasing this soil to improve your land or is it going to be brought in to help someone else out does that answer your question Jonathan yes it does chair thank you Simon could you knock your microphone off please pressing buttons craig craig craig martin thank you i will second council atkinson's motion chair anyone else wishing to contribute we've got a motion proposed and seconded to approve all those in favour show your hands please all those against that's gained approval thank you very much and that's the end of today's meeting if you just wait a minute until we get switched off with you too continue yeah and I hit a bar