 Chairman could I clarify that we'll have regular breaks? I'm dealing with all that don't worry. Great. Okay I can confirm we are now live thank you. Thank you very much. Good morning everybody and welcome to South Cams District Council Planning Committee. My name's John Bachelor and I'm Chair of the Committee. The Committee Vice Chair, Councillor Haylings, cannot be with us today so I've asked Councillor Bradnham to be Vice Chair for the meeting. So members of the committee could you confirm that that's acceptable to you please? Agreed. Yeah agreed. Great. Anyone against that? No, fine. Okay so thank you very much. Councillor Bradnham would you introduce yourself please? Good morning everyone. I'm Councillor Anna Bradnham and I represent Milton and Water Beach Ward and I'm happy to be Vice Chairing today. Thank you. Thank you very much. We are supported along the top table today and so I would ask when I call your names officers please if you would turn on your camera and microphone and introduce yourselves. I have the following officers, Chris Carter who's Delivery Manager, Strategic Sites. Good morning Chair, good morning members. Thank you. Stephen Reed, Senior Planning Lawyer. Good morning everyone. Fine. Your camera working okay today Stephen? Yes evidently. Okay thank you and Ian Senior of Democratic Services will be taking minutes today. Good morning. Thank you. I'll introduce case officers as we work through the agenda. So first a few housekeeping announcements please make sure that your device is fully charged and switch your cameras and microphones off unless you are invited to otherwise. When you're invited to address the meeting please make sure your microphone is switched on. When you finish addressing the meeting please turn off your microphone and camera immediately. Speak slowly and clearly and please do not talk over or interrupt anyone. Please ensure that you are switched off or silenced any other devices you have so that you don't interrupt proceedings. So the normal procedure at Planning Committee is to take recorded votes and we will continue with this unless there is clear affirmation. When we move to a vote on any item and there is not clear affirmation I will ask for a roll call to be taken. I will then ask committee members to speak into the microphone so that their vote is clear both to the committee and to those watching the webcast. Members should respond for against or abstain when their name is called. Committee members present I will now invite each of you to introduce yourselves. Members after I call your name please turn on your camera and microphone wait two seconds and say your name and the word you represent so that your presence may be noted. Please remember to turn off your cameras and microphones after your introduction. My name is councillor John Bachelor chair of the committee and one of the members for Linsen. Councillor Bradnam please. Thank you I'm councillor Anna Bradnam and I represent Milton and Water Beach Ward. Thank you councillor Kahn please. Thank you councillor Kahn your sound is very low perhaps you could bump it up a bit please. Councillor Daunton please. Yes I'm councillor Claire Daunton and I'm one of the members for the Fenderton and Full Born Ward. Thank you councillor Fain please. Good morning Peter Fain representing Shelford Ward. Thank you councillor Dr Hawkins. Good morning everyone I'm Timmy Hawkins and I represent Caldecott Ward. Thank you. Thank you councillor Milnes please. Good morning councillor Milnes representing Sauston. Thank you councillor Roberts please. Good morning chairman good morning everybody Deborah Roberts-Foxston Ward. Thank you councillor Heather Williams please. Good morning Heather Williams and I represent the Mordons Ward. Thank you councillor Dr Richard Williams please. Thank you very much chair I'm Richard Williams I'm the member for Wittlesford-Tripleau Heathfield and Newton. Thank you councillor Nick Wright. Good morning everybody councillor Nick Wright member for Caxton and Patwell. Thank you. So I can confirm that the meeting is quiet. If at any time a member leaves the meeting would they please make that fact known to me so that it can be recorded in the minutes. So members of the public are aware if a councillor is absent for any part of the presentation of or debate about an agenda item then they may not vote on that item. We have several public speakers today and I would just like to explain how public speaking will work. This meeting is being broadcast live by the council's website and public speakers are reminded that by participating in this meeting you are consenting to being broadcast and to the use of the images and sound recordings for webcast and training purposes. You will each have three minutes to address the committee. When you start speaking we will start the timer. Please ensure you switch the microphone on before you speak. When your time has elapsed we will ask you to conclude your speech. Once you have finished speaking we may wish to ask you questions. Please be concise in your response if there are no more questions you may leave the meeting and to continue to watch via the webcast. Committee members are reminded that any questions to speakers should be for clarification purposes only and the process for this shall be as follows. I shall ask if there are any questions. If you do have questions please ask to speak in the chat facility. The committee can only consider planning reasons for or against the application. The committee cannot consider general observations about the development site. The committee cannot consider you know we have done that bit. The committee cannot speak sorry I'll read that again. The committee cannot consider comments from public speakers made outside of their allotted speaking time. Therefore I request that those registered do not interrupt outside of their time. Once the committee has heard from all speakers and planning officers we will form views on the application. The planning committee will then vote. The outcome is decided by majority vote and in the event of attire I as chair have a casting vote. When planning committee members vote please can they ensure that they identify themselves and speak into the microphone so that the vote is understood by committee and those watching the webcast. Members are reminded they should indicate whether they are for against or abstain when their name is called. I've had requests to try and have breaks at particular times during the course of this meeting. So the break times will be around about 11 30 for 10 minutes at one o'clock for a lunch break of 30 minutes and if we're still going at three o'clock we will have another 10 minute break then. Clearly there may be some flexibility in that given where we are at the time in the debate. Right thank you very much. Mr Senior do we have any apologies? Thank you yes we have two apologies from Councillor Pippa Halings and Councillor Judith Rippith and we have two substitutes today which are Councillor Dr Fred Ornton and Councillor Ryan Meadows. Thank you very much and can I just remind everyone to turn off their cameras and microphones unless they are actually speaking please. Decorations of interest. Do any members have decorations? Yes Chairman if it's appropriate for me to speak here it's Councillor Ornton. My comments come up in relation to item six in the papers so as I understand it it's appropriate for me to stand down from that item and not to take part in the discussion of the voting. Okay so you have a prejudicial interest on that particular item. Yes. Okay thank you very much for that that's noted. We've got requests from Chairman from Heather Williams, Councillor Heather Williams and Councillor Deborah Roberts. All right thank you Councillor Heather Williams please. Thank you Chairman I have an interest in agenda item number seven and as it has a direct visual impact on my father's home I will not be taking part in that discussion at all but I have nominated Councillor Nick Wright to speak in the local member capacity as I'm unable to in this case. Thank you Chairman. Thank you very much and Councillor Roberts please. Thank you very much Chairman they found me an item I am a member of found me a parish council who've debated it but I come to this matter afresh. Thank you very much. Thank you. Vice-chair do we have any further decorations? No that's it thank you chair. I have a decoration in that on the Abington application number item five in that I have been present at parish council meetings where this matter has been discussed I have not taken part or commented on this application and I'm coming to it afresh today. So if there's no more decorations of interest we'll move on to the substantive item. Now unfortunately we do have a officer request for deferral on item nine found here. If you are agreeable members I'd like to bring that forward as the first item in order to deal with that at the beginning of the meeting. Can I just check with members if you're in agreement that's right I bring that forward. I agree Chairman. Is there anyone against? I agree. Okay thank you I bring that forward. I did see a note that Councillor Williams wished to speak was that on the minutes? On the minutes. All right we haven't done the minutes have we? Sorry we're getting out of order. Okay we've agreed to bring forward the found me an item item nine will now become item five. Before that we should deal with the minutes. The minutes on pages one to eight of your agenda and after the meeting was which was held on the 13th of January. Are you in agreement that I should sign these as a correct record? Now I have some speakers I think Vice Chair. Yes you have firstly Councillor Heather Williams. All right Councillor Heather Williams please. Thank you Chairman. It's just in relation to page four it says that I wasn't present and did not vote however I was present by abstain because I felt I didn't have enough information. All right thank you very much. Chairman do we need to check on which item was it item eight or item seven? Item seven Chairman where they actually says the vote that section. Okay. Okay so thank you very much. And then Chairman, Councillor Nicholas Wright wishes to speak. Councillor Wright please. Mine's just for a bit of clarity Chairman on page eight we have the enforcement report. It says that we will have a regular update each month and I noted in the enforcement report this time that has not happened again and I hope you have been assured we're getting a verbal update in its replace. Thank you very much. Someone's telephone going. Okay that's noted. Any further speakers Vice Chair? Vice Chair do we have any further speakers on the minutes? Sorry Chairman. Councillor Milnes has said he won't vote on the minutes because he was not at that meeting. All right thank you very much Mr Councillor Milnes. I wasn't present at that meeting either so I will not vote on that. So can I now move that these minutes should be with the adjustments made be a correct record of the meeting of 13th January. All right anyone against? I went against. Thank you very much for the are therefore agreed. Do we need to clarify which members are voting because some of the people here are substitutes? Yes. So it's only those who are present at that meeting on the 13th January who we should vote. Since it isn't a disputed vote I don't think there is particularly an issue there. Perhaps Mr Carter could just advise us on that. Thank you Chair. No I think that's clear that only those members who were present to part in the vote. Councillors Milnes don't want to know yourself were not present. Thank you. Thank you very much. So I think that deals with the minutes then. So we're now going to deal with Falmer. This is on pages 117 to 124 of your gender papers. So I'll just introduce the item before Mr Carter advises us on deferral arrangements. So this is reference 20 04223 HFUL and it's a 20A Piper's closed film. The proposal is a new access from London Road and extension to the existing parking area to create an on-site parking turning. The applicant is Mr Seen Genkel. It's a return appearance. This application is coming to the committee because the site is owned by South Cams District Council. Mr Carter is going to make a request for a deferral of this. Mr Carter would you explain why please? Thank you Chair. Yes. Members it's been brought to the attention of officers that an incorrect certificate of ownership is displayed on the website for this application. Having regard to this a new certificate needs to be signed and displayed and a consultation period undertaken following this. I would like to apologise to the applicant and the committee for this error which should members agree to the deferral officers would seek to rectify before returning the matter to committee for decision. The applicants and public speakers were informed yesterday of this issue. So that's the reason Chair. Thank you. Thank you very much. So I'd like to propose that we defer this. Could I have a seconder for that please? I'll Chairman. Second that Chairman. Right thank you very much. Does anybody wish to speak to the deferral? Mr Senior you've got your camera on. Chairman as local member I'm quite happy with the deferment. Thank you very much Councillor Roberts. Last year do we have any other people wishing to speak? Not at present time. Thank you very much. Can I then go correctly to a vote? I'll be happy to accept this deferral by affirmation. Agree. Is anybody against? No. No one wishing to abstain. So that item is therefore deferred. Thank you very much. We will return to the regular agenda then and the next item is Abington. This is on your agenda papers pages 9 through to 72. I will now introduce that item. So the reference is S392119FL. It is a Bancroft Farm Church Lane. Little Abington Cambridge. The proposal is for the erection of six dwellings and the change of use and conversion of two agricultural barns to office space. Use class B1A. Following the demolition of agricultural buildings and removal of hard standing and associated works. This is a resubmission of application S138819FL. The applicant is represented by our agents, Chephins. The case officer will go through the key material considerations. This application is brought to committee because officers' recommendation is contrary to the little Abington Parish Council recommendation of refusal and referred to planning committee through the delegation meeting held on the 10th of November. The recommendation is for approval and the case officer is Michael Sexton. Mr. Sexton, would you give us your presentation, please? Good morning, Chair. Good morning, everyone. Chair, if you could confirm that you're seeing a presentation on your screen, please. I am. Thank you. Before we begin the presentation, just a couple of updates on the report itself. Paragraph 14, I've written great Abington Parish Council. It obviously should be Little Abington Parish Council, so I do apologize for that particular typo and offer my particular apologies to Little Abington Parish Council themselves, apologies for that. In paragraph 154 of the report, which talks about the trees that are to be removed as part of the development, trees that are identified as T3 and T5 are actually category B trees, which are of good quality, which is as they are referred to in paragraph 153 of the report. In 154, I've kind of batched those two particular trees in with the category C lower quality trees, so just as a point of clarification there. On to the presentation itself. Yes, as Mr. Chair, I said this is an application for six dwellings and the change of use and conversion of two existing agricultural barns into office space and associated works at Bank or Farm in Little Abington. The application site is marked out with this red line here and is fairly central within the village of Little Abington. Important, I think, to draw attention to the particular constraints that are involved with this application. Here you'll see again the application boundary. The site is holding within the development framework boundary of Little Abington, which is marked by this dashed line, and more or less completely within the conservation area, which is marked by this pink area. There is a small portion here that doesn't fall within the conservation area, but clearly part of this is setting. A key constraint is this protected village immunity area, which is denoted by the solid pink area, and you'll note that part of the application site does fall within the protected village immunity area. There are two grade two, two listed buildings near the site. To the south of the site is a grade two listed church, and the southeast of the site is a grade two listed residential property. And these blue lines are the public rights of way. So a particular note is this public right of way to the east of the site, which would afford additional views of the site. They're available from the public street scene of Church Lane. To provide some context to the area, just a few images to show you the site. This first image is looking north along Church Lane. You have the application site on the right hand side. This is one of the existing barns, which is to be retained and converted. The second image is taken from West Field, which is a junction opposite the site, just up here on the first image. We can cross into the site so you can see some of the existing structures and the wall along the highway. The top image here is taken from the rise of the top of Church Lane, where it joins with Born Bridge Road. And this is a view looking southeast towards the application site in this area here. And behind it is the open land, which is designated as the protective village immunity area. The bottom image is just a view now looking south down Church Lane. So on the left hand side, again, you have the application site, the existing trees. And in the distance, you have the Church of St. Mary, the Virgin, the grade two listed church, which is shown a bit further on. Existing properties opposite the application site are shown in the top image here, predominantly single story properties, directly adjacent with some two story properties further down Church Lane. And again, this lower image is again looking south down Church Lane. Here is the church you can see in the very room with the existing barn of the application site here, which is to be retained and other structures close to the public highway. Again, just for context, this is a view of the bottom of Church Lane looking east. This is the listed residential property to the southeast of the application site, which is behind this building. And again, you've got two story form of development predominantly along this particular part of the street. The bottom image is just an existing view from the public footpath, which was shown on the constraints plan to the east of the site. So you have the church in the background here and the application site in this area here. And you can sort of see some of the existing buildings within the site. So the application is proposing the erection of six dwellings, which is shown here as plus one, two, three, four, five, and six. And then the conversion of two existing barns with this in top issues with this barn here being the one which is evident in those street scene views you've just seen. And this junction here for context is the Westfield junction, which was also shown. And the area in the background here in the blue land is the protective community area, which does also obviously come in here as shown on the constraint plan. I won't spend too much time going through the elevations because they've been part of the members committee back and available on the council's website. But the general design approach has been to replicate an agricultural form of development. So they look at some converted buildings, which officers feel would be appropriate to the context of the site and the historic context of the site. And that's achieved through their fairly modest scale on the particular detailings that you'll see around some of the fenestration, which can be secured by condition. And some of the materials that are used, and again, door details just reflect the agricultural language in response to the site's context. So they are the five properties, six properties, sorry, three of which will be single story properties. And then you have the two barns to be converted into office space. There's no change to their sort of form and scale. It's just really fenestration and the finishing of those which are being converted and adjusted as part of this development. So key material considerations are outlined on the front at the start of the officer report. These are most often, but it's not the extensive list, but I thought these are probably the most personal ones to the committee debate today. The principle of development of officers don't have an objection to the principle is within the framework and there's policy support for residential development and office use within development frameworks. The next three I'll put stars next to because I suspect these will be the key part of today's discussions. That is the impact of the development on the protected village amenity area, the character of the area, and heritage impacts. Hopefully you'll appreciate in the report that these three aspects are balanced judgments that have been made by officers. And then obviously other key considerations of biodiversity, landscaping trees, flood risk, highway safety and residential amenity, all of which officers are satisfied would accord with relevant policy. And that is it from me, Chair. Thank you very much. Members, any points of clarification please, Officer? Chairman, I have a point of clarification please. Right. Councillor Braden, please. Thank you very much, Chairman. So two points, Mr Sexton. Thank you very much for your presentation. I couldn't find the diagram that shows the extent of overlap of the protected village amenity area on the actual site plan, so that's one thing I'd like to have clarified. And could you also clarify, obviously on the proposed site plan there are the two barns and I wasn't able to find out which was barn A and which was barn B and what was being planned for both of those. Right, thank you. Mr Sexton, please. Yep, certainly I can respond to that. As part of the application there isn't actually a plan that shows the site plan and the PVAA together. I did provide one as Appendix 3 to the committee report, so you should have received that. I thought it doesn't show the site plan in terms of the layout, but it does show the application site boundary and the overlap of the PVAA. And the report talks about the degree of overlap and that I think plots one and two do encroach slightly into the boundary. Would it be possible, Mr Sexton, to show us again one of your early slides where you showed, and I was trying to work out whether the PVAA goes just across the garden or whether it also includes the location of the house at plot two. Yeah, just share this plan again. So this is the constraints, so you can see the application site boundary and the PVAA boundary. I'm trying to find relevant paragraph in my report for every one second, but on the basis of the measurements I took, I do believe there is a slight encroachment of the plots one and two into that PVAA. I think it's your paragraph 80. Paragraph 80, yes. So the gardens for plots one and two would be solely within the PVAA and about four metres of the actual built form of plots one and two would encroach into that area as well. So you say it's paragraph 80 of the report. Thank you. And so what we're seeing there then, the pink area of the PVAA actually would go over a portion of plot two, the building of plot two. Yes, that's correct. Okay, thank you. And could you just clarify on the site plan, is Barnay staying, sorry, is Barnay the one that is on the western side of the site adjoining the existing wall, in other words the bottom of our picture? And will it stay in its full, is that, is the depiction the same as its current extent? So Barnay is the northern, not the northern one, this Barnay and Barn B is the southern Barn which is, yes, staying has seen, if I may jump between a few of these slides. So this building here that you see is Barn B and that is being retained as is, obviously with upgrades to sort of fenestration and materials and cleaning up the roof. But yeah, that is Barn B which is this building here. So you can see the, this is the wall and you can kind of see you've got that same form and this lower section here is the bike store. So yes, Barn B is the one that is currently on the bus in the highway and is retained in its scale. Thank you very much for that clarification, Mr. Sexton. Chairman, we have a question from Councillor Milnes. Sorry, Chair, I did put in what I wanted to clarify. I'm sorry, sorry, I do apologise. Is that, that's Councillor Richard Williams, is it me? That is, yeah. Thank you, sorry, I wanted to jump exact, my point actually follows on from that, so it's a good point to raise it. Just in, I had a question about the size of the encroachment with the PVAA, because the report paragraph 65 and 83 I think says the encroachment is 0.02, but it, by my calculation, at least, might be trying to work it out, it's not 0.02, it's 2%, not 0.02%. So I was wondering if we could just get a clarification on that, because it's 600 metres out of 39,000 square metres, so it'd be grateful if we could just clarify the size of the encroachment. And I just had a point of clarification on the parking issue and the office space. The officer's report says that the floor space is approximately 173 square metres from which you calculate the parking space. Some of the public representations say 200 metres, so I'm just wondering how much margin there is around approximately 173 as what it will actually be. So I'd be grateful for a clarification on those, thank you. Right, thank you. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, councillors. Yes, I think my maths has let me down on that first point and it would be not 0.02%, it's having rerun calculations, it's 1.5228%. So 1.5 or 2% encroachment in terms of the application boundary encroaching into the local area of the PVAA, so that's 1.5%. The office space, what's actually being posed as office floor space is around 175 square metres. My interpretation of local representation is that the area marked as a bike store, which is part of Farm B, has been included in that overall floor space, so there probably is 200 square metres worth of floor space as part of the development. 175 of that is for the actual office use and then there's 25 square metres worth of existing floor space, but that's being used as a bike store, not office space, so that's going to separate to working out the number of parking spaces that are required. Right, thank you. Chairman, we have a question from Councillor Brian Milnes. Yeah, Councillor Milnes, please. Thank you, Chair. So I came to this later as a substitute and it appears to me that one of the principal issues here is how this sits in its location, how it impacts visual amenity or visual presence in the village. I haven't seen anywhere in documentation any visualisations of what people will be able to see from various positions, so reference has been made to the footpath across the PVAA. Is it correct that I haven't missed some sort of visualisations from the developer? Through you, Chair. There's no standalone visual plan that's been provided, but in the heritage statement there are some sort of early mock-ups of how these properties would sit when viewed from the public wide of way largely in assessing how those may impact on the assessment of the church. The application has undergone several revisions and has been reduced and scaled, so the only visuals present within that heritage statement are still now outdated, so you've not missed anything. I don't have any of those to hand, otherwise I would have included those within my presentation. Yes, I assume that that's what you'd have done, so I just think it has probably made our job rather more difficult today that the developers haven't sought to do that, as it's such a critical element of the application, so thanks for the confirmation that we don't have that. Thank you. Nice, Chair. Any further speakers? No, we have no further speakers, Chairman. Okay, so thank you very much for that, Mr Sexton. We move on to public speakers. Is Mr Tony Orgy with us this morning? Yes, I am John. Can you hear me? Yes, I can indeed. I can't see you yet. Oh, I'm not going to put the camera on because of internet connections. Fair enough then. All right, I'm sure you know the form, you've got three minutes whenever you're ready. Okay, well thank you very much. I'm speaking on behalf of at least a dozen households. We accept the principle of development on this site but object to the detailed application. First of all, part of the application site is outside the farm yard and within a protected village and minty area, and in fact part of both dwellings on both plus one and two are within the PVAA, as are the whole of the gardens. The applicant's heritage statement states that the main vista across the open fields to the east, that is the PVAA, is at the junction of Church Lane and Bornbridge Road. This is an open view much cherished locally that will be particularly impacted on by this application and you can see from the plans, particularly the map on page 71 of the agenda papers, that the width of this open aspect is significantly reduced by this application. Secondly, there's a negative impact on the appearance and character of the conservation area. The layout of that area of Church Lane at Labington, immediately opposite the application site, is described in the applicant's heritage statement as follows. The modern housing development to the west of the site comprises houses and bungalows set well back from the road. This has enabled substantial street trees to be retained, that's paragraph 6.2 of the heritage statement. Paragraph 6.3, the layout and density of the existing built form means the trees and hedges are prominent in the street scene. However, dwellings one and six are not only side on but also within two or three metres of the road. The side elevations and gable ends of these two plots are six metres high, so will dominate views towards the listed church and makes the dwellings visually intrusive. So together with the removal of almost all the trees from the site and plot 3 being clearly visible from Church Lane, this can only lead to a significant adverse and negative impact on the character and appearance of the conservation area. The street scene on the eastern side of Church Lane would bear no relationship in terms of character and appearance to the adjacent western side. Thirdly about trees and biodiversity, the proposed development will lead to the loss of eight of the 10 trees on the application site that are in the Arboricultural Report. The proposed development would have an adverse effect on the ecology and biodiversity in and close to the application site. The site attracts at least 19 species of birds, seven species of bats forage around the site. Replacement of pollution, observing trees and hedges on this narrow site with a built environment and service road is detrimental to the local ecosystem, particularly the bats. The gardens of dwellings 2, 3, 4 and 5 are small and lack depth. These houses therefore appear prominent and viewed from the public footpath crossing the PVAA and have an adverse impact on the character, amenity and tranquility of the PVAA. Because the houses on this eastern edge are so close to the boundary, there would be considerable light overspill across the PVAA with consequential detrimental effect on wildlife. I would like to conclude with an image that I've sent to Michael Sexton and that's the house on plot 1, a visualization and amended version with text, which brings out three points. One of which is that I want you to look at the bulk and massing of the house so close to the road. Note that the gay blends are particularly prominent in the street scene and that all trees on the house side of the road, except two beyond the house, would be removed if you approve this planning application. So, can you bring it to a conclusion? Yes, yes. And so we object to this detailed planning application for the reasons set out above and others offered in the parish councils and local district councillors' representations. Okay, thank you very much. Mr Sexton, did you have that picture available? I do, I'm happy to share if you wish me to share a display there. Please. You should now be able to see on your screen a word document with an image which is obviously we've covered that there are no formal visuals provided with this application, this is obviously a mock-up. Okay, okay, we've seen that. Thank you, Chair. Okay, members, please note that's not an official document. Oh, hang on. It's gone again. Yes, because we're moving on, because is there any points of clarification for you? Do we have anyone? Chairman, is it possible to just show that image again? I was just trying to read the text and it disappeared. Mr Sexton, can we put that up again, please? All right, it's very quick. Apologies, I was perhaps a bit trigger happy. Thank you. Apologies, it's refusing to share, now bear with me one second. The text was what I read out, actually. Yes, I was thinking it would have been helpful to have it up while you were speaking. Sorry, Chairman. Here we go, so I just closed and opened it again, so it should now be back on your screens, members. Okay, thank you. Thank you. There's a pot more. All right, thank you. So you can see there, so this is provided. Yes, they're all due. Chairman, could I ask for some clarification? Yes, I'm just about to use them. So, Councillor Bradman, do you want to? Thank you very much, Chairman. I just wanted to understand is where the plot one is proposed to be, that currently is not a wall, is it? It's just an open fence, I think. Is it towards the PVAA? Who are you asking for clarification? Sorry, could I ask clarification from Mr Orgy? Right. Thank you, Chair. Yes, you've got trees and shrubs, and then you've got a fence, a low fence behind there, yes. Well, that's easier. Thank you. So it's currently just trees, but it would then be the wall of the house. Thank you very much for that. Thank you, Chairman. Okay, fine. Any other points of clarification? Vice-Chair, would you have it? Chairman, yes, Councillor Hawkins would like to ask. Right. Councillor Hawkins, please. Thank you, Chair. Just to ask Mr Orgy, good morning Mr Orgy, good to see you again or hear you. I think you mentioned that all but is it two of the trees on the site were going to be removed, but that doesn't simply what is stated in paragraphs 153 and 154, which states that the trees of good quality that are staying are T3 to T5, T7, and 13 to 17. Is that your understanding? I made the same mistake that I think you've made, and that is that you assume the trees T1 to T17 are all in the application site and they're not. Trees 11 to T16 are north of the application site, they're not in the application site, and T17 is beyond the southeastern edge of the site. So there are only 10 trees listed in our Boricultural Report, they're actually on the site itself, and the proposal is to remove all of them except T4 and T7, although T7 would have its crown reduced. So only two of the trees would identify the Boricultural Report would remain on that site. Everything else would be removed. That's mine. All right, thanks for that clarification. Thank you. All right, thank you very much. Vice Chair, do we have anybody else? No, we have no further requests, Chairman. Okay, Mr Orgy, thank you very much for your contribution. Thank you. Thank you. If we could take down that side please. We now move on to the applicant's agent please, John Jennings. Jennings, are you with us this morning? Yes, good. Thank you. You can see you. Well, thank you. You know the form, I'm sure you've got three minutes, so when you're ready. I get that, thank you. First, I'd like to thank you for providing me with the opportunity to speak to you regarding my client's application at Bankoff Farm Church Street in Little Abington. This application has been formulated following a design workshop and extensive pre-application and post-emission discussions with planning and conservation officers. We consider this development will enhance the steric site within the Little Abington conservation area and will not detract from the setting of Little Abington Church. This is confirmed by the support which has been received from both the historical England and the Council's conservation officer with the designer buildings as my book is quoted seeking to replicate the former agricultural use of the site. The scale of the development at no more than 15 dwellings per hectare reflects the care that's been taken to ensure that the constraints associated with the site in particular trees and residential amenities are not compromised. The significant proportion of single storage dwellings will ensure that the properties are well suited to the needs of the elderly and less able. It's interesting to note that no technical objections to this scheme in particular with regards to flood risk and drainage, highways and contamination, ecology and trees. It is acknowledged that there is minimal encroachment upon the protective visual amenity area at, as Michael's clarified, 2% of this area. However, it must be acknowledged this designation does not preclude development and this is a view which has been confirmed by officers during pre-application discussions. Furthermore, the regeneration of this derelict site and the associated landscaping scheme will actually result in enhancements to the PVAA. There has been considerable comment regarding the provision of the small office buildings which are to be provided. These barns do not readily lend themselves to conversion to residential use. The barns are to be owned and managed by the applicants and they will be operated small startup offices with preference being given to firms which have a local connection, thereby maximising employees who can cycle to the site rather than relying on the private car. In view of the above, it is requested that the committee approve the application in line with your officer's recommendation. I'm also happy to answer any questions that you may have. Thank you. Thank you very much, Mr Jennings. Members, do you have any kinds of clarification? Yes, Chairman. I have one, please. Yeah, Councillor Bradner, then please. Thank you. Thank you, Mr Jennings. I just wanted to understand, we understand from our report, and I can't remember where I've read it, that the offices are likely to generate, and I can't remember if it was 12 in both, in a total of 12 employees in A and B, or 12 in A and a different number in B. But either way, I'm alarmed to see that amount of development on the site in addition to the houses. Can you just explain what your justification was for that? The level of parking and travel associated with the barns, I think, will be more, will actually be limited. I mean, they're not large, they're startup offices, people, and as I said, there is a reason, there is a local preference to use for these to be offered to local firms, so people can travel to the car using alternative modes to private car. I think also, in the way that things are changing, as acknowledged by Michael and his report, I think people will come to the office less, so in reality there will be less people in the office at any one time. And also, the second point was the concern about the likely impact of properties two, three, and four on the PVAA, because they're very close to the boundary. What's your understanding of that likely impact? I mean, there is an impact on the PVAA, but as I've said, it's a very minimal impact. Also, this scheme at the moment, this scheme will allow significant landscaping on the boundaries of the site, additional tree planting that will compensate for the minimal harm to the PVAA. It is very clear that PVAA does not act as a total constraint to development, it does allow sympathetic development. This is a very small part of the site where single story development is being proposed. Thank you. Chairman, we have a question from Councillor Richard Williams. Thank you. Councillor Williams, please. Thank you very much. Can I just again pick up on one of those points? Can you clarify if the site owners have done any work in terms of scoping out the businesses that might use those residential units? I'm sure they would try to find local firms, but do they have anybody in mind? Have they done any kind of work to look at who might be there? And have you thought about the different transport options people could use? I would imagine that the village isn't very well served by public transport, for example. There is, I mean, there's fairly good public transport, obviously using the, I think, 0505. There is also, I mean, as seen within the scheme, there's extensive cycle path provided. Yeah, sorry, can I just get the clarification about the point about whether any work's been done to scope out the businesses that might use it? Yeah, I mean, Geoff Williams has obviously got a commercial team as well as a planning and development team. We have taken some advice from them with regards to the likelihood of small firms taking this up, and also the applicant itself is very committed to seeing small start-up firms occupying this type of office space, very much almost like hot-dressing as well. Thank you. Nice, Geoff. Do we have any other? We have no further request for clarification, Chairman. Okay, thank you. So thank you very much for your time. If we could move on then to the parish council representative, and that's Councillor Sheila Bolden. Are you with us this morning, Sheila? Yes, I am with you this morning. Good. Okay. So could you just adjust it? We're only seeing half your face at the moment. Looks all right from here. Chairman, I can see all of Sheila Bolden. Thank you. Okay, that is fine. So you know the form in three minutes when you're ready. Thank you. Okay. Well, Little Abington Barriage Council objects to the planning application, but it must be said, not from a NIMBY position, as the council does agree that an appropriate number of housing meeting the needs of the village would enhance the area. The residents were consulted regarding the housing development of six dwellings, and it was supported. However, offices were never envisaged in the proposal. As Bencroc Farm is situated in a rural residential and conservation area, the design, that area is no longer farmland, so the houses should fit in around the residential area. Development of a mixed use does not appear. It does appear inappropriate. The design is not visually suitable. In a courtyard layout, it sounds of character with these surrounding houses, which face forward and back from the road. The inclusion of offices based around a narrow spine road will exacerbate the flow of the traffic. With regards to the safety, we believe the inadequate office parking, the likely traffic from visitors and staff, will contribute to a hazard of two-way traffic. In addition, due to the design of the narrow carpalts and possible residential parking on the spine road, it will spill onto Church Lane, as well as being a narrow road, has two dangerous blind bends, causing further hazard. Parking on Church Lane itself will create obstruction and cause problems for pedestrians, cyclists and other road users. Cycling is becoming an important option. The GCP is proposing to route cyclists through the village, which includes passing this development. Consideration needs to be given to St Mary's Church at the bend of the corner of Church Lane. The congregation travels from other villages, also weddings and funerals. It is the cemetery for both Great and Little Abington. This all adds to footfall, parking and traffic. Flooding is an issue adding to the road hazards. In the outside church, it is often flooded after heavy rain. So we have consulted with the residents group and fully support their presentation. Our concerns regarding the PVAA will be represented by the residents group and district councillors. So for the reason, these reasons, and those referred to in the residents and district councillors presentation, Little Abington Parish Council objects to this planning application. Right, thank you very much for that. Just a bit of procedure. I should have asked you in the first place that need to confirm that you have permission with the parish councillors to speak on their behalf. Yes, I do. I am the chair of Little Abington Parish Council. Thank you very much for that. Vice-chair, do we have any points for clarification? Yes, Chairman, we have a request from Councillor Hawkins. Right, Councillor Dr Hawkins, please. Thank you very much. Thank you, Ms Bolden. Just on the issue of the business units, I mean, I live in a village myself and I know that there are local businesses who are looking for small spaces within the village. Are you aware at all of any businesses that might use that sort of a space? No, frankly, no. It's not. The Little Abington is such a small rural area. I can't visualise what sort of offices or businesses would want to be. You know, the access if they need deliveries and people coming to and from, it's very restricted then. Okay, I mean, I understand that, but I'm thinking more of the, you know, the one-person business or the two-person business who just require an office space that they can't, they don't have in their own homes. And there are many of those types of businesses in South Cambridge generally. And I know for a fact that we have a need for small units that maybe start-ups or, you know, the next stage of businesses might be looking for. But in any event, thank you for that clarification. And I note the report from the parish council, which is quite exhaustive. So thank you for that. Very informative. But in terms of just sticking to the business area, I mean, the guidelines, the planning guidelines requires a parking space per, I think it's 25 square metres of office space. And eight is proposed, which actually in terms of our guidelines, it does meet the requirements. Would that, in some way, go to mitigating your concern about parking? Does it take into account people visiting those businesses or deliveries to those businesses? I mean, I don't know how it's been formulated, but the guideline requires, you know, one parking space per 25 metres square of business space. And that has been met. So I would imagine that that includes it. So that's why I'm asking you if that would at least mitigate your concerns about the parking. Because it does meet the guidelines. Yes. But I was trying to join the parking of the offices compared with the parking of the residents on that spine road. Right. You know. All right. Thank you. All right. Thanks very much. Lemon, our next request is from Councillor Wright. Right. Councillor Wright, please. Thank you, Chairman. And good morning. My question is a little bit about Little Abington. I have been there in the past and I was wondering if you could help me. We've seen pictures of the site and everything. Could you tell me about facilities in the village? Do you have a shop? Do you have a pub? And this is to do, you know, with the work side of the employment, of the site, the industrial buildings. Is that what do you have in Little Abington that could support these businesses? We have one village shop. We have one pub. We have a hairdresser's and a village institute. Thank you. That's very helpful. Thank you. All right. Thank you very much. Lemon, our next request is from Councillor Richard Williams. All right. Councillor Williams, please. Thank you, Chair. I just want to pick up on that and the point I made earlier. I'd be very useful to know from the parish council if there's any public transport in the way of buses. I think I know there's no train because I live near enough to know that. But is the village well served by public transport? We have one bus service which does come through the village. Basically, that's it. How often does the bus come through? I think it's under normal circumstances. It's hourly. It used to be more at mornings and evenings, but it's hourly. Okay. Thank you very much. All right. Thank you. And Chairman, I have a request for clarification. All right. Councillor Bredman, please. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Mrs Baldwin. I wanted to ask to the trees that are likely to remain on the site. Sorry. As others have said, we've seen photographs, but is it your impression that if the trees were failed as planned for this development, with the exception of, I understand, two, is that right? Just two remaining on the site. I just wanted to understand, is it your impression that would significantly impact the character of the street scene? Yes, it would. Okay. Thank you. Good. Thank you very much. Any more speakers, Vice-Chairman? No, that's all we have so far, Chairman. Okay. Thank you very much, Mrs Baldwin, for your contribution. Thank you. Thank you very much. And if we could move on to one of the local members, then please. Is Councillor Henry Batchelor with us, please? Hi, I'm Chair. Good morning. Good morning. Thank you. Councillor Wright, you've got your camera on. Thank you. Nice to see you, as always. Okay. Okay. So, Councillor Batchelor, I'm sure you know the form. You've got three minutes. When are you ready? Thank you. Not my first time. Morning, everybody. There are just two points I'd like to make against this application, and just to clarify, I'll be speaking support of the parish council and the local residents in asking for refusal of this application. The two points I'd like to make have been covered, but I will go into them in a bit more detail. The first one is the intrusion into the PBAA, and the second is the damage to the conservation area that the application is set within. So, point one on the PBAA. We've seen a couple of images today showing the extent of the intrusion into the protected area. Just to absolutely clarify, there's not only the gardens of the houses, but the buildings themselves that would be intruding into this area. To make an area protected as the PBAA is, it must have gone through a process, and my view is that I think it would be a mistake to do anything to undo this process and damage this protection. PBAA is protected for a reason, and to approve a planning application that would have a detrimental effect on this, in my view, is something this authority should be very cautious about doing, and if they do, do only in exceptional circumstances. My second point on the conservation area. I'm going to be referring to the conservation officer's comments, which I believe are in section 16 of the officer's report. As with PBAA, conservation areas are protected, meaning whatever is built there should be in keeping with the other properties in the vicinity, and that the harm of the development should absolutely not outweigh the benefit. There is an argument that these proposed units do not do this. The layout and style is, in my view, out of keeping with the surrounding area, as the properties did not face onto Church Lane and are not set back from the road, as all others in this area are. Also, the appearance would be different, and we've also seen some images regarding the heights of the units. Again, there are some officer's comments in that, in section 16, relating to this. However, the main issue, I think, is with this whole proposal, the impact it will have on the nearby church, which is grade two listed. The development would impact into the view on the church, both literally, both physically obstructing it, and in terms of the style of the development, as what is proposed differs from what is already there and would not look similar. The conservation officer refers to this in their comments and confirms that development would result in a detrimental impact on the setting of the church, which the officer suggests could be remedied by heavy conditioning. I would argue that the harm caused by this development outweighs the public positive benefit of approving it, and instead of having a raft of conditions attached to an approval, my view is that it should just be refused. Just as appears, I think the parish council chairman mentioned that Abington have taken a lot of development over the last few years, and in great Abington, they've actually worked with developers to approve three large schemes, circa 100 houses, and they actually worked with the developers on those schemes to get something that would be beneficial for both parties, and all of those applications came to committee with parish council support. I think we can all agree that's how development should be done, and I don't think it has been here, so I would argue in the application's current form it's not acceptable, it could be better, and I'd ask for it to be refused. Thank you, chair. All right, thank you very much. Members, any points of clarification for councillor? We don't have any requests so far, chairman. Right. We've just had one from, ah, they're coming in. Councillor Hawkins. All right, councillor, Dr Hawkins, please. Thank you very much. Councillor Batchelor Henry. At the moment, from what I can see of the design, the layout of the proposal, it seems to be keeping to the traditional type of farm yard layout that is currently there. Are you saying that that is not acceptable and it needs to be similar to modern housing? That's on the opposite side. Yes, so I'm referring to the actual layout of the development. If you look up and down Church Lane, all houses are fronted onto Church Lane, whereas the houses that border the road in the proposed development do not, and also the houses are actually set back from the road as well, keeping the leafy streets seen as it is, whereas the frontages of the, sorry, the sides of the houses that will be seen from the road would be essentially bordering the, bordering Church Lane and we'd lose that leafy side. That is my point though, isn't it, in that you currently have a couple of barns right up along the flint wall. Yeah. And, you know, there are also existing buildings on that side that are in a sort of courtyard, farmyer type layout, and that is what this development is emulating. So that is trying to keep the heritage of that site, isn't it? I think if it was going to remain as a farmyer, then yes, as it's moving into a residential development, i.e. a close, as I think it's been proposed, then I think I would argue that the residential element of it would be able to keep it. Okay, thank you. Good, thank you very much. Chairman, we have a request from Councillor Fane. All right, Councillor Fane, please. Thank you, Chair. Two questions for Councillor Batger, if I may. The first is on the concern about the PVAA, Mr Jennings, for the applicants confirmed or that the PVAA is not necessarily incompatible with development, including buildings on that. Also, you referred to the Assessment of the Conservation Officer, paragraph 16 in particular. And I wonder if you'd like to comment on what he said there, that you referred to an enhanced landscape buffer along Church Lane between the roadside and the new dwelling together with the retention of trees either side. That was not the impression that we had from the illustration that was put up following Councillor Orgy's presentation earlier on. I don't know whether you're in a position to comment on that. So, one second. Sorry, what was the first question, Councillor? The first question was whether development, including buildings, is necessarily incompatible in the PVAA. So, yeah, obviously, building can occur in a PVAA, but I think my point was it would need to be in, it would need to be the right kind of application. The circumstances would need to be, I think, exceptional to build inside these areas. And I think my view is it's such a small area that's encroaching in, the development could be redesigned to not encroaching to the PVAA at all. Regarding your second point is there will be landscaping buffers, albeit I believe the design is to not have them in front of the houses and not between the road and the units. I mean, if that's incorrect, I'm sure someone will tell me. Is that it? Chairman, we have an offer to speak from the case officer. Do we? Yeah, he says he's happy to share the landscape plan to explain. Okay, fine. Mrs. Sexton, would you like to share that with us? Thank you, Chair. I thought it might help Councillor Bancher with Councillor Fain's question if I share the site plan just to clarify the siting of the clock. One, obviously, against the visual that was shown by the local resident, but obviously acknowledging that several trees are removed, there is a landscape buffer proposed with some additional, obviously, more low-level planting, as you can see on this plan, up to where you get to the existing fence wall. So if that helps in Councillor Bancher clarifying his points, I'm happy to leave that on screen. Sure. Yeah, that does help, absolutely. I think as you mentioned, it'll be low-level bordering. So it is some way to alleviate in the situation, albeit I think not ideal from the local perspective. All right. Thank you very much. Any other points? We've no other request to speak, Chairman. Okay, so thank you very much, Councillor, for that contribution. Thank you. I'm the other local member, but I would like to reserve my comments until later in the debate. Okay, thank you. So that's the public speaking is finished, so we can now move to the debate. So who would like to start receiving these? Have any takers? Yes, Chairman, we have Councillor Nick Wright. Thank you. Councillor Wright, please. Thank you, Chairman, and this is an interesting, really interesting development, but I'm not sure that I've quite got it right at the first attempt. I support mixed development, particularly on farm sites. All farms in their history have employed large numbers of villages, and for the history it is important to have employment on farm sites. Particularly for supporting local facilities, it keeps people working and using those local facilities in the daytime, rather than just turning it into a commuter belt with everybody departing and wanting to work somewhere else. However, with this application, to me, it doesn't look like proper mixed development. I would prefer to see the development being attached to the house, the office use being attached to the houses in the form of more live work units, and if there's anything that's locked down over the last couple of years and pandemic has showed us is that people need offices adjacent to their houses, and I think our policies move slowly, but live work units are so sensible now, and I'd prefer to see the offices attached to each house. So the mixed development is absolutely true, and then that really does tie the number of cars and that going to each property. It limits it massively in that you're not bringing in new businesses from elsewhere. This is a site that's going to go for development. I think everybody's clear on that, and it's very important that because of its situation in the conservation area close to the church that they get it absolutely right, and I would like to see the applicants working much closer with the objectors, all of Tony Orgy's points beautifully put, very sensible, and the applicants need to go away, look at what's come forward in this meeting, and come forward with another application that meets the support of the parish council and the objectors, and that is possible. So those are my thoughts. Thank you Chairman. Right, thank you very much for that. Vice-chair, do we have further speakers? Yes, our next speaker Chairman is Councillor Milnes. I thought Councillor Fein had put his name down. Oh sorry, I do apologise. Yes, you're right. Councillor Fein. Okay, Councillor Fein please. Thank you Chair. I accept what Mr Jennings said on behalf of the applicants, this proposal would enhance a derelict site. My strength of feeling on that is I haven't done a specific site visit here, but that is my impression. I think the courtyard layout retains the existing respect to the fact that this is a former farm yard. There is this question of encroachment onto the PVAA. I am not sure how significant that is, and I do accept what the applicant said that that can be compatible. Even building, putting buildings on the PVAA can be compatible with its designation. I respect the way the applicants have tried to reflect the existing nature of the site and to retain existing buildings where possible. As to the rest of my feelings, I very much support what Councillor Nick Wright said just now about employment on farm sites and the importance of live work units which will of course retain some employment in the village which will help support local facilities, reduce distance to work and so on. But I also feel inclined to support what Nick Wright said that the applicants have not quite got it right at the first attempt, and I'm particularly concerned about the impact of Plot 1, which is not only I think partially within the PVAA but comes very close to Church Lane and would appear to dominate it as illustrated by Councillor Orgy. So I'm wondering at the moment whether this is good enough to approve. I'm inclined to think it is and that we should approve this application. All right, thank you very much. Chairman, our next speaker is Councillor Hawkins. I think it's Councillor Milne you said, didn't it? Sorry, I do apologise, yes, correct. Councillor Milne please. You have me all hesitant there. So I believe and somebody can correct me if I'm wrong, this isn't really the first attempt because there's been substantial conversations with our planning team and the heritage statement, I think was a revised version so there's been some adjustments. I think the the applicants is Mr Trick here. If we're reliant on Councillor Orgy doing a presentation to show where Unit 1 would live, which may or may not have been accurate on the site plan I have in front of me, I see a row of hedges in between the road and the building which would give some shielding and I think we're dependent on our imaginations for seeing how this might look in practice and I think that is limiting for sure, particularly in relation to the views towards the church, from the PVAA, I'm not sure that really losing 2% of the PVAA to gardens and a small amount of the building is particularly pertinent, but it clearly was, this site was developed to look like a conversion of farm buildings and clearly the aspiration is to have it look like a former agricultural site or a farming farmer site and I've lived in such a development with bungalows alongside which work really quite well, so I think some of the fears that the parish council and local members have expressed is probably unfounded but difficult to rebut in the lack of visualisations. From my own experience I'd probably support this application, there's a lot of work being done cooperatively between the council and the developers but I'm rather sad that that work hasn't taken the parish council and local members with it. Thank you. So Chairman, our next speaker is, request to speak is from Councillor Hawkins. Councillor Dr Hawkins please. Thank you very much Chair. My points are sort of firstly on the issue of the office space. I think I've alluded to, I am in support of having office space on this development. I think it is something that we need and as has been pointed out obviously COVID has shown that we do need office space and even before that we had realised in the district that we do have a deficit of small business spaces that startups can use. So I am happy to see some space made available for small businesses and I know, I mean we have in my village potential for the garage of the road where the owner did a quick survey of the village and he had more takers than he could support with potentially a lot of small businesses going, yes I would like a space, I would like a space. So let's not underestimate the need that there is even in small villages. I'm not sure I like the idea of live work spaces, that's not what's in front of us today. What's in front of us is a separate office space and I think live work units kind of limit the market for those buildings and a separate office space actually offers more flexibility whilst still supporting local businesses. The other concern that we're looking at here is the infusion into the PVAA. I actually have policy NH11 in front of me and it reads protected village amenity areas are identified on the policies map where development will not be permitted within or adjacent to these areas if it would have an adverse impact on the character, amenity, tranquility or function of the village. Now obviously if you look at paragraphs 86 and 90 this impact has been assessed by officers, yes it infruits into 2% of the PVAA but at that point the question is how much weight do we attach to that impact and that I think is what we need to assess and as far as the impact goes we know that it is not significant. So in that respect you know with what it is I would say that you know that level I would tend to support as in the report. There is the issue of trees and biodiversity. There will be as we have been shown a hedge around plot number one which will still give a green view along that road and let's not forget the layout as it is now actually has in a couple of the bands adjacent to the road along the wall without any greenery there but from what I've seen there is you know the plan to have those hedges which will still keep the greenery and the biodiversity around that area. I note the concern about the trees being removed but if you look at the trees officer's report they are of low quality and the T4, T7 and 17 which are going to be retained you know have gone through the checks and balances by our trees officer so we need to take that into account in making our decision. I've talked about office space and parking it does meet the guidelines and you know we would be very we should be wary of not taking that into account in terms of how we decide whether or not to support this application. I mean from what I have seen you know whilst there are concerns I think a lot of those have been met actually and I'm looking at the the parish council's report I've read it in detail and I think on balance I would be likely to support this application unless I hear otherwise. Thank you chair. Okay thank you very much. Chairman the next request to speak is from Councillor Richard Williams. I think Councillor Roberts. No, Councillor Richard Williams is next. Is it okay? Thank you very much. Councillor Richard Williams please. Thank you very much chair. I agree with a lot of the comments that Councillor Wright made earlier so I won't rehearse those in the interest of time. I'll just pick up on a few specific points. Policy at NH11 is important I think to me I think as Councillor Hawkins has just said and the protected village amenity area I think it's worth bearing in mind that policy in its full context I mean paragraph 639 of the local plan says that you know PVAAs are important and should not be developed quote paragraph 640 talks about them as being important to retain. I mean looking at the policy itself which Councillor Hawkins has very kindly read out to us and of course she's quite right in terms of saying that there is that qualification and says they shouldn't be developed if it would have an adverse impact on character, amenity and tranquility or function of the village. First thing I'd observe is that those are incredibly broad terms character, amenity, tranquility and function. You know they're very they're very broad terms there so there's a lot of discretion within that and picking up on that a point that's very important to me actually is a point that I think it was Councillor Milne through first raise is the fact that we don't have a visualization of the impact of this development on the area and particularly on the PVAA and as it would be seen from the public right away so we don't actually have any evidence from the developer to suggest actually this wouldn't have a significant impact on character, amenity or indeed one could say function of the village. So looking at that policy, looking at the fact that we don't have a visualization but what we have seen suggests that this these buildings can have quite a significant visual impact for me. I think there is sufficient ground to say this is incompatible with policy NH11 as I say taking on board the fact that it doesn't rule out development absolutely but looking at the factors that it says we should consider I'm not satisfied actually that this development would not have a significant impact on character, amenity and tranquility or that PVAA. I don't think it's necessary for it to encroach on the PVAA and I don't actually think that the encroachment is necessarily insignificant. I mean two percent doesn't sound very much but two percent is a significant amount and the local plan does say these areas need to be protected. They shouldn't be developed unless they really need to be and if we start allowing nibbling away at the edges of them then I think that could set a very dangerous precedent. The parking concerns me as well again I completely accept that what what Councillor Hawking said that it is compliant with policy I assume that we're using we're assuming that the youth class would be A2 so one space for 25 square meters I mean I think actually I'm not actually sure about whether the policy is right there. I do accept it it's it's compliant with the policy however but I mean bearing in mind of course two of those eight spaces are disabled parking spaces which of course we need we certainly should have disabled parking spaces but you could be down to a situation where actually we've got six parking spaces there so I wonder actually if the if our local plan is right on that but that's another issue. Thank you very much Chair. Chairman the next request to speak is from Councillor Deborah Roberts. Councillor Roberts please. Thank you very much Chairman. I'm probably one of the very few people who are attending this meeting now can actually remember when it was a farm yard my parents in law lived in Abington, Little Abington for many years and we used to go regularly by there because my children very small children wanted to see the pigs and the chickens so I actually remember it as a working farm yard and it isn't or wasn't at that time anything like what is envisaged in a new design. It was very very low key it was very much a little firehouse on the corner and a yard with a few very low scattered buildings and a lot of open area it was never a close it was never a big multitude of buildings there and so it did give you that sight through to beyond which is now the PVAA and I think we need to take into serious consideration the effect as Councillor Henry Batchelor was saying on the conservation area I think we are very clear that conservation areas it has to be very good reasons for actually imposing something on them. It's obviously subjective but my feelings are that in its present form it is harmful and it's adversely harmful and that overweighs the games. I think the PVAA and being able to see it that certainly was to my recall something that was very important in the village people used to very much appreciate that view through so I think any changing that and any encroachment is actually to be argued against so I think like others have said yes something will go there quite clearly something can go there and the parish council and the local councillors district and county are quite supportive of that but and the parish council of course but what is presented at the moment is not what should be aimed at we need to be giving more thought to it being balanced as it as it was in the past and not overtake the village as it is I'm really concerned at the thought of of all those mature trees coming down because obviously they make quite an impact visually in the area they soften the landscapes and you take as many downers is being considered and argued here you are changing it in a really serious manner so yes something can come of this but at the moment we're not ready thank you. I thank you very much for that we have passed 11.30 now I think there's still a little way to go on this one so I'm proposing to take a short 10 minute break is that in the agreement everybody you're happy with that? Is it up to quarter to chairman? Sorry? Is that up to quarter to? I'll make it 11.46, Liam if you'll be kind enough to thank chairman thank you Liam if we could put up the notice and close down for the 10 minutes please. Yeah sure I'll put up a slide yeah thank you. Are we off the air now? Yeah I've sent us live I'm just waiting for the delay just to confirm to you that we are in fact live. Yeah we're all good we're I can confirm we're live thanks. Thank you and welcome back to South Cams District Council Planning Committee we're dealing with the application for Bancroft Farm at Little Abington and we're in the middle of the debate on that. I can just check with the vice chair that I have two speakers down on my list that's Councillor Kahn and yourself. That's correct is it? Correct please. Yep. That's correct China. Thank you I will then speak after that and my attention then will be to seek clarification from Mr Carter on the grounds of possible refusal for those that wish to vote for refusal. So Councillor Kahn please. Fine just turn the camera on. Can you see me now? Okay thank you very much indeed. Various comments on this application have come from the very big the starting point that all the buildings are ugly. It's clear that everybody has been most people seem to be saying the building will be ugly and this will therefore have an impact upon the upon the environment. I find that that's perhaps not the case in this situation I think it's an imaginative way of dealing with the development. We have the assert presumption that has been clearly stated that development of up to six houses on the site is accepted will occur and we could. I don't think that having modern houses like the one is necessarily the answer. I think the design is an imaginative solution to the problem. I have no problem with the small business units. I think that's the good idea. I think it's difficult to know in the future whether people will go more for home working or separate units, small units away from the main office but which are close to home. If it's the second type of development that tends to take place then these will be very useful for the residents of a little Abington because I imagine a large proportion of the residents will be traveling quite a long distance to work being a small village in the countryside. I generally feel that looking at the view from the amenity area towards the development it's a bit of a scrappy edge. It's woody, it's green. It's a bit of a scrappy edge and having it's an area which is surrounded by development on all sides, small rural country type development and I think this would fit in rather well and in some ways may even create more features of interest from people getting access to the amenity area. I'm not at all sure that it's going to make it worse. I think it might even make it better. My big problem is the extent of the loss of greenery on the site. I accept the trees. I spent a lot of time looking at the street view since this time we can't go and do a site visit and I accepted the trees along the road are another like the trees on the other side of the road. They're quite scrappy rather very much invaded by ivy generally not in very good quality but there's quite not a greening and scrub on the site which is probably a lot of it developed since the farm closed down and that is a loss and I would have thought it'd be more common upon this in the biodiversity plan. However since the development is likely to be on the site in any case we have little control over what actually happens in gardens once the development takes place. It's difficult to find out as a reason to say that we should refuse it. So I actually think it will be probably an asset to the village and a feature of interest and I generally I come to the conclusion that I think I would that it achieves enough for me to know me to feel that I would like I will support it. All right thank you very much. Councillor Bredman then please. Thank you Chairman. I find this quite an interesting application because in many ways I think there's much that's good about it that the there's an indication of use of timber and net flint and wood in the and weather board in the proposed development and there's a recognition that by setting the eastern side of the plot back from the road that might in some respects reflect what is on the west side of Church Lane. But plots one and six turn their backs on Church Lane which seems a shame although I note that further down Church Lane there is a garage that is right up against Church Lane has a blank wall against it and we know that the existing barns are hard up against the road. I think the difficulty I have is that plot six I believe is two-story and that's a shame that it's taller than the existing buildings because they fit underneath the wall whereas plot six doesn't. I'm concerned about the intrusion into the protected village amenity area because that was hard won when the parish sought for its designation and that was agreed and that's why I made the point at the beginning about the fact that and I'm not criticizing the case officer but it was not easy to see that in fact that intrusion extended not only across the gardens which would obviously end up being enclosed but also some of it is actually on the footprint of the buildings. So I'm concerned about that because what I observe is that it's that viewpoint from the corner of sorry is it at the northwestern corner of the site that viewpoint across the pvaa is wide and it's glimpsed glimpsed views through not very dense trees and a low hedge which will be lost inevitably it will be lost to a boundary around a garden and so it will make that viewpoint from is it born bridge road much more limited. The other point is that basically the whole problem is caused because the parish approve were minded to suggest yes six dwellings but that was on the assumption that perhaps the existing barns might be two of those dwellings in other words the space would be much less and they could have redesigned it so as not to put the footprint over the pvaa and I'm minded that this is in a conservation area and that too is a precious designation so there's a sort of feeling in my mind there's a bit too much crammed in in the space and I would really like to think that the developer was required to actually have a bit more consultation with the parish council because as we've heard the parish council hasn't objected to developments in the past and it has accepted developments and worked with developers and ended up with developments that they could support so I'm I'm also wondering whether we could not for example require that these dwellings are marketed with a joining office space so that we could make it quite clear that from our point of view we felt that the offices should be ideally being used by people in the same in the houses on the development. I don't know whether that's possible so I'm still quite uncertain about which way I want to vote on this but I think I think it would be hard to refuse for many of the reasons that councillor can't suggest there are there are aspects in which this could be improved the the area could be improved and I actually think the design of the buildings themselves is quite attractive given it was a farm site but I just think there's sort of too much on the site and particularly I think it would be helpful if plot one were not there and that the rest were brought in anyway that's what we've got in front of us and I'm still thinking about it when we get around to the vote I'll think about it even more thank you excellent thank you very much for that as I said earlier I'm also one of the local members for this area clearly this is a balance so does the harm outweigh the benefits or does the benefits outweigh the harm I have to say that in my view there's three key elements here so we've got the protected PVAA area and policy in H11 states quite clearly that there should be no new building in or adjacent to these areas this application is in and adjacent taking out not an insignificant 600 square meters of land 600 square meters is quite a lot it is for example three times the floor area of the commercial element of this application and as just as councillor Braden has just been pointing out and others have as well the that area actually encroaches on the main view of the openness there from bomb bridge road so I see that as a harm we've got policy in H14 are the inherited assets any application must sustain and enhance the asset that policy says so mary the virgin is a listed building and is the his heritage asset closest to this the application site is just across the road and they can't we given the intrusive build form there they can't do anything other than harm the setting of that building this is a conservation area and policy h9 stroke one says applications must conserve and enhance natural and historic assets I'm afraid I can't see that this application achieves either of these just on the question of the benefits perhaps from the commercial element one this is very small 174 square meters there's I'm sorry that's a good deal of background noise could we make sure that everyone is muted please thank you very much I was saying about the commercial element which is small the next application we're going to look at at four bomb actually has an interesting survey of available office space within 22 miles of within 10 miles rather of four bomb that showed that there are 22 unoccupied units some of which have been on the market for one to three years so it's not as taken that's used by simply opening up some office space that you're actually going to fill it so there's no evidence that this is actually going to be a benefit so what benefit is there as far as I can see the only beneficiary will be the applicant no there is no obligation on this site for any 106 contributions and there is no community benefit coming out of this project so this application is clearly contrary in my mind to NH11, NH14 and H91 for me the balance is weighed very much against this application at this stage they need to go away review it and get a less intrusive project so I will be voting for refusal right thank you for that Mr Carter could I just clarify with you anybody who wishes to vote for refusal with the grounds that I've just outlined the acceptance thank you chair yes I've been working on a couple of reasons for refusal which I can display on the screen if that would be helpful or alternatively I can read them out what if they're easily on the screen that's fine yeah I'll just share that now chair you can just let me know when you can see that yeah see it thank you would you like me to read them out as well could it be enlarged a little please yeah thank you that's great so just to clarify chair the first reason relates to the encouragement into the pvaa yep at the second reason relates to impact on both the conservation area and the list grade two star listed church I haven't included any specific commentary around trees principally for the reason given by councillor Hawkins in that there is quite good evidence from the tree officer that that many of the trees are not of high quality that that should be retained and I also haven't included anything about the office use the reason for that being that in principle there's there's no policy requirement for it to be linked to the residential element of the scheme in in any way notwithstanding that may be the preference of some members so with those two exceptions you have two reasons for refusal there okay thank you very much for that I just need to check there's any any further speakers I don't want to hold up again are you sure that you need I just want clarification did the I didn't see it in time if I may through you chair asked Mr Carter um did the reason for objection by virtue of the pvaa include the loss of visual access from the corner of Bourne Bridge Road because that loss of visual visual the the sight line to the pvaa so through you chair if I just read out that the key paragraph it says the proposed development by virtue of its encroachment into this protected village amenity area would undermine the undeveloped nature and rural character at the centre of the village failing to preserve the local rural character amenity and sense of tranquility of the area or provide a place responsive and legible form of development and then it goes on to cite the policy reference so there isn't a specific comment about a particular view but in my opinion that would be picked up with the words around local character sense of tranquility and character of the centre of the village councillor yeah yeah good worthy right thank you for that okay that's uh I as I have no more speakers so let's proceed to make a decision on this so the officer recommendation is for approval I'll have a roll call in a moment if you want to support approval you're for if you want to refuse it you're against and you can abstain if you wish all right I'm going to take the roll call now so councillor Bradman please refuse use thank you councillor carn four thank you councillor dawnton refuse yes thank you councillor fein four thank you councillor Dr Hawkins thank you councillor mills four thank you councillor Roberts refuse chairman thank you councillor heather williams refuse thank you councillor Richard Williams against so refuse thank you councillor right refuse thank you and my vote is for refusal three four five so it's seven votes for refusal and four votes for so that application is refused on the basis of the reasons outlined during the debate and Mr Carlton for clarity can we clarify that we had no abstentions I know the numbers add up but there were no abstentions yeah thank you okay thank you very much we move on to the next item and that is four bond item six on our agendas there's no page number 73 to 96 this is reference there's still some background eyes we all muted right thank you very much so it's reference 20 stroke 02833 ful this is at six piers laying four bomb chairman might I just simply come in is councillor dawnton to remind you that I'm standing down yes and I have a request to speak so I won't be taking part in the debate no but you will you have dispensations I understand that to speak as the local member of the public speaking element okay that's noted so the proposed list for the demolition demolition of existing commercial buildings and construction of five dwelling houses one detached and four terraced together with open and covered parking and including pedestrian and vehicular access the applicants are logan homes and messes parker the case officer would take us through the key material integrations this application is brought to committee because it's referred to planning committee by four one pair four bond parish council and by ward member the officer recommendation of approval conflicts with the recommendation the parish council and ward member and is referred to committee from the planning delegation meeting the officer recommendation is for approval the presenting officer is lube buddington senior planning officer mr buddington would you take us through your presentation please thank you chair and good afternoon members I'm just going to share with my presentation can I just confirm that you can see that my my first slide please yes you can see that that's fine excellent and the laser pointer as well please yep see that okay thank you very much um so thank you very much chair um just before I get into the presentation um I'd like to apologize just for uh an error in the report that I've picked up um paragraph 71 my officer report refers to the dwelling that joins the site to the west here number 12 pierce lane as number seven that's obviously a type of type of error so I do apologize for that um so as you can see the application site is number six pierce lane four born here outlined in red um pierce lane running up here and joining the high street the kite the site is currently a joinery workshop with a collection of commercial buildings around a hard standing yard area accessed via pierce lane um you can see from the aerial photograph here the access the nature of the buildings and surrounding development um the application site is within formal conservation area as outlined in pink so the north and the south there's a number of listed buildings as well um to the east of the site um it's proposed to demolish the existing buildings on site replacing with five two-storey dwellings comprised of one detached three-bed dwelling and four terrace dwellings made up of two two-bed houses and two three-bed houses um in addition to objections from a four-born parish council five objections have been received from third parties um the objections are generally concerned with a lot of the employment use at the site the design and the impact on designated heritage assets the amount of development and highway safety concerns um two third party comments have also been received that need the support or object to the development and one third party letter of support has been received I've just moved to some site photographs um as annotated this is so looking down towards the site from the west looking towards the west from pierce lane and shows existing buildings on site a number 12 pierce lane the adjoining dwelling that sorry adjacent dwelling is visible there slightly further up towards the high streets um showing the adjacent dwelling and a view down pierce lane and the curve of pierce lane and then back up the other way so looking east towards high street and again a little bit further down pierce lane looking up east towards high street with the application site here so marked the beginning of which is marked by this brown cloud building and courtesy of google street viewer a clear view into the site the wide angle from google street view just helped get a a better angle into the site and the nature of the buildings within it um so in terms of the material considerations officers are satisfied that the principle of development is acceptable uh whilst there would be a lot of employment use at the site this is considered to be outweighed by public benefits of the proposal in terms of enhancement to the conservation area and settings to the adjacent listed building and the reduction of vehicle movements and improvements to highway safety following consultation with the conservation team the proposal is considered to be acceptable in terms of design it's not considered to result in significant harm upon the character and appearance of the conservation area um and officers also consider that the proposed development would not result in significant harm to the the residential amenity of neighboring properties um we've got some plans as well um like I don't dwell on these too much as um they are visible online and uh in the members uh drawing packs but this is the proposed site plan uh the access has been relocated existing access it's approximately here uh it's been relocated further down the site the four terrace dwellings are shown in that position here with the fifth to the rear proposed elevations for the terraces units one to four street scene showing the adjacent existing dwelling and a approved site which has not yet been implemented the floor plans again four units one to four showing the three bed units at either end of the terrace the two beds in the middle the elevations of the detached property to the rear unit five again floor plans um the garage plans and elevations for the car ports and which serve plots one to four and the detached garage for plot five and that's into our presentation um officers consider that uh were subject to recommended conditions uh there are no objections from any technical consultees including local higher authority and the conservation team and the application is recommended for approval thank you very much all right thank you very much for that um all right members any points of clarification you want to pursue with the case officer we've no requests for clarification yet chairman no okay could i just ask one then uh one of the possible issues on this one is the fact that so there hasn't been any advertising to see if commercial element could be sustained here could you comment on that please yes thank you chair so um the the relevant policy e14 has two parts the first part part one is sort of splitting to three separate criteria the first of which um requires essentially that the um the applicants or the site owners undertake to 12 months marketing period uh in order to demonstrate um there's no sort of viable um employment use um the two other criteria and one of them the second one criteria b um requires the overall benefit to the community of the proposals um to outweigh any adverse impacts on employment opportunities and the range of employment land and uh part the third part uh part c requires existing use um well it states that if existing use is generating environmental problems such as noise and pollution or unacceptable levels of traffic um then um the the the sort of cessation of employment use um could potentially also bring bring benefits um a proposal to remove employment use could be satisfied on those grounds that the policy requires only one of these criteria to be satisfied so either the um the evidence that the marketing evidence to benefit to the community or the um the loss of sort of harmful um harmful impacts to the to the neighborhood so um the um the strand that sort of been um being sought is is part b so the provides the overall benefit to the community um as sort of set out in officer reports the um that wouldn't require any sort of 12 month marketing period um the second part of the proposal of the of policy um b12 goes into um the sort of viability evidence that would be required if if no employment uses are to be to be um provided on site or as part of the scheme um so that element that it doesn't require explicitly a um a 12 month marketing period the applicants have submitted sort of viability information which says why uh in a in their own opinion it doesn't uh it wouldn't be viable to provide an employment use um on the site or all right thank you very much okay um vice chair do i have speakers uh yes can't the chairman um councillor nick right we'd like to ask a question councillor right please thank you chairman the planning officer has answered my question already excellent uh chairman then i have the next request to speak thank you chairman um i wanted to ask the case officer how long i appreciate what he says about only one of the two conditions about loss of employment uh sites that only one of the two conditions needs to apply but i just wondered um the other is the element of um the negative impact of any employment use and i just wondered how long has the site not been used as a woodworking yard and and that might um be why there has there's and so that's the first thing and was there any evidence that its previous use as a woodworking yard did cause residential noise or dust issues before all right luke thank you chair and thank you councillor brandom um the site as far as where it's still in use um there's no policy requirement for it to be um but under policy 14 for it to be vacant um as as far as sort of complaints or of noise or anything like that are concerned um as far as i'm aware there haven't been any i did inquire with our environmental health team as to whether any have been received um and and they've responded to say that there hadn't been sort of any um at least within sort of recent recent years um so obviously in terms of the policy 14 and um part one c of that policy which is the part that you mentioned which covers the you know the the sort of unacceptable noise or pollution that that could be stopped as a result of the development um that probably wouldn't be um wouldn't be applicable in this situation um as we don't really have any evidence that there has been any sort of uh environmental problems really um from the from the existing use okay so just to clarify then if i may chairman um the site is still in current use and there are no objections to that to any noise or anything like that so that's great thank you okay thank you chairman the next request is biggest from councillor Hawkins right councillor Dr Hawkins please thank you chair very quick one um having read the uh the commercial assessment i note the assessment was an either or um you know uh commercial or residential but there's no assessment of a mixed commercial razor use is there not a case for that that's correct as far as i'm aware there isn't um i believe that the um the arguments are made that that commercial use in this location um wouldn't be viable um through sort of various various reasons that the um there's a number of sort of properties um of similar size or smaller i think between three to ten thousand square feet um within the area um that that sort of have been vacant they're advertised that they're currently vacant although have been vacant for some time um under that that sort of um contributes to sort of a an argument that there wouldn't be um the viable uh viable use at this site for for an element of uh of commercial um commercial use if i'm wrong but i thought the the uh the uses that had been examined where for big spaces not for small spaces that we know we need i believe the they've undertaken the yeah the survey for um industrial units of uh 3000 to 10 000 square feet um the current um i think the current site's about in terms of buildings is about 7.1 thousand thank you all right thank you very much chairman the next request to speak is from council heather williams council heather williams please thank you um through yourself chair i'm just wondering if the officer could give some clarification as to if we've as an authority had a change of position in relation to policy e14 as um there wasn't a request to convert to an outbuilding into one bungalow in my patch um and there were assessments and viability assessments provided however the council was not accepting those on the basis that the policy says that it must be marketed for 12 months and we did actually get taken to appeal on that case and and did defend our decision there so i'm wondering why in this case we've been saying that documentation and viability reports are acceptable when in the past we've defended that they're they aren't has there been a change of policy that we need to bear in mind thank you chairman all right thank you for that luke can you help us with that yeah um no the um the policy 14 um the first part of it um only requires marketing to marketing criteria to be met um in one of one of three cases um so the 12 months marketing isn't a necessity it's it's a root um it's one of the routes through which the policy can provide support to proposals like this but it isn't it isn't the only one um so part one a policy 14 has the three sort of separate criteria um only one of which needs to be met um the 12 months marketing is one of those um but um but i sort of set out in the report the um the overall benefits of the proposal are considered to outweigh the loss of employment um which which is the element that satisfies part one b um so that that's the part that's been part of that policy that's been met um as opposed to the part which requires 12 months marketing all right thank you um the accounts the Richard Williams that's been thank you thank you chair um i just just like to um ask for a bit more clarification on on exactly that point actually um so on e14b which it looks like the one where we're relying on um what is the benefit because reading the report that it refers to the fact that the existing units on the side don't don't look very nice they're a lot of high quality um but i'm certainly struggling to see any other benefit um so could the officer just clarify what exactly the benefit to the community is or what the grounds for that are is it just removal of those buildings so yeah there are multiple other buildings and the um replacement with a um with the with the proposals would um in officers during the conservation officer provide an enhancement to the um conservation area and to the setting of the jackson listed building um which will provide a public benefit in terms of the the the sort of the i guess a special interest of the conservation area um there's also comments from the local highest authority um indicate that the um the proposal would a would provide a benefit to highway safety in terms of reduced vehicle trips and you reduce numbers numbers of vehicles and commercial vehicles visiting the site um so the the two sort of two sort of strands there um would kind of would amount to a public benefit all right thank you uh vice chair do we have any further speakers yes chairman with your um mission i'd just like to ask for further clarification just one more element please right thank you that's the breadman please thank you chairman um i just want to ask the case officer at item paragraph 36 on page 81 of our agenda um we were talking about this you know the balance between the three options for reasons why commercial use might be outweighed by benefit of dwellings the loss of that commercial use and and it says the application states that the existing business is small and employs four people two of whom are owners of the present present business who are seeking to close the business so my concern is that this is kind of the perfect sort of business to be going on in on in a village which is quite large um or a modest sized village but it actually is offering employment to four people and it's simply a choice that this family probably family company have um would like to to uh stop the business but they haven't marketed and i i just feel that's a shame that they haven't done the marketing exercise um also i'm concerned that i there may be evidence and i apologise if i've not seen it but i just do wonder about the possible movements of vehicles from the rear of the properties onto pieces lane that might be four or five vehicles um coming in and out in the morning and in the evening i don't know whether that might be more than what the current woodworking business uh might represent in terms of traffic movements and i wondered if the case officer could comment on that please right thank you um yeah i know you you have already done that a number of times as far as the um commercial prospects are concerned but certainly the uh movement of vehicles is an issue could you in light of this please yeah of course yes so um a transport statement was submitted by the applicant some which is available online which sort of sets out the vehicle movements obviously we've consulted the local highway authority on on that um piece of information um and and they've commented you know their comments are that um to keep it that they're sort of happy with that information that they haven't objected on the basis you know of vehicle movements being um being worse or the proposed vehicle movements might result in a sort of additional or worse impact on highway safety um and in fact the comments from the high local high authority indicate that the contrary might might be the case and that um they actually may reduce the number of vehicle movements and potentially improve highway safety on to on to in a facility right thank you very much for that um i'd like to now move to public speakers so we have three public speakers is a David Cotty with us please yeah yes hello hello yeah we can hear you can't see you can you see me yep okay so welcome uh to the committee um how would you know the process yes i have done it before okay so shall i start them good can then could we just understand is David Cotty a neighbor objecting um believe you want me to answer that yeah please yes i'm um i'm i'm not a direct neighbor i live in the village and i'm the secretary of four born four hi thank you very much thank you okay right i'll start um the proposals represent a significant overdevelopment on an important site in the conservation area can tap compounded by a lack of adherence to the village design guide the redevelopment presents an opportunity to enhance the street with a sympathetic contemporary high quality design planned to allow the continuation of frontages of hedgerows and trees the fundamental character of pierce lane as encouraged by the design guide however we're presented here with a with a large block structure of no architectural merit with a strange mix of historical architectural references including two-tone brickwork with faux coins a variety of Victorian pastiche details a few circular elements thrown in for good measure a mix of sash encasement windows and what appears to be three false chimneys the planning officer in his report confirms that pierce lane and the conservation area has a bit diversity of buildings ranging from medieval times to recent decades all clearly attributable to their period of construction he also confirms that there are i quote visually successful contemporary upgrades and small infill however having confirmed this diversity the planning and conservation officers then conclude that i quote the emulation of Victorian design is appropriate as i quote it acknowledges the late Victorian architecture evident in several locations in foreborn end quote what are we to make of that this strange logic completely undermines the work not to mention the cost of preparing the village design guide which aspires to achieve quality contemporary design generally using traditional materials and simple forms responding to its physical context or place and in a way that firmly sets the architecture in the 21st century a smaller scheme of perhaps two detached or maybe one semi-detached property would enable the buildings to be set back from the street significantly more than the two meters in the proposed scheme so that trees and hedges could be incorporated with the omission of the rear detached property space would be available for visitor parking thus avoiding the inevitable spread of parking into the already overutilized adjacent high street while allowing adequate rear gardens to be maintained in addition it should be noted that the present scheme has no provision for refuse bins to be collected at the road edge the planning officer proposes that landscape features can be dealt with by condition within the conservation area and with a village design guide in place these important details should surely be agreed at the full planning stage and to conclude the south cams drainage engineer confirms that workable surface water and foul water drainage provision has not been demonstrated why again this detail should not be left to get another condition it is for example clear that building regulation compliant surface water soakways are not feasible in the small front gardens we contend that the application should be refused to allow time for a full redesign and the preparation of a fully detailed application that deals with all the above objections thank you very much thank you very much for that members do you have any points of clarification for Mr Cotty last year there are no requests so far chair okay then right thank you very much then Mr Cotty thank you thank you very much thank you chair thank you we'll move on then to i think it's the applicant mr gilby mr gilby with us please good morning chair can you hear me i can indeed and see you yeah thank you welcome to the committee thank you um i'm sure you know the process yeah you've got three minutes and then there may well be questions when you are ready okay thank you very much uh good morning chair councillors uh my name is philip gilby i'm the managing director of logan homes firstly may i thank your planning officers and heritage teams for their assistance from pre applications discussions through to the submission currently set before you and for most comprehensive report confirming their support for this application the proposal is for a development of much needed two and three bedroom dwellings set within a highly sustainable location close to the centre of the village we at logan homes specialising in designer developments in sensitive village locations and are acutely aware of the need especially in conservation areas for the scheme to improve and enhance its location we strongly feel the proposed scheme relates clearly and concisely to the area and there's a style form and character which both enhances and improves the locality we're delighted to have both planning officer and conservationist officer support in this manner during this process we've carefully considered the design and layout of the proposed scheme to ensure it complies with the objectives of the village full-born village design guide the proposal will remove unattracted commercial buildings from the conservation area replacing them with buildings with softly softly detailed period styling it will also push the built line away from the pavement edge replacing it with landscape green front gardens both of these opportunities presented by the proposed scheme would be a significant benefit to the appearance of the conservation area as the planning officer report concludes the change of use does not represent a significant loss of employment to opportunities and allows the removal of existing unrestricted b2 commercial buildings from a predominantly residential area furthermore the removal of the existing use will remove the need for commercial vehicle activity in this location and as concluded by the county highway officer has the potential to improve the road safety for both pedestrians and road users alike we would respectfully reiterate to members that in addition to the recommendation of approval by your planning officer there are no objections whatsoever from your heritage officer's highway or environment team the environment agency public health landscape ecology officer or archaeological service we're convinced that the proposal before you will not only enhance the location and conservation area but will provide an aesthetically attractive development of much needed smaller houses within this highly sustainable location we therefore respectfully request that members approve this application as per the recommendation before you thank you very much indeed thank you mr gilby members do you have any points of clarification for mr gilby last year do we have any there are no requests chairman okay so thank you mr gilby um and move on then the parish council uh it's not being represented uh can i just hang on a minute we're not quite with you yet councillor dawnson uh mr carter could i just check with you the um the agenda says that this this was uh referred to the planning committee by forebum parish council i don't think that's the case is it um no i think i'm yes sorry chair um i think i recall this was a referral from councillor dawnson which was considered through the delegation meeting process and then referred to the committee so that's the the route by which it's made its way to us today okay so we need to adjust the yes we can we can we can note that in the in the minutes and and it doesn't refer to the fact that the delegation meeting actually referred it to committee indeed indeed so we need to deal with both those okay thank you very much because the only reason i wanted to clarify that was of course that if a parish council does ask for it to go to committee it is expected that they come to the committee and give us the reasons why so uh local member this is councillor dawnson um i'm sure you know the process so i'll leave it with you can i just check i i believe you've got a photo you've got well i said yes thank you for checking chair and i sent photos to the case officer um i don't know if he has them but if he hasn't got the photos i sent i would like to have a photo of the location please okay you would just speak over that the time until we see do you want me to put the picture up then yes please right uh luke can we do that please um thank you and could i have the photograph please with the bus passing thank you okay i might have begun now chairman yeah when you're ready yes thank you and commercial long commercial activity on this site goes back decades it is in the centre of full bone village alongside a mixture of homes retail office and light industry in short it is a model example of a sustainable community a situation lost in many of our other villages house prices in full on a high and as a site for housing development this is a very valuable plot but if being green to our core is to mean anything we must try to protect what is left of our sustainable villages policy e14 of the local plan indicates that the loss of employment sites should be resisted unless market demand dictates otherwise there is a dearth of small specialist and affordable workshop space in the district as we heard in the previous application including in fullborn and the applicant's claim of small commercial properties being available within a 10 mile radius does not satisfy the need to retain where possible truly local employment sites the commercial viability appraisal currently tested as the site has not been marketed for the minimum of one year period at the point of the proposed development pierce lane is very narrow which is obvious on this photograph it's a narrow and busy two-way road with parking restrictions to the east of the entrance it has a half hourly daily bus service plus several other less frequent public and school bus services it is also a well used cycle route to cherry hint and the city to the west there is an existing housing terrace there is a parking problem as residents prefer to park outside their homes despite the narrowness of the road this parking together with a curve on the road as you can see beyond the bus causes site issues which would be made worse by cars pulling out of the development without the ability to see other road users county highways has stated that the visibility's place as presented would under normal circumstances be considered unacceptable on safety grounds they then contend that the development would significantly reduce vehicle movements and can therefore be allowed but the work employs just four people and vehicle movements during the working day must be low to a non retail site not forgetting that the business is closed from four o'clock on weekdays and all day at the weekend the proposed development has space for 10 vehicles plus 16 or more circles and bed spaces for up to 24 people resulting in the potential to increase not decrease vehicle and cycle movements should should redevelopment for housing be allowed a smaller scheme would greatly benefit highway safety finally it is noted that no sustainability statement has been provided in a conservation area this and the requirement for renewal renewable energy should not be left as a planning condition thank you right thank you very much any members any points of clarification required nice chair anybody um yes me please chairman counts the red one please thank you very much chairman um could i ask that we can see the other photographs and have an explanation of them please would that be okay yes certainly Luke can we do that could perhaps cancel adornton explain um yes so the purpose of this photograph is to show the how the adjacent houses are set back from the road and the line of trees trees on both sides of the road as mr cotty was speaking about um and this there's a car here and in the um in the evening the street here is normally lined with cars it's very difficult to overtake it's very difficult to see traffic coming in the other direction and it's very difficult to see cyclists and this as you can see the the turn of the road um where the listed building is on the right of your screen that's a very narrow sharp turn into the high street so this this whole area is bordering on the high street um which is a very busy centre section of the village and on the bottom photograph and you can see that the cars lined up so that the road turns into pierce lane turns into this road where there are cars parked all the time so that all of those road spaces are narrow and very busy thank you chairman right thank you very much is there any other there are no other requests for clarification chairman okay right thank you very much thank you councillor daunting um if we could take down that that's fine um if you like to turn off your camera please councillor daunting thank you um so uh debate is then open who would like to start do you have any speakers please yeah nice chair yes chairman we have request to speak from councillor nick right right councillor right please thank you chairman and first of all well done to you for referring this to the planning committee i think you're spot on and also well done to the local member councillor daunting i think she's right absolutely at the core of our policies is village sustainability you know we are agreeing to the core council and as members i think we're all proud of that and employment in our villages is what keeps them sustainable now this is uh i know it's a small employer um you know to market this site you know it it is an employment site first and foremost but the buildings on it need refurbishment uh and if it is marketed you know it can be you know can come forward with lots of uh new plans to demolish the present buildings and put some veils on site so i think there is a clear principle here that this application is not right um it's against our policies we need to keep our villages sustainable what's proposed on the site does not include any employment use it's a pastiche the design is wrong um you name it it doesn't look right it might enhance the employment area but i don't think the use of a public benefit to this site is a valid argument because of the lack of sustainability that it gives to the village so i'm really against this application chairman and i look forward to listening to the others thank you thank you very much chairman the next person who wishes to speak is councillor heather williams right councillor heather will heather williams please thank you chairman um so i'm going to start with policy e14 um that i'm going to refer to so we'll be asked to look at section b about overall benefits i i don't feel that there is sufficient benefits um that mean that we should forgo the the 12 month criteria i think it should be judged under the first category i think as a as a council we've been strong on that policy in the past i think it's vital especially in the current climate that we actually make sure that we keep that policy enforced to the maximum um i don't my judgment is that it doesn't comply with the design guide as as local residents have um pointed out and uh council right says on the sustainability grounds and unemployment um and it's interesting this one following the debate that we had previously but um so for myself on the planning balance this is not right for the for the village in my view or the wider area so therefore the overall benefits do not outweigh it all on e14 as there are very few in my view thank you chairman all right thank you very much vice chair do we have more speakers yes we have a request from councillor richard williams thank you very much councillor richard williams please uh thank you chair again i'll try to be quick because a lot of the points i was going to make have already been made um yeah uh i i agree that um sustainability in villages is is a key um concern for us to some extent should be a key concern for us and losing these sorts of employment sites um can have a a serious negative impact um on that um i agree um policy e14 b i i don't see any benefit um particularly to the community um that would outweigh the loss of the um the employment site again i can see an obvious benefit to the to the site owner as i think was commented on in the last application i i can't see any uh benefit to the community on the vehicle movements um i can't remember who made the point um maybe in camps at daunting but um but i would agree if this site in the sense you can't have it both ways on this site if the site only implies four people and presumably there aren't that many vehicle movements at least related to employment you replace it with um what was it five houses you can have you know um 10 adults there each with a car each and you could actually end up with slightly more vehicle movements um so so i'm not sure that's a clear benefit um to me um at all so um yeah um for me the balance is against this on the basis of e14 right thank you very much advice chair uh the next speaker requesting speak is dr councillor Deborah Roberts right councillor Roberts please um thank you chairman i'm finding this one a little difficult to get my head round whether i'm for it or against it to be quite honest um in in normal circumstances um i always thought it was a question that a commercial site had to be um put up for um continuation um so i'm a little surprised that it seems to be quite flexible and as long as something else is um supportable in that region um so i'm like a little bit more clarification on that from from officers because um i'm a little bit concerned about the precedent it sets if um if we can't hold employment sites and i think my decision on this will be based on that can we actually hold on to um sustainability um issues by saying that an employment site um must be um must be continued and a chance must be made to do that because quite honestly there are other elements here which i'm not as concerned about as other members when you look on the photographs that were shown there are clearly um other buildings i think it was the historical building um that are actually right on the road edge so you know the argument that some of these houses are set back well they appear to be only a little bit set back so i don't actually have such a problem with the design of it or the type of design of the houses there i can understand that there is an element of concern as well about the uh probable uh more traffic movement but you know a business could be having traffic movement all day where houses are generally much more you know morning and evening so i haven't at all made up my mind on this yet but i would like a little bit of clarification on the uh what i was always understood was a requirement that they had to be put up at least for 12 or 18 months as a business yep thank you yes that's a key key element actually we go to mr carter next and pursue that point i think mr carter can you help us out so it's e14 is clearly an interest element yes thank you chair um policy e14 uh seeks to offer flexibility which is why it gives the three the three options in the first part and requires that um one of those criteria is met in order to be satisfactory and so it really is a matter of judgment for members in this scenario as to whether or not they think those criteria have individually been satisfied if one of those does apply or not uh officers obviously are pointing to to be which is that the overall benefits the community of the proposal outweighs any adverse effect on employment opportunities and the range of available employment land and premises so those benefits may be the delivery of new homes or the improvements to the appearance of the area as highlighted by the case officer but it's perfectly reasonable for an alternative view to be taken um that's a matter of judgment for members to make um with regard to the requirement for viability evidence the policy is quite clear that that's that only applies in part a of part one of the policy and in part two there's an option to provide either clear viability or other evidence as to why it's not possible to deliver an element of employment use as part of a mixed use scheme so the policy is flexible but um it it's also perfectly acceptable for um the decision maker to exercise their judgment depending on the circumstances of a particular case so it wouldn't be unreasonable if members felt that uh part B wasn't satisfied uh to make a decision on that basis here but chairman can I just ask um ask miss Carter and given what he's just said to us um one presume also that the the applicant could argue um those policies and those parts of the policies at any appeal yes through you chair yes that that's correct um it is a a matter of judgment as I say um as to how you apply the policy to the particular circumstances of the application okay thank you very much thank you mr Carter thank you uh vice chair we have further speakers yes councillor dr Tumi Hawkins right councillor dr Hawkins please uh thank you very much yeah um I will be looking at e14 I mean in conjunction with um one b and number two when I haven't seen any benefit as such that has been um uh explained yes there will be you know five new homes but if we look at e14 too it does say that any proposal that you know proposes the loss of all all employment uses will need to be accompanied by clear viability or other evidence as to why it's not possible to deliver an element of employment on that site if you recall I did ask uh uh very early on as to why there was not a mixed residential commercial use proposed for the site precisely because of that and we know that we do need small units for the one man two man all you know to be politically correct one person two person type businesses and COVID has shown us that we need to make sure that we do not lose employment sites in our villages unnecessarily and I don't think we are at the stage here yet where the loss of this site has been clearly demonstrated um and also as far as the design goes I'm sorry but it just does not look right an attempt it's either one or the other you can't mix Georgian and Victorian and whatever else and I don't think the attempt I mean an attempt has been made in the African's Village Design Guide statement to try and show that they have considered it but I'm sorry it it it just it's like oh after the fact this bit matches that bit and this bit matches that bit no that's not the purpose of a Village Design Guide they need to go back to the drawing board and frankly I don't see that I can support this application for the very reason that we're going to design employment site and the benefit has not been shown without a shadow of a doubt so I'm sorry but this one for me is a no no thank you all right thank you very much chairman chairman yeah we have a request to speak I believe from Chris Carter all right Mr Carter you want to come back in or is that the previous one yeah that was the previous one chair thank you sorry I apologize in which case the next request to speak is from councillor Martin Kahn right councillor Kahn if you'd like to speak please yeah it's a difficult application I like councillor Roberts don't have any problem with the design get past each but I think it does it is probably better than that location near to the older buildings on the street that it is something which has an older feel about it and having a hand is more tighter which a terrace house is is I don't think at all that a detached house on the front is actually what you need there to to build that chain so I'm not worried about the design the moving of the access I think will improve visibility because it's moving further away from the bend the question is whether is the whole of this question about e14 an employment um now this is a joinery workshop the existing use the owner has said he wants to close we have no say over that that that will happen it will stop being a joinery workshop so the question is can he market it as it is now we recently not that long ago had an application for another abandoned joinery workshop in Wittlesford which um had been marketed and they found nothing nobody wanted to take it so the building as it is is unlikely to be wanted so you're looking at some alternative employment use my concern about an alternative employment use is that although for an employment of four which being a joinery workshop probably also had quite large vehicles going into it um but probably nothing enormous amount if you have a new use which has lots of small small small sites you're going to have quite a large number of people arriving there and that might be much more significant so I do see the traffic issue as quite relevant in terms of employment um for the like type of employment that you could envisage on that site you certainly couldn't envisage commercial traffic going into it and so I do see a road actually I think there is a road safety improvement a genuine road safety improvement by converting to a small number of houses um and particularly not houses with five or six car large houses five six cars for small houses which it's a car apologies to interrupt but the live stream has uh I believe it stopped as the my connection to the remote desktop has just dropped so if you wouldn't mind just holding on to that thought for just a second while I just reconnect to the to the server a genuine apologies sorry thank you all right thank you Lynn I can't I'll come back to you but I need to explain what's happened to the public okay yeah so I've just I've just confirmed so uh basically the the connection between my computer and the remote desktop dropped but the connection between the remote desktop yourselves and the public did not drop so I can confirm that there was in fact no disruption uh of the service apart from my computer not connecting so yeah sorry please do continue there's nothing no interruption yeah there was I can confirm definitely that there was no interruption thanks very much okay so for men benefit the members of the public we had a a false alarm there where we we thought there may be a technical issue but fortunately you haven't missed any of councillor carms wisdoms so yeah so generally well I'm very much in favour of maintaining employment in the village um and village locations and make improvement sustainability I'm really not sure that this is the best location because I feel the type of employment that you might be able to put there and we if we if we insisted upon it is actually probably going to cause an increase in traffic and cause a a nuisance and what would be what I would consider improved visuals because of the rather ugly buildings at present the better location of the access and what I feel would be a reduced problem to traffic on any likely alternative employment I think I'm generally thinking in favour of supporting this application okay thank you very much uh now it has gone one o'clock we were going to take lunch but I think there's only two more um speakers uh vice chair as far as I could see that's right chairman there's councillor Peter feign yep and yourself is it and myself okay so I'd like to bring this to a conclusion then we'll take the lunch so councillor feign please thank you chair um I don't need to say very much in fact because I agree with the comments that have just been made by councillor kahn um so it comes down to the application of policy e14 and we've heard that it hasn't been test marketed but that is only one of the three criteria the question it seems to me is clearly whether criteria b is satisfied that is that of overall benefits to the community and officers deal with that quite clearly at paragraph 38 um and they say that is considered benefits to the community would outweigh any adverse impact through loss of employment and they in doing that they take full account of the village design guide so on that basis I will be voting to approve all right thank you very much councillor feign and finally then councillor breadman thank you chairman um my observation is in the local plan at paragraph 8.54 which gives clarification to the policy e14 it points out that employment sites at villages are a scarce resource which should be retained and making best use of existing employment sites reduces the pressure for development of new sites including new sites in the countryside and it also provides a greater range of employment opportunities and reduces the need to travel um and I'm I'm concerned that there's a balance isn't there between the current use of the employment site which is as people have pointed out relatively modest with just four employees and indeed the current employees wishing to stop so they may be winding down the level of business that they've been engaging in versus um the likely increase in um well the the likely increase in number of traffic movements if there were indeed 10 cars on site four parking spaces one in front of the other so eight parking spaces behind the four terrace properties and two further parking spaces behind the larger property at number five um and so there's a balance here isn't there because if this was marketed commercially as a site and a number of applicants applied or one per one developer applied um and and sought to break it up into smaller units and it's possible there could be more car movements than that I think my concern though is that people if it's if it's allowed to be developed as a housing development it is really quite likely that people will want to park in front of the houses this is what people do and and so I'm I'm still somewhat concerned by um this proposal because I don't think it's clear which future use is likely to cause poor traffic movements unfortunately um so I'm in I'm still in a quandary as usual thank you chairman okay thank you very much for that okay we're bringing this to a conclusion then could I just consult you Mr Carter we've already looked at e14 um and clearly there are members who would like to see this pursued in terms of advertising there's also questions about sustainable communities maintaining employment um yes chair with your indulgence I have got a couple of reasons drafted again which I could share um I have um one reason related to the loss of employment and the other is is a character of the village and conservation impact um but it would be helpful to know if members felt that was a reason for refuse law or just the employment uh employment reason so um I'll scroll down in just a moment so you can see all of the second reason right and if I just scroll down there he is have you got all all that on the screen there so it'd be helpful if we could just have some confirmation that that second reason is also one that members uh some members would cite or or if it's just the first okay I agree with both reasons can I'm sorry chair can we just scroll it down again so we can see the first reason please thank you chairman you all had a chance to yeah just chairman it just it just concerns me because it it's seeming to indicate what isn't actually correct it's seeming to indicate that um we that there is only one reason that um that they have to um comply with and clearly and there are three reasons and the offices are stated that it isn't it isn't compliant with um one of those but it indeed so you know you wouldn't support it then presumably so this this is just so that we're very clear that if you if people wish to vote for the views or there is a clear chairman yes um I think it's not unreasonable if I may through you it's not unreasonable that perhaps that first reason could reflect the fact that e14 gives three reasons why why employment use might um the justifications that might be given to cease employment use whereas this only refers to one and I do think that perhaps this is the one that people were concerned about but clearly we speaking let's let's take advice them chair through you um I think the reason does do that so that there are three criteria in the first part of the policy one with regard to evidence of market demand the second around community benefits outweighing the loss and third with regard to environmental problems and and the reason says the application does not provide sufficient evidence to adequately demonstrate demonstrate that the site is inappropriate for employment use having regard to market demand that's the first one the development would provide benefits to the community that's the second one and the third one with regard to environmental problems uh you can see there it says all that environmental problems in terms of pollution or traffic are being caused etc so I think that all three elements of policy e14 part one are covered there thank you that satisfies my concerns I couldn't read quickly enough thank you okay uh and I think uh council Dr Hawkins would like to comment all right and Herman we've we've thank you chair thank you chair I think my point is on e14 2 and I think the last paragraph or the last sentence in paragraph one um refers to that is that right Mr Carter yes that is correct the last line says the application also does not justify the lack of an employment provision as part of the proposal yep that was it thank you Mr Reacher do you want to come in Mr Reacher chair um uh Tony Collins has asked to comment on the second reason and Mr Collins is who somebody explain who Mr Collins is chair uh Mr Collins is conservation officer all right good okay Mr Collins welcome thank you chair I just wanted to point out that um I was asked for conservation advice on this application my advice was that it did not cause harm to the conservation area and um if I were asked I would um repeat that advice and um confirm the reasons for it so if this application was to be refused and that was to be given as one of the reasons I would not be able to defend the council's decision because I would be contradicting my own professional advice I just wanted to make that quite clear fine I don't think that's one of the issues that we're actually raising is it it is in the second reason that Mr Carter has um look forward okay thank you very much good point yes chair through through you if I may um Mr Collins is obviously right about his advice um it's for members to decide whether or not they agree with that or take a contrary view I did hear some concern in the debate around the impact of the proposal in terms of its design and appearance and the impact that would have on the conservation area in fullborn not being reflective of of that uh but if if if that's not the case obviously members will Vatican indeed okay I think we are a point that we can make a decision uh so members I'm going to make a roll call um just to be fair since uh for council breadman is always having to be first I'm going to reverse the list this time if that's okay thank you so I'm going to call there's no other reason than you know just for fairness obviously so could I um start the voting then so what you're voting for is the um recommended the officer recommendation is approved so if you want approval you're for it you want refusal you're against and if you wish to abstain you're abstain so councillor Wright can I have your vote please thank you chairman and you'll see from the letter in my I've never been first in my life for anything so uh thank you and I'm voting against against thank you uh councillor Richard Williams please against again thank you councillor Heather Williams against against uh councillor Roberts please for chairman councillor Milne's for councillor Hawkins against against thank you councillor Fane for councillor Dalton's not taking part uh councillor Kahn four oh thank you councillor Bradlam um thank you I'm going to vote four four okay thank you very much and my vote is four so the vote is one two three it's six four and five against approved by one vote okay thank you very much well everyone who's contributed to that um it's now 16 minutes past one and I suggest we take a lunch break now and come back at quarter to two so Liam if you would like to close down yeah I confirm we're now live thanks all right thank you very much and good afternoon everybody um welcome to South Cams district council planning committee um we're already making good progress I just want to check that all the members of the committee are back and in operational condition so if I could just run through a quick roll call is councillor Bradlam with us please present chair thank you councillor Kahn councillor Kahn are you with us not yet I'll return to councillor Kahn councillor Dalton yes present chairman thank you very much councillor Fane councillor Fane with us at the moment it seems come on councillor Dr Hawkins present chair thank you councillor Milnes present but I can't attest to my conditions thank you councillor Roberts yes chairman I'm here thank you councillor Heather Williams chairman all right councillor Richard Williams present chair all right councillor right raise the shot chairman yeah okay councillor Fane I see you are there with us doesn't chair yeah some is councillor Kahn with us is councillor Kahn on the line chairman shall I ring him chairman yeah I'll I'll just can I just remind councillor Kahn it would be a shame if he couldn't vote on this matter okay we can't take too long over it if you'll just give me a few moments chairman okay I'll keep calling him councillor Kahn are you with us his connection appears to be open where was the public I'm sorry for the delay here there may well be a short technical issue chairman yes I've been in touch with councillor Kahn he's having a slight IT problem he needs to go out and come back in again and asks if you would be so kind as to just pause while he comes back in okay we'll pause for a couple minutes thank you very much thank you so we're trying to do with the technical issue with one of the members of the committee we should commence again in a few moments hi there chair I've had a message it's Liam here I've had a message from Aaron saying that councillor Kahn's computer has frozen and he is trying to rejoin currently so yeah that's what the issue is with his side of things thanks all right okay thank you we've got councillor Kahn back yeah okay thank you very much okay councillor Kahn we get on now then okay thank you well have you frozen again no okay let's we're now on item seven agenda item seven on page 96 of the agenda papers this is reference 20 04710 HFUL and it's an eight craft way steeple morden but before we get into that can I just confirm that councillor Heather Williams um I believe you've got a quick decoration on this one I do chairman and I won't take part in the debate or the or the votes in any way right can I just clarify with you I believe councillor Wright is going to look after the local interest yes so councillor Wright is who I nominated to sort of take on the local member role in this case as I couldn't okay does that mean he wishes to speak as the local member at the public speaking element or prefers to reserve that for the debate I'm happy to reserve it for the debate yeah okay thank you very much okay we're so for the benefit of the members of the public then councillor Heather Williams has an interest in this and as we've drawn from the committee for this item so the proposal is for a two-story rear extension single-story front extension and an annex within the rear garden resubmission of a planning application S454119 FL the applicant is mr be me um the case officer will take us through the key material considerations there is something of a checkered history with this application so the application is brought to committee due to being called in by the parish council and due to the decision of the judicial review to quash the previous application which is currently undergoing a second year judicial review following another incorrect issue decision it is in the opinion of officers that the application should be determined at committee level the recommendation is approval the presenting officer is Aaron co senior planning officer before I go to Aaron for his presentation could I just um ask mr Carter um if he would confirm that all legal matters have been attended to and we are in a position to um determine this application please yes chair thank you yes officers have taken council advice that this application can be determined notwithstanding the fact that the second judicial review uh matter has yet to be uh determined by the courts um the advice we've received that there's no reason why this application can't be determined at this time thank you chair right thank you very much for that Aaron co senior planning officer would you give us your presentation please thank you chair good afternoon members just going to share my screen and can everyone confirm they can see that please yep that's fine brilliant so the site is number eight craft away in steeple morden and the proposal is for a two-story rear extension a single-story front extension and the addition of a single-story annex in the rear garden just before getting on to the um the finer details of the application I just want to go back over the history um as councillor bachelors rightly informed you all off so um in may last year a delegated approval was issued for the development with the wrong plan numbers listed on the decision notice so subsequently a judicial review took place and the decision was quashed by the high court in November 2020 um following the decision being quashed the same application reference needed to be reopened and put back into the planning system which would then be re-consulted on and redetermined again however in November last year another admin error took place and has resulted in another incorrect decision being issued for a second time on the same application so this is a result of mistakes of the planning department and in the spirit of good customer service and to prevent further delays officers invited a fresh planning application for the proposed development which is now being considered committed to today uh to prevent further delays for the applicants so moving on to the application the application site is number eight craft away which is a two-story detached residential property located to the east of hay street within the steeple morden village framework there are no tpo trees within the site the site itself is outside of the conservation area but the steeple morden conservation area lives on lies on the northern boundary of the site as you can see on the on the site location plan here this is the conservation conservation area adjacent and you've got um listed buildings number 40 38 and 42 however this this boundary here is um heavily vegetated and overgrown so these are the existing elevations um at the moment um moving on to the proposed proposed elevations uh planning permission is sought for the construction of a single-story front extension which would have a height of 2.7 meters a width of 8.1 meters and a depth of 2.11 meters so the extension uh the front extension would run along the front elevation only a height of 2.7 meters to the ridge of the single-story front extension and then at the rear a two-story rear extension is proposed to uh so that will remove the conservatory and fill in this space um on the western side of the site remaining three meters off the boundary and not going any further beyond the existing rear elevation on the eastern side the proposal also includes the addition of an annex within the rear garden the annex would be located in the southwest corner of the rear garden and would be set off the boundary by one meter and run along the western boundary for seven meters in total the annex would have a depth of three meters and a height of 2.8 meters to the ridge and the condition is recommended to ensure the annex remains in ancillary use to the host dwelling so to conclude the proposed development is considered to be an acceptable design which respects the character and appearance of the area and the amenity of neighboring properties and the development is considered to be in accordance with policy HQ 1 at the South Cambridgeshire District Council local plan 2018 the proposed development would not impact the adjacent conservation area or listed buildings in accordance with the South Cambridgeshire local plan policy NH 14 and the MPPF paragraph 193 and approval is recommended subject to conditions thank you chair all right thank you very much uh members any points of clarification you require vice chair do we have any we have no request for clarification chair all right thank you we do have some public speakers so I'll go to the public speakers now um can I ask Richard Williams please it's mr Williams with us I am with you but I can't get my my camera to turn on well it's like I'm going to hear you so I'm just going to speak to you if that's okay yeah just hang on a second because Aaron's taking up the entire picture at the moment chair turn your camera off thank you chairman yes just any interests of clarity can we clarify that this Richard Williams is different to Councillor Richard Williams do give me a chance I'm sorry I thank you thank you very much um mr Williams could you yeah there's a lot of Williams who's around not least on the actual committee here so could you just confirm that you're not a relative of any of the committee please we have the fifth most popular name in the UK because I'm not surprised I'm not related to anybody else on this committee and I am Richard Williams that is guest excellent thank you very much indeed so uh welcome to the committee um I think you probably know the procedure um this is all new to me I'm afraid but it's all very new to me right but um you're there is a three minute presentation period yeah then we'll see if members want to clarification so when you're ready you've got your three minutes thank you well I was going to say good morning everybody but I'm now going to say good afternoon everybody I am speaking you on behalf of your neighbours that's myself and Michael Reeson and Joyce Pacey who live at with the other direct neighbours what we have here is a huge redevelopment project which has been imposed on a quiet neighbourhood and elderly neighbours it's my job today to make sure you have the information and context you need to make an informed decision and that you are fully aware of the implications and ramifications of your decision let me start at the beginning of the original application but at the time the original application was submitted the applicant did not own a craft way and could have chosen the bioproperty which was much more suitable for their particular requirements rather than this one which will need a huge amount of work to make it suitable neither the applicant or their agents have ever spoken to the neighbours about their plans either before they moved in or since and have tried to simply use and indeed abuse a planning system to impose their plans upon us the proposal says this is a two-story rear extension single-story front extension and an annex in the rear garden which I think you'll agree is a great deal of work in its own right but it isn't the full extent of their plans as they also want to raise the roof line move or replace internal and external low bearing walls carry extensive internal remodelling remove roof trusses in the master bedroom to facilitate a voltage signaling and remove two chimney breasts and stacks this then becomes an immense amount of work to impose on this quiet neighbourhood and elderly neighbours or at home during the day particularly now during the pandemic when you would as you would imagine we're all house bound you won't know from the reports pack but the couple will live at number six halfwayer in their mid-seventies the lady of the house is frail and certain show signs of a mental health issue approving this plan when you post something like a year's worth of disruption mess noise and disturbance on this lady as well as the rest of us and it would be for five and a half days a week and that would be called an instrument I refuse to believe that anyone including the planning committee would ever allow it as for the application itself a number of policies are mentioned in the report pack but not policy H 12 which governs residential space standards it states new residential units will be permitted where their gross internal floor areas may exceed the government's technical housing standards nationally described space standard the minimum in this particular case is 37 square meters residential Alex is around 21 square meters that cannot be permitted on that basis alone the application has to be refused the report pack and the applicant's submission to about extension to the front of the properties in this group of five and tries to use this as some kind of precedence to allow the single story front front extension on this property but none of these properties have ever been extended beyond the original principal elevation in fact when the previous owner of two craft way tried to extend forward he was told it wasn't permitted so I really don't understand that at all South Cambridgeshire District Council talk about quality of life in their local plan if this goes ahead ours will be very very poor for a long time to come COVID-19 lockdowns have got everybody thinking about mental health we are already suffering and the mental health is certainly not going to improve by the position of this project the health of your residents should be uppermost in your decision making process the idea of putting old and frail residents at risk has to be completely unacceptable on any basis the scale and magnitude and impact of this project make it completely unreasonable particularly when you remember that the applicants had the option of moving to somewhere more suitable for them it's a very large redevelopment to be imposed on a quiet this is a very large redevelopment to be imposed on a quiet neighborhood and elderly and frail male neighbors and should never be allowed I would like to think in the name of humanity of nothing else that you put stuff to this application once and for all if you're not prepared to do that you will have to refuse it because it fails on the minimum size and age 12 and I'm sure you want to investigate why non-existent front extensions have been used as a precedence for the properties front extension and that's me done excellent thank you very much members do you have any points of clarification you'd like to pursue vice-chair chairman from councillor Brian Milnes right councillor Milnes please thank you chair um so actually there's a um a question I probably um really need to um put back to the officers over the principal planning consideration that mr williams raised because he raised a lot of issues that really weren't uh and not able to be considered by the planning committee in terms of um neighbors with covid worries and and so on um and so I'm interested in terms of his objections in terms of the size of both the annex and uh the proposal for the house and whether uh they are indeed within the permitted development the size limits okay thanks if you don't mind I'll return to that with the officer I'll just check if anybody wants to thank you is you anything further we've missed the williams um vice-chair do we have anybody else who wishes yes chair I have a request for clarification oh sorry um is that you all right I think councillor breadman I know getting asked my point of clarification yeah which is um mr williams said he was speaking on behalf of himself and some others and I wanted to clarify is he speaking on which which house numbers is he speaking on behalf of and um the other one was I think has councillor Brian Milnes has asked what is the um space standard could could the yeah we will be pursuing clarify that I did give a response to councillor Milne that we would pursue that once we've um dealt with questions from mr williams so mr williams do you wish to help on the question of the who you're speaking on behalf yeah so I live in um 10 craft way so that's next door and I'm also speaking you know Michael recent George place you live another six craft way so both right I'm sorry direct both direct neighbours yeah you're breaking up a bit but I think we've got that sorry so can I just so sorry chairman did he say he was speaking on behalf of 10 and six craft way correct yeah thank you chair okay thank you uh do we have any other speakers please uh not so far chair no okay so mr williams thank you very much indeed for your contribution um I'll now go back to Aaron and ask him to clarify the issues on h12 please thank you chair so policy h12 residential space standards only applies to new residential developments this is an extension and the erection of an ancillary annex it's not it wouldn't be classed as a new residential unit that would need to meet space standards on councillor Milne's question on um permitted development rights the proposed annex is 2.8 meters high um and permitted development rights for an outbuilding would be a maximum of 2.5 meters high so obviously the extra 30 centimetres exceeds that amount so um an outbuilding this height would require a planning planning application okay thank you very much for that councillor Milne's were you happy with that yeah that's fine just in terms of the I did ask about the size uh which was referred to by mr Williams I think of the proposed extensions to the main building as well uh so again would that meet permitted development or is that why it's feared before us as well yeah for that sorry through you chair um so it exceeds the um the amount of development that would be uh permitted development this is development and requires a planning application to be determined thank you okay thank you very much for that and chairman sorry please yes I wanted to know what I appreciate this is not a new development but I wanted to know what would be the minimum space requirement for a single dwelling if it were new well I'm not sure that's actually relevant to this application is it councillor please can we ask can I ask we can ask but there needs to be that's great thank you thank you uh can you help the councillor on this bit of information please yes so a one bedroom one person unit a single story would be um 39 meter squared or 37 meter squared for a studio unit thank you very much chairman right thank you um we don't have any further public speakers we have had a written statement from the applicants which you were circulated to all members on the 5th of February so um we will go into the debate now with somebody like to open the discussion vice chair do we have any speakers vice chair do we have any speakers um I'd like to speak chair okay go on them thank you very much um speaking thank you very much chair um what I observe with um developments of this type um I might be wrong in my um estimation of age but I think of this style of housing a sort of 70s style or perhaps maybe 80s um and what I'm aware of was that these style of houses often have very open gardens and part of their um style is that they very often have um a similar style of gardens that makes the whole of the development a coherent whole so that they can be viewed as a collection um often with no boundary no no hedges and no boundaries on front gardens so that they can be seen and they set back from the road and they give a sense of space to a a road and I suspect that's partly why this was allowed opposite the edge of the conservation area originally I'm speculating but I think that's probably part of its um character and so what I observe is that there's quite the development just even without going into the detail appears to be quite a big proposed extension and it proposes to push the front of the um dwelling out beyond the existing building line um which would make it then out of um pattern with its neighbours um so that that I'm concerned about and also because uh I I don't think um um I think that that the the the product of the extension would make a very large development which potentially risks over looking its neighbours or indeed overbearing its neighbours but I'm fairly satisfied that the um measures that the case officer has put in place prevent any direct overlooking but I am worried about the extension the um annex proposal because um whilst I absolutely understand um that this is well in fact I when I was first looking at this I thought well if this was new it would have to have a minimum standard and we've explained that it's not new it in the sense that it is ancillary to an existing dwelling but to my mind it is kind of new in the fact that it's um a new um dwelling on the same site so I appreciate we we need to be careful about that um but I think um I wait to hear what others say but my view is this could potentially be a really large overbearing development in a row of um of houses of a similar design and I think it would be out of keeping with them thank you and chairman um the next um oh we've got some requests to speak we've also got um a comment wasn't council right going to speak as local member but chairman I'll let you take that so next is what councillor feign right councillor feign please thank you chair I am a little concerned that the um I'm concerned of councillor feign sorry we can only see the top of your head mind adjusted yeah that's a better you can see it really is me and that's no improvement but thank you chair um the case officer reports a paragraph 25 it is evident that the properties along craftway each have single story front extensions with an integrated garage um that is clearly contested by the neighbouring residents uh but it may not be material in determining the outcome the question is is this extension excessive um and we are told at paragraph 29 that the proposed two story extension does not involve the dwelling projecting any further to the rear nor raising the ease or ridge height on this site uh indeed from the rear of the property which is again not important it clearly improves the appearance uh that there is that extraordinary construction at the moment which would be then masked similarly it doesn't appear to project any further to the front of the property councillor bradham said it goes beyond the building line I wasn't clear that that is the case it does seem to me however that clearly in addition to a condition on the property being retained the annex in particular being retained in the same ownership it would be reasonable in this case to add a condition as to hours of working the council tends not to put those conditions on except for larger developments but as I've pointed out in the past it's actually in the case of smaller developments like this that there is an immediate impact on neighbours and we have on previous two occasions that I can think of this committee has agreed to impose that condition in similar circumstances and I would suggest that we were to do so again if we approve this thank you very much could I just point out that um condition three is hours of working um so that's probably already in the condition three on page 105 okay thank you chairman yep next person requesting to speak is councillor Debra Roberts right uh I think it's Nick right I think it's councillor right before me chairman I thought it was councillor Milne that's that councillor Milne's you're right chairman okay councillor Milne please don't worry can Debra Roberts too many cooks Brian anyway um I'm just like as long as those working hours limitations are in there because that would respond to Mr Williams uh concerns at least in part for that um but it seems seems to me that we've got to um technically um we haven't got uh I see any substantive material planning considerations to object to this so I believe I'll be speaking in support of it thank you okay thank you very much uh councillor Wright and please is representing the local address I believe chairman I was hoping to speak in reverse order since we're following that policy today and could I come in at the end when everyone's spoken of course there's no fun then in that case I think it's councillor Roberts isn't it yes that's correct chairman yep councillor Roberts please thank you chairman um I think we just need to make it clear to the uh member of the public the gentleman who spoke at the near neighbor um obviously he made some quite emotional um comments and and regarding himself and his neighbors and elderly people but I think we we have to make it very clear that um the majority of those things not the side of the house which is a material consideration but um sympathetic as we may feel towards people not being too disturbed that is not a reason for planning refusals I think we really do need to make that clear because um if it is approved I wouldn't like the gentleman to think that we've ignored his comments we've heard them but um they are actually relative to what we have to decide thank you chairman thank you very much all right and uh our next speaker is councillor Martin Kahn chairman councillor Kahn please again I'd like to say that I have the application I've listened to what people have said and I can't see any real sound funding grounds the rear extension is two-story but it's no the existing extension to the rear already goes up to two stories it's not I don't think it's going to create any real significant increase in over overbearingness from the existing rear part because it doesn't go beyond the limits of it the front doesn't extend beyond the existing front part a single-story part of the building so um I can't see the grounds on those grounds really to refuse the annex is smaller than the than the minimum size for an independent dwelling but we're talking about an ancillary dwelling which we could normally would make use of the facilities of the main dwelling so it's not exactly the same thing um so I really cannot see any sound planning grounds refuse which cannot be or any problems that cannot be resolved by conditions and that's the key issue can we resolve it by conditions normally we should resolve things we can by conditions and in this case I think we can such as matters of the hour hours of work as explained um so um I certainly still be in favour of approving this development all right thank you very much councillor uh and chairman the next person is councillor to me Hawkins thank you councillor Dr Hawkins please thank you chair and through you just to Mr Richard Williams um you know um I'm sorry for the uh distress that you know the the process has caused um but you know with this hopefully uh you can see that we are looking at the issue um you know based on planning policies and afresh um in terms of uh your presentation thank you for that um but you know as uh councillor Roberts has said which is what I was going to say as well you know we can only look at the planning policies um rather than sort of the the personal issues otherwise we wouldn't be doing things lawfully so on that basis um we you know the the size of the front extension it's not going beyond in fact it's just a you know an infill of the garage that is in front of the property at the moment um and you know making that part of the house and the rear extension which will I think is only about 20 centimeters above the front of the house as it stands now um there is you know no material reason uh for us not to approve this application but we have heard you we have considered the issues and um on the basis of the uh planning material planning reasons I do not see a uh any reason to refuse this application so thank you all right thank you very much and chairman I've asked if I may just speak again on one element please if it's new it is it's not going back over all ground okay well it's seeking clarification from the case officer if I may chairman um so through you um I take the point that people have made about the building line and that this extension does not extend beyond the building line what I wanted to check was given the current position of the front of the garage is I've got the proposed plan in front of me and are we saying that the building line will be no further um forward than the current front of the garage but on the left side of the house where they're proposing to put a playroom instead is that right let's let's let's check that um okay officer could you help us thank you chair yes council brad and I can confirm uh the building line will not go beyond uh the front building line as existing it will just fill in the space with the as you said with the playroom um on the other side of the property but the front door will in fact come forward a bit uh yes that's correct very slightly but it will still be set back yes okay thank you chairman that was what I wanted to clarify okay thank you very much and then finally then councillor right please thank you chairman um and listening to what members have said and uh speaking on behalf of uh the local member I've listened to what Richard Williams said and it was very emotional and I think we all understand the reasons exactly why he's saying it and understand how disturbing to everyone's life this application is he does raise in my mind a material planning reason for refusing it and that is up to members to consider and that is the the massing of the building affecting the neighbours amenities and that is a judgment for members to make um looking at what the parish council have said they've not raised an objection to this but they have made the point that uh they're very anxious that the annex should be not sold off at any point separate to the house and uh they're concerned about any change of use in the annex and this is should be dealt with by condition you know such as a bed and breakfast or anything else like that so they're they're they're anxious about making sure that's protected by condition and we certainly put those conditions in on other annexes so I don't see that being a problem this application but it must be done um so it's really up to members and uh I think I'll leave it there chairman thank you very much right thank you very much um can I just check with um the case officer um the business of tying the annex to the property I believe you you said is is going to be covered by condition yes that's correct it's covered by condition number four which states that it shall not shall not be occupied by by any other any other times um other than purposes ancillary to the residential use of the dwelling right very cropped way and just to confirm the hours of work and so on they're also conditioned yes condition three covers that okay right members can we then come to a conclusion on this one um I have heard some arguments with the overbearing and massing of the buildings and some questions of neighbourhood um amenity I take it the should that anybody wish to um vote for a refusal that those would be the grounds if not say so now okay chair sorry chair if I may just intervene sorry um I I hadn't actually noted that myself in terms of a reason for a refusal so um it would just be helpful if there is a particular point about the design or mass of the extension that members are concerned with just to confirm that and then I mean the point had been raised but nobody has said so far that they intend to vote for refusal no so I think we're probably go for a vote thank you chair okay thank you for your help okay so members can we take this by affirmation or do we need a roll call does anybody wish to actually vote for refusal the proposed before you is for approval so are we all in favour of approval agreed chair agreed agreed no one wishes to vote against no abstentions no so that is unanimous and that is approved by affirmation so thank you very much for that thank you Mr Billings for your time we now move on to agenda item eight on page 107 um the reference number is 20 04089 HFUL on we're at 14 Main Street Shuddy camps the proposal is for a two-story side and rear extensions following demolition of flat roofed garage bathroom wc side extension plus external and internal conversion works the applicant's office room Mrs Gladman the um presenting officer will go through the community room considerations the applications brought to committee because the applicant is an employee of South Cambridge district council the officer recommendation is approval the presenting officer is Tom Gray planning officer uh Mr Gray over to you for your presentation please thank you chair and good afternoon members and you confirm chair that you can see my presentation yes i can thank you so this application is for a side extension and rear extensions 14 Main Street Shuddy camps the site districts are the public right away to the east of the sites um the dwelling is located in a development framework as indicated by this map here here is the existing site plan on the left and the proposed site plan on the right you see where the two-story site extension be located and rear extensions to the back there'll be extension to the turning area and parking area to the front and hard standing where the current grass verges to the front of the site the existing and proposed elevations and the approximate measurements showing the approximate width of the garage on the left of 4.6 meters the approximate width of the right on the right of the two-story extension of 4.3 the existing floor plans and proposed floor plans are shown on the screen now here are some views of the site this is from the front of the site from the west of the site to the east and from the rear garden the key considerations are impact upon the character and appearance of the local area the means impacts provision apartment provision and highway safety and other matters thank you all right thank you very much members any points of clarification required nice chair do we have anyone uh none so far could i just ask a question though chair please yes carol thank you um thank you uh mr gray um could you just remind us as i recall this site is high relatively high high relative to the road and to the bungalows on the opposite side of the road isn't it yeah so it is in a slightly elevated position um so the front of the site does um go downwards to public road that's correct thank you and this effectively doubles the width of the front elevation of the house is that right or am i mistaking it it's um it's less than half that it doesn't double it it's slightly less than doubling the width i'll show you my screen thank you again and approximate widths you scooted through your presentation quite quickly i was trying to apologies can you see the screen yes thank you so through you chair at the front the um the extension extends on top of the existing outbuilding and garage and fills in the space above so it does sort of double the width of the elevation at first floor level is am i right so it's nearly doubles it the current width of the two-story element of the dwelling is five point one and the proposed width of the two-story extension is four point three okay thank you all right thank you any other points nice chair do we have any further uh yes we have a request from councillor martin carne all right councillor carne please i went to look at this site on by street view from um and the issues as people commented it's above the road it was quite imposing and there was a similar pair of cottages immediately to the left as you look at it both of which look the same on which i think it probably x council houses and have a slightly interestingly slightly curved upper windows um i just wanted to ask in terms of what normal policy is do we know um this shows a break in the speak in the roof line so that it makes clear that it's a separate extension and and basically adds on to the the existing dwelling sort of attack on rather is it a policy that you should not continue on the same extensions on the same roof line because i feel in this instance it actually would have been preferable um to make it look as though it was one whole building rather than a building with an extension just wonder what the policy is because i find it quite well i've no problem about the being extension there and besides i find it rather jazz when i look at it visually and also that they haven't continued the slightly curved roof top window detail along the on the top of the windows try answer that yeah comments um so in terms of policy um it's generally generally for extensions um we'd like extensions to be subservient to the main dwelling in terms of ridge height and slightly and set back in this in this instance it is both set back slightly from the principle elevation of two-story dwelling as well as um the ridge line um less than the ridge line of the current dwelling um i think if if it was if it was continuing the the ridge line of the existing dwelling it'd be even more prominent on the street scene investment that's in my view right thank you very much for that i don't think we have any further speakers do we have a clarification last year no chairman there are no further requests to thank you very much for that we do not have any uh public speakers for this item so go to any debate that you may wish or we can go straight to a vote if you prefer um is anyone wish to speak to this chairman chairman i will speak if that's if i may how's the bread then please thank you um we know that this has come to this application has come to us because uh it's a residence in the ownership of a member of staff and um um it looks perfectly reasonable to me um and the plans um indicate that they've taken care in the way that they've proposed the development and whilst it's quite a sizable extension of the property um the um extension at the rear is just single story so it won't affect their neighbors and um i i have no objection to it and i will be voting for it chairman right thank you very much uh councillor calm could you turn off your camera please otherwise we're looking at your dressing gowns thank you uh i don't think we have any further speakers do we yes no no chairman no further speakers have requested i wanted to speak sorry sorry who's it i think that was councillor calm chairman did you want to speak yeah briefly yeah i just want to say that uh as i expressed my concern about the valking and the appearance of that um building i feel it doesn't achieve the the best uh solution particularly with the details of the window the windows and the size of it in this instance it would have been better to try and create what appeared to appear to be a terrace but it appears to meet the normal policies of the of the local authority so i can't criticise the applicants on this basis so but because i'm unhappy about it i will be abstaining right we've got no further request to speak so far chairman thank you very much and in that case we will come to a conclusion then on this so we know councillor calm wishes to abstain can i just check if anybody wishes to pursue refusal i hear nothing so can i take it with the exception of councillor calm's abstention that everyone wishes to vote in favour of the recommendation which is approval agreed chairman agreed agreed anybody against no i am i think so that is um approved so that's agreed by 10 votes to one abstention we hope we move on then uh item nine we've already dealt with at power mirror that that has been referred to at a later date we are now on agenda item 10 on page 125 uh and this is the enforcement report um is mr funge with us are you presenting this report please mr funge are you with us i am now all right good okay welcome thank you do you think you want to update us i haven't i understand um that um councillor right is requesting uh an update with regard to smithy fen which um mr carter is going to uh provide thank you okay right so mr carter do you have next day problem smithy fen lovely thank you chair yes so just to the opportunity to speak with colleagues in the lunch break following council rights request um so the council is in the process of securing additional resources to assist with the investigation um and putting together an up-to-date picture of the position in terms of planning breaches as well as other considerations in conjunction with the other council service areas involved um i understand councillor right was um updated by uh steven kelly the director of planning and economic development to that effect as well work is ongoing um but obviously happy to take back any further feedback that members may have thank you chair thank you very much uh councillor right did anything you want to pursue there yes chairman thank you and uh thank you mr carter for that update i'm slightly surprised to hear the councils uh searching for funds for uh from other sources when it has its own fund sitting there specifically for this purpose for any enforcement action that smithy fen and so i'm slightly surprised to hear that and in fact that was part of my update from steven kelly um so i think our concerns councillors is that you know this has been going on for a long long time and you know we just are not seeing any action on the original on the original any increased action on the original enforcement action uh we've got about 60 percent uh of what we asked on the original enforcement but there is still 40 percent to follow up and that doesn't seem to be done uh apart from some action through the Cambridge magistrates which has been ignored largely and also uh the council worth talking of going for injunctions on the site and that has not been done either now i appreciate that over the length of time this enforcement action has been going on the site has changed substantially um so we we just need to know and to keep this in front of the public that action is being taken because there are a lot of vulnerable people at risk here thank you thank you very much indeed chair sorry through you could i just clarify when i said resources i meant officer resources rather than financial resources so sorry if that wasn't clear in my original update right thank you very much for that uh vice chair i think we've got some more further speakers have we uh chairman yes um we have councillor toomey hawkins i thought i saw it hang on did we did i'm sorry did councillor not me there's councillor kahn has spoken already hasn't he so then we've got councillor heather williams sorry chairman sorry councillor hawkins with that's fine councillor williams please thank you chairman i was worried i'd got forgotten there um so it was just a question on the general enforcement report um about our figures for close for the year to date um and you know we it does it does still worry me that we're sort of behind our normal trends because we can see from the previous years you know we've been very good at closing cases and everything else and i'm just wondering if there's um if there's a broader issue that perhaps we need to know as as a committee as to why things are slightly dropping um i know in november obviously we had a bit of a setback but um yeah any clarification around that be much appreciated because it's we can see it's performed so well in the past all right thank you very much for that i don't know if mr fange would like to comment yes yeah i'm happy to comment i mean obviously the the pandemic restrictions are having an effect on our ability to visit sites which is obviously which is causing a backlog in investigations um so yeah there are we have more cases in hand um which we will be looking to to to close when we can complete the investigations but there is a delay each site has to be um risk assessed um individually by the officers and and some it's just not not possible to visit at all at the moment all right thank you very much for that thank thank you chairman thank mr fange thank you councillor williams councillor dr hawkins please thank you chair through you uh just so go back on smithy fen um i can assure councillor right that action is actually going on um there has been um uh sort of an aerial survey of the site and i think as steven probably has already told you uh what we can see at the moment is somewhat different to the layout uh that was part of the injunction um um that we had back then so trying to match trying to carry on with injunction on it's on a different layout is a bit of a difficulty but there are there is action ongoing um and as soon as there can be more update you will be informed just to let you know that when it's not that we're not doing anything we are doing something all right thank you very much for that okay any other comments no chairman there are no further requests to speak okay all right we've noted that then thank you mr fange for your update we move on to agenda item 11 appeals against planning decisions and enforcement actions um we haven't looked in that appendix one um i mean i am aware that we have had quite a significant appeal on the water beach issue um that i asked mr carter to update us on because it has some significant implications for policy to carter please thank you chair um apologies i i just understood our conversation yesterday i thought we were going to to raise that at the next meeting um but uh i can give them a brief brief explanation you've probably all received the appeal decision um at uh bannel road i believe was uh sorry i'm just opening it now um which was a committee decision uh last year for a scheme for 18 dwellings um the appeal has been allowed uh and unfortunately some costs awarded against the council uh on the basis of the decision uh this is a site that's located outside the defined settlement boundary of water beach but members may recall it's surrounded on on all sides i believe by uh infill development that was granted uh when the council couldn't display a five-year uh housing land supply um and the inspector noted that whilst the starting point for the decision of uh the development not according with the development plan because of its location outside of the boundary was the correct starting point the inspector considered that there were material considerations that indicated that a different decision should be made um and that in this particular case the inspector found that the development wouldn't cause the harm that had been identified by the council in its decision and found those factors to outweigh the conflict with the development plan and allowed the appeal so it's it's uh an interesting decision in the context of developments that are out with our settlement boundaries and just highlights the the need to take into account other material considerations uh on a site-by-site basis uh particularly for a site like this which has modern development surrounding it as well thank you chair thank you very much uh thank you chair if i may by all means done and i think it is important that we just highlight that the partial award of costs did not relate to the decision as to the development framework it related to to design matters is that that's correct isn't it chris i believe so thank you steven um if members haven't received it i'm happy to circulate both the uh the appeal decision and the cost decision following the meeting uh for members to read for themselves um it's you know the inspector's reasoning is is quite clear um but uh obviously be happy to answer any further questions after that if that's helpful chair if i may just go on um to appendix uh three um and the informal hearings just to clarify that uh the appeal that land review of 24 to 27 panes meadow linton uh that relates to a refusal by the committee not a non-determination so that's uh incorrect in the report it was an application that was refused i just wanted to highlight that as well chair thank you all right thank you very much okay members any other points anybody wants to raise on appeals vice chair do we have anybody um i think chair we i think council to me hawkins has already spoken and i think we had a request from bright councillor mills and then councillor heather wilson right okay councillor mills and please thank you yes um i just wondered whether uh press card could uh update if at all on the land at middle lane sourcing appeal which seems to have been dragging on for uh years now i think there are three applications that have been joined uh in in that and we just would like to see some progress do you want me to help on this one christ uh chair forgive me i i do have some background noise i'm afraid there are there are men working in the garden but um uh steven may may like to assist but i understand that we're very close to agreeing a hearing date now i think the council and the appellant have put forward dates to the planning inspectorate and waiting for the inspectorate to confirm steven can you add anything further to that yes it's uh it's not a case of the council dragging its heels at all uh the the the appellant has themselves been writing to pins to say that because of uh lockdown they weren't in a position to agree an earlier date so so they've been the guys pressing for the the matter to go back and it's two applications it's one for 35 units one for 45 oh i thought there was a third version as well but no no just two just two thank you okay thank you very much uh and councillor heather williams please thank you chairman um it's just if miss cartes able to um just draw our attention to if any of these well absolutely i'll get my words right in a minute any of these appeals uh are challenging of five year housing land supply with particular interest in the source among because my understanding is because of the time that's elapsed they can now submit new evidence um so is that still the case if so have they submitted any more evidence um and do we have any challenges to our land supply thank you chairman thank you thank you chair um i think as i've informed council williams previously the the appeal state the original appeal statements on the schemes at sourston did touch on five year supply but without providing any evidence it's possible that new evidence may be submitted given the amount of time that's elapsed but i'm not aware that any has arrived so far and with regard to the other appeals again i'm not aware that any of those relate to a challenge against the five year land supply for the council thank you chair thank you so mr reed wanted to add to that since it's appeared on the screen thank you chair no nothing to add from uh to what mr carter said thank you okay thank you very much um i don't think i've got any further speakers of our vice chair no chair there's no further speakers okay so we've noted that and in that case that's the end of the meeting thank you very much everybody thank you for the public who have taken part today and thank you all who have been watching um if you're pleased to know members that our next appearance is almost imminent again friday the 19th of february we have an extraordinary meeting where we deal with the born uh airfield uh application just the single item so i will see you again on friday the 19th um i haven't met i say thank you everybody and good afternoon thank you chairman thank you chairman thank you chairman um before we close the meeting could i ask mr carter something uh you are still live uh vice chair uh would you like to be still live or should i close the stream no no no please close the stream okay thank you