Transcript

Good evening and welcome to the Development Committee meeting. My name is Councillor Iqbal Hussain and I will be chairing this meeting. The meeting is being held in person. Committee members and key participants are present in the meeting room. Only the committee members present in the meeting room will be able to vote. Other members may also be attending remotely. Committee members and others who have chosen to attend remotely have been advised by the committee officer that should technical difficulty prevent their full participation in the meeting, it may proceed in their absence if I feel it is necessary. I will ask everyone to introduce themselves shortly, but before I do this, I would like to briefly confirm the protocol for addressing the meeting, including the virtual meeting procedure. Participants must address the meeting through by myself as the chair. If you are participating online and you experience any technical difficulties, you must contact the Democratic Service Officer as soon as possible by email. Participants must address the meeting by email. However, officers may not be able to respond to all such requests. You should keep your microphones and cameras switched off, please, at all other times. Please do not use the meeting chart facilities. Any information added to the meeting chart facility will be discarded. If you experience any technical difficulties. If you experience any technical difficulties, you must contact either myself or the Democratic Service Officer as soon as possible. It is great to see members of the public here, a huge number of public here. You are expected not to disrupt the meeting in any form. And please, this webcast, say members of the public not to film or record the meeting. I will now ask committee members present to introduce themselves. Please, can you also state any declaration of interest that you may have in the agenda of the meeting. I will now ask committee members present to introduce themselves, please can you also state any declaration of interest that you may have in the agenda items and name the nature of the interest, can I start from my right, good evening everyone, my name is councillor Balaluddin and nothing to clear, thank you, thank you chair, good evening all, councillor Farrook from Warchable Ward and chair I received an email from Ruel Ahmed from Steven Centre for transparency, thank you. Thank you, good evening, my name is Amadur Khan and I will be deputating Aminur Rahman for today and I will represent Black Welky victim. Do you have any interest? I don't have any, thank you. Thank you chair, good evening everyone, my name is councillor Gulam Kibriyat Chaudhuri, popular ward, nothing to declare but I have received some email. Councillor Mohamed Chaudhuri, my land ward, nothing to declare, this is only to clarify that I received an email from Ruel Ahmed, Steafood Centre, I also received a briefing from them too. Thank you members, now two apologies, Thomas, have you received any apologies for absence? Good evening, chair, we have two apologies this evening, we have the vice chair and we have councillor Buston who unfortunately has to order committee and not stay here for the fun. And apologies to councillor Khan who I did not give you a nameplate, that's an informal apology. Other than that chair, we are all here, thank you. Thank you, I, not an exception, I forgot to declare my declaration of interest, I have nothing to declare, no interest in any of this agenda item we are considering tonight. Agenda item 2 is minutes from the previous meeting, can we approve the minutes from 6 February 2025 received outside of this meeting? Agenda item 3 are the recommendations and procedure for hearing objection and meeting guidance. I will now ask Paul Buckingham, Head of Development Management, Planning and Building Control to present the guidance. Paul, over to you. Thank you very much, chair, good evening to the committee members and members of the public and officers who are joining us for the meeting this evening. So this item on the agenda sets out the standing advice for determining planning applications, including the legal advice that decisions must be made in accordance with the relevant development plan policies and relevant material planning considerations. When we come to each item for decision, the procedure will go as follows, so I will introduce the report with a brief description of the application and a summary of the recommendation. Then officers will present the report and then we will hear from those who have registered to speak, starting with those who wish to speak in objection and then anyone speaking in support, including the applicants and then any councillors who have registered to speak. The committee can ask points of clarification of the speakers and then go on to consider the recommendation, including questions, debate and further advice from officers. The committee will then reach their decision based on a majority vote and I will confirm that decision back to everybody in the meeting. If the committee proposed changes to certain aspects of the officer recommendation, for example, to add, delete or amend planning conditions or obligations, then the task of formalising those changes is delegated to the director of planning and building control. In the event that the committee do not accept the officer recommendation, they must give their planning reasons and propose and agree an alternative course of action. The committee may be adjourned briefly for any further planning or legal advice and the task of formalising the committee's alternative decision is also delegated to the director of planning and building control. If the committee proposed to make a decision that would seem to go against the provisions of the development plan or could have any legal implications, then the item may be deferred for a further report from officers dealing with those matters at a future meeting. Chair, there is an update report this evening, but it just deals with a relatively minor matter on item 5.3, so I'll deal with that when we come to that. And as the Chair has said, this meeting is being webcast and so there will be an official recording, so therefore we respectfully request that filming doesn't take place during this meeting. Obviously the webcast can be viewed live or after the meeting. Thank you, Chair. Thanks for outlining the procedure and recommendation about hearing objection and permitting guidance. For tonight, we don't have any deferred item to consider. Agenda item 5, the planning application for decision. We have three application to consider this evening. In change to published order of the agenda, we will start with 5.2, Stefford Community Centre. The agenda item 5.2 is PA obligue forward slash 000000, Stefford Community Centre 226 Crissy Place and adjoining land to the east of Stepney Green London U13JG. The planning application proposes redevelopment of the site to provide a four-storey and a five-storey building containing self-contained residential flats and a replacement community centre class F2B, associated amenity areas, car and cycle parking and delivery bay on Cressy Place, refuse recycling stores and landscaping works including to the existing and retained public open space on Tinsley Road and adjoining public realm between Tinsley Road and Redlands Road. The recommendation set out in the report this evening to the committee is to grant planning permission subject to conditions and planning obligations. There's no update report for this one, Chair. Thank you. Thank you, Paul, again. I will now invite Elliot Cameron, planning case officer, to present the application. Thank you, Chair. Good evening, Chair, members of the public and members of the committee. The scheme I'm presenting today relates to the Stefford Community Centre 226 Crissy Place and adjoining land to the east of Stepney Green. The extent of the application site is outlined in red on the image on the screen with the consultation boundary outlined in pink. The site is located to the south of Crissy Place with Stepney Green and Stepney Green Gardens to the northeast and Marland Road further north. Within the red line is the existing community centre to the west, the garage site to the north of the site, and an area of publicly accessible open space to the southeast of this. Tinsley Road cuts through the site, providing access from Crissy Place to existing flats running along the south of the site. An area of hard standing to the south is also within the site boundary, which provides access to Stepney Green Park, which lies further south. Here is an aerial image of the site. It's surrounded by residential buildings generally ranging between three to five storeys. Crissy houses and Dunstan houses lie to the north on the opposite side of Crissy Place and these are within the Stepney Green conservation area. Tinsley Road flats lie to the south of the site adjacent the existing community centre and south of the open space. Stepney Green flats lie to the northeast and the site itself is not within the conservation area. These images are taken from Crissy houses opposite the site. On the left shows part of the garage site and the Tinsley Road flats in the background. On the right shows the side and rear of the existing community centre, which is surrounded by a fence on this elevation. On the left is an image of the existing open space looking east and on the right is Crissy Place Gardens in the foreground and the existing community centre to the right in the background. Finally, the left image here shows the area of hard standing also within the site boundary where landscaping enhancements are proposed. This is one of the routes from the site to Stepney Green Park. And the right image is along Crissy Place with Crissy houses and Dunstan houses on the right and the garage site on the left. So the scheme has come from the council's capital delivery team, so the applicant is Tower Hamlets. And the proposal is for the redevelopment of the site to provide four storey and five storey buildings containing 31 self contained residential units, 100% of which would be affordable. It also includes a replacement community centre. Enhancement measures are proposed to the public realm and the area of open space as part of the landscaping scheme. And finally, other associated works include highway works, cycle parking and refuse and recycling stores. Here is a proposed Crissy Place elevation, so block A is on the left at five storeys with the top floor set back and block B on the right with the upper three floors set back along the elevation. At the ground floor is the community centre. And here is an indicative floor plan of the blocks showing the layout of the residential units on some of the upper floors. To the left is block B where the community centre is located at the ground floor. And to the right is block A which looks out onto the open space at the rear. In terms of public consultation, the council sent letters to surrounding owners and occupiers. An advert was posted in the press and six site notices were displayed in and around the site. Due to building regulation changes requiring alterations to the lift and stair court arrangement, a reconsultation was undertaken by way of letters and site notices. A total of 2,039 representations were received, 2,036 of which were in objection. Of this, 1,979 letters were delivered by the Stifford Community Centre. This figure does not include 149 letters which did not have an eligible address. Of the 1,979, 1,944 did not provide comment or reasoning for the objection. Of the 35 that did provide comment, almost all of these relate to the loss of the community centre. In terms of the remaining objections, the main concerns are set out in more detail in the report. But this included loss of the community centre, design, amenity issues, biodiversity and highways. On the screen now are the main issues which are set out in the report and I will run through these now. In terms of land use, the redevelopment of the site is supported. It provides a 100% affordable rent housing scheme in the form of 31 homes, which presents an important contribution towards the borough's housing need. This is alongside the reprovision of the community use. In terms of the community use, as I just mentioned, this is one of the key areas that has gained a lot of interest from the local community. There would be a minor reduction in floor space. However, the centre would be of a better quality, enhancing the community facility offer for the local community. The use is being re-provided and this re-provision accords with the relevant policy requirements. The development also includes a small encroachment onto the public open space. However, this is offset by other public realm enhancement measures. The new community centre would be at the ground floor of block B in the same area of the site as the existing, but with the addition of the residential access to block B, bike and bin stores. The centre would be of a better quality to the existing, being purpose-built. An indicative layout has been provided, however the future occupier could change this to best suit their needs. In terms of housing, on the screen now is the mix of the 31 units. There is a focus on three bedroom family homes, which account for 55% of the proposal and exceeds the 45% requirement for family units. 100% of the 31 homes are affordable and include a policy compliant provision of wheelchair accessible homes, all of which are accessed directly from Cressy Place. The accessible homes will also have access to blue badge parking spaces. The homes have a good standard of accommodation, including generous internal areas and private immunity space. The scheme only provides dedicated play space for the 0-4 year olds on site on the existing open space. This doorstep play space can be accessed directly from block A to avoid needing to cross any roads. Access from block B is via the Copenhagen style crossing, which requires vehicles to give way to pedestrians. To help mitigate against the shortfall in child play space, there are public realm improvements to the existing area of hard standing to the south of the site, along with a new crossing which will significantly improve access to the nearby Stepney Green Park. Moving on now to design. The scheme has benefited from extensive pre-application discussions with the applicant, the Council's capital delivery team. This slide shows some of the CGI's of the proposal. The left image shows a view looking east towards block B, which contains the replacement community centre at the ground floor and residential flats above. To the left of this image is Cressy Houses. The right visual shows a view looking south-west along Cressy Place, with block A in the foreground and block B in the background. The height scale and massing respond well to the surrounding context and the bulk is broken up across the two blocks. The mass has also been positioned sensitively in relation to neighbouring properties to minimise amenity impacts. Here are some of the proposed elevations and sections of the blocks. Block A is on the left and you can see the setback top floor on the section. And block B is on the right, where the top three floors are set back from the ground floor. The materials and detailing have been carefully considered to mediate between the different building typologies surrounding the site. The predominant use of brick is strongly supported and further details are recommended to be addressed by way of condition. The layout has also been carefully considered to successfully maximise active frontages along the ground floor street scenes, where there is currently limited activation. The site lies adjacent to the Stepney Green Conservation Area and so the impact on this setting has been considered. The design has been through a number of iterations to find a form and design that responds most appropriately to this. Officers feel that the development presents no harm to the setting of the conservation area. Now moving on to the impact of the development on neighbouring residents. In terms of sense of enclosure, privacy and overlooking, generally separation distances are sufficient to avoid significant impacts. Policy sets out a guide of 18 metres between habitable rooms. Between block A and Crecy houses this distance is 19 metres. This does fall to 14 metres at the closest point on block B. However, the only windows at this point are secondary and serve kitchen areas. Some balconies are positioned opposite the flats at 116 to 120 Jamaica Street. However, the separation distance between habitable rooms exceeds the guideline of 18 metres at 19.5 metres. To the Stepney Green properties, 16 metres separation distance would be sufficient to avoid significant impacts in terms of sense of enclosure. There are no windows at this elevation so there would be no overlooking or loss of privacy here. Finally, the open space would experience a significant increase in overlooking. However, this would have the benefit of increased surveillance and security. In terms of noise and disturbance, environmental health noise raised no objection. A number of conditions are recommended to mitigate noise and disturbance impacts including a construction management plan, community centre management plan and soundproofing of the community centre. In terms of the development's impact on daylight to surrounding properties, this table sets out the major, moderate and minor impacts to windows. Whilst Crecy houses and Tinsley Road would experience 16 and 17 major adverse impacts respectively, the majority of these windows are to small kitchens which would not be classified as habitable rooms. The same applies to moderate and minor impacts on Tinsley Road. In terms of sunlight, almost all meet the BRE sunlight hours criteria. And finally, overshadowing, all gardens and open spaces meet the BRE recommendations. Moving on to transport and highways. Firstly, it should be noted that whilst the site contains garages, permission has already been granted for their demolition through a permitted development application allowed last year. The scheme includes the widening of Crecy place in order to accommodate a new delivery bay which is shown in pink on the image. Three new blue badge bays shown in blue on the image and seven new parking spaces shown in yellow on the image. The council's transport and highway officers raised no objection to the proposals. Other considerations include waste and the environment. The waste arrangements are in line with the existing and are policy compliant. In terms of environmental considerations, the scheme has a number of sustainability measures including air source heat pumps and photovoltaic panels. Whilst 10 trees would be lost, 15 new trees are proposed to be planted on site along with a further 12 trees planted off site. On the slide now is a list of the financial contributions. This will include a contribution towards nearby park improvements which could include improvements to play equipment. And on this slide are the non-financial obligations which include securing a community centre management plan. To conclude, officers' recommendation is to grant planning permission subject to a section 106 agreement including the mentioned planning obligations as well as the conditions and informatives set out in the committee report. That's the end of my presentation. Thank you. Thank you Elie for presenting this application. I will now invite speaker one to address the committee in objection to the application. You have up to three minutes. Please introduce yourself and before you start speaking. Thank you. Thank you chair, councillors. Thank you for hearing us today. My name is Mr Rehan Ahmed. I'm the in-house legal advisor for Stifford Legal Advice Centre. Stifford Centre has been around since 1997 providing a wealth of community services and it's become a key hub within the area. Today we are asking you to reconsider the decision and this could have a great impact on the centre itself. We feel that there has been a lack of communication with ourselves in terms of the existing proposal of the redevelopment and the new centre. The centre itself, like I said, is a thriving community hub and has been led by the BAB community. Every day women and children come here for various services and the proposal also has an impact in terms of the level of space that we may have in the future in terms of the redevelop centre compared to what we have now. And as you can see from the great majority of the community users, that could have an impact on the centre and its ability to deliver its services. So that's one of the objections that we have as well. The other concerns are that the centre itself, whilst the redevelopment is going to take place, we are unsure as to where we stand on that position, as to where we go, what do we do with our existing services. This is of great concern and again, this is one of the objections of the committee. So the lack of communications with the centre has caused us to raise these objections. Primarily that we don't know if our services are disrupted to such an extent that our funding is disrupted, whether we can come back to a sustainable redevelopment whereby we can afford the rent that's been demanded by the new redevelopment. That's also a key question that needs to be looked into. So these are the current objections that I can highlight. Mainly that the obviously centre will have an impact in the community if it is lost as a whole. And over the years, the effort that it has taken to develop itself can be lost in a failed swoop if these conditions are not put in place to reassure what's going to happen in the transitional period, as well as the space and the rental affordability of the redevelopment. I'll pass it over to my colleague who has further issues. Thank you. Thank you. Good evening. My name is Joy Tara Bibi. I speak on behalf of the residents and service users, also the business users. So firstly, I would like to say thank you, Councillor, Chair, for letting me speak. I think it's important that we are being heard, that we feel valued that we are being heard at this moment of time. I just want to say, yes. I'm sorry to interrupt you. I should have mentioned, you have six minutes together. Just to be mindful. How many minutes remaining? We've got six minutes together. Half over. Half over. Oh, Lord. Okay. Speed it up. All right. Okay. So, yes, we do understand that housing, families are growing. We do need housing. We don't disagree with that. Okay. Within our community, we work with our community. We understand families are growing. We cater for that. Okay. We're looking into that. We don't dispute that there's a housing crisis. We do need more, but there's other spaces as well. We haven't been given any consultation. There's been a lack of transparency. So, as residents, we are worried, where are we going to be placed? Are we displaced? Are we not using this service no more with the people that we've used over 30 years? These are local residents. These are local residents. Is it accessible to them? This community centre sounds like a fantastic idea, but who's running it? But who's running it? Once it's developed, who's running it? We haven't been given any answers. And this is what the residents and users would like to know. These are not only users. These are their livelihood. I mean, we have an NHS crisis, but we're tackling it. Grassroot people are tackling that. Okay. I understand. Big corporation. They can come in. They can sweep in and do a lot of work. They can do 10 flats, 20, 40 buildings. But what about the 1,000 that actually use the centre to their benefit? Their mental wellbeing? Where does it leave them? At the moment, the space is an open space. It's a community space. It's run by the community. But is that going to be accessible? When this community is up and developed, is it going to be accessible? Is it going to be affordable? That's the other thing. I'm one of the business users there. Is it going to be affordable for us? I mean, we don't get a lot of funding. But whatever we do, we inject it into the community. Because that's where it's needed. The antisocial behaviour. We have many, but we're tackling it. But when you cut these kind of services, what you're doing is just twisting our hands back. We're not able to do our work. So if we need to go forward as a community, housing, yes. I think all of us, 100%, we'd agree. Housing, there's a crisis. But this location here, help us. Support us. We're not saying don't develop there. Develop there. But help us to develop. Help us develop with our community. The community who lives there. Who lives there. Who's been using that service. Who's driven away antisocial behaviour. If we understand the history of that building, there were three shops there. Antisocial behaviour there. There was a lot of nuisance there. That is what you're looking for. 30 more seconds. Thank you. So what we're saying is, is that we don't object to your housing proposal. What we are objecting is the takeover of our community centre. And that is what we're objecting to. We need some reassurance. Our community needs some reassurance that this is not going to be taken away from them. And this is going to be given back to them. With the people managing it. Or managing it. This is what we need. Order. Order. Thank you. Thank you speakers. I now invite speaker 2 to address the committee in objection to the application. You have up to three minutes. Please introduce yourself. My name is Mr. Keith Rudiwan and I live in crazy houses overlooking this proposed new country. I have to leave. I am here. Thank you. It's not me. I am here. I am here. You are here and I am here. I am here. Thank you. You are here. You are here. Thank you. Your time starts when you are ready. I live in Crecy Houses and I've been living there for over 40 years and I'm objecting to this development they're proposing in front of my flat to have this five storey monstrosity right so close to our flats I think is ridiculous. My main worry as well is going to be my loss of light. It is a small flat and the windows affected will not just be the kitchen like you're stating it will actually be my living room and my bedroom. I'm now retired so this is going to stress me out and I think it will affect my health and wealth being because of loss of light and the fact it will end up being put in the shade by this five storey monstrosity that you're proposing to build and as I say I've lived there for 40 years and I've been able to see the the grass and the trees in Tinsley place but I will lose all that all I will see is a concrete block in front of me and also my vision of privacy will be the fact that the flats are so close to our property that they will be looking overlooking into our flats so what so what do I end up doing putting net curtains up which will reduce my lighting even more than it's going to reduce with the build that you're proposing. I just think it's ridiculous and it's really upsetting me. It's actually affected me at the moment I'm having sleepless nights worrying about what you're going to do with this you know proposal. Also my comment as well would be about the fact is I made a comment to the council about the fact that you're already demolishing the sheds and the garages before the planning permission has even been approved so it's like you're going ahead anyway you know without you know like all right we're going to get it anyway so we'll knock down the garages and the sheds you know in preparation when it's not even supposedly been approved yet. And the fact is it's a single aspect issue in my flat because I have it's a small flat and the light at the moment is appropriate but if I'm losing that light that's going to affect my living standards and and I'm really worried about the as I say the property being shaded back with lack of light because of the building being built so I'm going to lose the sunlight which directly affects the heating of the building because it's a no Victorian building and the sun helps to keep the building warm you know through the winter because it directly goes onto the building. When this is built we will I will lose all of that. You have 30 more seconds. 30 more seconds anyway that's you know I find it very difficult to talk about it because it's upsetting me so much and it's going to affect all of the residents in particular. Thank you. So I beg your pardon so you were the objector of three so you finish here. Thank you. So can Camille speak? Yeah you want to speak? Sorry we don't quite get what we're saying. I didn't hear what you're saying my hearing's going a bit bad. Sorry. There has been a little misunderstanding. The three minutes was between you two of you so I should mention that I will allow you one more minute here. Thank you. Okay two minutes to go on. Your time's right now. Thank you. Thank you. My name is Camille Savory. I'm also a local resident and I would just like to reiterate the concerns of my fellow residents about the negative impact on over over 120 neighbouring properties as mentioned in the daylight and sunlight report. Unfortunately that report and its survey has a number of inaccuracies and emissions as it only mentions facts about eight properties, numerous assumptions about the other neighbouring properties. Even so the report itself confirms that the development doesn't comply with BRE recommendations on the neighbouring properties. Not to mention that in total there is a loss of green space and a loss of community space with this new development on the existing residents and there are going to be another 41 dwellings added to the area. The report for the new proposal states itself that it concerns remain with regard to the dependency on the existing open space which is just being reduced to provide sufficient community amenity space for the residents of the new dwellings. So overall we feel that the existing inhabitants of the area will have a loss of green and community space and an enormous negative impact on those dwellings. Thank you and I invite the agent for the applicant to address the committee and support of the application. You have up to nine minutes. Yes, you can have up to 10 minutes in total. Thank you. Thank you chair and good evening. My name is Tim Waters and I'm speaking as the agent for the applicant in support of the officer recommendation to grant planning permissions subject to conditions and planning obligations. I'm joined this evening by other representatives of the client team who will be available to take any questions during your subsequent deliberations on this application. The application provides an excellent opportunity to bring forward an exceptionally designed and highly sustainable development that would not only have the effect of reinstating the historical residential use on the site but also provides a new replacement community centre of substantially improved quality, function and form. The pressure to build more housing in Tower Hamlets and especially affordable housing continues to be acute. The Council is challenged with the highest 10-year house building target in the London plan of all 32 London boroughs. It also has the fastest growing population of any local authority area in England and Wales, having increased by over 22% in the 10-year period to 2021. Looking ahead, the borough's population is predicted to increase by a further 100,000 in the period to 2031. Hence, it is important that we take the opportunity afforded by this highly sustainable urban brownfield site to help deliver this much needed housing in the most effective way possible. That is what planning policy directs us to do. However, we are also aware of the importance in ensuring that the planning policy directives telling us to optimise the housing capacity of such sites are balanced with a need for development to be both respectful and compatible with local context and designed in such a way that there would be no permanent and avoidable harm arising to the residential amenity of the area. This latterly has been a particular focus of the design team since they were appointed in early 2022. As a result, following the extensive engagements of council officers for pre-application advice and the feedback obtained locally from the public consultation events, we have made some significant design changes, concessions and improvements to the scheme since our plans were first formulated to ensure that it appropriately responds to the site's context. In short, we have incorporated the community centre into the scheme to ensure the opportunity is taken to provide a greatly improved facility for the local community, mindful of the fact the existing building was originally constructed as a retail unit. We have removed a storey height from the corner housing block fronting Redmond's Road and stepped back the upper floors on Cressy Place. We have removed an originally proposed connection between the two housing blocks over Tinsley Place. We have recessed the top storey of the housing block fronting Cressy Place. We have reduced areas of the building mass to incorporate increased separation distances to the neighbouring properties on Cressy Place. We have adjusted window and balcony positions to minimise any risk of overlooking and loss of privacy to near neighbours. This also includes using obscure glazing and high-level windows. We have provided active frontages on all sides. We have introduced a larger number of family-sized dwellings, now 55% of overall provision, according to greatest identified need. We have incorporated a new pedestrian crossing on Redmond's Road to provide a safer connection to Stetney Green Park. And finally, we have initiated further design changes to ensure compliance with the recently updated fire safety regulations. It is impossible to bring forward development on this site without there being some degree of localised amenity impact. However, we have sought to take the necessary, reasonable, practical and proportionate steps to ensure these impacts are minimised and appropriately mitigated wherever possible, including in the use of planning conditions that would manage, control and limit these impacts during the construction and operational stages of development. A key element of this has been adjusting the building mass to help minimise and alleviate the daylight-sunlight impacts to adjoining properties, such that where there are impacts, the retained levels of daylight are still at levels that would normally be expected in a dense urban environment. In short, and according to the technical assessment findings, there would be no human health risks arising in this respect. We are aware that considerable concern has been raised locally, citing the loss of the community centre. The current facility is occupied by a local user group, the Stifford Centre, and provides a range of activities which are set out in the officer report. Our plans provide for the full reprovision of the community centre, it would be a purpose-built facility and capable of reoccupation by the current user group. The internal layout we have shown is only illustrative, and the space would be fitted out according to the specific end-user requirements. Planning policy generally affords protection to the use, and not the end-user. We are protecting the use, but the mechanism for enabling the existing user group to reoccupy the new facility can only be governed outside the planning process. However, we have taken some important steps to make this outcome more likely. First and foremost, we have agreed that any planning permission would be restricted, so that the community centre can only be used for the range of activities currently taking place. Secondly, we have agreed a legally binding planning obligation requiring the agreement of a community centre operation plan, which would include the details of management, funding, pricing, and fit-out specification. These details would have to be agreed prior to occupation of any part of the development, including the housing. To conclude, we believe there are multiple planning benefits arising from this proposal, which would justify the recommended grant of planning permission. The provision of 100% affordable housing, the reprovision and enhancement of the existing community centre, the exemplary quality of the living accommodation being provided, the high-quality design internally and externally, the zero-carbon development, and wider public realm and landscape improvements, all weigh strongly in favour of the proposed development. The full and robust technical assessment of the proposal further underpins the overall planning integrity of the development, and in the absence of any demonstrably unacceptable harm, we would respectfully request the planning permission be granted. Thank you. Thank you very much for your statement in favour of this application. I ask, do members have any questions for the officers, objector or applicants? Please indicate if you have any. Councillor Choudhury. Councillor Choudhury. I will have three questions. Is it okay if I ask all of them? How do you think? Thank you. Thank you, Chair. So, a large number of objections have been received, so I would like to know whether these objections were appropriately considered and in what manner they were addressed. Number two, the Eastiford Centre provides vital services to the community and we can see that. I would like to know what engagement has taken place with the centre during the consultation period and where it will be operating, the Eastiford Centre will be operating between the demolition of the current building and the newly built centre, whether there was any discussion. Number three, what is the plan for the new centre? Will it be going to the current organisation occupying the centre? Thank you. You would like to answer the question? Do you have a question to the applicant or the officers? I can deal with one of those points in terms of how we sought to respond to the concerns about the size of the development. You heard me talk about all of the design concessions and adjustments that we made through the journey of engaging the Council for pre-application advice. We have been working on this project for nearly three years and also in response to the comments that we had in community consultations. So we have removed a storey height. We have adjusted the footprint of the building to increase the separation distances to the nearest neighbouring properties and we have sought with the benefit of comprehensive daylight, sunlight assessments to adjust the massing of the building to minimise and alleviate the impacts that would be arising to neighbouring properties. It is impossible to put any development on this site without there being some level of impact. But we have sought to minimise those as far as reasonably and practically possible. Do you want to pick up on that? Yes, can you answer your second question please, again? Sorry? Could you answer your questions again so I can get the full extent of them? Okay. So which one? There are three questions. Your second question. Second question. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. What engagement has been taking place with the centre during the consultation period and where they will be operating at the time of when the building, the new building, you know, the site. Yeah, construction period. And the third one is, what is the plan for the new centre? Will it be going to the current organisation occupying the centre? Okay. I'll start. I'll start with your last question first, if that's okay. The council have a process that all community facilities that are redeveloped will be marketed accordingly and the Stifford Centre can reapply for that. That is the council's policy at the moment. Order, please. Order. Order. Thank you. That is the council's policy. The second part, in terms of communication with the Stifford Centre, we have had communication in respect of, we've held community consultation days, we've held actually one at the Stifford Centre Centre as well, because it wasn't always available. And I've also met the Stifford Centre board. No, we met... Okay, okay. We have communicated. Right. We are very pleased to see you here, because you have interest. We appreciate that and respect that. In return, we would like you to respect the procedure, please, so do not interrupt. We are hearing. You understand your concern. We need to hear the answer to the question asked by the members, so you need to cooperate with us. Thank you. Chair, can I answer the question that the young lady asked early about the rental levels, just to clear that up, if that's okay? Yes. Yes. Yeah. The council have a set rental basis for all community centres under what they call a community rate, and there's also something called a community benefit reduction of up to 80%. That will apply, as it does now, to the new centre, so there will be no change. Just wanted to be clear about that. So future rents will, they may go up by per square foot, but the rents will be set, or they are set across the borough in that respect, and there are community benefit reduction rates subject to eligibility. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, officer, for your presentation. I have a set of questions as well. My first question is, this community centre currently offers a range of valuable services. Will the proposed development ensure that these services are maintained in their current form, is number one. Number two, does this proposal conflict with any material planning consideration? Number three, in their speech, objectors, they mention lack of consultation, and when this development will carry out, they will be facing problem in funding. How do we mitigate this? And fourth one is, one of the objectors complained, this neighbouring property will face loss of sunlight and daylight. Does this proposed follows the guideline of BRA. Do you want me to answer that? Do you want me to answer that? Do you want me to answer that? Do you want me to answer that? For the material planning consideration, I mean, you heard from Ellie in her officer presentation that planning policy affords protection to the existing use, and that's exactly what we're doing. We're providing the existing use, but we're not just we providing the existing use, we're providing improved environment for their community activities. The qualitative benefits are significant, and I think there can be no dispute that the existing facility is not necessarily unit. So I think anybody looking at the building and using the building will immediately conclude that it's in need of improvements and substantial improvements, and that's what we're intending to do. And as I explained in my submission, we can only go so far in terms of planning process, in terms of trying to enable a pathway used by the community group. But what we can do in planning process is try and enable the existing user... Can you... Yes. Does this proposed development conflict with any planning material consideration? I can address that. I'll take the questions in turn, if that's okay. So your first question about the range of services. So insofar as planning can consider, we've looked at the use and the scheme protects that use. So the permission would be for the same... would it capture the same use as existing. Planning has no control over the end user. That is beyond planners' remit, and we've done as much as we can to protect the existing user in terms of making the size of the units very similar, it's accessible, the layout is similar. So we've done as much as we can in that sense. In terms of does it conflict with any policy considerations? So generally, the scheme aligns with the relevant development plan policies. Where there's any minor shortfall, this is significantly outweighed by the benefits of the scheme, including the replacement community centre and the 31 affordable homes, which are desperately needed in the borough. As the applicant has mentioned, the scheme has been through extensive pre-application advice. So we've seen a lot of versions of the scheme, and the applicant has worked hard to get to a point that is acceptable. And as an officer, we feel confident that the scheme is policy compliant. In terms of consultation, we went beyond the statutory consultation for the scheme, so we put up more site notices, we expanded the consultation boundary to send more letters. And then we also did a re-consultation due to minor design changes. I myself also met with the community centre to understand their concerns, and I explained to them the remit of planning and how we operate separately to the housing team, because I'm not sure that was quite clear before. And finally, in terms of loss of sunlight and daylight, this has been considered in detail. I just wanted to ask what property yours is, and then I can clarify specifically. My property, I'm on the first floor. In Cressy Houses. In Cressy Houses. In Cressy Houses. So, as I said, it's going to affect you. Yeah, so there will be some impact. They're saying, oh, we've done this, we've done that, it's still way too high, and it's going to, as I said, I'm going to use sunlight, light, you know, quite substantially. Yeah, so there will be some reduction in daylight and sunlight. Quite substantial reduction. But actually, I'm retired now, so this is going to, you know, it's going to have a major effect for me. The retained values are actually quite high, and they're, and they're higher than is actually often experienced in a dense urban environment. Because of the nature of the site at the moment, with nothing there, any development on the site would experience a degradation. So we've had to consider this in balance with the desperate need for homes. But at Cressy Houses, the degradation is, it may seem significant, but actually the retained values are quite good for an urban environment. So the actual experience, once it's built, will not, you will still get daylight, sunlight. It will not be... It's reduced dramatically, and the sunlight will not actually, no, because the actual... The injection is very, very, very standard housing already, and you are going to be building. So what do you need is, in front of us, and we are going to be building. So what do you need is, in front of us, and we are going to be building. So what do you need is, with no credibility, it is, but it will not really affect the mental health. People will be meeting. Thank you. Thank you. Could I ask the agent to, specifically, the gentleman claimed that VRE recommendation guideline wasn't met. He's affected by... His flight is affected by sunlight, the light reduction is affected majorly. So, has it been tested and how much light is going to lose? All of the properties in Cressy houses have been tested through daylight, sunlight. Do they comply with your recommendation? In overall terms, yes. It depends on how you judge compliance. The majority of windows, rooms are compliant with standards. Those that are falling short, as you would have seen. I beg your pardon. Sorry. I'm not allowed to. Sorry. Thank you, Chair. Thank you for the presentation. And a couple of questions have already been asked, the ones I was going to ask. But can I quickly ask, there's a few questions, actually. First of all, is the site belongs to the local authority? That's one of the things. If I can have the answer first, then I can go for the following questions. Yes, it's Council owned land. Fantastic. Thank you very much for that. A site is owned by the local authority, and the application has been applied. Can I ask, the affordable scheme, instead of that, why is it not a social housing scheme? And also, it's a fantastic idea to bring this accommodation in the borough, which I really like it. But the thing is this, we have a number of issues with large properties and families that have been waiting for such a long time. So, on this capacity, on this particular scheme, why there is no four beds at all? Thank you very much. There is that we are utilising the existing open space to meet the child play space needs of the development. I think it's certainly when I was in the community consultation, a lot of people were saying that open space needs to be improved. It's prone to antisocial behaviour. So, an integral element of our scheme involves improving the quality of that open space and also providing a child play space. So, there's a limit on how many family units we can incorporate into the development without putting too much pressure on the open space. So, we've tried to strike a balance between providing a mix of units and the three bed units are actually larger sized units compared to the minimum space standards. So, they're three bed five units, three bed six person units. So, they are larger than you would normally expect to see within a development. Thank you, Chair. So, I'm still not clear about the social housing. So, you're telling us, you're telling me basically, that social and affordable is the same thing. Could you explain that to us, please? Yeah, just briefly. There's, there's, I can't remember the terminology there. London affordable rent. There's Tower Hamlets living rent. And social rent normally comes, what we call a lower level of social rent, comes through GLA grant funded schemes. So, there's an application for GLA grant funded on this scheme. The council's, the council's level of rent is Tower Hamlets living rent. So, it goes below that. For the time of the final question will be for myself, which is about the, again, so if you are saying the social and affordable is the same thing, that's what I'm assuming, what you're trying to explain to us. So, on this note, why is it a car-free development? The site is owned by the local authority. And I do believe in, like, obviously, I'm aware about the seven parking spaces. What about the other residents of that? Why are they not included in that scheme? Most schemes are car-free within the borough. As you know, parking is a huge constraint on the borough. It's very rare on council mode schemes that we can actually provide on-street parking provision. The on-street parking provision in this instance, or in most instances, normally is for blue badge holders, which we comply with. But in this particular scheme, because we've moved the, listening through the consultation process, we adjusted the footprint of the building. We've taken some of the land, if you want to call it that, and it will become part of the highway. And that's why we can re-provide some parking spaces on the street. If I've explained that properly. It's also a council planning policy, a London plan planning policy for this type of development to be car-free because of its public transport accessibility level, which is P-tow-5, which is defined as very good. So we're consistent with planning policy in that respect. Dean. My question to the officer, could you clarify how many objections or compliance from has been received, number one? Number two, does the planning comply with the local and London policy? That's a two question. Yeah, I can answer that. So just to reiterate, in terms of the objections, so we received a total of 2,036, 1,900 and, sorry, just bear with me one moment, 1,979, which had an address on them, were from the Stifford Community Centre, but only 35 of these provided any reason. Given their comments today and my discussion with them, I can assume that they were all within that, to do with the loss of the community centre, but only 35 provided comment. And then from other means, so online consultation and anything that I received by email, there was a total of 58. 32 didn't provide comment and 26 did provide comment and those comments generally aligned with the concerns raised by those objectives. Thank you, Chair. Good evening, everyone. So, my question to the applicant, if the most majority people, the rescinders here, are concerning about their community centre and the service they're getting from the community centre. Most of the people came here for that concern. Can you tell us that the community centre will be protected? Is it bigger than right now or smaller than right now? That's what I want to know. This is my first question. Yeah, it's approximately 12 square metres smaller. Approximately 12 square metres. It's actually purpose-built, so internally it will be much more suitable for a community facility as opposed to the existing retail units and the single storey sort of portable building that's there at the moment. Your other question was... Sorry. That was one question. So, I know it will be modern community centre and build, purpose will build, so that can accommodate more activities than before because it will purposely build. So, if it's a little bit smaller, but if provide all the service they're getting right now... Sorry. It's form and function will be better because it's purpose-built. It's an open space at the moment rather than ad-hoc buildings as it is at this moment in time. Second question. Second. So, community centre is protected, a little bit smaller than before, but it's a modern building, purpose building, it can be accommodated more other things. Now I want to know, the timeline is that. How long it will be... Construction. Construction will take place because... I can only estimate construction would be around about two years. So, it will be within two years and starting from... I couldn't hear that, sorry. Starting from... Ah, good question. Good question. That depends on certain governance processes I have to go through internally, but I would predict it wouldn't start on site till next year. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. Do any other member have any other questions? Councillor Ahmed. Thank you, Chair. This is to the applicant. As we have heard from the object that... about the garages, to question that. These garages, were they being occupied by any residents on use and also on what capacity that before you have the consent to build your demolition, demolition the garages? All right. The garages, the council took vacant possession of the garages last year. The council also got demolition consent separately from the current planning consent. So, they can demolition. So, they can demolish the garages. It's not uncommon. We take a risk and move forward on certain projects to do that. Thank you. Thank you, members, for your contribution. Would members like to share their thought or debate on this application? Please indicate if you want to. I will. Councillor Choudhury. Thank you, Chair. I think, obviously, we need houses. But, I think, I myself bidding for property. So, you know, the applicant says the difference between affordable and social. So, when I bid for property, what I see, you know, the rental differences between social and affordable is huge. So, to me, I think the land could be used in a better way of, by making social houses, which is, you know, the social rent, for social rent. And, also, we have a local plan target of four bedroom properties is about 15%. And, I think, there should be some four bedroom properties. And, also, what I see today, that during the consultation period, the stakeholders were not engaged properly. So, I think that's also need to be taken into consideration. So, I would recommend to go back and do the whole process again. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Choudhury, for sharing your final thoughts. Councillor Choudhury. This proposed development will provide 100% affordable rent homes. And, the replacement community centre will include activity rooms, office spaces, kitchens, as well as bins and bike storage and meeting space. So, I am supporting this. Thank you, Councillor Choudhury. Thank you, Councillor Choudhury. Thank you, Councillor Choudhury. Thank you. Thank you. Councillor Choudhury. Councillor Ahmed. Councillor Khan. Yes. Thank you, Chair. Yes. We heard from objector. We heard from the officers. We heard from the applicant as well. And, we all know that we need houses. That is very important for us, for our well-being, for our health conditions, for our children like studies as well. So, when we, every Saturday people come to our house, come to our surgery and they are asking for bigger sizes of homes so that they can live and they can improve their health conditions and their life as well. And, also, that we are able to find a space for the children to study separately. Instead of one bedroom, six people living in one bedroom and they are growing up, those children are 12, 13, or 14 years. This is the story of the whole borough. And, this, this development is very important. That is providing 31 homes and is affordable, affordable as social rent. So, as well as, we need our Stifford Centre to provide all these services for the local resident as well. And, we are, we are assured by the applicant that community centre will be protected. So, there, there will be a particular community centre with a modern facilities, modern building. There will be a community centre to provide all the facilities for all local residents. So, that is assured from the applicant. So, I am satisfied with that, that community centre will be protected. The service will be protected once this community centre is built. And, also, they are providing 31 homes for our really needed people who are living in overcrowded. Also, people are living away from Tower Hamlet. They wanted to come to Tower Hamlet. And, that will be a very essential, like, for our people, 31 accommodation to provide for our people. So, I am supporting this application. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Hamlet. Thank you, Councillor Hamlet. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Hamlet. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. Thank you to all parties. You have presented very well. What Councillor Chaudry said in the very beginning about the affordable and social, the exact carbon carbon copy words that I was going to say, but I will still repeat it. Firstly, I am not satisfied at all with the explanation of the current user of the... Thank you. Centre. Councillor Hamlet, can you repeat this bit again? Okay. I am not satisfied with the answers about the centre. But, how it will be utilised, and where they will go, and what will happen to the centre. It is a very grey area, that is what I believe in the explanation. Secondly, it is the affordable housing scheme, and social housing schemes. It is two different things. We have been explained, it is the same and similar, which is not at all. Again, there is a very dark area on that as well, grey area. And also, the large properties that what we need, what Mr Councillor Khan said, definitely, which is nothing, although it has been explained about three bedrooms, will accommodate more accommodation. But, however, we still need for privacy, four beds as well. So, that could have been included. So, I am not supporting this at all. I am not satisfied with it. APPLAUSE I want the applicant to go back and reconsider and bring a better scheme with a satisfactory explanation about the centre, as well as social housing. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Ahmed. Actually, everybody might know the housing crisis, especially in Tower Hamlet. My colleague, Ahmed Al-Rahman, already said, your community centre is protected. Thank you. Thank you. Members, colleagues, officers and members of the public, thank you for your presence and contribution. and be with us through the whole procedure of listening to this application. We heard from the objector that they agree the housing need of this para. Unfortunately, there is something we have to do with the housing need of this para. Unfortunately, there is something we have to do with the housing need of this para. Unfortunately, there is something we cannot consider as a committee. We have to do with the housing need of this para. Unfortunately, there is something we cannot consider as a committee. Who will be the other members of the public? Thank you, members of the public? Thank you for your presence and contribution. Thank you for your presence and contribution. And be with us through the whole procedure of listening to this application. We heard from the objector that they agree the housing need of this para. Unfortunately, there is something we cannot consider as a committee. Who will be the future tenant or who will be running the centre? There is something this committee cannot decide. If we only decide the planning application or rent, we cannot comment or decide the rent. It is up to the current service provider. We appreciate their service. They have been providing service for the committee for the past many years. We appreciate that. I would like to see they are continuing with their services. But there is a process they need to go through. And we do not consider that as a planning material consideration. So we need to now, in my opinion, my concluding remark, I would say on the balance, the benefit outweighs the concern raised by the objector. The application proposed application is in policy compliance. And community, you have raised concern about the community services, community space. It will be re-provided. So I can't see any problem with that. But as I said, who will be running this, it's not our committee to consider that. You need to negotiate that with the relevant authority. That's your responsibility. And I also would say, you all know that in Trahamlet, 20,000 people are in serious need of housing. And this house building initiative will help our families, our loved ones, our community to be re-housed. So the impact of lack of quality housing, decent housing, have detrimental effect on our residents in mental health, physical eczema, children suffering from asthma, eczema, and a huge range of health issues. So in my opinion, on the balance, the benefit, this application, the proposed project application offers. I wish your concern in my opinion, my judgment. So now, I would like to ask members to vote. So before I go on voting, I would like to ask Paul Pakenham, the management, development management, chief head of development management and legal services to share their final thoughts or advice on it. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. I just, I don't have too much to say, but I just want to start off with a clarification and just around the affordable housing. Members have quite rightly pointed out that affordable housing can cover a range of different rent levels and different products. I think they're often described as, this scheme would be social rent and that's what the legal agreement that the applicant would be entering into for this. So that's the most affordable, if you like, of all of the different levels. So I just wanted to assure members on that. And I apologize if the report wasn't clear on that level. Just another clarification in terms of residents have spoken very eloquently around impacts on daylight and sunlight and also the internal layouts of the buildings opposite, which are quite shallow. So the daylight and sunlight tests include two primary tests, one about the sunlight that hits the windows. And then the second one measures how that sunlight, sorry, how that daylight is within the room based on the size and shape of the room. So that has been part of the assessment. It hasn't been ignored. But beyond that, I just wanted to say the scheme is, in our opinion, is a well-designed scheme. It responds very positively to the constraints of the site. You've heard how, through the pre-application discussions, it was actually a more ambitious scheme. And it's been shaped and molded to be designed to fit the constraints. Planning is a balance. So there are compromises in places. But broadly speaking, this does comply with the relevant policies in the development plan. Where it doesn't, there is mitigation. The community center would be re-provided. It is marginally smaller. It's 12 square meters. If you want to visualize 12 square meters, it's about the size of a parking space. The standard parking space is 11 and a half square meters. So that's the only difference in size. But it's a better quality purpose built. And as far as planning is concerned, what we're looking at is whether the use can carry on rather than the user. The user is a different process which, as colleagues have explained, has to be dealt with outside of this committee and our decision making. So just to sum up, I would commend the application to you. Appreciate the strength of feeling. However, you know, on balance, it's a very positive scheme that does address housing need on what was, you know, a relatively constrained site. But it responds very well to those constraints through its design and the provision of 31 social imperatives. So, thank you, Chair. Paul, thank you for sharing your final thoughts or advice. Austin? Thank you, Chair. I just wanted to reiterate that, you know, just to let members know that any refusal based on the fact that the current community centre wouldn't necessarily be the new end user of the brand new community centre. You know, whilst obviously there's a lot of controversy and understandable feeling around that, but it would not be a valid ground for refusal and could be, well, would be challenged at appeal. So, I just wanted to mention that to members. But thank you, Chair. I haven't got anything else to add. Thank you for your valuable opinion. I would like to now ask member, can I see all those in favour of this application? Members, can I see all those in favour of this application? All those against? Any abstinence? Paul, can you please confirm the committee decision? Thank you, Chair. Can I speak, please? The committee have voted, and the majority have voted four in favour and two against, to grant planning permission for the redevelopment of the Stifford Community Centre, Cressy Place, in accordance with the details and agenda rise from 5.2 and subject to planning conditions and obligations. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. We will have a second moment for the presentation. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. Thank you. Members, take a break. Yeah, we will take a break. Will there be a second moment for the break? Members? Please comfort break. Please. Welcome back. After the break, we resume the meeting, tonight's development committee meeting. Our next agenda is now moving into item number 5.3. Yes, 5.3. Yes, 5.3. Yes, 5.3. Yes, it's 5.3. This is planning application PA 23, 02278, 5 US Street, E33QP. I want to invite Paul to introduce the application. Thank you, Chair. So, as Chair says, this is a planning application at 5 Yeo Street, and the planning application seeks reconfiguration of the approved internal layout of the commercial spaces and ground floor and mezzanine floor levels and associated external design changes to the elevation. The recommendation to your committee is to grant planning permissions subject to conditions. I suppose, Chair and committee members, this is maybe a slightly unusual one to come to your committee because these types of smaller-scale proposals are normally dealt with under delegated powers. However, there has been quite a lot of public interest and more than 20 objections received, and that's what triggers a report to committee. There is an update report that's been published this evening, and that just confirms some additional advice from the Council's environmental health team who have been looking at noise and disturbance issues, and they have recommended that if permission is granted an additional condition is attached that controls the operating hours of the newly convinced, and we can cover that in the presentation. I think that's all I have to say now, Chair. Thank you. I will now invite Sally Fraser, Planning Case Officer, to present the application, please. Over to Sally. Thank you, Chair, members, members of the public. As Paul says, this is an application at 5 Yeo Street. It's for internal and external alterations at ground and mezzanine floor. The proposals intend to prove the quality of the commercial space for prospective users and to alter and create additional residential communal space at ground floor. This is an overview of where the application site is in the borough, and this is a closer aerial view of the site. The site contains a newly constructed 10-storey building that was approved in 2020. There is commercial space at ground floor and mezzanine level, and there are 92 residential units at first floor and above. As originally approved, the commercial space at ground and mezzanine floors was to be light industrial use. Now light industrial uses have been subsumed into general commercial class E. So the floor space could be used for a wide range of retail, business and services uses. Commercial space has remained vacant since completion of the development, despite some marketing. Yeo Street is to the north. Violet Street is to the east, where the neighbourhood parade is. And to the south is the Limehouse Canal, which is also in a conservation area. And there is a pedestrian route to the west of the building, linking Yeo Street to the canal and Canal Walkway. This is the existing ground floor plan. The commercial floor space is shown in yellow. It has frontages to the north, the west and the south elevations. There are two residential cores to the building, both with entrances on the west elevation. That's core A and core B. And the light and dark blue on this plan are the residential communal facilities. There's also a service yard to the rear, which is accessed via Yeo Street. This is a picture of the existing building as it looks from Yeo Street. You can see the commercial floor space at ground and mezzanine level, with the residential balconies and units from first floor and above. And a photograph looking towards the south elevation of the building, again with the commercial floor space there's a ground floor and mezzanine level, and residential units above, and the same on the west elevation here. So just to go through the proposal, all changes are at ground floor and mezzanine level. There are no internal or external changes above mezzanine level. So this is the existing proposed ground floor plan. The dark blue areas on the proposed plan are the additional residential communal spaces, which are here in the residential lobbies, and also here, which is additional refuse and bulky waste storage. Block A's bin store, which is currently here, moves just onto the opposite side of the corridor here. And block B's corridor to get to the service yard and bike store is lengthened slightly to give access to their bin and bike store. And in terms of the commercial spaces, as you can see, there's some subdivision of the units into smaller units, and there's also some additional plant space off the service yard. And the fenestration on the southern elevation has been or would be stepped and angled. And this means that there would be some loss of commercial floor space at ground floor level. And this loss is gained, as proposed at mezzanine level. You can see that as existing, the red areas are void areas at mezzanine level. All of the mezzanine level is commercial floor space. As proposed, these areas would be infilled. And again, the fenestration would be stepped to allow for amenity balconies for the, you can see as existing, there's a flat facade to the ground floor and mezzanine level. And as proposed, you can see the angled windows that have been set back at both ground and mezzanine floor and balconies at mezzanine level. This is the effect of the change to the full south elevation. And the only changes to the north and west elevation are the replacement of the windows at ground floor and mezzanine level. As you can see, currently they are fixed pane large windows. As proposed, the windows would be broken up by glazing bars and they would be made openable. And the same to match on the north elevation. So in terms of public consultation, we received 26 letters of objection. The full list of objections were in the committee report. And all objectors were residents within the building itself. The main issues raised were around noise and disturbance in relation to the changes to the commercial units, such as the balconies and the opening windows. Design of the south elevation. And the changing of the layout to ground floor for the residential elements of the floor space. And existing buildings, concerns around how the building is currently operating, particularly in relation to the service yard. In terms of land use, there's no change in the quantum of commercial floor space proposed and no reduction in residential units or floor space. So there are no land use concerns. In terms of standard accommodation, the changes to the residential communities, communal spaces at ground floor would generally enhance the provision with larger back of house and refuse space. The route to block B to the service yard bike store would be longer but not unduly so. And the changes to the commercial floor space would create better activation and smaller units to suit a wider range of occupiers. At mezzanine level, the changes would create more attractive commercial spaces with amenity balconies and better access to light. In terms of design and heritage, this is the existing proposed south elevation CGI's. Little change to the building in longer views and no harm to the character of the conservation area that it adjoins overall. And a closer up view of the changes to the south elevation, the stepping back of the fenestration would animate the facade and create a better vision. And the window changes to the north and west elevations would fit with the industrial heritage of the building and still remain distinct from the residential floors above. So in terms of residential amenity, there are residential balconies and windows of first floor above the existing commercial units. This arrangement was approved with the original development in 2020. The proposal would not increase the overall amount of commercial floor space but would provide openable windows and balconies along with some subdivision into smaller units. The proposal was assessed by the council's noise officer who requested additional information and concluded that the proposal would not harm the amenities of the occupiers above the commercial units subject to conditions to manage and mitigate noise and disturbance. And those conditions are outlined here. Use of the balconies at mezzanine level as immunity space only with all mezzanine windows and doors to remain shut in operational hours. Opening hours between 9am and 7pm daily and no amplified music within the commercial units. In terms of highways and waste, so there's no change to the layout of the service yard as proposed and again no increase in the quantum of commercial space. So there will be no anticipated material increase in the intensity of use of the service yard. And the officer's recommendation is to approve subject conditions. Thanks, Sally, for your presentation. And I invite Nadia Uzumi to address the committee and objection to the application. You have up to three minutes. Thirty minutes before I'll... Thirty seconds before I'll indicate to you. Thank you. First, you highlighted some main issues there and there are main issues missing, which has been reported and it wasn't said there. So... But I'm here to highlight them. So, first, good evening, consulers. My name is Nadia and I'm a resident property owner of Waters Edge Court. I'm here speaking on behalf of our building. Thank you for the opportunity to speak. I'm here today to raise urgent concerns about the planning application to convert the ground floor and mezzanine commercial units in our building into residential flats. As residents, we are already dealing with serious infrastructure issues. While we do have heating and hot water, there have been repeated outages affecting both with no long-term fix in place. We were promised an efficient, eco-friendly heating system with specific performance standards, but we have never reached, let alone maintained, the promised level of efficiency. Despite raising this with the developer for over two years and constantly asked for a meeting, there has never been no meaningful response or permanent solution. Our sewage system is also a major problem. It is frequently blocked and has overflown on multiple occasions due to concrete debris in the system. This is not only disruptive, but poses clear health and hygiene risks for everyone in the building. Now the developers are asking to increase the number of flats, which will only place more pressure on systems that are already failing. Without a commitment to fix these core issues, first, we simply cannot support further development. We are also concerned about what might happen if the ground floor and mezzanine remain commercial. While there are no current tenants, the layout of the space already encourages and social behavior in the surrounding area. We are worried that without proper planning and community input, future commercial use could attract the wrong kind of activity and make the situation worse. Finally, we are very concerned about losing access to the canal front space. This area was originally meant to remain public and it is an important part of our community. It must not be closed or privatized as part of a new development. In short, we ask the council to hold the developers accountable. Do not approve this application unless and until they provide clear solutions to our heating, sewage and safety concerns and include residents in decisions about future uses of the space. And I would also like to say that I've been living there for two years. I myself have inquired about the commercial units for rent or buy, so as other people, like an owner from a coffee shop by Devons Road Station, it's never responded. We never received any reply. So it is marked, there is marketing place all over, but there was never response. That's it. Thank you. Thank you for your speech. In objection, I invite the agent for the application, the applicant, to the committee in support of the application if you have up to three minutes. Hi, I'm Steve Sinclair from 4Space. I'm the architect. The applicant couldn't make it tonight, so being a local, where my office is based, I was asked to come back. I was aware of the original architect on this. It was done in 2018. I think it was submitted in 2019. And that was pre-COVID. There was a lot, and we did one ourselves in Hackney, a lot of applications where you're doing a mixed use of residential and commercial, and you're trying to introduce a mezzanine space and then create this kind of co-working, hot desking variety. That was a kind of fashionable thing, and there was a market for it. The commercial market, as you know, has gone a bit haywire since the global pandemic. There's still a high percentage of people working at home. I think the officer's report covers all the objections. Just to clarify, the objector said that this is residential units, and it's not. It's commercial. There's no change of youth here. There's no change in the area. It was a simple planning application to improve the existing bin stores, bike stores, and community spaces as a kind of give back to create a better condition of commercial space that could give the applicant a better chance of renting out the spaces so that you could divvy it up into smaller spaces or have bigger spaces, and some of the marketing evidence was looking for being able to open windows, etc., etc. So we're kind of working with the constraints that we had with the existing building not to add anything, and just to sort of articulate to reconfigure it to cause the minimum impact. Also, I object to the objector, saying that she's working on behalf of the whole building or objecting on behalf of the whole building. Only 26 objected. The noise report, the noise assessment, the consultation with the planning officers has been really productive, really thorough, and we've had to sort of concede to quite a lot of things in the process, which has generally made this a safer and better scheme and secure by design. I've signed it off and given it a claim, etc., etc. In regards to the objectors, complaints about existing services, I do not think that that's a matter for the councillors to deal with. I think it's something between the contract, between the person who purchased the property and the person that's supplying or the services or the maintenance to that property, but not the members of the planning committee council. And I think on goodwill, we will make sure that we get you a meeting with the applicant. I was unaware of these. I was unaware of these particular problems. I was unaware of these particular problems. I did this planning application. I wasn't the architect for the original building. Anyway, on summary, what I would say is that there's more impact on the applicant with these empty spaces. There's a much bigger impact than the impact on the 26 subjecting residents where the officers report to conclude that there's no harm caused. That's me. Thank you for speaking in support of this application. Do members have any questions to the objector applicant? Councillor Khan? Yes, I need a little bit of clarification from the objector. She's saying that she's having a problem with the hot water. She's a problem with the sewage and she also a problem with some crossing. Can you explain more on these three issues that you objected, please? Can you put the mic on, please? Thank you. When we purchased the apartments, it was promised to us an eco-friendly efficiency system which works below 50%. so what means is our energy bills would be much lower. This never happened. We have been asking for efficiency report for over two years now and it's never delivered to us. Our efficiency is very, it doesn't work. The water pressure in the whole building is very low. As people started moving in and in, the system started breaking constantly. We are constantly left without heating and hot water and Seafield which is who they contracted already, at least this is what we know, already said that there is a problem with the plant room which is the energy system but they can't sort it out. So there is a problem which is not being resolved for all this time. Our electricity and our gas bill for the building is extremely high because what it was promised was never delivered. And on top of that the sewage system is constantly blocked and Thomas Water now said that there are concrete on the system that needs to be cleaned but they only go there and they pump it out whatever it's there when it gets blocked but the issue is never resolved. So we work with the mezzanine with the commercial units now for the past three weeks floated with sewage with our lobby smelling sewage very badly with people getting sick in the apartments from this. So we are not against like if they want to do more flats but currently what we have there is not enough for the whole building and they want to implement more flats into the system that is already failing. So this is the this is our concern. I think you said about the crossing crossing that you keep it to the private public not block it. Sorry? Crossing you say some crossing you say some crossing? Yeah you say that they're going to make it private but you want it to be public so everyone can use that crossing. if they're going to convert what we don't want to lose is we have like a canal front space which is now public we all go there they are saying about putting windows and everything so we are concerned that they are going to take that space to these flats and also there will be windows and everything so like there is no privacy anymore for anyone to go publicly to go in front of that canal. Okay thank you. My question to the applicant what have you done about the three objections that have raised and as I can understand that since they moved in that heating system is hot water and heater is not working properly the way the way was promised it will be cost affected and it will be reliable as well which is not also the sewage is becoming more urgent for health issues as well so what have you done about these three issues? Thank you. Well firstly I don't think it is a matter of this planning application secondly just to give you my own knowledge of this I am aware of the applicant we have done work with them before where we have never had these problems I haven't been worked with the contractor before I think it was Seafield what I do know is that the commercial spaces have been unable to be marketed for commercial use because in effect they were like three big units the way of trying to get this better was to create smaller units so in some way there would be work required to get the services routed carefully through the building but at the moment it's empty it's kind of shell so I'm not sure what condition as I was not the architect for the build works that Seafield the main contractor left it in and I don't know what contractual arrangement they have with the non-objecting and the objecting residents thank you thank you for your presentation my question to you will the proposed interior changes have any negative effect on the resident in the building can I just clarify that question if the proposed commercial spaces have do the proposed internal changes have any negative effects on the existing residents that's the question it should be no different the area of the commercial is exactly the same as the consented scheme what we changed to reconfigure that was to create a more active frontage onto the canal i.e. have doors into the commercial setting back the mezzanine on that side to the existing mezzanine allowed us be cost effective and create the balconies that was a concern from the council officers and we worked through that design with them so that we introduced a noise and acoustic consultant to look carefully at the detailing and the size of the balconies i.e. you can't get many people outside on these balconies i can't work out there for example and we looked at taking in various measures to sort of increase the mass and so forth so that the decibel levels are within all the guidelines and policy criteria so that was kind of worked through in quite a bit of detail during the consultation phase with the officers more flats into the the system the sewage system that we currently have and our heating system which is already not coping with the building it is related to the to the planning because what we have right now is already not coping with the flats that it's already there so what are you going to do about the sewage system what are you going to do about the heating system which is already not coping with the building so it is related to the planning sorry sorry chair is it possible to just just clarify a few matters I don't want to diminish anything that the objector is saying in terms of the quality of the living environment or what may be happening in terms of sewage or anything but categorically there are there are no new residential units proposed as part of this planning application that planning application is for changes to the existing commercial space there's no there is no overall increase in the amount of commercial floor space proposed so it could not reasonably be anticipated that there would be more people using the commercial floor space yes balconies small balconies at mezzanine level are proposed just in response to your question about impacts on the neighbours or on the occupiers above but those balconies could not be used as part of the operation of the unit they could be used by the occupiers for amenity space and all the windows and doors at mezzanine level also must be shut during operation so that noise undue noise and disturbance does not travel up the building and yeah we've spent a long time looking at the noise report in consultation with our noise and vibration officer to the existing occupiers and could I ask understandably the concern your breeze is not directly related to the planning application but could I ask you who did you report this ongoing issue and who did we report to we reported to visions which is the management company mini banks evinox and seafield which are all part of the construction company and the energy supplier you're saying that you haven't received a response we have we have more I'm not lying we have probably around 300 emails over this time reporting the issues that we are having with the heating system with the sewage we have been asking non-stop for the developers to come into the building and have a meeting with us to clarify what they're going to do to sort out this issue and we never got a response back all the response that we get from visions which is our management company is that they are trying to get a meeting they book and it never happens and then on one day before they cancelled since they delivered the building at least two years now could I ask the applicant architect what do you make of this well I'm very surprised that it's not in the objection list and might be not in the objection list because it's not about this application we have empty space there that I've been involved in trying to make better so that the applicant can can sell the commercial space and get it occupied I'm aware that you need to link in with the existing services for any commercial tenant coming in and because of that I'm aware that those commercial spaces aren't fitted out now if they're not fitted out and they remain not fitted out this problem might remain so what I'm saying is that I think you know perhaps when you get the commercial fully fitted out you might have a situation where you've got you know the maintenance company who I don't know who they are they'll be appointed by the applicant dealing with the new commercial tenants as well as residential tenants if I don't have any evidence of that I was not warned or told anything of that as far as I'm aware there is no 300 letters or many points of contact we don't have evidence of that and that's just hearsay today surprisingly as I said I worked with the applicant before with a different contractor albeit and we've had absolutely no issues like this before however I have worked in some buildings before where you know you're having to deal with tenant concerns maybe early first year or two there's issues to do with you know plant room equipment drainage and so forth are common ones leaks as well but I don't think you complained about leaks is there any leaks and again is that a planning issue to be very honest with you I think you are fully aware of the problems because the amount of emails that we have exchanged already are enormous wouldn't be here right now if we didn't have any problems because as I said we have no issues of this being done our issue is linking more of these units to the infrastructure that we already have that is not working that we've been asking for over two years now for this to be resolved if it's left empty do you think the applicant if we don't get this approval and this chance to get you know tenants in quickly do you not think the applicant might take longer to fund getting any kind of better maintenance or giving it better attention could I come in please sorry I no this is this is not related to the application the problem you have been I'm sorry that they're experiencing this problem for two years now but the this committee thank you for making us aware of this but we are not we cannot consider this as a material consideration to be related to the application but what I suggest can I ask Paul for us how they can their concerns heard thank you chair so yeah again not to diminish the issues that are being raised because it sounds like there are concerns there but this this really we need to sort of confine our considerations to the planning issues and those issues that have been described would not be impacted by this particular proposal so there's no increase in floor space it's a reconfiguration of existing floor space now yes the the new units may need to alter the way that they connect for example to to dealt with under the dealt with through building control in terms of where to go to that's a little bit in terms of the problems that's a little bit harder to answer for you chair obviously if we're affordable and social housing is concerned then there's obviously there's regulatory bodies that control that my suggestion it's not a planning suggestion but you know this council has councillors who are very adept at getting involved and trying to help residents with with issues within their community so if there are difficulties in communication with the developer then perhaps the local ward councillors could could take that up on residents behalf so that that's a suggestion but that's nothing to do with planning that's just just a more pragmatic approach to answer advice and guidance so you need to reach your local councillor or the mayor or the council to inform that your concern has been ignored by the double councillor and to look into this that's all I can say thank you any other members have any questions to the objector planner go on sorry just want to say it does bother me that this has been kind of throwing at me today that this building is falling apart it's got building regulations that complies it makes me quite angry and I've done quite a lot of public consultation before and I reach out to you if you email me I will do what I can to work with you with the client okay thank you QD please make sure you provide your email with the objector thank you any members you have any just just something human things I don't want to live in a building like what you are saying that these are three main issues that concerning you I don't want to live in this sort of building but we're stuck there you've got no option to live in there so what we say we have to compromise we have to sort out among ourselves so this gentleman he said that he's willing to see all these three issues and working with you to sort out these issues so I hope share your information and I hope you'll be good news for next time thank you thank you councillor Ahmed any other question from members remember like to share their final thoughts the debate on this application no okay now you can move I can ask Paul and legal services to share any final advice before you move into vote please thank you thank you chair and not too much to add to add really because we've sort of heard the presentation and the issues the issues are relatively self-contained however one of the concerns that was that has come up through the consultation is around if these units are reconfigured and the balconies are introduced could that introduce noise and disturbance to local residents so you'll see in the report there are a number of planning conditions that are already recommended if permission if you decide to grant planning permission our colleagues in our environmental health noise team have recommended one more condition which just controls the opening hours of the reconfigured unit so they would only be open between nine o'clock and seven sorry nine o'clock in the morning seven o'clock in the evening each day respecting the need to keep the area sort of quieter during the evening times so they've recommended that as well so that's in the update report thank you chair so um so the committee has voted unanimously to grant plan commission for the reconfiguration of the commercial units at five yo street in accordance with the dean we are chair um i've just been given a note so the meeting will be at three hours at um half past nine it's it's six minutes past nine now i think i'm correct in saying that normally we would ask members to agree to extend the meeting um again i wouldn't anticipate the next item taking too much of your time um although i'm not suggesting we would use all that time but it's just just to give us a bit of wriggle room so do you remember to agree to extend the time and finish the business tonight yes yes thank you sorry finally we move to our last item of this evening as in the item 5.1 is pa slash forest slash two three four slash zero two two four two hailey primary school hailey street london e what the 14 7 s s and i invite all to introduce the application please thank you chair so this is the chair so it's a planning application affecting hailey primary school on hailey street um and the application is a retrospective change of use from class f1 which is the use class for learning and non-residential institutions to a mixed f1 and f2 local community and it's for the um installation of a new multi-use games area on the site of the existing sports pitch at hailey primary school and the recommendation is to grant planning permission subject to conditions again just for committee members benefit um well two things really so firstly the the development that is that the permission so the application seeks permission for has actually already occurred um and this application is seeking to regularize that so it's so it's a perhaps a fine line between when when there's a change of use or not a change of use but i think we've determined it is a change of use and the applicant has done the right thing and applied to regularize that secondly again this kind of development not normally one that your committee would see however there has been a lot of public congresses going it's triggered more than 20 objections and that's why we're here this evening to to to hear both sides of of the argument for for for that i think that's all i have by way of introduction chair thank you thanks for introducing the picture i will now invite oliver cassidy bartler planning officer for to this application to present the application thank you joe so hello and thank you to all those in attendance whether that be in person or online this application seeks full planning permission for a retrospective change of use from learning and non-residential institution to a flexible f1 and f2 so that be introducing a local community use for the installation of a multi-use games area on the site of an existing sports an existing sports pitch at halley primary school as i said the application site relates to halley primary school the school is a single-story contemporary style building which features in a regular roof form which varies in height across the site the application site comprises of the main school building a playground a car park which holds space for 10 cars and a multi-use games area the main entrance to the school is located on ben johnson road with the secondary access located on halley street the local area is primary i'm sorry the local area is primarily residential in nature and the application site lies in close proximity to a number of residential buildings with consideration to the mugger which is at the focus of this application it should be noted that it lies adjacent to bootmakers court which is the medium rise block of flats immediately to the east of the site which you can see on the image on the right hand side and the application site is neither statutory or locally listed and nor does it lie within a conservation area it does however lay approximately 50 meters away from the region's canal conservation area which is just to the east the site is situated within an area of good public transport connectivity the site has a rating a petal rating of between 4 and 6a which is good on a scale of 0 to 6b where 6b is the best so a bit about the site history um halley primary school installed a mugger over the site of an existing sports pitch in 2022 the mugger is located in the east section of the application site and sits adjacent to bootmakers court the images on the screen now show what the mugger looks like at present it is important to note that the school pitch was temporarily temporarily rented out to local residents to host fiber side football matches in february 2023 without the appropriate planning permission to do so and at this time environmental health received two separate complaints with regards to the use of the site and environmental health contacted in planning enforcement who made contact with the school who ceased who immediately ceased to use the sports pitch for five side pitch matches before sort of seeking out the requisite planning permission so this application seeks retrospective planning permission which was carried out in 2022 the changes have therefore taken place already and the purpose of this application is for the school to regularize the site's planning and planning history the changes include the installation of the mugger and the netting and fencing which surrounds the pitch also the proposals was to seek permission to change the lawful use of the site at present the site has a educational use class otherwise known as use class f1 the application seeks to introduce flexible use class comprising of that educational f1 use and introducing a community use otherwise referred to as f2 the reason that the school would like to get planning permission for a flexible use is so that the it can rent it smear out or commonly just referred to as a sports pitch just out to local residents who wish to use it for sporting activities between the hours of 5 pm and 8 pm monday to friday the school would like to do this as a means to generate additional revenue to cover operational costs officers understand that the amiga replaced the pre-existing low quality sports pitch this pitch has historically been used for the purpose of educational purposes and would continue to do so as part of this application however and the proposal seeks to gain the appropriate permission to allow the page to be rented out between the hours of 5 and 8 pm the image on the right oh sorry the image on the left shows the pre-existing sports pitch and the one on the right shows the mugger as currently exists the mugger is covered by approximately 495 square meters of 4g artificial grass and surrounded by 3m and surrounded by 3m high fencing with a roof netting to stop balls or other i suppose sort of exiting the premises and the surrounding areas the surrounding mugger is approximately 156 square meters of a different type of artificial grass the mugger would rely upon pre-existing drainage systems in order to ensure that the uh ensure that it doesn't flood or become waterlogged um so the council notified 333 neighbors um with regards to the application and also it was publicized online and in the local press total of 56 letters of representation representation have been received four letters were received in support and 52 were received in objection um so there's a summary of letters of objection on the screen now and they were doing so the reasons were that the proposals would result in noise disturbances the proposals would result in light pollution which is harmful to local residents as well as local wildlife um some members of the public cited that there's no need for the pictures given the relative proximity to other sports pictures in the area and there were concerns raised with regards to the proposals leading to increased traffic pressures and parking pressures for local residents on screen now the primary planning concerns which i'll be discussing shortly so with consideration to the land use the proposals raised no objections the proposals comply with the policies of the local plan and london plan in terms of maximizing opportunities for the provision of high quality community community community facilities to serve a wide range of users furthermore the proposal would maximize multiple use then maximize the multiple use of the existing uh educational facility and promote activity and social interaction amongst local residents which would support the overarching strategic aims of the development plan in order to help promote healthy and active lifestyles and with consideration to design the proposals do not raise any issues in terms of design quality the instead the installation and the muga has already taken place and design officers have confirmed that it does not materially alter the character of the local setting and the media itself is considered an enhancement to the school when compared with the pre-existing sports pitch it provides a whole higher quality playing surface for use of the of the pitch which includes the current pupils of the school additionally it should be noted that the fencing and netting which surrounds the pitch is also not considered to present harm in terms of uh the local setting so i'll return our attention to amenity and the application is supported by noise impact assessment environmental health officers confirmed that they agreed with its findings and do not consider that the proposed flexible use uh which would allow the pictures to be used between 5 pm and 8 pm would pose undue harm to local residents it is important to highlight that local residents submitted their own noise impact assessment environmental health officers have regard for that report whilst they did not agree with the conclusions they did request that the applicant team provides additional information in order to answer questions raised by this independent report the applicant team has since provided the requested information environmental health are again satisfied that the proposal would not pose harm to local residents by way of noise and vibration not withstanding this officers would still recommend conditioners applied to ensure that the site may only be used between the hours of 5 pm and 8 pm monday to friday in order to ensure that there's no further disruption to local residents um additionally officers would recommend conditions applied to secure detail of a management plan which would ensure that users of the muga sign up to a code of conduct before booking the pitch um with consideration to the light pollution um a number of residents like i said earlier have raised concern that the use of the existing flood lights between the hours of 5 pm and 8 pm uh would pose harm to their own personal residential immunity and local wildlife uh these concerns are particularly concerned um particularly pronounced during the winter months when it gets darker sooner um as a means to cover this officers have proposed to apply condition to secure to ensure that lights are turned off by 8 15 so that's 15 minutes after the the use of the muga has ceased just to ensure that everyone can get off the pitch safely and this would likely minimize the impacts to local residents and and now with just consideration to biodiversity and the impacts of light um a number of residents had raised concern with particularly with relation to bats and as part of the assessment of the scheme we consulted biodiversity officers who confirmed that there's that the use of the floodlights poses very little to no risk to local bats and so in in that consideration we don't believe that it poses risk to local wildlife and finally if we look at transportation and highways given the sites uh relatively high petal rating uh officers consider that there is little need for visitors to send the site attend the site uh via car and not withstanding this the existing application site is inclusive of the small car park which uh provides space for 10 cars it's proposed that five of these spaces would be reserved for users of muga and there being with there being a high likelihood that the other five spaces would be available within this time frame given that staff typically leave the site by 4 pm additionally condition would be applied to secure detail of a management plan to ensure that the use of the muga does not result in harm to the local highways this would include detail of information provided to future users in terms of where they can and should park so directing them primarily to the the school's car park itself and also encouraging green and active travel measures to the site and so on the screen now is the list of the proposed conditions um officers consider the proposals to be compliant with the policies of the development plan and subject to the application of the above conditions recommend members to grant this request for planning permission and thanks for your time in listening to this presentation and i will be surely happy to answer any questions that you may have and at this stage i would just like to remind members that colleagues from environmental health are also in attendance and happy to answer questions of a technical nature in regards to noise and vibration and likewise i'm happy to answer questions about design line juice and prospective conditions thank you thank you for presenting the application uh i'll now invite oliver david this time to address the committee in objection to the application you have up to three minutes i will give you a reminder 30 minutes before 30 sorry 30 seconds thank you chair and thanks for that very fair and comprehensive report so football is a sport played in teams over a large area so that means by people who are often running around that means they have to shout to each other if you've ever been to one of the many astroturf pitches into our hamlets you would have heard them and that's just the normal noise of football right now the school have asked us to imagine a hypothetical situation in the future in which football is played by 10 men but they because of a code of conduct or in a way that won't make any noise um they've even paid a company to reduce a report telling us that the playing of football played by 10 men six yards from residents homes that's about the distance from me to councillor chowdhury won't make any noise and won't have any impact on our homes we don't have to imagine this hypothetical situation because we've already experienced it when the school went ahead and allowed football to be played on the playground without planning permission in 2023 whenever it was now i imagine that you all have a living room at home where you watch tv maybe you have dinner maybe you relax with your family now just imagine there's 10 men directly outside the window shouting at each other from 5 pm to 8 pm every week night every week forever for the rest of the time that you live there so the distance from my living room from the playground it's about like i say it's about six yards so it just means that we won't have any peace in our homes anymore that's all there is to it really and the idea that people are going to sort of score a goal and not celebrate and not make a noise and not shout that just sounds like a rubbish game of football to me we've all we've all been to you know football played in the community that's how it's supposed to be played and don't get me wrong it's a beautiful pitch it's fantastic it's just six yards from people's homes it's not appropriate for that to be a place where people get together and play football it's just it's common sense so we've commissioned our own report it shows that the claims are completely false but you don't really need that do you it's just common sense they claim that they're going to use the pitch for community community groups what dims casual booking for non-competitive play but if someone can tell me what non-competitive football looks like or sounds like just let me know you know make no mistake the school has spent a fortune on an astroturf pitch without getting the proper permissions they've got themselves into a mess and they need to rent it out now to try to cover some of their losses i've tried to get the use um freedom of information to find out what it actually cost them and how much they've spent on this planning application and how they're going to get the money back we've never been told this um this means groups of adults coming into play so we've got no issue at all with the racket that the kids make in the in this in the day on the playground we you know that's what we signed up for when we moved there we've got no issues with schools using their playgrounds for sport it's just that this playground is too close to people's hopes i live on the ground floor it's literally that far away so please don't let them ruin our homes thank you objection of this application now i invite agent for the applicant to address the committee in support of the application you have three minutes thank you chair and good evening committee and my name is shoshana thompson i'm the head teacher at halley primary school um this has been a very long journey for us at halley primary school to get to this point and it's been a turbulent one and we know that we have unhappy residents and that's not what we want and we have tried um to work as best as we can to move this forward the main reason that the school and the governing body chose to go down this route is because we urgently need to generate income for our schools uh we know that we've got a funding crisis in our public services um and schools are feeling the brunt of the brunt of that uh halley has been looking at a deficit budget an in-year deficit for quite a long time um and when we first considered this as a way of generating income uh we we saw that as the best way we looked at all the possibilities that what the school could do to generate income and being able not only to improve our facilities for our children but to be able to bring some revenue back into the school this was the most viable option um last year when i submitted halley's budget we had a deficit of nine thousand pounds so i couldn't balance the books to help me keep that deficit to an absolute minimum when my deputy head retired i didn't recruit uh when our sports coach left for progression um i didn't recruit so we are cutting back on services that we don't want to do we want to make sure that we give our children the absolute best facilities we want to make sure that we can maintain those facilities and we want to make sure that we're providing quality education but we are in a situation as schools not just in hamlets but also across london and across the country with falling roles which means unfortunately because our children come with a price tag we have less money coming in and we are also seeing significant increase in costs around send um and we want to make sure that we're providing the best so again as a school our job is to educate but we are having to now generate income income and operate a bit like a business which isn't a position we want to be in um and that's why we've chosen to go down that route i'd like to just address ollie when um when he mentioned about not sharing um information about um when a request of information about costs 30 more seconds my the reason for that was it involved third party um providers and so therefore we were not allowed um to share their information and and that's the only reason i'm really have um committed to working and being as transparent and open as i can uh to to yeah move this forward but yeah thank you thank you for you for speaking in support of this application now i'm coming back to the members do members have any question for the official object your applicant please please indicate uh i looked at councillor chodri first i'll come back to councillor kibriya chodri thank you chair thank you officer for your nice presentation my question is because objective raise concern about the privacy of neighboring property and local resident due to increased use of site especially the afternoon and evening also this proposed development would be disruptive the local wildlife particularly birds how do you justify this thank you um so just to clarify the proposals would not disrupt local wildlife the assessment of the proposals by our biodiversity officer confirmed that the impacts there aren't really any impacts foraging bats who may have once passed through would have been disturbed just as much by the existing lighting rather more the lighting would be turned off from 8 15 at the latest and they have raised no concern in terms of that and bats being a protected species is something that we take very seriously but we've got no information to indicate that it would be a problem it's just something that we discussed because it was raised as concern by members of the public and in turn could you repeat the first question for me please okay so in terms of the privacy of local residents and there's already sort of boundary treatment at the eastern edge which does obscure much of the view of the closest residential property and the views from the muuga to the sort of the upper levels and i would suggest would be oblique angles so i don't consider that to raise issues of privacy i think furthermore the proposed use of the site to host small sports games five-side football and i don't think that would be much i think fundamentally the users of the site are going to have a different focus the game of football i don't think the surrounding uh locale is of the interest users of the site but primarily i just don't think there's that opportunity given the existing boundary treatment the obscure views for upper levels and then the nature of the proposals so i hope that i'm sorry but there's a there's a process any other members counselor counselor oh yes my question to the head teacher has the school received any complaint in the past year from the local resident over the current use of the land as a program thank you we haven't been renting it out and there was a very small period and that we did and then information get and we stopped um but we we've never received anything in between i mean the the school has been used at different times mainly for um charities and and things like that to do pieces of work but yeah there's been no if i've answered that yeah yeah thank you so the applicant asked for it you know use to extend the hours until eight so that's suppose the permission is granted and now they want to increase so do they have to go through the same planning application or so yeah yeah yes there were counselor so if if your committee was minded to grant planning permission then we in our recommendation we've we've listed a number of conditions um so the hours of operation five till eight mondays to fridays only so not at weekends and everybody must be uh off the mooga with the lights turned off by 8 15 at the latest so that's an enforceable condition if there was a breach of that condition then obviously that could be reported and investigated by our enforcement team if the operator felt you know the school felt that they wanted to change that at some point in the future they'd have to come back with there is a process there is a process is the main is the main point good question councillor any councillor thank you chair thank you to the applicant object just a quick question to the applicant have you done any survey that how is the demand to let these facilities and also um as the objector said uh about the noise pollution uh which will be provided especially i'm a sportsman i'm a huge fan of football fan and i still do play football by the way in these sort of pitches and i welcome these sort of facilities as well um so how do you justify when somebody is playing or two group of people playing and once they score a goal and how would they celebrate and how would you take take that noise and explain um the situation itself hopefully that question is clear to you yeah i'm just trying to remember the first question sorry i've got a survey about the demand of the yeah facility and when we first entered um into this uh idea of um renting out armuga we started to talk to uh possible people that we would look to who would look to hire the facility and this was pre-covid um and they are still keen to work with us and they have estimated that they they believe a minimum um funding that would come to us within a year would be around ten thousand pounds um and possibly more um so they are they're in desperate need of needing pitches and we also um i'm working more closely with the two local secondary schools stepney mulberry and stepney all saints um as well as some of the primary schools who we're all thinking about how we share facilities um and use that as well uh for the wider community and they're very keen especially as of the grade and the standard that the pitch is um in terms of the noise i mean i don't know if that goes back i'm not going to pretend that football is played silently um it's a bit like asking all of my children to go out at playtime and be quiet they we make noise um you know we are uh an inner city urban environment and there is noise what we want to ensure is that we have a standard of conduct that you know we keep that noise as much as possible to a minimum and i i do get the excitement and the joy but also that there is a sense of respect um and care in using our facility um so we we will do that we will also ensure that there is management on site to support that as well we don't want this to be a hindrance to the residents you know we want it that's something that can work for all thank you thank you chair thank you councillor ahmed councillor khan yeah my question to the uh before the question uh my sympathy goes to the her teacher about to post empty she wouldn't feel them be due to the due the fund shortage and my sympathy goes to you working very hard hope not affecting our children educations i thank you very much also as my colleague said he's a big fan of a football player he play himself we play together so we are we choose to be a competitor to each other so we we have we love football everybody love football even the objector he love football as well but only concern is the noise so two thing uh two thing i want to know from you how likely you get a booking all the time so that you can get some revenue out of how like have you done the market research that there is a demand for peace to be hired and that money can be linked into the school port so that can be spent on the student that's one thing second thing is that when uh is it eleven side pitch or six side pitch five side pitch okay so if there is five side pitches there any supporter able to come or only the people who come and participate and play supporter say the five people how is the policy how what what policy you go like five people so we got ten player probably two two manager that's it or you have some other people like young people who come to support them so we propose to apply a condition to secure a sort of management plan which both signs up sort of the players and i guess the managers to a code of conduct but we'd also have consideration to um say you have the five side pitch and you maybe want to bring two substitutes having a limit of the number of players who are sort of attending um from our understanding it's not something that would bring um supporters um and if that is sort of a concern of members we could ask that that's included in the management plan just expressively saying it's let out to x amount of people and only x amount of people can sort of turn up um so if that is a concern held we're happy to sort of factor that into any final uh management plan thanks i i'm asking this question is we can make sure that only 10 people turn out we don't know 20 people turn out to give more noise objective that is which is concerned our concern as well so this that this was the original question was for that make sure that the only 10 people turn out to play uh uh play their match that's what is what my concern and about the marketing and so when we originally um went down this avenue uh the and this is where the planning got a bit complicated but the original um company that we were going to work with were going to pay for and install our pitch but because they were doing all the work they were they had to apply for planning permission and so they did that on the basis that they knew that it was going to pay for the work so they would then have it for rent free for two years and the work would have been paid for so we're really clear and they're not the only source we've gone to we've gone to a few other sources and we've also found out from mile end stadium that their pitches which is very close to our school are in high demand or and and very hard to book so we we're really clear that we believe that there is there is money to be made here we've been guaranteed that if we rent this to this particular company called play five aside they we will they will minimum that we will earn 10 000 pounds in that year income if not more so that's why we went down the route council kibri children thank you chair my last question to you when they will play i understand the five by five but who will oversee them school management school yeah yep there will be somebody there will be an employee on site to manage making sure again that whoever um the competitors are arriving coming going and making sure that their conduct is within the code that's been agreed as well so any more questions from any members thank you members for your contribution i have one question probably one suggestion or condition to suggest my question goes to the objective mr davis uh anything the site has been used in the past existing did you ever make any formal complaint to the school for the maze in in the past when he was in use we contacted the school because we knew they needed planning permission and they didn't have it so we immediately complained obviously we also complained to environmental health about the noise so we all everyone in on our side of the building had a had a form to fill out to report the noise every night because we knew how much noise it was going to make and we know how much noise it's going to make in the future so this is the path we're going down guys we're you know you're honest and you yeah you're very eloquently present your speech football is a game uh nation by nature is associated with noise but um in football we'll see injuries happen so if you're a fiber side team fiber side but i think the management plan we can include um at least one substitute so the game is not uh interrupted or not spoiled because if somebody would injure so if in the management plan yeah limit one person so that so there is clearly um uh out out late um the number of substitute they can bring and also um i just want to see the the house the the street that's close to the houses on the map or so here you can see um there's boom makers court on the right hand side of the image that's a slightly taller building on the other is a series of residential buildings and as i stand um if you imagine you're the photographer to the rear of you there would also be residential buildings um that yellow buff brick and the one where that would be to the rear is separated by a road um it's only uh bootmaker's court which sits adjacent but like i said as i think you can see in the photo uh the boundary treatment does create some separation um which as demonstrated within the noise impact assessment show it blocks a lot of the sound going to the lower levels so the impacts are most pronounced it's all first floor level but just given the the actual um the nature of the sound and also the the existing setup um in terms of sort of there being a boundary treatment a lot of that sound is sort of trapped within the muga and then the bits of sound that sort of get up and over um have been modeled and our environmental health offices do not consider it to cause a real impact to those residents and thanks so the three reference will be on top of the boundary wall no so the pitch and i'm not sure it's desperately clear in the photo but it is the the muga is surrounded by a three meter php is um somewhat transparent it's sort of a net in mesh kind of material and that's it surround it but then there is the existing boundary treatment that for creates sort of a further blockage in terms of bootmakers court and so there will be no further design changes to the site they've already taken place they're looking for that retrospective permission for those changes they've not raised any sort of concerns in terms of design or immunity um i guess fundamentally the biggest concern at this point is that proposed flexible use um and that's sort of the only thing that would be sort of commission can we have um you know the we have kind of climbers that goes on the fence the plants to make the green look green also protect some privacy so people playing inside the the ground not been seen from the neighboring house so can this be something can be done so i i mean i don't think it's it's necessary um as ollie oliver apologies has already um sort of confirmed the existing boundary treatment prevents any overlooking or any harm to privacy for those ground floor units and then if you sort of look at the screen now and you imagine yourself it's it's an awkward look to sort of see a neighboring residential property and they are balconies with rooms behind them but i i don't think that um vegetation would necessarily help i think it probably raised more sort of management issues for the school uh financially and then it potentially poses some kind of immunity impacts in terms of just lots of outlook um but i'd have to sort of assess those plans um on the fly it's quite difficult thanks yeah i was just gonna add i feel like if there was any sort of vegetation that was going to be added it would most probably be have to be on bookmaker court side because literally without just a wall between us and then and then it becomes their their bit of space and i think those trees fall in bookmaker's court which will eventually grow taller just to clarify she's absolutely right yeah so so the there's vegetation it's all on our side it's not on the school side and um ours is the only garden that doesn't have significant vegetation everybody else's does um but everybody else has the same issues that we do which is that a bush does not stop the noise and i what i just cannot fathom is this idea that the noise travels upwards we saw this in the model it doesn't make any sense like it if you're on the ground floor that's the noisiest place that's the only issue we have it's just the noise we're not interested in anything else it's just the noise do you remember wants to share the final thoughts councillor anthony thank you very much thank you thanks to all parties um as i've said i'm a very big sports fan i love to see these sort of facilities within the borough however on this occasion um as i've heard from your side the demand is very high on that note i believe the noise pollution will be produced so much and it will be really extremely difficult for the building what i can sit right next to the pitch itself and i myself if i if i'm living there i wouldn't want to live there and i'm sure somebody else could um live there as well um now the pitch itself it looks so beautiful i love to see this in the like there but i wish this was not here it was somewhere else and i wouldn't have any objection if it was only used just for the school itself but i do have full sympathy about your um difficulties you're facing with the finance in the school uh due to that you couldn't recruit however on this occasion i'm sorry i can support this application thank you councillor ahmed councillor chodri thank you chair i have similar issues in my ward so there's a school who has a mooga and it's very close proximity to the resident you know the residential uh flats so i'm working on it so i know i can kind of anticipate what's going to happen my heart breaks to actually when i hear that the school is struggling with the money but unfortunately this occasion i would say i won't be able to support these because that would seriously compromise the quality of life of the residents living nearby councillor yes i haven't got any objection but only i can request to the head teacher make sure local residents not to complain that's it nothing thank you councillor i think counts any councillor thank you chair it's very upsetting and it makes me very sad from a head teacher what we have heard from you this school have been facing financially hardship thank you thank you councillor chodri um thank you councillor chodri we know time let facing uh constraint uh very tight space so we need to use the spaces we have available for the we have green one of the fastest growing borough we have increased population and accordingly we need the space and so many schools have facilities but it's underused after school we have many schools we're trying to work with the schools so these facilities are open to the community because football is a game is very in demand and based on that on the balance of um we have to compromise and making balance the need for uh additional pitches so mugger facilities is in high demand in bhaktar hamlets thank you chair i don't have too much to add to be honest the um i think this is quite finely balanced and i think members have explored that balancing of issues through through the discussion i just wanted to sort of reinforce that the recommendation that we've put together has been uh informed by the noise assessment but also importantly by the council's own environmental health team who deal with noise complaints so in a way we we factored in their advice into our recommendation and that's helped us to come up with the the conditions that that we've recommended um i've noted what members have said around um how you know that really important detail around around management um and to support it should be for players potentially with the opportunity for substitutes so we will take that into account uh when well if permission is granted and when um application planning conditions particularly the management banks there are three there um also just to to say members that um if you are minded to grant planning commission those prior to occupation conditions will have to be discharged before the um the the move can come back into use because it's already there so that's just a procedural point just just to bear in mind advice and guidance and keep clarifying matters thank you chair i it literally just to mention um you know just to urge members to consider what this would look like on appeal if it were refused so that that if if it were to be refused on the issue of um of noise then obviously as a council in order to defend that we would need to um have evidence you know in the form of um of um an expert who was to say there would be too much noise um other than that i don't have anything to add chair thanks austin for you now we're moving to vote uh can i see all those in favor of this application please indicate if your supposed application please indicate all those against are there any extensions all those in favor and two against the committee has resolved to grant planning commission for um the change of use that set out in 5.1 at halli primary school subject to the planning conditions that are listed in that report thank you thank you paul that concludes the business for this meeting um and the committee year thank you to the committee and officers for your work in 2024 and 25 we finished the whole year um thank you members thank you for your contribution throughout the years so we under aob would like to thank one of our planning officers jane jean on behalf of development committee members she jane thank you for your contribution and service for the for the resident of the hamlet and how long you've been service 15 years so we 15 years we we express our gratitude for the service you provided and wish you all the best in your new role thank you