 John, did it come on your screen saying admit Hazel Smith? Yes, Hazel is with us. Good morning, Hazel. I think it had some problem getting in. Yes, thank you. I followed the link that was sent later that just popped up. And that seemed to let me in straight away. OK. Thank you. All right, Liam, are we going live? Yeah, I can now confirm that we are, in fact, live. Sorry, Chairman. Thank you. Sorry, Anna. We are live now and I'm about to make a statement. I'd just like to point out there are members of the parish council who haven't yet been able to get into the meeting. We are aware of that, councillor, and I'm about to make a statement about it. If you would please turn off your microphone. Good morning. Good morning, everybody. Welcome to South Cams District Council Planning Committee. Unfortunately, we're experiencing some technical issues and being able to get some of our speakers online. So we're going to adjourn for a few minutes to try and rectify that. We will be back as soon as we can. So thank you for your forbearance. We should be back in the next few minutes. So thank you. We will close down for the moment now. OK, I confirm we are live. Thank you very much. Good morning, everybody. And the first thing to say is apologies for the very late start. Unfortunately, we've been experiencing technical difficulties in getting everybody online this morning. So apologies for that. Committee members, before we proceed any further, I need to confirm with you all that you're happy to proceed with this meeting given that we are one hour late in starting. Agreed. Heather Williams, you wish to speak to that. Chairman, I'm happy to proceed, but I am a little uncomfortable. We don't take the original legal advice, but it must not just be committee members, but other speakers as well. I appreciate your concerns around the roll call. But I do think with the support of Democratic Services and the participants list, it is achievable. And I would feel more comfortable if that was what happened. Thank you, Chairman. Thank you. Committee, is this what you would like to happen? Yes, Chairman. I think it's imperative. All right, I will attempt to have a roll call. Chair. Sorry? Chair, Vice-Chair. Yes, go on. You have Sharon Brown, you'd like to speak. OK, Sharon Brown, please. Thank you, Chair. I just wanted to reassure members that I did check with Rory McKenna in 3C Legal Services about the appropriateness of proceeding with the meeting and he reminded me of what the Constitution says. So I'm just going to read that out for everyone's benefit, which is that if the chair is made aware that the meeting is not accessible to the public through remote means due to any technological or other failure of provision, then the chair shall adjourn the meeting immediately. If the provision of access through remote means cannot be restored within a reasonable period, then the remaining business will be considered to time and a date fixed by the chair. I discussed the hours delay with Rory and he considers that the hours adjournment of the committee fell within the definition of a reasonable period. So I just wanted to reassure everyone about that issue. Thank you, Chair. OK, and just for clarity then and the committee itself can make that decision. Sharon, I was just trying asking for clarity. So the committee can make that decision. That's correct. Good. Well, in the interest of actually getting on with some business, I'm going to restrict this to the members of the committee and we'll now ask if you're in favour. Chairman, I have a speak to clarification. Yes, please. Councillor Williams. Thank you. I just wanted to clarify what Sharon's just said because on that she referred to a German. Now you'll recall I raised that we haven't adjourned this meeting. It got postponed for an hour. We didn't actually open the meeting and adjourn it. So can I clarify that phrase that was used in the Constitution that was just started to a German, which we didn't do? Well, the meeting has only just started. Sharon Brown, could you just clarify that for us, please? That wording does refer to an adjournment, Chair, but I can ask Rory for further advice if that would be useful. I think that's important given the application, Chairman. I did think we had to adjourn it previously. So we will have to wait then until Sharon Brown is... I'm just going to contact Rory now. Thank you. Meanwhile, Chair, you have a request from Aaron Clark. From whom, say? From Aaron. Oh, is he with us? Good morning, Aaron. Apologies. I've just popped into this meeting from Grant's. I think it's good to get the clarification from Rory regarding that statement, but Catherine and I drafted that particular part of the Constitution and the adjournment was supposed to mean any technical issues that had led to a delay in the meeting. So it shouldn't matter that the meeting had not started at that point. Right. Thank you very much for that, Aaron. No offence, but we'll wait for the advice. Yeah, no, absolutely best to wait for Rory. All right. Sorry, members of the public, for this further delay. I hope to be able to proceed for very much longer. With Councillor Bradman, mute, please. We're getting some background noise. Yes, Sharon Brown, please. Hello, I've spoken to Rory McKenna and he is happy that the meeting can proceed and that we are still within the remit of the Constitution, Chair. Given the agreement of the committee, presumably. Yes, that is correct. OK, Councillor Williams, are you happy with that? I am, Chairman, about that area, but I'm still not sure. Are we asking, as was the original legal advice from Mr. Reed, are we asking all public speakers if they are happy or not? Can we have... Oh, now we're proceeding from him. The question was asked, can we proceed as the committee making that decision? Can we have legal advice from Mr. Reed? Yeah, advice will proceed. That's against his advice, Chairman. We have not received public advice to that effect. The public advice we've received is clear that the committee can make this decision. I will now proceed with that. So, members, I'm just going to check that you are happy that we proceed with the meeting now that it's an hour and 10 minutes late. I'm happy that we proceed, Chairman. I'm not... So, I'm against that. I'm against, I think it's open to challenge. Right. Against if we're not asking the public speakers. Fine, so, Councillor Williams, Councillor Roberts, against anybody else? I think we have to do a roll call, Chairman. OK, a lot of background noise. So, I've got two objections to that. Is there any further objections? I would object as well, Chairman, Councillor Wright. And that is Councillor Wright. OK, I've got three objections. I see... Chairman, should we not be doing a roll call? No, others. Yes, we can have a roll call, certainly. I don't think there's going to be any difference. Yeah, Councillor Hawkins, stop for Hawkins, I think. I have another further debate on this. We are now into a roll call, and I will make that roll call now. The question is that we are agreeing that we can proceed with this meeting, given this, and now and now, and 11 minutes late. So, can I have Councillor Anna Bradnum, please? I agree we can proceed. Thank you, Councillor Khan, please. I agree that we can proceed. Thank you, Councillor Peter Thane, please. Happy to proceed. Thank you, Councillor Dr Hawkins, please. Happy to proceed. Thank you, Councillor Pippa Halings, please. Yes, we can proceed. Thank you, Councillor Ripeth. Yes, happy to proceed. Thank you, Councillor Roberts. I go to Chairman. Thank you, Councillor Heather Williams. Against on the grounds that it goes against the League of Vice-Chairmen. Councillor Richard Williams. I'm going to stay in chair. If the public reasonably participate, then it's fine to go ahead, but I'm going to stay. Thank you, and Councillor Wright. Against, Chairman. I'll make that three against, one abstention, so that makes that seven in favour, so that that is agreed that we can proceed. Right, thank you very much for that. So, I will now get on with the meeting. And give the introduction. So, good morning, everybody, and welcome to this live streaming of this extraordinary meeting of the South Cambridge District Council Planning Committee. It's convened to consider an application relating to a new town at Water Beach. Members will recall that planning permission for the other part of the new town was granted to Urban and Civic in May 2019. My name is John Bachelor, and I am chair of the committee. My vice-chair is Councillor Pippa Halings. Pippa Halings, confirmed with us, please. Thank you, Chair. Good morning, everyone. Thank you. We're supported along the virtual top table by the following officers, Sharon Brown, Assistant Director Delivery. Could you make yourself known, please, Sharon? Good morning, everyone. Thank you. Chris Carter, Delivery Manager of Strategic Sites. Good morning, everybody. Thank you. Mike Huntingdon, the Principal Planning Officer of Strategic Sites. He will be taking us through the report shortly. Mike. Good morning, everybody. Thank you. Steven Reed, Senior Planning Lawyer. Mr. Reed. Good morning, Chair, Vice-Chair and Members of the Committee and the public. Thank you very much. And Ian Senior, whose Democratic Services Officer we'll be taking in the minutes today. Good morning. Thank you, Ian. We also have present several people to help members understand this application but let officers introduce them as and when required. These are the expert witnesses. First, just a few housekeeping announcements. Please make sure that your device is fully charged and switch your cameras and microphones off unless you're invited to do 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 immediately and your camera. Please speak slowly and clearly. Please do not talk over or interrupt anyone. Please ensure that you have switched off or silenced any other devices you have so they do not interrupt proceedings. The normal procedure at Planning Committee is to take recorded votes and we will continue with this tradition 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 your camera off and your microphone off after your introduction. My name is Councillor John Batchner, chair of the committee and chair of the members for Linsen. Councillor Bradman, please. Councillor Bradman, would you introduce yourself, please? Is Councillor Bradman with us? Just check in the list and make sure she is with us. No, I think she's dropped out for the moment. Right. Excuse me for a moment. I just need to check with the officers if we can do something about getting Councillor Bradman back online. Liam. Are you there, Liam? I am indeed, yeah. Could you check what's going on with Councillor Bradman, please? I can do my best, yeah. Thank you very much. In the meantime, we'll continue with the roll call. Councillor Carn, please. Hello, Councillor Martin Carn, one of the members for Histant in Pington and Orchard Park. Thank you very much. Councillor Peter Fane. Peter Fane, Shelford Ward, present. Thank you very much. Councillor Dr Tummy Hawkins, please. Good morning, everyone. Tummy Hawkins, called the Cot Ward. Thank you. Thank you very much. Councillor Pippa Halings, please. Thank you, Chair. Councillor Pippa Halings, another of the representatives for Histant in Pington and Orchard Park. Thank you very much. Councillor Ripeth, please. Good morning, everyone. I'm one of the local members for Milton and Water Beach Board. Thank you very much. Councillor Debra Roberts, please. Good morning, Chairman. Good morning, everybody. Debra Roberts, District Councillor for the Poxton Ward. Thank you. Councillor Heather Williams, please. Heather Williams and I represent the Mordens Ward. Thank you. I'm back in, Pippa. Sorry, Chairman. Yes. Sorry, I can't celebrate them. Councillor Bradenham, I'm sorry, I wasn't... I understand that you dropped out. So would you just like to introduce yourself, please? Thank you. So Councillor Anna Bradenham, please. Thank you, Chairman. Sorry, after a brief moment's internet loss. Councillor Anna Bradenham, Member for Milton and Water Beach Board. Thank you very much. Thank you very much, Chair. I'm Richard Williams. I'm the Member for Whittlesford Treplo. He's fielding Newton. Thank you. And Councillor Nick Wright, please. Good morning, everyone. Councillor Nick Wright, Patworth and Caxton Ward. Thank you. So I can confirm that the meeting is quiet and everyone is present. 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. Unfortunately, technical issues are also part of that. If it is obvious that somebody has dropped out, I may well adjourn for a few minutes to try and get them back in so that they can vote. We have several public speakers today. Firstly, I'd apologise for the issues about you being able to connect with this meeting. Thank you for your perseverance. I would just like to explain how public speaking will work. This meeting is being broadcast live by the councillor's website and public speakers are reminded that by participating in this meeting, you are consenting to being broadcast and to the use of images and sound recordings for webcasts 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 on the microphone 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. So please be concise in your responses. If there are no more questions, you may leave the meeting and continue to watch via the webcast. Committee members, you are reminded that any questions the 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 a question, please ask to speak in the chat function. 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 comments from public speakers made outside of their allotted time. Therefore, we request that those registered do not interrupt outside of their time. Once the committee is 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 a majority vote and in the event of a time, I as chair have casting votes. 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 that they should indicate whether they are for, against, or abstain when their name is called. So that's the introduction. We now move to item two, apologies. Mr. Senior, do we have any apologies? No apologies at all chair. Thank you very much. Now on item three, declarations of interest. So members, do you have any declarations of interest? I suspect we may have one or two. Vice chair, do we have anybody asking for to speak? Yes, chair. Councillor Richard Williams and Councillor Anna Bradman. Thank you. Councillor Richard Williams, please. Thank you chair. I just want to note a non-pecuni interest. I see St. John's College is involved in this application. I have taught for St. John's College in the past. I don't currently, but I have in the past. Thank you very much for that. I'm sure that's noted. Councillor Anna Bradman, please. Sorry, just checking. I've got that on. Thank you chairman. So as local member for Water Beach, I've been involved with a number of the discussions throughout the development of Water Beach Newtown and have been involved in planning committee on previous occasions when related applications have been considered. But I come to this matter fresh. Thank you chairman. Thank you very much. Thank you Councillor Ripeth, please. Yes, also as local member for Milton and Water Beach Ward, I have had discussions, but I do come to this meeting fresh. Thank you very much. I can't see any further declarations of interest. So thank you for that and we'll move on then to the substantive part of our work today. That is item 4 which is on page 1. Before we start that I just want to just confirm that everyone has had their hard copy of the agenda. They should also have supplementary information and perimeter plans as well as a number of additional comments, particularly from Water Beach Parish Council via electric emails. The additional comments will be dealt with by the case officer when it comes to that time. Thank you very much. So we're now on Water Beach. This is application number s-2075 s-18 o-l So the Parish is Water Beach and the proposal is an outline planning application with all matters reserved development of up to 4,500 dwellings, business retail, community, leisure and sports uses new primary and secondary schools and six form centre. Public open spaces including parks and the ecological areas points of access associated drainage and other infrastructure groundwork landscape and highways. The address site is that land adjacent to Water Beach barracks and air filled site Water Beach Cambridge. The applicant is Mr Chris Goldsmith on behalf of RLW Estates Limited. The recommendation is for approval subject to 106 agreement and conditioning. The presenting officer is Mike Huntington, principal planner is coming to this committee because it's a large scale development of strategic importance. If we please have the presentation in a moment from Mr Huntington but before that we are just members we're going to adopt a slightly different procedure since this is quite a complex application in that the officer will give his presentation but at this stage I would ask that we do not have points of clarification because when we come to debate the overall plan we will do that on the basis of subjects by subject which will give you the opportunity then if you require clarification to pursue that at that stage. Having said that if I could ask Mike Huntington to give his presentation please. There was one you see there was one question for clarification on the recommendation rather than on the officer's presentation can you take that? Yes please. Thank you chairman I just wanted to clarify you said that it was approval subject to section 106 in your open remarks I got an agenda supplement quite late yesterday that said it was going to be delegated approval so I just would like to clarify what the actual recommendation is please thank you chairman. It is the adjuster one thank you very much for pointing that out so it is a delegated approval. Thank you and that would be made clear when we come to that at the end of the meeting. Right thank you very much for that so could we have the officer's presentation please. Thank you chairman I'll just open up the PowerPoint presentation. Chairman sorry I did ask to speak chair I didn't want to interrupt Mr Huntingdon's presentation may I ask a question? Yes please. Thank you chairman I just wanted to would you be so kind as to tell us what the subject headings are that you are planning just if you could give us a list of them because then people can be thinking in terms of how they want to organise their questioning. I'm sure Mr Huntingdon has that already in hand thank you. If you could do that please Mr Huntingdon so that members can make their lists. At this particular moment in time chairman or after the presentation. Well if we just say what category is how are we going to present this? The presentation will one of the issues in the presentation that will arise the topics that officers have considered are of importance although we understand that members will be discussing a broad range of issues when I get to that page would that be okay that I just when I get to that page I'll explain that to you to members. Well I mean in our pre briefing you do let me just put my camera on in the pre briefing you did outline the broad areas that we're going to look at. I do have a list here so if I could just confirm with you that there's still the case. What I have is the transport issues drainage issues sewage as a separate entity landscape and 106 as applied to transport and affordable affordability. And one more thing which was amenity of existing residents amenity of existing residents amenity so they're the sort of categories that we will eventually debate this. They're the topics. Thank you chair that's very helpful you can at least organise our thoughts. Thank you very much. Okay. Thank you chairman. Right and so this item relates to the eastern half of the allocated site known as Water Beach Newtown the outline planning application for the eastern half of the site is being considered. The western half was considered and approved subject to 106 and planning conditions at the planning committee back in May 2019. Development on that western site has already come. Members will have received a planning pack which contains a three drawings of the parameter plan submitted in support of the application. I'm aware that three of the parameter plans did not print properly and these have been emailed directly to members by democratic services. What I'll do is I'll pause every time I turn a page just to make sure that everybody catches up with everybody because I know some people may have a slower the slower email connection. Right. The application site is situated to the north of the village of Water Beach and is located entirely within the parish of Water Beach. Members will be familiar with the site context from technical briefings held in 2019 and 2020 and also when approving the adjacent urban and civic application in 2019. To the immediate west is the urban civic site on the former barracks and to the northwest is located Denny Abbey. I'm just going to get the point of all actually I should have done that before. Laser pointer. Everyone see the laser pointer? Yes. Great. To the immediate west is the urban civic site which is here. To the northwest is Denny Abbey which is in there and farm lined is located to the north of the site alongside a number of smaller dwellings there, a very small number of cottages here and the left farmhouse here. Sorry. I'm going to miss moving. Sorry about this. The eastern boundary of the site is formed by the Cambridge to Kingsley and Railway Line and Bannel Drow, Bridal Way open to all traffic and see the centre of the site. I'll just highlight Bannel Drow. So there's the railway line running along the boundary on there and this is Bannel Drow, Bridal Way open to all traffic which comes all the way up to there and then takes a sharp right down there. It's gone through the what the planning application consists of but for the benefit of everybody that's the application underpinned by four parameter plans and a site plan submitted for approval. This plan shows the RLW site in context with the adjacent urban civic site shown in a white outline. The key characteristic of the majority of this site is that it is open and flat with occasional trees and hedgerows crossed by drainage ditches. It's almost entirely a greenfield site. There is an existing building associated with farming activities close to the western site boundary called the New Building. Bannel Drow public right of way crosses the site in north to south direction. Cross Drow finishes that off and then continues as a footpath towards Chittering. I'll point to all these in a moment after I've read my script. Water Beach Water recycling centre is located in the southern part of the site. These photographs are of Bannel Drow and this is the New Building. So I'll just show the New Building is just located in that corner. Can everyone just see that corner? That's where the New Building is. That's where the sewage works is and as I pointed out before that's the that's the bridal way. Obviously this bridal way, this photograph was taken when it was a bit drier and that was in the height of summer. This is an extract from the SPD. So the principle of development of the site is established. The site is identified for development in the local plan which was adopted in 2018. The development of the site is also endorsed by supplementary planning guidance which was adopted in 2019. The SPD provides site specific planning guidance on the detail on the implementation of the local plan policies. The SPD is a material consideration in the assessment of these applications. This plan is of the spatial framework diagram approved as part of the SPD. It covers both this application and the adjacent urban civic site. A particular note is the relocated station and the accompanying station quarter which is identified as number two on the plan as well as the banal drove local centre identified as number four on the plan. This is where the RLW secondary school is proposed. That's where the station quarter number two the banal quarter number four and that's the secondary school and one of the primary schools underpinning that area. The four parameter plans that accompany the application fix the key principles of the development. They are the movement access and movement parameter plan green infrastructure parameter plan the land use parameter plan and the density and building height parameter plan. The movement and access parameter plan is based on the principles including the creation of walkable neighbourhoods interconnected streets on spaces and the provision of direct and convenient routes for pedestrians and cyclists. The existing public right of way will be retained as an important part of the new town and the proposed primary street is shown connecting to the adjacent urban civic site in two locations in accordance with the SPD. I'll show you those points in that area. I'll come on to this again later but that's one of the points and that's the other point and there's another access point a non-primary route. The primary route would go round go round there and then that way and then the back out that way. So with the access and movement plan that was the land use parameter plan and so the land use parameter plan showed also the secondary school primary school Fendland park, Fendsted parks and the sixth one centre down here and village centre village car park for the railway station and the other car park for the railway station. This parameter plan is access and movement plan so this is the yellow road which is the main road through the site and then the other lines show the principal networks for cyclists and other secondary roads. The building heights parameter plan identifies maximum heights across the site these range from up to two stories to six stories above ground level low heights will be located on the southern edge of the site adjacent to the existing built area of the village and along the northern boundary with the tallest buildings located on the railway station close to the town centre with one particular building for eight stories like the urban civic site. The green infrastructure parameter plan identifies the main areas of open space around the site and the links between them. There's the station park and there's green space here and then there's a green link through the panel drove and other strategic green infrastructure space here. The indicative master plan shown on the right shows one way that the development could follow some of the parameters in the plan but it's indicative only. Officers acknowledge that there are a broad range of issues that members may wish to discuss on this application but officers will focus in this presentation on the key issues that are listed above. We have specialist colleagues with us to assist in answering any questions and I will introduce them as they are needed. The seven key issues that we consider are number one, section one six transport affordable housing, viability number two, the railway station delivery. Three, the connection to the urban civic site for protecting the means of existing residents. Five, the furniture character. Six, fire water infrastructure and seven surface water and flood management. Moving on to all of those in turn the section six transport affordable housing, viability the applicant has undertaken a financial viability assessment and FBA as the MPPF in the local plan allows. Their conclusion is that delivering a policy compliant 40% affordable housing alongside other planning obligation would make the scheme unviable to develop. Gerald Eve have undertaken an assessment of the applicants FBA on behalf of South Cams district council that advice is in appendix M section one of six negotiations have judged that the 30% affordable housing with the same 10 mix as urban civic is a reasonable approach to take. The 45 million pound request from the county council cannot be met but officers have discussed flexible approaches to try to get towards that figure. A 15 to 17 million pound figure in the developers cost plan to build a 1000 space park and ride is proposed to be rolled into a fully flexible transport enhancement fund as it is considered that it is unlikely that this park and ride facility will be needed. Our review mechanism is proposed that will put any surplus generated by any financial review towards the strategic transport enhancement fund rather than towards affordable housing additional affordable housing this will complement the urban civic approach where any surplus from any review on that development is proposed to go towards more affordable housing. There was discussion, members will recall there was discussion about the appropriate balance between transport and affordable housing at the urban civic committee meeting in May 2019. Moving on to the next point about the railway station delivery just to remind members with the SPD plan the railway station is key to the new town for both place making and transport infrastructure. It links the town centre it links to the town centre and to the rest of the urban and civic development and to the village revisiting the SPD plan here shows how the station fits into the rest of the new town and the village and how it connects to the urban and civic site just get my point to so there's the main route the principal route from the station through the town centre and out towards the A10 anticipated that this this route will be a busier route than this route The railway station has planning permission but there is not yet an agreed scheme for its implementation David Allott from the county council's transport team will be able to give further advice on this issue. This is an extract from the design and access statement it shows indicatively the connections between the town centre and the station and how it will separate motor vehicles from the more direct parkland cycle and pedestrian route you will see from the route this is the village route to the village car park and this is the the new town route to the car park as well separated from a car a car free route through here an indicative idea this is an extract from the indicative master plan identifying the highest density area adjacent to the station on the station quarter green link to the town centre which will then lead out into the A10 the area where the highest density area will be around the railway station that's the railway station proposed railway station platforms and that's the public space in front of the station let's say car parking down here car parking up here away from this area this is a point about the connection to the urban civic site so what the parameter plan say this is where this is one of the parameter plans for the lw site and the urban civic parameter plan has an arrow this is an extract from the urban civic parameter plan which shows an arrow here and then a flexible location where the two sites join obviously the two sites will have to join the final alignment will be approved as part of an agreed phase through the use of design codes for that phase and through discussions at the project delivery and transport delivery project group meetings these groups have been set up as part of the section on 6 for the adjacent urban civic scheme and will be replicated on this scheme the purpose of those delivery group and project group meetings is to ensure the two developers are required to discuss issues in relation to joint working this has been reinforced these particular connection points have been reinforced by proposed planning conditions protecting the means of existing residents one of the main concerns that has been expressed by members of the public and the parish council has been in relation to construction traffic and the potential in fact effect that this may have on their immunity the developer suggested in its transport assessment that construction traffic for some early phases of the site could be taken through the village and down Cody Road it's considered that notwithstanding any issues in relation to the transport assessment planning judgment would say that the new town should be built out then and that no construction access should be permitted through the village a condition requiring a construction management plan has been proposed and this will be required to show where construction traffic will go next point reflecting the fennedge character there are two types of landscape character area definitions shown on this map the site is shown in red the county council landscape character is two character areas are separated by the black dash line the western clay lands and the fen lands the western clay lands the difference between the two landscape character areas is split broadly, roughly through the middle of the site South Kenshi district council has a different category and they describe the area highlighted in green as fennedge character the key characteristics of the fennedge landscape character area are as follows a low lying flat open landscape with extensive vistas large skies that create drama a hierarchy of streams loads drains and ditches dissecting the landscape rich and varied intensive agricultural land use including a wide range of arable and horticultural crops and livestock orchards are a distinctive feature and slightly elevated fen islands have a higher proportion of grasslands covered trees and hedgerows small scale irregular medieval field patterns are still visible around the edges of settlements church towers and spires create landmarks the site boundary has been overlaid onto the base map and the base map shows very clearly the network of field drains that define this type of landscape you can see them all around fairly straight of random directions this is an image of the proposed fenland parks to the north of the site and I will show you the location of this proposed view on the next page that view is approximately here looking north into the northern parks on this indicative master plan so this drawing shows the fenland parks in indicative master plan the large area of open space proposed to the north of the development area this forms part of a much larger landscape resource protecting the setting of denny abbey and we are playing an important part in contributing to the objectives of the wider Cambridge green infrastructure strategy the parks will be located away from the built areas of the town offering quieter space with more rolling character Joist fen is that area sort of a pointer there you go this is part of joist fen which will be defined by permanently wet ponds shallow lakes and channels with habitat and extensive rebeds pedestrian access will be limited to part of this park to avoid disturbance of that habitat the plan also shows some of the allotments and also the location of the secondary school and the bundle road local centre the bundle draw will be retained for access for vehicles particularly IDB maintenance vehicles the layout alignments and cross section of bundle draw will vary along its length to perform its multiple functions as well as allow retaining existing features and qualities to be retained these indicative cross sections give an indication of the intended scale of the route and you will note the shallowness of the banks and the width of the drain so the drain is part of the search water drainage scheme the capacity of the drains will be widened to give more capacity these images show how the illustrative master plan responds to the fenage landscape with its strong linear elements this has taken off elements from the indicative master plan showing the green roots, the green connections and the drainage ditches and how they fit into the fen landscape, obviously there's going to be buildings here that's obviously going to change the fen landscape but the character of the fen landscape will be retained through the use of ditches and linear features again these images also show how the illustrative master plan responds to the fenage landscape with the plan on the right of the picture describing where the highest buildings will be located around the station quarter so that is the high area moving on to foul water infrastructure there will no longer be a relocated water beach waste water recycling centre foul water will now be treated at either Milton Road Works or a new location to be announced Anglin water are obligated to accept the foul water from any development with the benefit of planning consent or therefore take the necessary steps to ensure that there is sufficient treatment capacity should the local planning authority grant planning permission for the development I understand but I haven't checked on the website that Anglin water have published their report or were about to publish their report on the relocated Milton Road Works around about now so it would be interesting to know if anyone else has any information on that surface water drainage and flooding there are two parts to this surface water drainage proposals and how to deal with the scenario where the river can breaches its bank there are no statutory objections to either the surface water drainage scheme or the breach flooding scenario from the river can surface water drainage is how to deal with the rainwater and the breach scenario is a situation where the river bank collapses so surface water drainage surface water drainage scheme is based on existing fennage drains collecting into a panel drain and mostly flowing northwards existing drains will be widened new drains will be created and drain and ditch sides will be shallower most of the surface water will flow north some surface water will flow south the catchment is identified with a green dotted line that's the green dotted line that shows where the catchment is although the catchment is very very marginal because the ground is flat almost flat there's this little concrete that used to be the catchment where the sewage works outflow used to come out to and then it used to go both that way and that way runoff will be controlled at an agreed rate of one litre per second per hectare the design will follow the suds hierarchy the new choice to fend to the north east of the site will be formed to also create ecological habitats as well several planning conditions are proposed to address surface water drainage including requirements for design details and management responsibilities in terms of flood risk the site lies for the large part within the lowest defined flood risk area flood zone 1 with a low with a low probability of less than one in a thousand annual risk of flooding a small area around the proposed relocated railway station is in a higher flood risk zone flood zone 2 medium probability between one in 100 and one in 1000 annual risk areas of the site that are not proposed for development are within flood zone 3 which are these are my pointers here up here the developer has modelled a theoretical breach event in its flood risk assessment in its model they have defined a breach event in a location along the river come close to this site as the removal of a 40 metre length of embankment at a defined point along the river in such an event the bank would be reduced to the ground level of the flood plain this is a separate event from a fluvial flood event as the significant breach to the bank could allow a large volume of water to be concentrated in one location within the flood plain this would result in some land flooding that would not have occurred if there was no flood defence at all along that stretch of river in such a theoretical event the part of the site east of the drove would be affected by flood water if there was no mitigation the developer then has to mitigate that potential impact on the plan this shows where the developer has proposed a bond around part of the site up to 0.9 metres high with a land level around the station to be raised slightly this takes into account 60 to 65% climate change allowance the delivery of this mitigation would be phased as the developer progresses the bond is shown as blue in the plant and the ground raising area will be here this area will be raised by approximately 0.65 metres there has been an objection to the proposal from a land owner to the south of the site this objection is based on the impact of this theoretical breach event this model suggested that the object his land to the south would be adversely affected by the mitigation proposed by the applicant with water levels rising on their land and therefore not in accordance with the MPPF and the local plan under this model and to be clear any proposed mitigation must not increase the risk of flooding to others this will mean that detailed work will need to be undertaken by the developer at the appropriate time to ensure that any proposed mitigation does indeed do this this mitigation will be implemented in phases over the lifetime of the development and that technical detail process will be undertaken at the next stage and this will be secured by planning condition this is accepted by the environment agency a management agreement to maintain these mitigation measures and any associated details over their lifetime will be secured in the section of six with the environment agency input into the precise wording of the relevant clause the two drawings on the left hand side just go just demonstrate indicative conveyance swale details and ditch details and again just to demonstrate the angle the angle of the ditch sides to be one in three current ditches in the farmers fields one in one they're usually vertical ditch edge turn to the planning balance planning legislation requires planning decisions to be taken in accordance with the development plan less material considerations to indicate otherwise government planning policy on the presumption in favour of sustainable development has also been taken into consideration in the assessment of this application overall the application will bring significant economic, social and environmental public benefits which are called the three dimensions of sustainable development set out in the MPPF and the balance of these benefits and the circumstance of the application are considered to be in favour of granting planning permission recommendation is set out in the committee report on the amendment sheet and I just want to say one thing before I finish Chairman what I didn't do at the very beginning of the meeting was as well as the amendment sheet I wanted to make members aware of the amendment sheet that they all received yesterday to focus particularly on the county council comments the further consultation responses that they made on the 13th of January and secondly additional comments that I received yesterday one comment from Network Rail which was received on the 28th and if I could just read out a precy of their comments if that's okay no objection fully support the proposed railway station subject to it going through Network Rail's design, consents and industry standard the impact on the existing station and level crossing is mitigated by condition 15 which I'm sure we'll talk about later comments on level crossings in the vicinity Network Rail's policy aim is to reduce the risk, reduce the number and type and ensure that they are fit for purpose there are four level crossings close to the site with the two most directly relevant being the crossings at Botticham Road and Cross Drill although the rail there's a Fison's accommodation and ballast occupation the crossings will see increased pedestrian movement of the railway and long-term measures to improve these Network Rail would welcome further discussions with GCP and county council to explore planning mechanisms there are also standard asset informatives proposed in relation to issues such as fencing alongside the railway line proximity to overhead lines drainage issues and relevant tree species alongside the railway line and the applicant will be required to contact the asset protection team at the appropriate time Clermont Planning wrote in yesterday we discussed their issue today in relation to impact of flood mitigation and this issue has already been raised by this object and he's addressed in the report there was one other email received yesterday raising similar issues the same issues that other others have raised that are in the amendment sheet and addressed in the amendment sheet thank you chairman I'll just close this down and go all right thank you very much so as I said at the beginning we're not going to have clarification members at this stage we will go through in detail subject by subject when it comes to the debate that's before we do that could I just check with Sharon Brown please my understanding that the new site for the sewage works has been announced could you confirm that please yes I can confirm that Chair Anglin Water confirmed that their preferred site was site 3 out of the 3 sites that they were proposing and that's the site north of the A14 between Fendit and Horningsea thank you chair thank you very much quite as I say I don't want to take members at this stage I would like to actually get on with the public speaking so moving to public speakers the first thing to say is that I have exercised chairman's discretion in allowing more objectors to speak than is usual this is one because at the previous presentation for the other half of the Water Beach site we did allow extra objectors so there's some continuity in that and in the there's obviously very high public interest in this whole issue and given that the office of recommendation is for approval and giving as much opportunities as possible to those who wish to make contrary comments now I have four people down for objectors I will call you in the in this order it will be Barbara Bull Catherine Els Nigel Seamarks and Jane Williams so if Barbara Bull is with us could you turn on your microphone please excellent fine welcome before you start can I just be clear you are you represent yourself basically you are not here as a representative of your organisation no as a resident of Water Beach fine that's fine you know the system you've got your three minutes I'm not going to be at Canbourne but not on this before to you as you've seen we're all struggling with this but we do our best so you have the three minutes and then members may want wish to ask you questions so when you're ready my name is Barbara Bull and I'm objecting to the RLW planning application there was potential flooding on Christmas Day the 25th of December 2020 the environment agency advised residents living on the eastern side of the railway lines be prepared to evacuate because the river can was in flood and stating that there was a potential or a breach of the river can of bodys and lots Water Beach significant water leaking through the bottom of the river bank and forming a stream which was running across the car park and eventually going into the drainage ditch if the river bank had breached then lives may have been lost and as far as I know the environment agency has no intention of shoring up this part of the river bank this is an accident waiting to happen on behalf of the residents of Water Beach I therefore am asking for full report on how safe lots and from the addition to be attached that no building works will commence until both the bank has been reinforced and the conditions signed off there needs to be an in-depth up-to-date report of the state of this particular part of the bank the last report carried out by the environment agency doesn't satisfy my worries over this as of Thursday this week there was still a flood alert in force I sometimes wonder if the developers have ever wondered why our village is called Water Beach of concern to the residents of Water Beach of course is the worry that all the proposed flood defence is recommended by RLW to defend their development could potentially cause a knock on effect flooding parts of our existing village there must be a condition in place to guarantee our village is not flooded to protect the RLW development and also as far as I'm aware the IDB still have many concerns about the surrounding area secondly we have a severe lack of open space this leads on to the severe lack of open space both in our existing village and the new town the current public footpaths particularly on both sides of the river can from clay high bridge through rottish and lots and towards up where are so heavily used they've become the equivalent of very muddy fields this is partly due to the already increased population in Water Beach and the new recent developments RLW would refer to this as recreational pressure the suggestions put forward by them to effectively create new paths to steer people away from the existing footpaths is unbelievable people enjoy walking by rivers and water not being herded into man-made paths to compensate for steering them away from the river can RLW also state they don't think residents of the new town have to visit for example Wiccan Fen I quote it is therefore highly likely that most new residents in the development will predominantly use onsite facilities on a regular basis rather than relying on Wiccan Fen so not much point in being a member of the National Trust here I understand the recommendation is for approval for this planning application but hope that all our concerns and worries are addressed and met to safeguard our lovely village thank you good thank you members do you have any points of clarification for Barbara Ball sorry non-chair non-chair thank you Barbara then thank you if I could call Catherine else please good afternoon German and committee members thank you good afternoon can you just explain who you are representing please I am representing southern and regional developments and Londoners at Water Beach I would like to raise concerns today which I have made in detailed statements to the planning authority that relate directly to the flood mitigation strategy that is proposed for this phase as a result of the increased housing capacity of this phase restricted opportunity to mitigate flood waters within the site this has led to a flood barrier to deflect flood waters away from the new homes proposed this will directly result in the increased risk and depth of flooding of adjacent lands and existing properties at Water Beach national planning policy as advised by your planning officer earlier restricts developments that cause flooding and increase risk of flooding outside of application sites this is also reflected in the council's own policies and in the Water Beach supplementary document this proposal currently contradicts this completely therefore the flood barrier strategy proposed fails planning policy and presents an increased risk of flooding to existing homes and land at Water Beach the highest impact will be during a breach scenario and as local residents have pointed out already this can be commonplace and there is a risk this will become even more commonplace with climate change and this risk appears to have been disregarded it is demonstrated through the environment agency responses to this application that a suitable detailed scheme for mitigating flooding has not yet been submitted and instead the proposal today is for the committee to decide this application without the necessary information this demonstrates that at the point of determination by this committee there is insufficient information I would ask that if the committee does decide to follow the officer recommendation for approval it is recommended that condition 42 in the committee papers be revised by inserting the text that the scheme shall ensure that flood risk is not increased elsewhere i.e. beyond the site and that this is reflected in detailed reserve matters but that this scheme of flood mitigation is also determined before reserve matters are considered and this should also be a wide strategy failure to add this wording is recognition of the increased risk that the development poses to existing homes your consideration of this approach to conditioning such important matters is requested with the Chief Executive of the Environment Agency currently reviewing this case and possibly calling this proposal in we do not object to development and further grave at Water Beach necessary details and information have to be there thank you very much all right thank you any questions on clarification members do we have any? No chair okay thank you very much so thank you sorry we do have two requests now all right yeah councillor Anna Bradman councillor Doctor Toomey Hawkins thank you councillor Bradman please thank you Chairman yes I wanted to ask Miss Elves I hear what she says and I'm very concerned having been actually at the Bottleship Locks on most of Christmas Day when it flooded or when it was looking as if it might reach its banks I wanted to ask whether Miss Elves has seen the response given by the planning officer to the concerns raised by the landowner to the south because I understood that response to mean that the mitigation provided for flooding did not actually increase the risk of flood elsewhere beyond what it would have always experienced anyway in a condition of flood I'm sorry I can't find the place in the report at the moment right thank you Catherine Elves would you like to respond to that please thank you very much and thank you for the opportunity to address these points the very fact that built form is going to be developed through this phase and that the bonds are going to be erected to displace those waters at the outset we have questioned the authority to do this and we haven't seen any revised information submitted by the applicants and agreed by the environment agency that confirms that the proposal will not reduce the risk of flooding to surrounding lands now at the outset this was clearly set out in the information presented for consideration and following my initial objection additional information was submitted by the applicant but this did not admit to the fact that the risk of flooding wouldn't occur or that the increased risk of flooding wouldn't occur it will only happen in a breach scenario and that this doesn't relate to flood risk that's untrue all flood risk is flood risk and the policy applies to all flood risk approaches even in the event of a breach chairman come back on that please yes thank you chairman I just wanted to draw your attention to paragraphs 824 to 826 on page 120 of the report and it does say the environment agency have commented in detail on the design in additional areas for flood mitigation being needed by the applicant which could reduce the area of development I wonder if that had been taken on board but later on the environment agency say that they talk about a strategy and say this would manage any potential flood water from a residual risk from a breach scenario and would be required to not increase flood risk to others in accordance with the NPPF can I just clarify the condition that you're asking us to strengthen would simply require that that condition was usable and practical before anything else went forward am I right in understanding you yes that is completely correct thank you very much for that I think I've got another speaker and let's councillor Paul Keynes please thank you very much chair just to clarify really I mean Ms Els mentioned that the environmental agency or the environment agency still had concerns but I just wanted to find out which of their correspondence she is referring to because I'm looking at one that was 19th of January 2021 and I think it's their latest which outlines which doesn't say they have those concerns but actually also recommends the condition that has just been read out so I just wanted if you were referring to that or something before that thank you councillor what you will notice from the environment agency correspondence is the one you refer to and the one prior to that as well is that through discussions with the applicants and the council officers I believe they've come to an understanding of how the permission could be issued with suitable conditions and that eventually they would come to a scheme design that would be able to mitigate the flooding effectively so that it doesn't impact upon land outside of the redline sites the evidence in those letters does say is that there isn't a scheme presented to you at this moment in time that satisfies that and that is our concern okay that clarifies that thank you very much but this is an outline application I would agree that it's an outline application but this poses a principal policy matter so in relation to transport assessment you wouldn't accept something that would really have major implications on a junction that you didn't know could be mitigated this is the same policy approach to flooding okay thank you thank you for that I'm sure we'll be returning to that I haven't got any more questions so carefully else thank you very much for your time just to advise everybody I've got two more speakers as objectors I will then call the applicant's representative Mr Goldsmith be followed by the parish council Kate Grant then I will call the county councillor councillor one of the spoon and lastly the local councillors will have their say so if I could call the next person I would ask councillor I will see her notes in the speak she did request a clarification just after we'd heard from councillor Dr Toomey Hawkins and yourselves I'm not sure if Catherine is still with us still here German thank you chair councillor Bradman if you'd be quick please yes I will thank you we're having to cope with the technology as well so I just wanted to clarify at paragraphs 829 to 831 the environment agency clarify that the inspection of the flood bank is up to date and is deemed to be in good order and in fair condition and it refers back to the fact that its condition was confirmed as equating to the last full survey referenced in the flood risk assessment as at 2002 in other words they were saying it was as good then it is as good now as it was then and I just wondered whether you had taken that on board and seen that element because I think you queried the condition sorry perhaps it wasn't you but somebody queried the condition of the river bank I mean obviously this application is for half of Water Beach in a few towns and the lifetime of the development has to be taken into account as well as the implications of climate change so the condition of the bank at this moment in time isn't something that we are necessarily detailed upon it's more upon the lifetime effects of the developments and the increasing risk of flood risk as a result of high levels of rain and the implications that breach is no matter what condition the bank is in are likely to happen more often thank you very much thank you chair thank you for that would you turn off your camera please thank you very much can I call Nigel Seemarks please Mr Seemarks with us today good morning chair good morning sorry about the technical issues I was very anxious about that today Mr Chairman because I was asked to join at 10 o'clock and I had absolutely no idea what was going on until I was on the verge of a meltdown at 5 to 11 to actually to understand what was happening because democratic services never contacted me and when I phoned the telephone number again for democratic services the young lady had never heard of democratic services and suggested that I emailed and they'd reply again in two days so I am very anxious at the moment that I'm raring to go when you're ready all right well I apologize as I say my apologies again for the problem before I start I just wanted to outline that I was speaking on behalf of myself and my daughter who's a young disabled person who so we've pulled our comments together so not to make you have six minutes all right thanks very much then so when you're ready okay so councillors I'd like to take you back to the water beach incinerator appeal where Robert Generick highlighted the anxiety was a material consideration in planning and like the majority of residents of water beach I really don't believe that policy that requires new developments to have a positive impact on health and well being of current residents is being considered and I'm going to take you through a few examples the first one is affordability and housing my daughter as I said is a young disabled person and whilst the honorable people here believe transport is more important than housing for young people and low paid people housing is the most important aspect of life and it's in Maslow's triangle we've all been to school and we understand it is correct so I beg you today on behalf of all the young people that don't accept 30% of affordable housing and you must stick out for 40% it doesn't matter what others have done in the past it's what we do today and what we do now my daughter was employed as a care worker on 9 pound an hour doing jobs that you can never understand or believe and I beg you to support these young people 527 the railway relocation I'd like to point out to the honorable people here today that National Rail have not had a discussion with RLW since 2019 and the 2018 construction plan is a way out of date and National Rail have no idea what RLW are up to so please do consider it's not happening at this point in time the 810 is woeful the mitigation is woeful we are the recent news of the baby dying at Water Beach on the 810 is heartbreaking prior to that I've done a 48 hour survey and 211 respondents have said they want no no building to be done at all until they want no building down at all until the road improvements are done so please please and coming into 580 in the consultation processes everybody in the Baptist Church said that Cody Road cannot be used for any further construction you know again SC2 the Cams washes are important to our village we love walking to the Cams washes and as part of my paper to you today I've shown you the latest rubbish that's collected along the way to the SSI more people will be more rubbish and this is a protected area important area to Water Beach Denny Abbey the impact is massive we're now the two sites combined produces a massive impact on the outlook of the fenn landscape and we shouldn't underestimate the importance of Denny Abbey the views from the river bank it is a fennland landscape and we're removing agricultural land for playgrounds et cetera and I just really beg you today to actually consider the anxiety the people of current Water Beach it is so important you have SC2 and as I said at the beginning I really really really hope that you understand that our big concerns are transport we want nothing else on that A10 until the improvements are done the baby dying this week in the village is just dreadful and we need that affordable housing please don't think 30% is good today you can stick your sticks in the ground and say we want 40% or go for another developer who can deliver 40% just look after the young people please thank you very much Mr Seymour thank you members do you have any questions Mr Seymour no not so far so thank you very much for your time Mr Seymour and again the apologies for the difficulties earlier thank you could you turn your camera off please thank you and could I please have Jane Williams please there was a written submission yes yes I think Jane is going to present it yes before I start please councillor Baxter I'd just like to say that I'm speaking as a councillor a parish councillor and a resident and so I'm going to mention the neighbourhood plan and then I'm going to mention something on conditioning which can either be spoken on as a councillor or a resident so if you wouldn't mind so just hang on a minute Mrs Williams just to make sure that we have a official representative from the parish council so you actually have to be speaking as an individual but understand you're part of the neighbourhood plan group I'm a hybrid anyway thank you for letting me speak as well I do understand the complexity of this application before you I just wanted to bring you up to date with the neighbourhood plan because it has been brought through can you hear me everybody please note that the Warrant to Beach neighbourhood plan has been through regulation 14 pre-submission phase and all consultee comments have been addressed in a written report the plan has had a health check by a registered inspector and has been submitted to SACAMS for regulation 15 to conduct the submission consultation this will be conductors over the next 6 to 8 weeks and therefore the Warrant to Beach neighbourhood plan should be given significantly more weight we believe and has been intimated in the planning report the neighbourhood plan once made as you are probably aware is a legal document and also considered for material as a material planning consideration for any applications in the parish coming forward so moving on from this this is with regard to the application before you again and for future applications to the parish of Warrant to Beach I do stress to members and to chair and to the officers the importance of involving the parish councillor in finalising the conditions the current recommendation paragraph 1, 1, 1, 2 and 1, 1, 1, 3 is that planning permission be granted subject to planning conditions set out below including explanatory notes with the final wording of any amendment to these and to include others considered to be appropriate and necessary to be agreed in consultation with the chair and vice chair of planning committee prior to the issuing of planning permission I'd also like to add that bearing this in mind I would like to request as a resident that Warrant to Beach parish councillor involved in this and in the S1 and 6 agreement and in exercising any parish functions until the new town is established enough to have a parish councillor its own and I would urge members and officers when bringing this forward but also for your decision that you've come to today that you will take these considerations on board because our village, our community is very very precious to us and it is sort of really time but we as an existing community I think just had a little bit more consideration and say so I do appreciate the time that you've given me but the implications are huge and once that town is there it's there forever and I do thank you for your time Thank you very much indeed All right members would you like to ask Jane Williams any questions please Yes chair, councillor Bradenam All right thank you councillor Bradenam please Chair I think my request would be for clarification on the matter of the weight we can give to the neighbourhood plan I'm sure we will be dealing with that in the course of the debate I think Jane Williams has already made it quite clear that she feels that there should be substantial weight May I counter that though Yes please I understand from actually speaking previously on the 10 conditions for the urban and civic I do understand what the weight of the neighbourhood plan actually is but I just wanted to bring you up to date that it's actually with south camps to go to consultation pre-submission stage then to an inspector and then referendum and I just I don't how do I say this without sounding rude I really don't want to dismiss the five years of hard work that's been put into this that's been carefully considered thank you Chairman if I may I wasn't disputing that I just wanted clarification from maybe Sharon Brown to confirm that yeah we'll come to that when we come to debate okay sorry I lost the picture there okay the next speaker is representing the developer and that's Chris Goldsmith he's Mr Goldsmith with us I am chair thank you thank you just before we start I apologise to you as well about the confusion no worry these things happen can we just ask Jane thank you yeah so Mr Goldsmith when you're ready it's the three of you thank you good afternoon and thank you for the opportunity to speak to you about our proposals to create a vibrant high quality development for four and a half thousand homes at Water Beach since submission in 2018 and earlier through the plan making process we've been engaged collaboratively in discussions with the officers which I'm pleased to see has resulted in their positive recommendation to you a proposal seek to create a new settlement that will be seen as an exemplar for delivering homes and communities in a sustainable manner proposals that reduce dependencies on cars and give priority to pedestrians and cyclists that free up space for people to enjoy for children to play in an approach which will help in changing people's travel choices reducing the need for car based movements within the new town and the wider network an approach supplemented by working with the various transport authorities to deliver improvements such as enhanced cycle connections to Cambridge and the relocated train station recognise that for some the car is still necessary and for those we are pleased to commit to site-wide electric vehicle charging infrastructure between the cars of the future Working practices are also changing which is why we will enable five abroad bank connections to all premises and make the new town ready for the next generation of mobile technology Employment space will be creatively integrated across the development providing office and make a floor space when completed there will be over 5,000 jobs created 4,500 homes will come in a variety of tenures and sizes ensuring a balanced and mixed community at least 30% will be affordable the same is approved by committee in the adjacent side extensive social infrastructure is also provided for schools, community facilities and 40 hectares of outdoor space this with other community and transport infrastructure involves investment by us of some 120 million pounds which at 27,000 pounds is higher than adjacent sites it is important that we create this new settlement in a manner similar to the local environment we're committed to a minimum biodiversity net gain of 10% and I'm pleased that we have agreed with the various drainage and flood authorities to approach the managing surface and other water issues including relative conditions we also recognize the importance of Denny Abbey which is by the Fendman's parks which will provide an outstanding open landscape resource which complements the setting and finally the development unlocks the already approved relocated railway station consent for the adjacent homes will enable this high quality public transport asset to come forward not only to surface development but the remainder of the new town our proposals will create a sustainable environment and new community enjoying a wide range of housing, tenures and types a place with pedestrians and cyclists and public transport users at its heart from day one a place which puts people first thank you for the opportunity of speaking to you, I and others from my project team are here to answer any questions that you may have right thank you very much Mr Goldsmith I think we do have some questions do we Yes we do councillor Dr Tommy Hawkins Doctor Hawkins please Thank you chair but I think councillor Roberts was before me Apologies councillor Roberts Thank you both very much thank you Thank you to me Yes it sounds like paradise doesn't it however you will have heard people talking about their concerns about the density and about the the affordable housing elements the local plan which is the thing that we should be working on made it quite clear that the the whole thing should have been 8,000 houses 8 to 9 more going towards a your plan in front of us makes it up to 11,000 who therefore can you claim that you can't do a 40% and I think you've actually just made reference to the previous planning approval that was given oh well they did 30% so is that the real reason because somebody else did 30 you now feel entitled to do the same If I can clarify that point chair that's not why we got to 30% I'm sure that others here will be able to clarify that went through the financial viability assessment process and that was the number which when taking into account all the other costs of the development and weighing it against the values that was the amount of affordable housing that our element of the site could sustain the support but it goes against our policy you about I'm sure we will come back to that I will chairman absolutely and councillor Hawkins please thank you chair my question really is to do with transport and the railway station that's supposed to be relocated since you've got planning permission for it can you just tell us where you're at with that and we can expect that to be available thank you chair I'm happy to do that yes as you know you made a decision on the planning permission and it was actually eventually granted about this time last year we have engaged proactively with the rail industry and with network rail in particular and have succeeded in an approval in principle from network rail to their grip stage 3B which is a fairly advanced stage of development and next stage is to move forward with the funding and then the procurement of the railway station that funding process is ongoing we have had extensive discussions with both DFT and the various other delivery agencies in the area we have produced at the end of last year updated again this week a business case for the railway station a business case which shows that the case is extraordinarily good for the railway station just to give you all I think these things aren't judged by benefit-to-cost ratios anymore the benefit-to-cost ratio is in excess of six times and therefore we are in active discussions with GCP and others to secure funding for this given the exceptional business case and we would hope on the basis of that to have delivery of the railway station by the end of 2023 Thank you for that so how much do you actually have towards 10%, 5%, 100% what? The financial ability appraisal didn't put any money in towards it but as you've heard from others that there were some elements related to the railway station such as the multi-storey car park and actually the eventual station building which was included within the amount and therefore those funds could be made available towards the delivery of the railway station and it's associated infrastructure Thank you Thank you very much Vice-chair we have some more speakers Yes chair so you have myself Councillor Anna Brodenham and Councillor Martin Kahn Okay Councillor Hayling please Thank you Mr. Goldsmith Building on the point I would just like to clarify that you would be willing to undertake in terms of a condition and agree to a condition that the railway relocation has to happen it must happen before any of the occupation it's all about the modal shift and we've all heard about the issues with the A10 and so it's as was approved by our community it's not no longer one of three possible strategic transport options it is the strategic transport option that all of this should be dependent upon and just to hear you confirm as well that I think I heard you just now in favour of ring fencing what was proposed to go towards sort of a large thousand car park capacity car park and that that goes again in terms of the modal shift towards the railway station costs thank you If chair I could just address those those two points in terms of the whether it is the first house occupation before railway station is delivered I think the devil may there may be some detail here which I'm happy to work through but the principle of the early delivery of the railway station is entirely supported by us and is supported by a transport assessment in terms of the ring fencing yes so to your question we've identified those monies which amount to about 17 million pounds within the financial viability assessment and that those monies if not required to be spent on a multi-step sort of deck car park to capture more traffic off the A10 that those could be applied elsewhere for transport improvements and we are supportive of that initiative thank you thank you very much councillor Bradlund please thank you chairman good afternoon Mr Goldsmith nice to speak to you again I just wanted to take you back to what you said at the beginning of your presentation and I will quote what you said houses will enable the relocated railway station to come forward and whereas of course as councillor Halings has asked I too feel very strongly that the railway station really must come forward before the first houses in order to set the behavioural pattern towards public transport but what I wanted to understand from your statement was are you actually saying that you need the money from that first new tranche of houses in order to even start the railway station chair if I may yes please sorry if I have been slightly misinterpreted out there as I have explained to councillor Halings that is a position in terms of the timing the fact is that I referred earlier to the business case for the relocation the railway station and obviously having a significant number of houses on its doorstep both on Water Beach Newtown East and Water Beach Newtown West is a key driver to that business and investment case and therefore my reference to the consent now to unlocking that is that it will unlock that investment and it is important I believe that we achieve a planning permission for this site to be able for the housing for the four and a half thousand to be able to unlock that investment in a key piece of railway of transport infrastructure Chairman may I just ask for the clarification thank you chair so you were saying which is the necessary bit to release the funding is it the station or the first four thousand or eight hundred houses it is the expectation the whole development I don't think it is just the bit which is Water Beach Newtown East of course as we know with the western site the development beyond the first phase of 1600 houses is restricted until public transport improvements come forward and I think it is the unlocking of a significant number of houses by bringing these houses forward will that be eight hundred on our site or four thousand five hundred on our site will enable and will unlock the investment in the railway station thank you thank you very much Councillor Cullen please I want to come back to the issue of affordable housing again and generally specialist types of housing you make a provision of 30% of which a large proportion are not rental mostly small proportion is rental there are specialist types of housing which don't actually form in the form of affordable housing within this thing there is certainly permission that I want to make sure that are being provided for and I wanted to know what your attitude towards them was I mean there is a couple of situations for instance which is not affordable housing but co-housing which is a great difficulty of finding sites for locally and therefore that is likely to be found on a large development like this there is the provision for people under section 17 in the children's act many of you who can't use council housing or the housing association link where people are being set away from this area because there isn't local provision therefore that is something which is obviously a local need for and of course there is self-build housing which there is a policy for which we would like to make sure that adequate provision is made for if I can respond to that we have been largely guided Councillor Cahn by your housing officers in terms of the mix I am really quite happy to consider other forms of mixing that don't impact upon the financial viability assessment works I think there are proposals within the proposals to include self-build homes as well and I would welcome that Frankly to get a settlement of this nature going the more mix you can have in terms of tenure types in terms of housing types the procurement routes for housing the better because it reaches out to a wider market so the principles that you have expressed Councillor Cahn I do support Thank you very much Vice Chair do we have any more speakers? Councillor Richard Williams Thank you Thank you Chair I just want to go back to this question of the railway station my question really was going to be what advantage do you think you would get through planning permission now given that I think you confirmed to Councillor Hawking that it sounds like there is no money actually committed to this railway station so is this not potentially a premature application but you sort of partly addressed that in terms of saying that it will unlock investment but my question is why couldn't investment be unlocked conditionally I mean I presumably people would say well in the events of planning permission we would contribute this and then you could come to the committee with funding streams potentially secured subject to permission it it sounds like that's not the case so why isn't that the case you kind of conditional commitment to funding Chair if I could address that I mean I can't I think it's very good point and I I share a lot of frustration in terms of having to work with whether it be the rail industry or just the funding bodies generally but it is a fact that they're not particularly good at addressing things which are conditional whilst we've enjoyed really very good and proactive discussions with various funding sources whether that be directly with DFT through Fairbots capture type arrangements or through grant funding discussions with the GCP that the important thing that they want to see is that they want to see some certainty that these houses are going to be delivered and one of the clear indications of that not only is the fact that you have allocated this site for housing development is that you wish to see housing development by on this side and and that as evidence by the grant of planning permission thank you very much thank you I think that's all the questions we have is that right Maestro so thank you very much Mr. Goldsmith thank you and I'd like to go on to the parish council representative please Kate Grant Kate Grant with us please yes I hope you can hear me you won't be able to see me because I don't have a camera since I fell over and have a huge bump still on my head I don't need a camera okay we asked before you start just for procedural purposes can you just confirm that you have the permission of the parish council to speak on their behalf I do indeed after our planning meeting have been appointed to address you on behalf of the Water Beach parish council thank you very much when you're ready then the treatments are fine when you now know that I am speaking on behalf of the parish council Water Beach is the major strategic site entirely within the parish and subject to applications by two developers we've raised a number of concerns about the application by RLW in two submissions we've had meetings with RLW not very informative and unfortunately with SCDC even less so although we are not trained planners we do have significant knowledge of the local environment events such as traffic accidents flooding sewage contamination of IDB drains and properties additionally many councillors have other relevant expertise and I quote planners saying parish council are not engaged with they do not have the ability to understand technical issues we dispute this we also have ability to have appropriate technical advice independent planning advice and legal advice we have many concerns I'd just like to highlight three firstly that no development should begin until improvements to the A10 have been implemented and that no development should begin until there is a direct access off the A10 as there is no suitable safe route through the village for construction traffic and that brings me back to the RLW relocation application was considered before there was all the development down Bannel Road and both Cody Road and Bannel Road are now busy residential roads unsuitable for construction traffic and new pavements have narrowed the road which so I think that the railway application that allowed construction via Cody Road is not sustainable secondly we believe essential infrastructure must be in place before any development is allowed infrastructure such as the promised new water main the implementation of Anglia water strategy for water boots recycling centre of providing a pump and pipeline to the main WWTP this is now scheduled for 2025 it's unacceptable for houses to be built when essential additional capacity can't be provided in the short term except by lavender wagons and extra tanker movements of sewage to WWTP these tankers continually travel down Bannel Drove and Bannel Road and after recent development Bannel Road is not wide enough for these vehicles to pass cars and lorries without going on to the pavements a clear safety hazard particularly as the station application wants them widened even further the third major concern is the visual impact of the proposed development and the landscape this is important the station area will have ground levels raised to provide a site with better flood protection at the expense of neighbouring properties as you heard from Claremont there are tall buildings up to 8 stories and blocks and lights will be seen from these when occupied for many miles it's now proposed that the sports ground to the north won't be lit because of the visual impact on Denny Abbey such grounds can therefore only be used for limited time in the winter no late matches no winter training these activities have to be accommodated elsewhere but there is no support for improving facilities in the village itself and finally this is a separate thing while we appreciate you set up a web page to allow access to application documents while the planning portal was down unfortunately it was not possible to identify the comments in the same way because they were without registration dates and different titles and we think this may have limited final public comments into us and into our planning committee meeting thank you for your time I thank you very much for that I'll just check if there's any questions Yes, I have councillor Debra Roberts councillor Roberts please Many thanks chairman Good afternoon parish council chairman and I would I read very carefully the correspondence that you sent through on emails the parish council sent and I wonder if I could just make ask you some I'll get some thoughts for you on something that you haven't just touched on actually you did talk about the local plan and the original on the number in the local plan is for a new town of around 8000 properties and you have now got this by the second application 11000 properties can you tell me what the parishes feelings still are about the amount of extra houses that this is imposing and the feeling of density and you've just talked about the heights of these buildings how do you envisage it will actually in reality be for the old village in particular as well as the residents in the new village thank you we feel that the additional housing being raised to 11000 is more than a small percentage over the local plan when we queried this with your planners they said oh but it's actually in the SPD so it's fine you can ignore that but it's a huge number of houses coming on stream in our five times and because they are going to provide their own facilities but not ab initio so for most of the first phases of development some of the crucial support structures such as sports grounds medical services and others won't be there yes schools come up first occupation potentially the railway station comes up first occupation but things like now we are hearing that maybe no multi-story car park which we understood was to ameliorate A10 traffic because traffic that would go into the car park would release that much volume for traffic from the site to go down the A10 into Cambridge now without a big multi-story car park we are not siphoning traffic off the A10 we are not easing the congestion from water beach to Cambridge and I think not having infrastructure like adequate sewage yes Anglia water have to accept any houses and provide sewage facilities but we are the ones that have suffered from contamination of ditches and properties people have paddled in sewage outside their door steps because there was not capacity and I think this has to be taken on board and maybe it should be a condition that the pipeline to the wastewater treatment plant is in place before any development I'm sorry too much development without infrastructure affects everybody excellent thank you very much thank you very much that really gives me some really clear views of how the village feels thank you Judith Rippus Rippus please good afternoon Kate thank you so much for the detail in what you've been saying can I just confirm with you just so we've got our dates like really accurate you mentioned about the Bannel Road housing and that has been built out after the railway station planning application committee meeting of September 2018 I just I mean to my mind actually the majority were built out before that date although there is of course one site which has gone to appeal can we just have a clarification from your point of view as which way around do you think it is? No I think it wasn't as well built out and the early plans that were submitted showed this beautiful green lung it was south camps not having the five year land supply that meant there was speculative development all along Bannel Road that we now have to live with and I would actually say to you that they had not all been built if you look at the very first picture that Mr Huntington put up it doesn't show all that development so all along people have been presenting things without showing the build out along Bannel Road which gives a false perception of the fact that Cody Road and Bannel Road are now incredibly busy residential roads and yet all construction traffic for the railway application has been conditioned to go down Cody Road Thank you for your comments Thank you very much for that I don't see any further No speakers good Okay Thank you very much and apologies again for the problems at the beginning of the day Thank you If we could move on then is County Councillor Tim Wotherspoon with us please Chair and do you want to just clarify County Councillor for which area? I'm sure he will tell us if he gets contact Thank you Can you hear me Chairman? Yes I can hear you Can you see me? Yes well I am the County Councillor for Cotterham and Willingham Cotterham is in the enviable position of being midway between Northstone and Water Beach New Towns however my appearance before you today is on behalf of the County Council I am mandated to speak with the County Council by the Economy and Environment Committee as was and that has been novated if that's the right phrase by the Environment and Sustainability Committee Okay thank you I'm sure that's clear It's three minutes and then when you're ready Okay It seems like decades that we've been in discussions with RLW stage the land east of Longstown and north of Oakington had been given the name Nostow after the Saxon 100 in that location these promoters did for a time refer to Denison Francis apart from sounding a bit too limp risted why not Denison poll after the Countess of Pembroke the so-called poor Clairs were there when the Abbey was suppressed in a previous bout of Brexit Boris and Henry VIII have a lot in common don't you think six wives when the search for a new name stars I'm going to suggest Rattenborough after a living national treasure partly to keep us all focused on achieving the highest possible environmental standards but also because the suffix borough denotes a place of settlement just as Tunduz in Eddington my three points relate to parameter plans flood risk and transport mitigation first can I please ask you to try to get the illustrative master plan out of your minds it is not one of the drawings that you are being asked to approve today those are the parameter plans and I hope your officers have given you a thorough briefing as to what parameter plans represent this is important because should there be any change in ownership the planning permission could be interpreted very differently try to imagine other ways of dropping development onto this site in accordance with those parameter plans possibly in a very different configuration from that in the illustrative master plan secondly I am chair of the Camature and Peterborough flood and water partnership so I'm glad to see the triple lock of source control suds and discharge limited to Greenfield runoff rates bear in mind paragraphs 793 to 855 carefully and please follow up especially in checking compliance with pre-commencement conditions and finally as it says with some understatement at paragraph 579 the county council has significant concerns relating to financial contributions to strategic transport it is unusual for us to reach committee on a major development with an outstanding objection if I were a member of your committee having read the report I would be minded at the start of this meeting to vote against it how often have candidates at actions promised that there will be no more houses without adequate transport infrastructure don't communities feel that they have been promised dueling of the A10 or significant capacity enhancement of the A14 Milton interchange we are the local highways authority and as it stands we fear that the way the permission is framed poses too high a risk of detriment to the road network nevertheless being risk aware is not the same as being risk averse the risk may be worth taking but a prudent adventurer would want some kind of insurance policy this is the sort of cover the county council would like to see one there must be a Grampian condition of no occupations before relocation of the railway station two can the 17 million pounds called transport enhancement fund in the section 106 heads of terms be invested wisely certainly not ring fenced for a multi-storey car park the three in every viability review any value uplift or cost savings instead of raising affordable housing above 30% should all be assigned to transport mitigation there is some ambiguity in the report as to how any such surplus over current viability assessment should be treated and after hearing assurances on these points in the course of the meeting I might end up in support thank you right thank you very much do we have any questions for councillor by the spoon vice chair nope okay councillor by the spoon thank you very much thank you and apologies to you too for issues earlier on with technology right thank you very much we move on then a local member councillor Hazel Smith please thank you chairman thank you chairman I hope you can hear me right good yes we can hear you see you that's fine thank you you know the system set out our vision and aims for the water beach new town development it talks about three linked projects the station the airfield site and this greenfield land brought for by rlw the justification for considering the greenfield land for development at all is its position beside the railway if you look at page 179 you'll see the economic aspirations for the station quarter its character is set by being next to the station a place where from the start people can get to without needing a car so they can get about this was all predicated on the station being there first and was the reason the station was giving planning permission issued a year ago as other people have said there's also the mutually supportive relationship between two competing developers which was very carefully circumscribed in the links protocol which urban and civic have signed up to this ensured that the two developers could work together to make a cohesive new town with one controlling the station and the other controlling access to the a 10 through a valuation process without too much drama without this cooperation a massive amount of traffic would be drawn through water beach village in my view condition 15 strategic transport at the top of page 170 throws all this out of balance by allowing public transport other than the station to be considered and other people have made this point the station has planning commission it just needs to be built the railway line is already there by contrast with the proposals for other public transport corridors which do have some objections with employment at the new Cambridge south station in the biomedical campus this will be even more useful any other solution to the public transport question can come later but the placemaking for the RLW development relies on it being centered on the news station and I therefore like the committee to amend condition 15 to require railway station to have moved before the first occupation on this site and I'm glad to see that the county supports that again picking up on Mike Huntington's report the condition 57B for construction access on page 189 I'd like to ask for an extra piece of text to make it clear that this will exclude the use of any of the existing residential roads in the village of water beach banal road Cody road station road or the residential part of Denny End Road just to make it absolutely clear my other point is on housing quality I was glad to hear Chris Goldsmith saying this will be an exemplar sustainable development while reviewing the review condition condition 37 on the environmental features of housing I'd also like to ask what three stars in the housing quality mark on page 181 condition 40 actually means I was looking this up on the internet and I couldn't see anything about that but I would like to be sure it's more than a mediocre starting point I understand this is three out of five stars which doesn't sound particularly strong other than that I will leave it to the committee to discuss thank you thank you very much any questions for councillor Smith one for me councillor Halings please thank you councillor can I just wanted to catch because I thought it was quite quick but you gave us very helpfully pointed to three specific things that you recommend the committee to consider and the first one is an amendment to condition 15 and would you and it on place making grounds because everything depends on that and that's about the would you make that a grampian condition is that what you are recommending us to do on that one yes I would make that a grampian condition and that that is also what the county councillor has asked for and secondly what was the one about excluding any residential roads I missed which condition that was sorry it's condition 57 B thank you very much chair we also have councillor Wright right thank you councillor Wright please thank you chairman and I'd like to ask councillor Hazel at Smith if those amendments are accepted do you recommend that we give delegated approval to this planning application yes I would yes thank you thank you very much nice and short and sweet any further questions no can't see any councillor Smith thank you very much for your contribution thank you there are two further local members can I just check with councillor Bradman councillor Ripeth whether they wish to speak now or reserve their comments to the debate councillor Bradman would you confirm another I'd like I'll speak forgive me chairman if I speak during the debate is that just part of the debate or no I'll speak now if that's okay sorry okay let me just check councillor Ripeth I'd like to speak now as well thank you councillor Bradman please thank you I just wanted to say that I think the whole of Water Beach Newtown is a really complex application for many people it has been an unwelcome proposal but I think it's going to happen it's been given approval and outline and we're now looking at the ways in which we can make it a more acceptable an acceptable and a welcome addition to the area and in that the eastern part of the Newtown is really important but actually the key to this whole development is that both parts of the application come forward cohesively as one whole community and we also need that community to be really able to find that public transport is the easiest way for them to get around and the most pleasurable way to get around and so for me councillor Smith and the county council's that we should have a grampian condition to require the relocated railway station to come forward before first occupation is absolutely key because that gives the whole of the Newtown a really good transport link that they can use and I don't think the space for the cam or the quality public transport network is going to be provide the resilient network that we're going to need for this so my feeling is that the application I have to say I haven't quite yet finally decided because I want to hear the rest of the debate but my feeling is that absolutely essential if we are minded to approve this is that the relocated railway station should come forward first under that grampian condition thank you right thank you very much for that um any questions yes councillor Roberts right right councillor Roberts please yeah thank you very much um councillor Bradnam you've just talked about um trying to look positive towards the future um and you seem to have decided not to um support the concerns of the parish council which were about concerns now and about concerns for the residents and the parish council have at this moment in time are you therefore saying you you don't you're not supporting your parish council's concerns as I said councillor Robert I haven't decided yet and I'm waiting to hear the debate um but you made no reference to the a lot of those concerns you just talked about let's be positive let's make a nice new town let's do lots of public transport but those weren't the things that your parish council were concerned about and you seem to be totally ignoring those uh forgive me councillor Roberts but those uh through you chairman uh those those words are councillor Roberts's words not mine um what I'm trying to say is that the the outline permission has already been given and uh so my concern is that if this is going to come forward as a new town which it will we need to make sure that it comes forward in the best way possible and my concern is that the two developers are uh enabled to work together to make sure it does uh I absolutely feel that the um provision of the relocated railway station is crucial I have a number of questions which I was going to raise uh under the uh debate uh relating to and I'll give you a list of them if you wish uh but access via Cody Road I'm not happy about as and I'm support councillor Smith um suggestion of the strengthening of that condition um 57B I'm concerned about open space I'm concerned about a burial ground I want I'm concerned about the footpath connection to Denny Abbey I'm concerned about flood risk and the um IDB ditch maintenance uh so there are a number of things I'm concerned about and I want to hear the debate before I make my decision Thank you. Good thank you I think we have councillor Wright please Thank you chairman I was going to say my question has been asked but uh councillor badman's comments have just opened up another question with uh another list of conditions that um uh she would like to see added to this planning application we're voting on what's in head in front of us at the moment but she has said there's a list of conditions there if those conditions are accepted would she be willing to vote in favour of this planning application um to clarify councillor Wright I said they were concerns not conditions uh the conditions that councillor Smith has suggested strengthening or adding I support um I would just like to um consider the matters of um public access and open space and provision for burials uh and and flood risk but I'm I'm aware many of those points have been confirmed as having been resolved in the office's report um so I I'm just interested to hear what people have to say about those thank you right thank you very much I don't think we've got any further questions yep okay uh councillor Braden thank you very much for that uh councillor Ripith please thank you chair let me cast your minds back to September 2018 when this planning committee granted approval for the relocated railway station our approval early in the process was to give the opportunity for infrastructure to come first and to set good habits as new residents moved in where they weren't reliant on the car one of our major visions as a district council is to be green to our core and to be placemakers you can imagine my concern when reading through those these papers to find that progress on the relocation of the station appeared to be zero I ask where is the combined authority this is just the kind of infrastructure which connects up the county not least with Cambridge South and places of of work to the South of Cambridge the station would also attract businesses to the new town to help the community that in my opinion should be just the kind of project the combined authority is supporting to my mind the railway station comes first not a busway nor the Cambridge Autonomous Metro currently a work of fiction and uncosted alongside the railway station having planning permission there is also the track the line there is no need for concreting over sways of land to have a key transport link or the transport systems as in the GCP early proposal for busway returning to the agenda papers and for my detailed reading of them we seem to be forgetting that the community of Water Beach the parish council the cycling campaign individual residents and other interest interest groups too numerous to mention and ourselves as district councillors and of course the officers help to shape and mould the supplement site of this supplementary planning document the relocated station was the central tenet of this to fulfil that vision of a green and prosperous community the links protocol agreement ensures that the northern access from the A10 will indeed be connected in time for the delivery of the railway station so residents on the west side of the development can access the station and those on the east A10 so unlocking the sites however if 800 dwellings were to come first would they be granted that direct access to the A10 I do not want to see an enclave of dwellings being built without proper amenities and services and also I want to see all the trucks and materials to construct those dwellings accessing the site via Cody Road and thus coming through the village of Water Beach I will of course listen intently to debate and all professional input but at this time I have great concerns Thank you very much Any questions for councillor Ripp-Earth please councillor Heather Williams councillor Heather Williams please Thank you Chairman and I hope the local member will accept that I will refer to the issues in the planning applications as opposed to the political statements made but she cited many reasons for grave concerns that have been expressed by others as well you focus on transport are there any other grave concerns we've obviously heard from residents quite passionately about affordable housing do you agree that 30% is acceptable Thank you Chairman Again as I said I will be listening to everyone's comments and making my decision having heard the full debate I think for this this part this side of the Newtown if you remember back to the urban civic application where it's 30% and any additional viability sorry I'm sure officers will correct if I'm not quite correct here would be additional to that whereas for this one I am happy with transport being the additional amount like councillor said but there are other smaller concerns too but I will bring those out as we debate if that's okay with you Chair Yes absolutely Chairman I may just to follow back on the answers it's just it is actually up to 40% can be reclaimed it's in paragraph 100 1004 I believe so it will be the same terms as previous as the previous site is the local member happy with that as in paragraph 1004 Except for on the previous site it would be for extra housing affordable housing but on this as we have it before us on the papers that would be towards transport So it is paragraph if I could clarify I think maybe it's my connection paragraph 1004 in the report Yeah it might help if I read the area I'm referring to it says about the surplus 50% SCDC shall be used for additional street transport and onsite affordable housing capped at the 40% policy level so I'm just asking you happy with that section which obviously says about the onsite affordable housing not just strategic transport would you like to see it all go to strategic transport I'm happy as it's written but the transport in the balance of transport maybe being leading a little bit more on this site than the affordable housing Thank you Chairman Thank you very much Did we have any further Yes Councillor Deborah Roberts Right thank you Councillor Roberts please Thank you Councillor Ripper I think in all fairness to the other local member probably need to sort of say to the same thing to you but you have answered some of the things in your past words in the last couple of minutes however you know your parish council did put us both in verbal and in quite a well constructed email that has been recently sent to us a variety of concerns now you've just said you're going to be considering what other things maybe worry you but could you give us at this moment what your other concerns are clearly you are concerned about the station and whether it's ever going to actually happen or whether houses will get built and it'll get forgotten but you know is there anything other specific that the parish council made out to us that worries you as well Not specifically from the parish council some of the issues like this is more detailed like the sports pitches and the provision of those obviously needed in the new town Not the heights of the buildings or the density The heights and the density of the buildings I am happy with although I am not happy with the multi-story carpark but that goes back to transport Thank you Thank you Judith Thank you Any further questions? Nope Thank you very much We've now passed 130 so this might well be an opportune moment to take a break for lunch I suggest we come back again at two o'clock So Liam could you Thank you Chairman I will put this up for that effect please Are you there Liam? I will put a slide up Thanks Thank you and are we closed? I can confirm that we are now live Obviously there will be the normal 30 second delay but I shouldn't think that that would be a problem now as there's nobody come back yet Thank you very much Welcome back to South Cams District Council planning committee We have a special meeting today dealing with the Water Beach New Town I'm just going to take a quick roll call of the members of the committee to make sure they're all back and connected Councillor Bradnam You can further your questions Thank you Councillor Carlon Thank you Councillor Fein Present Thank you Councillor Hawkins Present Chair Thank you Councillor Halings Present Chair Thank you Councillor Rippith Present Thank you Councillor Roberts Present Chairman Thank you Councillor Heather Williams Present Chairman Thank you Councillor Richard Williams Present Chair Councilor Wright. Yes. Nobody. Thank you very much. So we're all here. So the next phase is to go to the debates. Before we do that there's a couple of things. So the what I want to try and do is deal with matters subject by subject. So the proposal is that I start with transport. So that's the railway station highways and the funding implications there. Then we do drainage, the bund and so forth, sewage, landscape. Then the 106 issues around affordable housing and so on. And finally, neighborhood amenity. So I know there'll be a bit of overlap, I'm sure, but that's what I'll try and do. Before we do that, could I just check with Mr. Carter? There was a query earlier on about the weight that should be given to the neighborhood plan as it stands. I wonder if you could advise us on that, please. Yes, Chair, thank you. There's nothing further to advise beyond that, which is in the officer report. The advice given there with regard to weight is considered by officers to be correct. I don't have anything further to add to that, Chair. Sorry, there was one other thing. I am aware that discussions have this week been going on regarding the railway station and those involved in it. Do we have any sort of update on that? Yes, Chair, maybe that you would like to hear from Sharon Brown. Sharon Brown, please. Thank you, Chair. Yes. So I attended meetings with the Greater Cambridge Partnership and the County Council Transport Team earlier this week and Stephen Kelly, the director of the Joint Director of Planning and Economic Development. And this was in relation to the issues of the delivery of the railway station and also in relation to the viability issues, some of which have been touched on during the course of this meeting. At the moment, as it stands, the County Council has a holding objection to the application. This is consistent with the position on the Water Beach Barracks scheme when that was brought to committee. The discussion that we had related to securing more confidence for the County Council and GCP in relation to potential funding opportunities. And there was a discussion around the 15 to 17 million funding for the Park and Ride site, as Mike highlighted in his introduction. So GCP and the County Transport saw a very positive opportunity to use that funding in order to support the initial funding of the railway station. In addition to that, there was also a discussion about the uplift through the viability process. As you know, there will be a phased viability review mechanism within the Section 106 agreement should outline permission be granted. As part of that phased viability approach, it was originally intended that any uplift above 40% would go into transport and that's the reference in the report that Councillor Williams highlighted. In the discussions, officers agreed that the uplift in viability should further funding become available would go to transport and if that's the uplift above 30% affordable housing and not 40%. So just to clarify that point and in particular that goes back to the issues that Councillor Wetherspoon also highlighted in his comments. The discussions we had with GCP and County Transport were very positive. Clearly, we still have a little way to go in terms of the delivery mechanism for the railway station, but generally there was a positive commitment to make that happen coming out of those discussions. A recognition that the updated discussions on funding provided a much more positive view of the situation. So I hope that clarifies those discussions. Thank you Chair. Chair, do you want to know that we've got some people requesting to speak? Are you there Chair? We can't hear you. Councillor Butler is muted. Sorry about that. I was not switching myself on. Several people requested to speak. Yes, I'm just saying that I'm hoping that they want to speak to the debate. There have been opportunities to touch on all the different aspects as we go through. The first item is transport, but before we get into all that, I really want to emphasise the fact to members that what we have before us is an outline application with all matters reserved, all matters reserved. We should also keep in mind that the overall number, the 11,000 houses, was fixed at the previous application, not for this part, but for the first phase of Water Beach. So bearing that in mind and the fact that within the proposal before you, numerous conditions, which clearly state that no progress will be made on this unless the highways and station issues are dealt with. So keeping all that in mind, please. I suspect we've already got a list, have we? Vice Chair? Yes, we do. Starting with Councillor Deborah Roberts, Councillor Peter Payne and then Councillor Adam Bradenham. Councillor Robertson, please. Thank you. Sharon, I've just taken on board what you've said, but actually I'm quite muddled about it because I think the fact that we had a list provided us of the basically five key issues. Well, those were maybe issues that officers would like us to concentrate on, but I don't think it's good enough. This is a huge application with a lot of concerns. No Chairman, if you just will. And I would say why are we not... I'm taking that on board Councillor Roberts. So are we going to be able to talk about the... We're going through the list I've just given you, but then there would be an opportunity to raise any further issues. What's at the end? At the end, please. Okay, that's fine. As long as that's understood. Thank you, gentlemen. It's entirely under foot. Councillor Payne will talk later. So we have Councillor Dr Richard Williams. All right. Dr Richard Williams, please. Then Councillor Adam Bradenham. All right, thank you. I think Councillor Bradenham might have been before me, but if she's happy. I just want to clarify something you just said, Chair, about this 11,000 number. Could we get some legal clarification with a one planning application can change... Can bind another? I'm not sure why the previous application means the 11,000 figure is binding on us. Okay, that was my understanding. I might be wrong, but let's ask Mr Carter, please. Could you clarify that for us, please? Chair, without wishing to pass the bucket, maybe that Sharon or Mike have better place to answer given that I wasn't working for the authority at the time of the original permission. Sharon, I don't know if you would be able to take this one. Yes, Chair. Thank you. Yes, so it isn't legally binding in terms of fettering the decision making process on this application. What I would say is it is a material consideration to be taken into account and weighed in the consideration of the application, which is a slightly different issue. And the policy, as Mike highlighted in his introduction, references a design-led approach to arrive at a final figure in relation to the overall numbers of dwellings that can be provided on the development. The supplementary planning document is also a material consideration which can be called a substantial. Okay, thank you. Councillor Anna Bradnum, and then Councillor... I don't know if Councillor Williams wanted to come back on that. Sorry, Chair. My connection broke up for a second there. No, I'm happy with that clarification that it's not legally binding. Thank you very much. Councillor Anna Bradnum, then Councillor Heather Williams. Thank you. Councillor Bradnum, please. So, Chairman, I had one matter of clarification and then some questions about transport, if I may. Okay, so the first one on clarification was I just wanted to check. Chris Carter advised us the section on which the amount of weight given to the neighbourhood plan was referred to in the report, and I missed the section because I would like to look at that again. So, that's my first question. But then I have a couple about transport then. Okay. Sorry, before you go on that. And I assume you would be picking up the suggested beefing up of some of the conditioning that was suggested. Absolutely. Absolutely. I absolutely concur with the points that Councillor Hazel Smith made, which was for the Grampian condition on, I've got it written down here somewhere, the Grampian condition, I'm sorry, to require, here we are, condition 15, page 170, as Hazel. All right. It's not necessary to go through them. Sorry, the condition 57B about not using residential roads and condition seven, understanding what three star meant. Absolutely, I agree with all of those. Okay. If we could come back to that after your... Yeah. Okay. So, the questions about transport were, I'm concerned about this, the fact that the county council still has a holding objection on the grounds of the funding for the relocated railway station before they will remove, and they need confirmation of that before they'll remove their objection. And I just wanted clarification on that. I think Sharon Brown said that has happened before that the county council has had a holding objection, and I'd like to know in what way it's expected that that will be resolved. Sure, we'll deal with that first then. Yes. And if I just refer you, it's paragraph 556 on page 73. Okay. Who would like to pick that up then? Is that you, Sharon? Or Mike? I think it might be helpful at this point to bring in David Allott from the county council transport team, because David Allott was also at the meeting the time of that, and then I can chip in after David's spoken. Thank you, chair. Okay. Is David with us, please? Hi there. Hopefully you all can hear me. I can hear you and see you now. Good. Fantastic. Okay. Could you enlighten us, please? Yes. As like members and fellow officers, we do recognize the dependency on phase one of this development, and the railway station, or if not the railway station, a significant mass transit people mover, such as the camp, albeit looking at timescales, the railway station, is the credible silver bullet, to unlock this site. And we really do see that grantee and dependency there. In terms of the funding, there isn't, as it stands, a funding package for the railway station, and we've set out our concerns about that. But that's not to say that we're not working positively on a very good business case, pulling in partners and working with the developer, really positive discussions with the GCP, to hopefully find the way forward on the railway station, such that sustainable behaviors could be locked in from the very start of the site. And beyond that point, the monitor and manage would help to protect impacts on the network from any potential unsustainable development. Okay. So the aspect of that was, could you clarify, through your chair, if I may, that the concern I was concerned about was that the funding seemed to be dependent on no longer building a car park, which, for those of us who don't want to see lots of cars, that's a good thing. But, as others have said, the A10 monitor and manage arrangement was dependent on cars being extracted at a point at the railway station in a park and ride. And I just wanted to know, if that is done, will that not then, if we take the money, then we'll have the cars on the road. If we have the cars on the road, then we won't have the money. If we take cars off the road and put them in a car park, then we won't have the money. So can you just explain that, Conundrum, please? Yep, absolutely. So the A10 Ely to Cambridge study identified a range of measures, a package of measures, routed in sustainable transport interventions and highway works. And that set out how the Water Beach Master Plan and other growth along the corridor could be unlocked. Now that range of measures, the report wasn't as specific as to say which measures should come forward when. It simply presented the package about how this site could be gotten away. And one measure that could be effective in helping to bring the development forward is a park and ride. What we didn't want to do, cognizant of the monitor and manage approach, and mindful that this is a long-term development, is to lose the flexibility. So as part of any future phase after phase one, the idea is that phase one would be dependent on the railway station. But future phases could be dependent on one of a number of measures. And we wanted to unlock the finance through a strategic contribution, a flexible strategic contribution, to go into whichever measure is the front runner at that time to unlock sustainable transport capacity. So we're not saying that a park and ride, further parking at the station is off the table or wouldn't be needed. We are saying that we would definitely need the flexibility to be able to take a reading at the time of the best solution for that respective phase. Okay, thank you Chairman. And my second question related to, sorry others may wish to pick that one up, but my second question related to the not having access on residential roads. And this refers at paragraph 584 on page 78, which says access to the railway station from the village and access to a limited number of dwellings approximately 50 on the southern side of the village station access road can be achieved via Cody Road. So not only did we not want that, but also we certainly didn't want construction traffic going down Cody Road. And so for that reason, I wanted to check with Transport that they were happy with the proposal that Councillor Smith made as regards the condition that there should be no access to residential roads in order to complete the build out of the eastern side of the, well, this RLW site. Right, okay. Can you help us with that? I can help so much and our Highways DC colleagues aren't here, but from our perspective we see the railway station as being a key mechanism to trigger the access to the A10. So if you get the railway station and the access to the A10, it follows logically to me that that would form the primary access for the whole master plan, the access to the whole master plan. So were you happy with the condition that Councillor Smith proposed? I'd have to consult Highways on that to bullshit that such a condition was defendable. So I can't answer that question. Perhaps planners could advise. Okay. Anybody else want to put their hand out for that one? Chris or Sharon? I was wondering if the case officer should be asked to deal with that question. Thank you. Right. Thank you. Thank you, Sharon. Thank you, Chairman. Yes, if Councillor Browning was referring to the construction management plan condition. Was that the one condition 50? No, it was condition 57B. Sorry, that's right, construction management. It was on page 189. There's no reason why we can't make that clear as part B, part B of condition 57 now. So I think the wording was without access to residential roads. I'm sure Councillor Smith had some wording which I'm sure it can be captured from the tape. Well, I'm sure Mike and you know what we want to achieve there. I wrote it down when Councillor Smith mentioned it. Good. Can I just have the answer about the neighbourhood plan referenced in the document? That's paragraph 16. Thank you very much. Page 16, sorry. Okay. And we will return to the conditioning. This is page 16, the later stage. So if Mike, you could be ready with some words for 57B. Did you want to introduce the other ones, Councillor Bredman? Sorry, do you mean on the other subjects? I thought you were going to go through theme by theme. Yeah, I'm sorry. So I'd better not... I'll come back later on. ...sell up on it. Okay, are you all right on transport now? Yes, I'm finished on transport. Thank you, Chair. Thank you very much. Chair, you have other speakers. Yeah, please. They're all on transport. So you have Councillor Heather Williams, Councillor Martin Kahn, Councillor Judith Rippus, and... Too many. I can't take on too much at once. Okay, Councillor Heather Williams and Councillor Martin Kahn. Okay, Councillor Heather Williams, please. Thank you, Chairman. I want to just raise this first before I go into the transport issues, that we've heard from the public speakers, from local members, and I'm sure a big part of our debates and looking at this proposal will centre around the conditions. And I am a bit nervous about that, given the recommendation being delegated approval, and also that it is possible for... We could have a very lengthy debate today, get ourselves to a point of condition being satisfactory on one element or another, and then it could be changed. And it could be changed in a way that we then wouldn't perhaps feel comfortable with it being forward or wouldn't think it was adequate. So I'm minded to propose that any conditions that are related to this application if there becomes need for any of them to be varied, that they do come back to committee, because this is... I think that's in the public interest. And also for us to take all the time that we're going to do today and for the public to be able to make their representations and the requests, I think it's important that any conditions come back to committee. So before going into the transport section, I'm just wondering, Chairman, through yourself if we can deal with that issue. Yes, let's deal with that. Mike, could you just put up the actual recommendation as it stands at the moment, please? And Sharon Brown has offered to speak. Right, okay. We'll just see if we can get the wording up so we know what we're talking about. I'll just find the report and I'll just share it. In the meantime, Sharon, did you want to contribute? Yes, Chair, thank you. I think when you've got a scheme of the scale of this one, there are a very large number of conditions attached to any permission that is granted. I think in some instances, very minor changes can be made to the wording of the condition. That may be in conjunction with the technical specialists that have been advising on those conditions. So I think in terms of reporting any conditions back to committee, it really needs to be those very, very key conditions that members are particularly focused on. It wouldn't be appropriate for all the conditions to be reported back to committee. I would suggest, Chair. Thank you. All right, thank you. Chairman, can I respond to that? In a moment, I'm hoping that we can look at the conditions, the actual recommendation. Can we just double check that this is the latest amended version, Chair? It doesn't look like it. The recommendation, Mike, is now on the supplementary document. Chairman, I was just referring to all the text below the recommendation. So below the text of the recommendation, it says planning conditions are set up below with the final wording of any amendments to these and to include others considered to be appropriate and necessary to be agreed in consultation with the Chair and the Vice-Chair of Planning Committee prior to the issue of planning permission. So that's the bit. That's the bit that adds up where there's anything that Sharon talked about before. That was the delegation. And then it was the line above outline planning permission to be granted. It was delegated approval because that was the same wording that we used on the Urban and Civic planning permission. That's why we changed the text so it aligned with the Urban and Civic one. But the bit below is the paragraph 1113 is the one that gives that bit of extra ability to make some minor tweaks and changes to be agreed with yourself and the Vice-Chair. Yeah. And as Sharon Brown was saying, that clearly the Vice-Chair and myself would not actually agree to anything fundamentally changed. Not. The meaning of any of the conditioning. Not. So I mean the question then, Councillor Williams, is whether or not you're satisfied with that? I'm afraid I'm not Chairman because it's in consultation but ultimately it wouldn't be your decision. And I think the word minor is very subjective to the person and what one person could see as minor and another could see as not. And I refer back to the previous application where something on contaminated land, which I didn't raise at committee because I felt that the conditions was strong enough, then was varied under delegated authority to one that I wouldn't be comfortable with. And I'm afraid I'm a little bit of once, bit and twice shy. And I appreciate some things would be minor, but then they wouldn't take a lot of committee's time if they were so minor. And of course not all these conditions will be trained. So I do think they should be coming to committee given the public interest. It has been explained to you already the practicalities of that. I believe the public interest outweighs the time that it would take. All right, do you want to put that as a proposal then? The committee then decided. So what is your proposal? My proposal is that all conditions that are agreed on the planning application and brought up through the course of the meeting, if they are subsequently requested to be varied, that that there will be a decision made by planning committee at future meetings. All right, thank you very much for that then. So members, have I got a seconder for that? Does anybody wish to second that proposal? I'm happy to second that proposal chair particularly. Does anybody want to speak to it? No, I haven't heard anybody else. And yes, Councillor Peter Fein. Oh, Peter Fein. Yeah, Councillor Fein please. Thank you chair. No, I would oppose this suggestion. I think it's very important to give our planning officers some authority to act on our behalf to proceed with an element of trust, both in the planning officers and in yourself and your vice chair. And not to hinder that capacity. I'm very satisfied with the words that have just been shown to us in Para 1113, which I think ensures that we can get the outcome we need that reflects the views of the committee without hindering the planning officers in their role. So I would oppose this proposal. Thank you very much for that. Next is the Doctor Tumi Hawkins. Councillor Hawkins please. Sorry, thank you chair. I'm not sure I quite understood what Councillor Williams, Heather Williams was about. Is it to make every condition that is applied to this application if it needs to be varied to come back to planning committee? I believe that is the point, yes. Wow, okay. No, I would concur with what Councillor Fein has said. We cannot bring everything back to planning committee. There needs to be an element of letting the professionals deal with issues like this. Thank you. Thank you very much. Councillor Nick Wright. All right, Councillor Nick Wright please. I would like to speak in favour of this proposal. Again, we're seeing another planning application come to committee where councillors are making it up as we go along and officers are altering conditions or not altering. It will be delegated. We have to vote on what's in front of us. If conditions are going to be changed, it should come back to planning committee where they can be duly considered and voted on what's in front of us then. Instead of doing this weird thing of having an application put in front of us and everyone bending over backwards to try and approve it by altering all the conditions, and it's not good planning. It's not clear, it's not transparent and disappointing, so I would support this. All right, thank you very much. Myself, Councillor Richard Williams. Councillor Haley, is that what he is? Yes, I really am concerned that there's confusion and misrepresentation here. Since I've become a member of this planning committee, we have had multiple proposals where we've agreed to not only the conditions already in a planning application, but we've proposed others and any type of wording that's needed in terms of making those viable with the applicant or the consultees. We've enabled that to be through delegated in consultation with the chair and vice chair, and I assume this was practice in the time before our administration as well. When I hear varying a condition, when we talk about varying a key condition, varying any of those conditions, as we heard from Sharon Brown and from the officer, that is different. We do have conditions that come back to committee when a condition is being varied. I think here that seems to be a bit of obfuscation in terms of wording that we've been very comfortable with before. What we have in front of us are very serious conditions, and if we do go down the route to a final determination on this application, they would be the binding ones. And what we understand is it is just the final wording, but the spirit and principle of what is agreed at committee would be part of that. However, a varying of that once approved, I imagine obviously would come back to committee as always. And I fear that we're having deliberate confusion instilled here. I would be against this because it would make the whole planning process unmanageable. But what we will discuss here and what we will agree are the binding conditions. Thanks chair. All right, thank you very much for that. And next speaker was? Councillor Richard William, who's speaking is second, but you also have Councillor Deborah Roberts and Councillor Heather Williams. I'm happy to go after Councillor Roberts. Yes. Okay, thank you. Councillor Roberts, please. Thank you very much, Chairman. Well, your first, Chairman, has actually just laid out the reasons why that this is a good idea to support this, because it's a huge application, very serious considerations to be taken into account. And I really was quite alarmed at her comment, which was that, in consultation with the applicant, we'll discuss the viability with the applicant when we may be thinking about changing conditions. Now, these conditions either are serious or they're not serious. And it seems to me that if they are serious, then if there's going to be changes to them, and come on, we know this happens. We know that we've got parish councils who are absolutely outraged by some of the changes that have been made after approvals been given on conditions, but we're not, you know, we're not out of the deep water here. And we have to remember that report that's just been done about us. And I think it's absolutely imperative. Let's be democratic. Let's be open government. Let's be listening to the people. But, you know, in the end, it's not the officers who make the decisions. It's members. We are guided by officers. They're professionals. But at the end, it is upon us as the members, the elected members, because when it goes wrong, it's us that takes the rap. And you change some of these really serious conditions now. They can have a completely different meaning. And you bet your bottom dollar, the developer will be very pleased to speak with us about the viability of these conditions after today's meeting. If they get the approval, wouldn't you? I certainly would. Okay. Thank you very much. And Councillor Richard Williams. Thank you very much, Chair. I'll try to keep my comments brief. But just to say, yes, I obviously, I support this motion as second. I think there are special factors here. This is a huge planning application. I mean, we're talking about the future of a community, you know, and Water Beach is going to have to live with the build, the construction work of this, you know, for a very long time. And obviously, I think it's already been said once that community is there, it's there forever. It's vital that we get it right. It's an extremely important application. It's probably one of the most important applications that, you know, is likely to come before this committee, or certainly the most important type of application. And as a member of the committee, I want to be sure that I know what I'm approving. And if there's any change, I want to know about that. Now, I'm not sure. I'm not saying there'd be any, you know, underhand motive in changes, but I think the point has already been made. What's minor to some people is not minor to others. So we've heard a lot about where traffic goes and up which road in Water Beach. It might seem a minor point, but it's not minor for the residents of the village. So I think it's vitally important that we do see any changes because the significance of this application, the effect on the community, both the new and the existing community, and frankly, a simple point of democratic accountability. We are the ones who are taking this decision. We are the ones who want to be or who are accountable for it. And I want to know, given the importance of the conditions here, exactly what I'm approving if it comes to that. And if I do vote to approve it. Thank you very much. All right. Thank you. And finally, Councillor Heather Williams, to sum up please. Thank you, Chairman. I won't labour the point too much, but I will respond slightly. I think Councillor Richard Williams has summed it up somewhat eloquently than I will. Some of the words that were picked out about deliberately confusing and misleading, I completely object to that. That's not the purpose of this at all. The purpose of this is to remove that because what's misleading is we have a long debate on a condition people leave this meeting feeling satisfied that that condition is in place and then a later date it gets varied and we haven't seen it and everything carries on. So it's not misleading people. It's not attempt to confuse people. It's an attempt to ensure that we see, as has been said, all the details and we see any conditions that are varied. And I will use the example of the contaminated land decision that was taken under delegated authority that changed from pre-commencement to preoccupation. Now, obviously somebody thought that was minor and I completely respect their judgment, but I don't. And that condition didn't come back to committee on over 6,000 houses. And it's exactly that sort of scenario that I wish to eradicate by doing this. And it's too important to get this wrong. Thank you, Chairman. Right. Thank you very much. I'm going to take a roll call then. So the proposal is that any changes, conditions would come back to the committee. So if you're in favor of that, yes, you're for. If you're against that, you're against. And if you wish to abstain, you abstain. So the vote for is for the conditions, any changes, conditions to come back to committee. So I'll start the roll call now. Councillor Bradman, please. Against. Against. Councillor Cardin, please. Yeah, we can hear you. I'm trying to, sorry, having trouble with the new, against. Against. Thank you. Councillor Fain. Against. Thank you. Councillor Hawkins. Against. Thank you. Councillor Halins. Against. Thank you. Councillor Rippith. Against. Thank you. Councillor Roberts. For Chairman. Oh, thank you. Councillor Heather Williams. For Chairman. Well, thank you. Councillor Richard Williams, four. Councillor Wright, please. Four. My vote is against, two, four. So it is seven against and four, four, so that's a motion, four. And having said that, I hope you can have some trust in in Councillor Halings and myself in that we wouldn't ever actually sign off a change to a condition that actually changed the meaning and the purpose of the committee. So if we get back then to where we were, I was with you then, Councillor Heather Williams, and did you have some comments on the transport issues? Thank you, Chairman. And just to reiterate, it's not about trust in yourselves, because actually you don't get the final decision officers do. But on transport, I think it is concerning about the fact that the county have a holding objection on such a large scale development. I would be supportive of the Grampian condition and hope that that wouldn't change. And the conditions that Councillor Hazel Smith also put out and suggested. I would like some further clarification around Cody Road and the construction traffic, because that does seem to be a particular issue. And what we can, what we could really do to relieve that potential pressure, because I heard that if this happened and that happened, then we could avoid it. But what's Plan B or C in any case? And I think that's on transport. And still would love to know what three out of five stars means. It sounds very strictly like. Right. Okay, thank you very much. Have we further speakers? Vice Chair. We did have. And so we had, on transport, as I understand, we had Councillor Martin Kahn and Councillor Judith Ripper. Right, fine. Councillor Kahn, then please. Yes, I really wanted to raise the issue of the article 106, section 106 agreement, where you're saying that any improvement in viability beyond the 30% would all go to transport. The affordable housing is a very big issue. I mean, it really is. So we have a policy of 40%. I think the idea that everything should go to transport is debatable. And I wanted to know whether this was inflexible, whether this was something which we could be looking to perhaps alter. For instance, perhaps any improvement could be divided between transport and affordable, as the housing, which are the two most critical issues perhaps in this area. Or not. We were not able to get more than 30% of the first phase. And again, it's quite a low proportion of rent to the accommodation. I would hope that if, whether to be among better viability, something more favourable might be achieved. That's a comment. Right, okay. Thank you very much for that. Who's our next speaker, please? Oh, Councillor Ripper. Yeah, Councillor Ripper, please. Sorry. Well, I really hope I'm coming in at the right point here. It's more clarification probably for Tam Parry. Going back to picking up on the parish councillor, we spoke as a resident, Nigel Seymark, was asking about bringing forward the signalisation of Carsite Road of A10 to the forefront occupation. And I know in our update reports that we have got mentioned about bringing that forward as a safety measure. Could I ask Tam Parry if that could be at the very beginning of the occupations? Should this go ahead? So if it's approved, could that be improved? Sorry, is that clear? Yeah, who do you ask that question to? Tam Parry. Right, is he with us? Yes, hi. Good afternoon. I'm certainly very content to seek back with the applicant in the negotiations on the Section 106 agreement because I think Mike's structured it as a Section 106 item. So I'm in at the wrong point, have I? No, I don't know, but I'll do my best to answer your question. So I think that I would ask the applicant if that would be possible and certainly try my best to seek the work as early as possible in the development. The thinking up until now was to try and come inside the works with the works of the Civic Redoing to install a 2-concrossing more or less at the same location. But if the work is changed in their nature or if there's tragic accidents that happened here, is there a commitment definitely to seek to bring it forward? Okay, that still sounds a bit kind of open to interpretation, but thanks for your comments. Thank you. You okay without them? Fine, thank you. Thanks, aye. Any further speakers on? Yes, have councillor Nick Wright and councillor Dr Richard Williams. Fine, thank you. Councillor Wright, please. Thank you, Chairman, and I think there's three of us councillors who will remember from the past with the North Star application yourself, Councillor Robinson, myself as the mistake we made then, and we're just looking at doing exactly the same again with the Grampian condition. When the outline of North Star came forward a long time ago, we put a Grampian condition on the upgrading of the A14, and what happened was it looked as if it was going ahead, then the government cancelled the funding because there wasn't any money. Have we been there before? Yes, and it actually delayed the application by seven years, that Grampian condition, and worse than that, we'd approved the outline when we put the Grampian condition on, and it sat there for seven years, so when it came forward to us again under reserve matters, it was totally out of date. Things had moved on, recycled, everything was out of date, and I would urge members, look and vote on what's in front of us. Don't try and alter conditions, it's better to refuse it and have it come forward in a new application and keep it under our control rather than hand it over to the government to rely on Grampian conditions or whoever to come forward in some point in the future. We've got a five-year land supply to think of, we need to have it under control, we need to be able to deliver on this, and let's not hand it to something that's out of our control. Thank you, members. All right, thank you very much, Councillor Richard Williams. Thank you very much, Chair. Really, my comments follow on from those comments. I mean, I have serious reservations about the transport aspects of this proposal. It just doesn't, to me, seem that it's finalised. It feels to me it's come forward too early. It may not be the developer's fault from their Anzatomolia question, but the funding for the railway station seems like it's nowhere near secured. I mean, we've heard earlier that there are discussions, but I really would like more than discussions. With the A-10, again, it's very uncertain. The county has got an objection, so from a transport side, this just feels too early to me, and I have serious concerns. Just one point, Chair. The county objection has been referred to quite a few times as a holding objection. I don't regard it as a holding objection. It's an objection because we're making the decision today and there's an objection in. Holding makes it sound like it's temporary and qualified. It's an objection today, and I think we need to look at it like that, not like it's some temporary thing that's about to be resolved, because today is the day of the decision. Thank you. Chair, we have a couple more. Councillor Annabragana, myself, and Councillor Roberts, but Stephen Reed has asked for an adjournment. Right. Okay, so for the sake of the public, there's been a request from our legal officer to adjourn briefly, so he could advise me on some aspects, which I'm not currently aware of. Chair, if I may clarify, I've asked for the adjournment in order to speak to Sharon Brown and Chris Carter. Right, well, I mean, I'm trying to explain to the public that we are having the adjournment for a particular reason. Thank you, Chair. Apologies. Yeah. Okay, so Liam, if we could have an adjournment. Yeah, absolutely. Could you advise roughly how long you think this will be? Check that with Mr. Reed. I'm hoping no more than maximum of five minutes, but... Okay, that's absolutely fine. I will just stop sharing this meeting to the live event, so the meeting that you are in will remain as is, but the transmission of it to the public will stop for five minutes or... Okay, it's only for five minutes. Yeah, so just tell me when you want it back up, and I'll notify you when we're off the air. Absolutely. Chairman, could I just let you know Stephen Reed appears to be paused? Good. Thank you. A little harsh. Right, I've sent us live. I'm just checking the feed. Absolutely. Okay. Yeah, you can resume as well. Thank you. Thank you. Welcome back. That's a short adjournment. We will continue the debate. Do we have further speakers on transport, please? Vice-chair? Yes, Chair. So I have Councillor Anna Bradnum for myself, and then Councillor Deborah Roberts. All right, thank you. Thank you, Chairman. Councillor Bradnum, yeah. Thank you, Chairman. I just wanted to clarify with you, we were talking about the recommendation earlier on, and I just wanted to clarify that the recommendation on page nine of the amendment refers to wording at recommendation A, and I assume that to mean that which is on page 158 in our agenda under paragraphs 112 through to 117. I just wanted to clarify what the recommendation, what comprises the recommendation, if you sort of mean, because the formatting in the appendix is different to the formatting in the report. Case officer, can you help us with that one, please? Thank you, Chairman. Yes, apologies. The A in brackets shouldn't be there. So effectively paragraph 112 of the original report on page 158 would be replaced by delegated approval to the Joint Director of Planning and Economic Development of Outline Permission as amended subject two. So that whole wording would replace what's currently at 112. That's the one, yeah. And then the rest of the recommendation remains. Yes, exactly. Thank you very much. Okay. Okay, thank you. Councillor Halings, please. Thank you, Chair. And I just, we've heard lots of concern around the traffic and transport in terms of construction and then of for the use of the station itself. And I do remember when we were discussing this when we were looking at the approval for the early approval of the railway relocation at Planning Committee, there was the whole issue about the link road access from the A10. And I note that this is part of a section 106 agreement. And on page 260 it talks about, puts into more detail what's called the link protocol. So this is not just sort of linking A10 into the development and across to the station, but also I understand is linking interdependence between the two developers, which concerned us so much at that time because we didn't have the powers to bang their heads together and make sure that they just came with an agreement and put it into practice to enable that access across both parts of land, which would resolve all of the issues for the neighbouring villages and lift as well, alleviate that pressure on the A10. So could I just have some reassurance that in the section 106 agreement, what is the kind of timing when it talks about the timescales? Are those timescales immediate timescales that would enable as well some of that construction traffic as it was devised to go via that road rather than the access through Water Beach? Yeah, thank you, Chairman. I wonder if I could call upon my colleague Michelle Vasse, who's our legal advisor. Michelle, are you about? Hi, yes, I'm here. What the intention is is that this 106 of the RLW site would replicate terms that were agreed as part of the Urban Civic 106, which is, you rightly say, councillor, is what's called the links protocol. And what effectively starts triggering that protocol is the release of the planning mission for this site. So as long as it goes challenge free, it's anticipated that within sort of roughly 30 days there'd be a requirement to sort of issue an invitation to the UNC and also including the councillors part of that process to agree, a scoping for the heads of terms for the commercial arrangements. There's then sort of an indicative four month type programme for then moving on to the next stage, which would be agreeing the detail of those heads of terms. And then a three months on from that to try and agree the actual content of the documentation. That's all contingent obviously on the parties agreeing. If any of those stages don't get agreed between the parties, then there's the ability to go to expert determination, which would have the ability to push those timescales out. But the point is, is there are timescales in the agreement to try and make sure that obviously this doesn't drag on for years and years. The intention is to try and get that sorted as soon as possible. And the district council can also point to surveyor and is required to be kept informed of that progress. So again, has a role to make sure that the parties are actually adhering to the links protocol. And if necessary, attend meetings to try and help resolve that situation as well and also can appear at any expert determination hearing also. So there are some quite detailed provisions about how that would work. And then once the 106 agreement is signed up with RW, they would be tied into the same process. Chair, could I just Thank you very much. You want to come back on that? Thank you. And thank you for that clarification. I think that we also received from, we saw concerns from residents around this and also one of the recommendations that, is there any way in terms of bringing forward that expert determination, the independent support to bring this online earlier? We've heard from our Waterpeach residents as well. We know that the situation on the A10 have resulted in death. And so the urgency of bringing this on even more, is it possible to bring them in earlier or to make sure that this happens within a tighter timeframe, so that we actually do have to use the back road? I think in terms of the, we hopefully the parties will agree this. So there have been no need to go to expert determination. But I think Council's role, given it has a role to play in the links protocol, would be to try and ensure that any expert determination is moved along as quickly as possible. And that's probably the role for the Council's surveyor to make sure that that's clear too. It's difficult to set up, because it's about finding an expert and everything. But I think, given the Council's involvement, there is certainly a level of control that Council can have in ensuring that it's as easy as possible. And that's Council Council. District Council. Okay. Thank you very much. I think I've got Councilor Robertson here. Thank you Chairman. My concerns are that we seem to have muddied the waters between transport and affordable housing. And now I'm at a loss to understand how we can't see that those two things should actually be completely separate from each other and should have been threat with equality, rather than saying we're going to accept only a 30% affordable housing element as opposed to our policy of 40%. And but if anything happens and we get over that 30%, we'll put the money into transportation. You know, where's that idea come from? And where's our commitment to affordable housing? That's what we need in this district. And I'm not sure that what this scheme offers is actually anything like what we need in this district. So, you know, how comes, is it because the questions of financing the transports inside are so precarious, so absolutely precarious, that they will drag money from the other, which would prove to me that actually we probably could have 40%, not the 30% that we're going along with, but there's something a bit fishy here that I don't like. Okay, thank you very much. No more speakers on this. I'm not sure that this is actually working going by these particular areas. I think we'll probably be here. What we could do now is to review the proposals as motions for conditions that come out of this particular section. Yeah, I'm wondering about dropping the sections business, because I mean... Chris Carter would like to speak to the condition. Yes, all right, I knew that. All right, so there's no no further speakers on the transport element. Can I just ask, you know, you did promise us that other things that we're worried about, and I'm worried about the numbers, and I want to talk about the numbers, and it has been shown that they're not, it's not a legal obligation. When are we going to get to talk about that, please? Well, that's what I'm thinking about. It could be next week at this current rate. So be it, Sharon. We'll have the opportunity, Councillor, don't worry. Thank you. Thank you very much. Mr Carter, do you want to deal with this transport as far as the conditioning was concerned? Thank you, Chair. Yes, just briefly to offer some clarification for members around grampian condition. We talked about grampian conditions quite a lot. A grampian condition is a planning condition attached to a decision notice that prevents the start of a development until offsite works have been completed on land not controlled by the applicant. So I just wanted to clarify that recommended condition 15 is not a grampian condition. It requires something to happen within the control of the applicant prior to the occupation of any dwellings on the site. So it's not a true grampian condition. I just wanted to provide that clarity for the committee. It doesn't change the effect of the wording of the condition. It still requires that thing to happen prior to occupation, but just to clarify it's not a true grampian condition. Thank you, Chair. Okay. Thank you very much. So forgive me, Chairman, for butting in. Sorry, the clarification is that the condition that was required was not that any of these three options could be available at condition 15, but that only one, only the relocated railway station, was required before the first dwellings should be occupied. That was the change that I think Councillor Smith made quite clear. Well, that is quite dramatic change, isn't it? But that is what she said. Because, I mean, whether or not we think the chances of other options coming forward. No, but Chairman, with all due respect, that is the request that that is the suggestion that Councillor Smith made. That it should be. It doesn't matter what Councillor Smith said. It's what you or any other member of the actual committee now says. If you want to put that forward as a proposal, then you can certainly do so. Okay. Sorry, did you want to talk about conditions for transport then? Well, I think we already have to some consideration. I think we need to have a proposal, John. Okay. Well, I'll make a proposal then. If I can just find the wording. Just figured me one moment. I don't, it's the case officer got some wording that could help us. Thank you, Councillor Haylon. Yes, the, when, when, when Councillor Smith talked about those two transport, transport based conditions earlier on today, she referred to condition 15 and wanted to replace the words. Let me just get the conditional. It's page 170. Yep. So replace the words or the Cambridge autonomous metro or high quality transport corridor. So in effect, removing a line, half of the second line and half of the third line. So it just says no dwelling shall be occupied until the approved railway station, open brackets, planning reference SO79118, FL or as may be varied, comma has been completed and is open for use, et cetera, et cetera. So removing all the Cambridge autonomous metro or high quality public transport and the, the reason for the condition wasn't just about delivering strategic transport intervention. It was also about place making. Addition to the reason as well. Sorry. And, and that's, that's the condition that I, I would be very happy to propose. Yep. And then the other condition was condition, which is transport based, but almost also neighbour amenity, which one of the other issues was condition 57. So 57B was at the end of the line to say, and let me just think of the correct wording into the question. After the full stop, you could say, and, and this would, this would mean, let's try to think the words now. Sorry. Mike, can I, through you, Chair, Chris Carter here, but I can just help there. So at the end of point B, we would say these routes should exclude access from any existing residential roads. Right. And Mr Carter, does that work? I just, can you reason why that addition couldn't be made, Chair? No. Show me, Chairman. It's a dreadful word is should. It leaves it wide open, not ever happening. It needs to be, it must. Will or must. Will or must. Thank you for that, Councillor. Yeah. Okay. So that one's a practical one. If we go back to the Grampian one, that reduces any flexibility in that particular area. So what's the advice from officers on that? Sorry, Chairman. I thought that Chris Carter said that this quick, the change proposed to condition 15 was not actually Grampian. It's not, perhaps Mr Carter, or Sharon Brown. Do you want to speak to us, June? No? I was just going to say, Chair, that as Chris said, it's not a Grampian condition. It's a preoccupation condition. The changes that Councillor Smith has outlined, which Councillor Bradenham supports, do not change that. It takes out the flexibility in relation to the other strategic transport measures and links the condition wholly to the railway station. It is within the gift of the committee to change the wording of that condition accordingly. Is there any advice that is advisable or not? The Council would prefer the wording to stay as it stands. That is their preference, but the decision is for members to make, given other considerations such as placemaking issues that have been discussed to date in this meeting. Right, and can I just clarify with you, that doesn't encroach on the conversations that are currently going on with the Greater Cambridge Partnership, for example? It is something that we did discuss in the meetings, but what I would say to you, if that makes a difference between approving the application, then that is a consideration that members can take into account, along with the placemaking considerations. So it is entirely up to members to weigh that up. Okay, Chair. Yes, I can't see the halings. Thank you. Could the case officer, could Mike please help us putting the wording on the screen? I think that would help the reference to the paragraph and the page. And I am happy to second the motion. All right, let me just get the page up again. It is right at the bottom of page 169 in the beginning of 170. Yep, so just to move up to the bottom. Chairman, I have put a request in the chat that we actually have the new condition typed up. This is very difficult to keep up with what we are actually going to be voting on here. Yeah, that's what I've just asked, Heather. Sorry, I read your comment. That's why I relayed it and asked the case officer. Yeah, all right. Well, there's two things we're dealing with. Which one we're dealing with first? This is condition 15. This is going to be interesting. Live typing in front of the people. I'll just get condition 15. Just to understand if for Councillor Heather Williams, that's OK. So as we've understood, this is not a Grampian condition. This change. Thank you, Councillor Haylings. It was just because we've had, obviously, Councillor Wotherspoon, Councillor Hazel Smith mentioned the conditions. And I don't know if I could just make it really clear going forward. No, I agree. I asked also if they thought it would be. So it's good to have the clarification. OK, that's fine. Bear with me. Bear with. Right, another second. Right, so if I share content document. There you go. Is that working for everybody? Yes, we can see that. Well, actually, it's too small. Let's just expand it. Yeah, that's ready. Is that working? Yeah, that's fine. Is this a revised one? No, that's the one from the report. So that's the bit of text. So it's simply saying take that out there, isn't it? Take that out. And then the other point was about the reason for that condition is not just about transport, but it's also about the place making element of it. So the reason was for the avoidance of doubt to ensure the delivery of strategic transport interventions before the occupation of any dwellings, and to ensure that the site is accessing appropriate commercial money, or maybe you could say. Not there. And? Well, the fact that it's accessible in an appropriate and comprehensive manner is in accordance with policy SS6. Yeah. So you might want to add it. Just there. So you could say comma and to ensure appropriate and appropriate. Chris, maybe you could help me just with this wording to ensure an appropriate place making focus, maybe. Not too sure that means anything. No, it's a bit clunky. So to ensure, can we say for the avoidance of doubt and to provide quality place making and to ensure the delivery of strategic transport, just put it right at the very beginning. Quality place making quality. Ensuring the delivery and to ensure to ensure and to ensure. To ensure the site. Yeah, there you go. That's it. Everyone OK with that? Yeah, thank you for that. I'm not very sure. This is quite the way we should be doing business, but none the less. So, Councillor Bredman, you're the one proposing this. Is that how you want to put that forward? I'm happy with that. Thank you, Chairman. Right. OK. So you've got a proposal in the second that we changed the wording to this. Now, does anybody wish to speak to it? But not that we get on and actually do some business. Councillor Richard Williams, speak to it. OK, Councillor Williams, please. Thank you, Chair. I'm not really very happy with this change. Not necessarily because of the substance of it, but partly because I agree with you, Chair. I don't really think we should be doing business like this in terms of just rewriting conditions in the meeting. But I have broader concerns about this. We're just kicking the can down the road with these conditions. We're saying, oh, you can't do this until the money's there. I mean, how long will that take? We have no idea how long that will take. And we don't know if what the negotiations will be, whether it'll result in changes to the financial viability of the scheme. If there are more developer contributions required, if we left or if we ended up with an application for a variation of the condition, we're just kicking this can down the road. It'd be much better to refuse this application if members are not happy with the fact that the train station is not funded, and then require the developer and others to come up with a proper proposal, then come back to this committee, and then we'll know where we stand. By doing this, we don't know where we stand. We completely lose control of the timing, and all of the other things that are attendant to that. So I'm not in favour of this change. Okay, thank you very much for that. Who else wants to speak? Was that you, Councillor Breddon, was it? Yes, please. Well, yeah, go on then. The reason this is not such an unreasonable change is because this is what the condition was at the outline. This is what the condition said at the outline, that it was predicated, the whole of Water Beach Newtown was predicated on the relocated railway station, and that was eloquently put by Councillor Rippus at the beginning of her presentation as local member. So this is not a new thing. This is what we said at the outset was a necessity for this new town to come forward and to set a habit of using public transport. And if that has the effect of meaning that this application can't come forward, then that's this maybe. But the point is, it's got to have a railway station first. Thank you. All right, thank you, Rhett. Councillor Thames, please. Thank you, Chair. Yes, I do think that it's perfectly sensible for us to amend conditions. We've done it plenty of times before. And what we're doing in this case is to restore the condition, as Councillor Bradnam has just said, to its original state. Indeed, those who've said during the debate this afternoon that they're concerned about officers being able to have some flexibility and a concern to ensure that when this committee decides on conditions those are adhered to, that is exactly what we're doing. We're restoring the conditions that we inserted earlier on and avoiding the uncertainty which arises by the all clause, which is now being removed. I think the wording that our case officer has derived in great haste, and I admire the way he's done it, is very clear. And it conveys the intention that it seems to me most members of this committee have to ensure that station is in place before any houses are occupied. That is what we're seeking to do. That is what this condition would achieve. All right, thank you very much. Councillor Martin Khan. Councillor Khan, please. Just a little observation, basically. If we don't make this amendment to the condition and we decide that this is not satisfactory, we refuse it. If it goes to appeal, we're going to be in a difficult position because the inspector will say, well, you could have dealt with this by condition. If you can deal with it by condition, you should deal it by condition. So I think it actually is quite dangerous not to do it by the condition and refuse it on grounds which could put us in a difficult position later. That's my general feeling. Okay, thank you very much for that. Just to sum up a second thing, Chair, does nobody else? Okay, well, before we do that, I would like to make a comment. As far as I'm concerned, the objective of the exercise is to get a viable public transport system in place. I don't see that actually reducing the number of options that might be considered. It actually helps anything very much. Of course, everyone would want the railway station to be the first option, but should for any reason that not be possible. And one of these other options does become possible. Then I don't see that we're achieving anything by a cat in those off. The upshot of the overall thing is that you can't go ahead with this project and tell us such time as you've got a viable transport system. That is what is needed. I won't be supporting this change because I think it actually reduces the prospects of achieving that end. Councillor Hayling, please. Yes, well, I'm seconding this. I would be supporting it. I think what we're hearing exactly, we are restoring this to the condition that it was when we had a very, very important decision right again, when we first came onto the planning committee, was to make sure that this railway relocation happened in order to ensure the modal shift. We're keeping that being proven to that principle by keeping that as the condition. And as we've heard, this will then unlock multiple things. This will then unlock, which I've just asked about, which is the link protocol. This will unlock the relationship then between the two developers to enable the road from A10, the access directly from the A10. And as we heard from the developer, this will unlock with Planning Commission, the finance options that are going to be available together with the 17 million that was ring fenced for the car park being made available as well. So I think this is a positive proposal, a positive amendment to that condition to make it true to its original intent. Right, thank you. Councillor Bradnan, do you want to? Councillor Heather Williams asked to speak and Councillor Martin Karnaken. Right, I thought we were getting near the end there, but never mind. Councillor Heather Williams, please. Thank you, Chairman. It may shock the Chairman that I have a lot of sympathy in what he said. We're not always on the same side of debates, but it does seem odd that we're wanting to restrict the amount of vehicles in this conditioning. But I sat on committee as well for the railway station and it is important that that comes first. So I am quite conflicted, but what I'm more concerned about is if that we saw as a committee that this condition was something that we could then rely upon to ease our uncomfortableness about transport in determining the applications as a whole, because we are very reliant on these figures for our five-year land supply and everything else. And there's nothing about timing here. And I do think if one of these options was to, so the high-quality public transport corridor or whatever it was, if one of those was to come first and was proven to be fine and everything else, we wouldn't be able to have those figures coming into our land supply. And that's one of the reasons that Water Beach is receiving a bit of a rough edge of the sword really and taking these houses. And there is no certainty as to when the railway funding would come through. I'm more minded with other colleagues that we haven't got a little way to go. We've got a long way to go and they should come back when they've got these measures in place. So if this goes through it's not going to make much difference, is it? But I would hope that members weren't relying on this to settle their conscience when deciding on the application as a whole, because this is not enough to satisfy those transport issues. And I've been much more minded just to refuse full stop. Right, thank you very much. Now we really must make some progress. So I see we've got two more speakers I think, is it? Councillor Cahn and Ripith, I hear those and we need to actually make a decision, please. Simply to say that clearly one of the main aims has always been that we're going to have a new station as a key issue in developing a new town, then it's clearly one of our objectives. If we weaken the condition it will make it much more difficult to pressure for it having a new station. It will always be open if another one of these methods of high speed transport comes first for the applicant to make an application to amend the condition. So that is always possible. It's not always open or free agents to make a decision. I think it is the right thing to do at this time to try and get this station constructed and the best way to do that is to put this condition in. Right, thank you very much. Councillor Ripith, please. So I just want to be really quick. I am thinking along voting for this, but I'm also thinking of probably voting to refuse the application, but I don't want those other two options really to be built because I think there'll be years down the line and we'll be left with this dragging on for ages. I just want to check with Mike Cuntington. I believe at the moment that this side of Waterbeach Newtown, what we're looking at today, is not part of the five-year housing land supply as yet. Can you just confirm that? Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Ripith. I don't know if David Roberts is still with us in the local plans team. He might be able to give me some advice or Claire Spencer. I don't know if they're not responding. I am Mike, but I'm missing a question. Could you just confirm whether the eastern half of the Newtown is in the five-year land supply? I don't think it is. I don't think it is either, because we know that they take a long time to actually get the first buildings built, as it were. We have to remember that the five-year land supply is a rolling system, so it might have been now, but the time does go by, and so any delay is important. Yeah, thank you. Thanks. Can I just, while you've asked me the question, I'm just wondering whether it's worth my colleague, Michelle Vass, joining us just to highlight what the urban and civic section one of six link arrangements says about alternative strategic transport measures. Michelle, could you just mention to members what that means? Yeah, within the urban and civic one of six agreement, as well as sort of arranging all the links protocol, which is trying to push the commercial deal to be done, there was also the ability for the council to try and ensure at least both parties commit to designing and constructing their bits of the road when there's some certainty about either the station or an alternative strategic transport measure coming along for something like what's identified in the original condition as the CAM Metro or similar. So it was just a flag that the U and C one of six does allow for an alternative to come forward as well, which might be relevant just in the context of what's being discussed. Okay, thank you very much. I think Sharon Brown wants to advise us on something. Thank you, Chair. I just wanted to reiterate the comments that Mr Roberts has made about the five year housing land supply issue, that it's a rolling five year housing land supply. So you need also to think about the medium and longer term. And this development contributes significantly into medium and longer term housing land supply. So clearly this is one of our important site allocations in the local plan. I think the other thing I just wanted to touch on is to just look at this scheme compared to the Water Beach Barracks scheme. And again, if I can cast members minds back to that committee, there was a considerable level of concern at that time about the ability of urban and civic to make progress with that development and a lot of concern as to whether they would be able to start in the funding. One of the issues we have with these very long term phase developments is because of the phased process of them and this being built out over 25 years, we don't have all the answers immediately. We have to sign an outline permission at a point in time. And the Section 106 agreement is signed at the same time as the outline. And that's just at that particular one point in time. So we're trying to second guess some of the funding solutions that were likely to come forward. But what we do know from other outline permissions like Water Beach Barracks is that as urban and civic advisers that Homes England were waiting for the permission to be granted to move forward with the funding. And we also know from other developments such as the Mali development that, again, Homes England funding became available on the granting of the outline permission. We know also that there are other funding sources, obviously with this forming part of the Oxford to Cambridge arc. Nationally, this is a Cambridge who is an economic hub that is very important. We've seen instances of Hifbid funding. So I think we just need to bear in mind that strategic and national context of the focus on the economic importance of Cambridge and the opportunities for funding sources. And I think I remember the words of Stephen Kelly on the Water Beach development site when that was at committee. And he did say it really does require you to make a leap of faith in these types of situations with these very large strategic outline applications. And I would just ask you to remember that. Thank you. Okay. Thank you very much. And finally, then on this element, Councillor Bredlin, would you sum up, please? Thank you, Chairman. What a useful and interesting discussion we've had. And I go back to what I said at the beginning that I want the Water Beach new town to work and I want it to be a cohesive and understandable, you know, readable community across the two halves of the development. And so I'm really pleased we've got something in place for the links protocol. And as I said before, and I've got our local plan in front of me, SS6, and I'm reading from paragraph 3.42. And basically it's talking about it's the principles under which Water Beach new town would be developed. And it says a fundamental requirement for this site is that it will be highly accessible and permeable for all its residents on foot by cycle and public transport to support sustainable transport, recreation and health. The site offers particular opportunities to deliver public transport improvements, including the relocation of Water Beach railway station to a location where it will also be convenient for people living in Water Beach village, making rail travel highly attractive. And as Councillor Khan pointed out, this does not preclude those other public transport options coming forward. If we're so fortunate or if the Cambridge Autonomous Metro turns up sometime or the Greater Cambridge Quality Transport Public Transport Network turn up, then as we've said, the developer could seek a variation. And that would certainly come to committee. But this this is our requirement that it needs a railway station to encourage that initial mindset that we will be that we're going to try and make this a development that uses public transport first. And I think the RLW application does try to do that, as indeed the urban and civic is. So thank you very much for the people who have supported this and will support it. So I'll sum up on my proposal there. Thank you. Okay, excellent. Thank you very much. All right, members. I'll have a roll call on this. So what we're voting on then is the change to condition 15, which essentially makes exclusively deliver the railway station. So if you're for that, you're for. If you're against that, you're against if you want to abstain, you're abstain. Okay, if we can then start the roll call. Councillor Bradlin, please. Councillor Martin Kahn. Councillor Fein, please. Councillor Tumie Hawkins, please. Councillor Dipper Halins. Councillor Judith Rippeth, sorry. Councillor Deborah Roberts. Against. Councillor Heather Williams. Against. Councillor Richard Williams. Against because the station is still unfunded and that's the real problem. This does nothing to resolve that. Thank you. Councillor Nick Wright. Against. Thank you. My vote is against. That's five votes to six in favour of the motion. So that change to the condition 15 stands. Now we're going to deal with 57B as well. We can do. So do we have a revised wording ready for that? Yes, Chair. Chris Carter here. I've got some wording for you. I'll just put it on the screen now. Thank you very much. Chair, and I think we have to vote to continue. Are we now then 342? Yes, we've gone over four hours. So just quickly, members, we've gone past now four hours. Can I have a vote by affirmation that we continue through the fight? Agreed. Anyone against? No, okay. So we soldier on them. Okay, so this is the revised wording. It's just the addition of the red words I take it. That's correct, Chair. I've only included point B of the condition. Obviously, there are other strands to the condition, but it's point B that's being amended. And I've included the additional wording. These routes must exclude access from any existing residential roads. Right, okay. That certainly covers all that. Can we go straight to a vote on this, please, members? Agreed. Anyone against accepting this revised words? No one against? So we've accepted that by affirmation in that case. So that is adopted. So that is 57B condition accepted. Now, I know I did try and have different subject matters, but I think we're going to probably be here for the rest of the week if we continue on that basis. So I'm going to open this up now. This is a free-for-all. You can cover any issue you want, but please do it at one go. I'm going to be very miffed if people want to come back for a second go. So can we start the list? I think Councillor Roberts, you're already there, are you? I think so, Chairman. Thank you very much. I shall be voting against this today. There are far too many ifs and buts and maybes. Too many unsolved questions. I'm very unhappy about the 30% affordable housing and then this madder idea of transferring over to transport. I really think that the financing of this is so questionable, the transport side, that there really is only one thing to say, which is what Councillor Richard Williams suggested, which is to say no now and let this have much more work done on it. We all know that it's part of the local plan. We all accept that something's going to be built on here. It was originally going to be 8,000 houses. Now the two sites together make it 11. That's actually unacceptable. The density has become so much larger. If we're not just talking about a few hundred, we're talking about thousands. The quality of life therefore in my opinion will not be this great paradise. It's more likely going to be paradise lost. Just recently with the COVID, one of the things that has come out is that the density of housing is one of the big factors where disease spreads. When you start packing houses in like sardines in a tin, as they did in Victorian England, that's when you start getting major problems in health, et cetera. I also think stress levels because people don't have the room to actually breathe or be themselves or have space. It's really unacceptable. We should be the planning authority. We should never, ever have gone down that route of giving the urban and civic more than they should have been allocated to them. One doesn't want to be accused of, well, we've given it to the others and it would be unfair on these people. I think it was clearly stated that the 11,000 isn't a legal obligation and I've really no idea how it's been allowed to grow in the way that it has done and come up with this figure. But at present, it's just completely in every way around an acceptable planning application. It's going to be there, well, how long? It all depends how well it's built, doesn't it? But it's going to be there for a long time in the future. I think we have to make sure it's right. Not just, well, it's part of the long term for the five year land supply and I do wonder how much influence that is having on the backstage. But I'm sorry, I cannot possibly go along with this. It's not fair. It's not fair on the village that is there now. It's not on the residents who are there now. It's not fair on the people who are going to be packed into it in the future. We can do a lot better than this and it's upon us, it's our moral duty to make sure that we build better than this. Thank you. Chair, you have Councillor Heather Williams and then Councillor Peter Fain. Thank you very much. Councillor Heather Williams, please. Thank you, Chairman. So I've made my notes in line with the reports. So number one, the principle of development. Obviously, you know, those of us that voted for the local plan like myself support development in that area. But on the second section, the amount of land use and the parameters, the scale and density, I have real concerns about that. Policy H8, aimed density of 40 DPG. Overall, it's 45 DPG and in some places 100. So I'm not, DPH, sorry, not DPG. So I'm really concerned about that. I think it is high. And particularly given where it sits, I mean, there are some beautiful towns that have been done with a fair nature. And I don't feel that this is actually suitable for that edge and where it sits. I think it's much too high and much too dense. And yeah, I think that's not, it's not good enough. It's not high quality design or what we would wish to see as an authority. We've gone through transport, but on housing delivery, it's not compliant with H10. The 30% affordable housing concerns me very much. It is highly needed. And in paragraph 652, I did have some clarification, but I don't think that the answers to that would change my mind. I was concerned that not all the affordable housing would potentially be in perpetuity. So within a few years, we could be at lower numbers than that. I would, if overall members are minded to approve this, I would like officers to look at paragraph 708 about faith provision. So if this does go ahead, we've seen in other areas where that's somewhere that not gets forgotten, but we've struggled to deal with that. And I think it's important that we do so that those people that currently live in Water Beach and new residents do get that feeling of belonging. So attention needs to be on that. And altogether, there's so many things that are unanswered to me in this. There is so much further for this to go. And I think it's a case of, everyone's put a lot of work and effort into it. I'm sure from parish councils to the district council, but it's not ready yet. And I think it would be a disservice to the current and future residents of Water Beach if I was to vote for this. So I will be voting against it on policies H10 and H8 and the new policies where it's not compliant. Thank you, Chairman. Thank you very much. Councillor Sain. Thank you, Chair. Yes, I was very sympathetic to the concerns raised by the parish council and others, and particularly by the local members. I think those were very, those are legitimate concerns. Clearly, we cannot expect to meet all of those at the outline stage. And where there is scope for later progress, then I do not think those sort of concerns should be an obstacle. In particular, if we want to see the delivery of the railway station, not only have we now changed the conditions that would focus on that, but we also heard from Mr. Goldsmith for the developers and indeed from our own senior advisers that it is only when planning consent is granted that the funding can be released which makes these things possible. So by granting outline consent at this stage, we may make, for instance, the delivery of the new railway station possible. If we were, and I think that would be a bad mistake, but if we were to refuse planning consent, we would put off further the day when that new station could be delivered. And that has impacts not only for this development, but of course also for the development next door. So there are a number of other things. Well, I don't want to go on at length. I just want to say that given the changes to conditions that we have already agreed, I think it is now the time to approve this consent. All right. Thank you very much, Councillor Fein. Any more speakers? Vice-Chair? Yes, Chair. So we have Councillor Nick Wright and Councillor Judith Rivers. All right, thank you. Councillor Wright, please. Thank you, Chairman. And just to pick up on Councillor Fein's point, you know, if we approve this, it is stepping into the dark because you approve it, you lose your control, and you have to rely on other people to come forward with the funding. I think it's much safer to refuse this and watch how people come forward with funding because they will, because they won't see this happen. This application is definitely premature. In fact, for a major application, I haven't seen one as uncertain and muddled as this before. We're not taking the local community with us as we normally do, nearly always with our big applications, North Stowe, Wing and others. The parishes were involved in the design. They were taken with us throughout the application, and this is very much over their dead bodies. It's, you know, we've heard from principally from Water Beach, but the other parishes around are opposing this as well. And I don't think it's nimbyism. I think it's just they have not been involved in talks and discussions with the council and with the applicants. It is really poor planning, not to take your communities with you. And of all people, the local members should be listening to that. And I can't emphasize that enough. You know, you are there to support your residents. And please remember that. We've heard from a lot of them today. They're not happy. I'm not happy with this. And I'll leave it there. Thank you, Chairman. Thank you very much. Councillor Ripeth, please. And I'll go back slightly to what I said at the beginning, and I still have grave concerns that I'm going to vote to refuse this, as I just don't think it is quite good enough. And in Water Beach, I want something that is really, you know, really good. And I don't want to be relying on the umpteenth planning condition. I know it's a huge application we've got before us, but I think I need to feel much more like the actual main sort of crux of the matter is better. And I would suggest that the multi-storey car park is not something which goes with the said green credentials or anything beautiful in this development. And perhaps we can bang heads together by refusing this, because then they're going to have to go the extra mile, pardon the pun, and look at um, funding. Can it be part funded from that 17 million? And perhaps another sponsor might come forward with the Fairbark scheme? I just think at the moment it's not good enough. Okay, thank you. Vice-chair, do we have further speakers? Yes, myself and Councillor Anna Bradman. All right, Councillor Haylings, please. Yes, so I want to go on to the issue of flooding and flood management chair, and I have a question to see if we can resolve something. But before that, I just wanted to clarify, I'd understood that within the current conditions it is proposed that the funding, the 17 million funding for the car park be ring fenced and be apportioned to the railway station. Can I just clarify that and confirm that perhaps with the case officer? Right, please. I know it's a transport issue, but it's just because it's the Conservatives' phrase. Yes, the proposal is that money somewhere in my report is rolled over into the Transport Enhancement Fund. Thank you, thank you. So I thought that was assured. We heard very, very, and we've received in written form as well from residents of Water Beach and also from others that represent housing associations and developers there about the impact of flooding from the flood barriers that are being proposed to be built by this development. And I'm looking at, in particular, paragraph 825, which is on page 120, where the Environment Agency does raise a concern and says that it's satisfied, though this can be achieved through the detailed design required by planning condition, but saying that that detail of design may result in additional areas needed for flood mitigation. And we heard both from Barbara Bull and from Catherine Els who articulated this so clearly, this critically, especially given the recent rains, and we know with climate change that's going to have increased intensity and frequency of flooding conditions. There was a proposal that condition 42, which is on page 182, be adapted to get the reassurance that that detailed design be ready as part of the reserved matters or prior to reserve matters and agreement having been reached and the Environment Agency having signed off on that. So for the case, I was just wondering that proposal, I think it was by Catherine Els this morning, is that covered or is that something that we could tighten up in that condition? Absolutely. I mean, condition 42 was recommended by the Environment Agency and the speaker this morning suggested some amended form of words. I have no problem with that form of words because it's more precise. It adds a little bit more clarity about what that condition requires, which is fine. I heard from her words that I tried to chop them down, but she wanted to sort of revise it to say that the scheme should ensure that the flood risk does not impact, it didn't get the next bit, I think, but it meant the neighbouring settlement, and this would be reflected in detailed reserve matters and determined before reserve matters and considered as a site-wide strategy was kind of the words used. Yeah, I mean, I mean, the thing about this strategy is that it's designed to deal with a brief scenario, which has to deal with protecting the houses of the eastern half of the new town or that particular area when it comes forward, and obviously not all of the houses were built all at the same time, they will be built out over a period of time, so the requirement for the flood defences, if that's the right way to describe it, will only be required as the houses come forward. You don't build the defences when there's nothing to defend, so it would have to be required to be developed over the lifetime of the development. Okay, so it would be site-wide and over the lifetime of the development, so I think the main thing was ensuring that sort of the way it's worded at the moment is at some point this detail guidance there, but she was saying be part of the reserve matters and agreed before the reserve matters comes forward. Absolutely, and essentially the issue is because it's such a fine detail way to describe it, because in the original model that the developer did, it was very much of a broad based approach, and actually the reality of it is that it's only when you get to the very fine detail that you can work out where the flood defences will go. I think the revised form of wordings that Catherine else proposed was an appropriate suggestion. So can I make a motion then for that chair? Can you put that in writing? I made a note of what Catherine else said, which might be helpful. Chairman, if that's permissible, we'll see if Mike needs that. I've got the form of words. So can you give us a form of words? Maybe we can continue while Mike's doing that. We can continue on another speaker, and then when he's ready we can come back with a motion. Does that help? Would we do it now? I'll leave that for you for a minute then, Mike. Yeah, that's fine. Okay, so who else have I got then, please? So I think we've got Anna, councillor Bradnum next. Right, councillor Bradnum please. Thank you Chairman. My concerns are two were around the flood risk. As I say, having spent Mr Christmas Day up there, I was, I am concerned about this, but the point that Catherine else made was that this is a fundamental principle of the site. We know that that area is less than five metres above ordinance datum, and it's very low lying, and for any of us who live around here, you know that the water table is barely below the soil surface for quite large proportions of the year, particularly during the winter. And what the point she made was that it needed to be strengthened so that to ensure that the flood risk is not increased elsewhere, which is the fundamental principle in the NPPF, but also that flood risk is considered properly with a full scheme before the reserve matters are considered. So I would like to see that strengthening in place. I'm still horribly uncertain as to which way to vote on this, because what I'm concerned about is that if we refuse, I think it would be hard to justify refusal properly, but also I think that I actually want to see this development going forward when it can in the way that it can. And as the applicant said, and other people have referred to, the giving of approval is when the money, the investment becomes available in order to invest in the key public transport network, i.e. the railway, the relocated railway. So I'd very much be pleased to see this condition 42 be enforced as well. I'll pause there, shall I Chairman, while we can look at that? Yep, it's just the red piece I think, is it? Ensure that flood risk is not increased elsewhere, is that element? The wording in underlined is a slight variation. Oh right. So in a scheme to manage the residual risks of flooding, and then with additional words from a river cam flood embankment breach, and then in brackets, scenarios to cover risks both within and outside of the site to inform the development has been submitted to and approved. So that bit in underlining is kind of an expansion of what I do. That's a beefed up. Yeah, beefed up. And then the red bit is an additional bit of text. Can I just also mention that at the very beginning, your first three words are a slight change, aren't they as well? Oh yeah, no development documents. It was no development nights, no reserve matters, which I think is exactly, you know, both what Jeff Nels and also what Councillor Bradlam just said. Could I just clarify, just really seek clarification, that I wouldn't be happy if this condition limited it only to causes of flooding from the cam flood embankment breach, because there's a real risk of the cam river bank breaching as well. Sorry, Councillor, this condition or this issue Chris Swain from the Environment Agency, if he's still with us, might be able to join in, but the issue here is about dealing with the issue of a residual risk due to the river bank collapsing, because the development site itself, 95% of the site is actually not in the flood plane. So it's actually having to do with that one particular scenario. In paragraph 25, Anna, which is where this is derived from, if the river cam defences falls and maybe that's a better wording, would that be? You're talking about 42, aren't you? Yes, condition 42. It's condition 42 derived, I think, from paragraph 825 on page 120. Okay. And there's a reason for the condition, Councillor Bradlam, the reason for the condition is just as important as the condition, it said, to prevent flooding by ensuring the satisfactory storage or conveyance of flood water diverted by the site during a breach of the river cam defences in accordance with the NPPS. So it's to deal with flood water from the breach of the river cam. Okay. Okay. So are you happy to put that to the members of them, Councillor Bradlam? I'm just interested in the word the river cam flood embankment breach rather than any kind of any flooding. This is very difficult to make major changes on the hoops like this. I'm very wary of this. What's there appears to cover matters, but... I think it does, Chairman. All right. There's only one river in the area that is the river cam. Okay. All right. Members, are you prepared to accept these changes? Absolutely not, Chairman. Oh, fine. Okay. So shall we have a vote on that, then? Can I ask the Dr Williams to speak on the change? Will you say? Sorry, I didn't catch that. Williams, Councillor Williams. All right. Councillor Williams, please. Thank you, Chair. I mean, I share the fundamental concern and I want to make that absolutely clear. It worries me a lot that if this development increases the flood risk elsewhere, I don't really think that's acceptable, but we cannot make that not the case by simply adding some words to a planning condition. Where's the specialist report to say if this is even possible? Where is the technical assessment? We don't know. We can write what we like in a planning condition. What if it's actually not possible to build this without increasing the flood risk somewhere else? We don't know that. There's no technical report to say that, so we can't really vote this through, because we don't know. The point of conditions is to get to a point where they have to show that they can do it. Don't forget this is a help sign, Councillor. Yes, but we're asking them. But we shouldn't be making, look, Chair, I think you and I may well agree on this point. We shouldn't be making major changes like this in a meeting with no technical reports, with no expert evidence to tell us if this is even possible. I mean, what if it turns out it's not possible if they come back to committee to change the condition again? Why can't we just vote on what we've got if we're not happy with the risk of increasing flooding somewhere else? Don't vote to support it. Don't pretend we can just manage to get away with some words. Okay, all right. Yeah, yeah. Chris Carter to speak, Chair. Thomas Sends. Right. Chair, through you, just very briefly, Chair. We do have Chris Swain from the Environment Agency with us. Can I suggest it might be an opportune moment for him to comment on this point? Yeah, thank you. Yeah, excuse me. Yes, please. Thank you, Chair. There's Chris Swain from the Environment Agency. I've obviously been following the debate and by happy coincidence, the changes to the planning condition that are up on screen are very, very close to the recommendations that the Environment Agency made only last week and didn't quite have time to make it into the report. So I think it's fair to say that we're happy with the condition covering the no reserve matters scenario and we're happy that the only significant risk to the site from fluvial flooding is the breach of the river cam. And I think we will need to think very carefully about how we define flood risk. I think that might be better included in the reason for the condition. Flood risk is defined in government guidance in the National Planning Policy Framework Guidance and is a combination of probability and consequence. So in this case, the probability would be of a breach would be very low. And so really we're just looking at consequences that would be so significant that however small the probability they would need to be mitigated. Now, at this outline stage, it may feel uncomfortable that we don't have all that detail, but we do have sufficient detail to show that the increase in flood depths shown in the flood risk assessment are small. And the applicants have concluded that it would not increase the flood hazard rating. And so really, I think we are talking about small risks that the Environment Agency is reasonably content, are attainable through a detailed site-wide strategy. So this planning condition would bring that forward. However, what you won't know at this stage is exactly what residual risks you're going to be left with. And that will feel uncomfortable and it would make it difficult to decide how much weight to put on that residual flood risk in balance with all the other considerations that you have before you. But I would say that we have sufficient information to say that the residual flood risk would be low. And it's fair to say that we've looked at the worst-case scenario of all factors combined, which again may be low in probability in coming to fruition. And in these circumstances, I think it's fair to say that if the worst-case scenario combined is concluded to be a low risk that it should be attainable at reserve matters. And the final point that I would make on flooding is that the main area of development that is driving the flood risk and driving the need to put the flood buttons in is the area to the sort of east of the site, east of Bannel Drain. And clearly, when it comes to detailed design, there is, if you like, too much water being displaced to manage it satisfactorily, then the main implications are that either more compensation areas would be needed or that, you know, that development area could have to be smaller. So that's why we put the caveat in the Environment Agency's advice that it should be dealt with at a very early stage of discharge of conditions if you're minded as a committee to approve it. And then there would be sort of no regrets further down the line. Okay, so Mrs. Swain, just focusing on what we have in front of us, are you telling us this is acceptable? Well, that's not something that the Environment Agency can advise upon, Sir. Well, I think that as I understood you say, the changes that you were suggesting were very similar to this. So is it something which is something that you might support? Yeah, so in terms of the changes to the pining condition that are in front of us, then, yeah, the Environment Agency, I'd say, would support those. But subject to the bit in reds ensuring that flood risk is not increased elsewhere. I think that would be far more appropriate in the reasons for the condition. Because in a defended flood plain, which is what we have here, the government does not expect for every single flood risk to be fully mitigated. And I think that as it stands now, that condition could be a bit too strict to be attainable. So I think we would need to... Right, so could we simply drop the last paragraph down as an advisory reason then? Sorry, Chris, may I just interject? So what we could do is we could put the text in red in the reason. So the reason to prevent, the current reason says to prevent flooding. And what we should say is to ensure that flood risk is not increased, to prevent flooding and to ensure that flood risk is not increased elsewhere. By ensuring the satisfactory storage or conveyance of flood water, diverted by the site during a breach of the river come. So effectively adding that red text into the reason. Yes, so I think that that word satisfactory is really important because that means that we can agree something that is, let's say reasonable, attainable and in line with government and local policy. Yeah. Okay, thanks very much. Mike, could you possibly take the other way and deal with it then? Yes, I can do that. Yeah, I can do that now. So in the meantime, we move on. I think there's more speakers, wasn't there? We've got Councillor Martin Kahn and then Councillor Rick Dritch-Brilliams. Hang on. So it's Councillor Kahn, is it? Have you missed Councillor Hawkins? No, that comes later, Anna, thank you. Right. Okay, Councillor Kahn. Okay. You need to remember this is an outline application for an area which we have agreed in the STP is part of Newtown. The grounds for refusal have to be pretty strong because there is a assumption in favour of development in this area. I'm concerned in particular about the affordable housing. I realise that we cannot insist upon more than what is justified on viability grounds, but I am concerned that in the future, should more viability become available, at least some of it should be used for improving the housing, affordable housing provision, that's the really big, one of the really big issues that affects the district council. This is something which is in the Section 106, and I would want to emphasise the importance of that in the Section 106 negotiations. My county attorney is flashing. I don't know if this means you want to comment on this. Sorry, I don't know what I'm doing. I would like some reassurance that that more provision might be made in the future, but that being taken, I think if we refuse it, I think it's sufficiently satisfactory that if we refuse it, the concerns of what might happen in that situation perhaps worry me more than approval. All right, thank you. Okay, thanks very much. Councillor Richard Williams, we'll be coming back to the conditioning if you wanted to speak to that. Well, I'd originally put down to speak on the whole proposal. I'm happy to do that now, and come back to the amendment. So just in terms of my overall view of this, I mean, there are a number of things that do concern me. The fact that we're building substantially more than is in the local plan, that does concern me. I take on board what was said earlier about material considerations and given the earlier planning application, but this is significantly more than was in the local plan. The SPD doesn't say that 11,000 is okay. The SPD says that it makes no comment on the suitability of the 11,000 number in terms of the overall development, and that's a matter for the committee. So the SPD doesn't apply just to take 11,000 either. So it concerns me that it is significantly over what was envisaged. The density of the proposal concerns me as well. I think some other members have mentioned this. It doesn't comply with our local plan. It's significantly over. I think an average as Councillor Heather Williams said of 45 and in places, we're talking about a density of over 100 per hectare. The height of the buildings confuses me. And to put it bluntly, it seems that we are proposing to build Station Road Cambridge in the middle of the countryside. That's what it feels like. We're talking about six, five, six-story buildings, potentially an eight-story building. I think it's completely inappropriate to have that density of development in a location that is, as I say, in the middle of the countryside. I'm not happy with it on those grounds. I'm not happy with affordable housing. The fact that we only have 30%, given the density and the fact that we're building out, you know, or the proposals to build out 22% over what was originally envisaged for this site, I do not really understand why we can't have affordable housing that's compliant with our normal policies. I think it's really important when we're building new communities that we do make the housing available to residents of all means. So it is really, really very important that we have that in place. So, as I say, given the substantial overbuild over the national, over the local plan, I don't really see why we can't have the 40%. The transport we've already talked about. So I'll try to keep my comments brief on that, but you'll have already gathered. I'm not happy with the transport situation. I am not, I completely agree with the other members who said, we want that railway station built, I want that railway station built. I want it built now, but before I approve this application, I want to see the money. Now, I know other members have said that granting approval will unlock the funding. That's not a matter of logic. That doesn't have to be the case. In the sense that it's a matter of choice. People have chosen not to commit funding until there's planning permission. There's no reason why they can't. There's no reason why they couldn't have given committed conditional funding. And I think we should insist on that. I'm not happy to approve a planning application where it's completely uncertain where the funding for that train station will come from. It should be part of the planning proposal we're considering, because as I say, I do think that that train station needs to move and that needs to be there before any houses are built. But I think it should be properly funded at this point. And we should insist on that. The links to the A-10 and the fact that the A-10, what's going to happen with that is also very uncertain. That also concerns me. And again, to put it bluntly, the county council is objecting to this. So I don't really know what members would want as a good reason to refuse this more than the fact that the highways authority is objecting to this application. And as I said earlier, it's not a holding objection. It's an objection because today we're making the decision. So there are more than ample grounds to refuse it on the basis of transport because, as I say, the highways authority is objecting to it. And I don't know what more we'd want. The flood risk concerns me. Maybe we'll come back to that. So I won't talk about that here. I'm not entirely convinced about the heritage asset aspect of it actually being protected. It does seem to me that I know it's indicative. But some of that development with potentially three-story housing is quite near Denny Abbey. So the heritage aspect concerns me. The local community, I think, as Councillor Wright has said, is not on board with this. And that's a great shame. And I think we shouldn't really be considering proposals like this unless the local community is on board. That concerns me a lot. So I think one, just to pick up on one thing, I think Councillor Radnam said, and if I can offer a visit reassurance about the grounds on which we can refuse it on the transport, I think the ground for me is the county councillors objected. That is really important. And I think members should bear that in mind. But as I say, I also would reject this on the basis of the number of applications, number of houses, which is far over what was envisaged in the local plan and the density, which is completely inappropriate for the location of this new development. Thank you. Thank you very much. Okay, Vice-Chair, we've got some more speakers. Yes, we do. So we have Councillor Nick Wright who also wants to speak on the condition, but also I think, Councillor Wright, you want to speak before that in general. Councillor Wright? Thank you, Chairman. I did want to speak on the condition, and I just added to it the second time. So I am really unhappy with this. As I expected previously, this is not good planning to do it like this. We do, flooding is so important because if you block a bit of the flood plain up with a bund or anything like that, you need to see the effects that it has elsewhere. And we're not showing the mitigation here. I know the risk is rare, but the flooding is becoming increasingly concerning across the district with climate change and our warm, wet winters that we're experiencing. So we need to see before us the effects of a bund put around this to protect it because you are shutting off part of the flood plain, and it's all right if that condition satisfies the environment agency. But what about the landowner? What about the other landowners who may be affected by flooding and the other parishes? It has a wide knock-on effect, and especially in Water Beach, there might be parts of Water Beach that experience flooding because the new area is being protected. We need to see a clear plan before us, before we make up another decision. So thank you, Chairman. Thank you very much. Yeah, we also have Chris Carter before we have a couple of others. I don't know if Chris, did you still want to speak? Chris? Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Vice-Chair. I was just going to make a few comments on the percentage of affordable housing and the density of the scheme, if that's appropriate at this stage. Perhaps we'll hang on to that. I'd like to get to them. And then we have the best of their statements. Dr. Councillor Toomey Hawkins. All right, Councillor Hawkins, please. Thank you, Chair. I think I wanted to speak to the flooding condition before the Mr Swing from Environmental Agency spoke. I was going to refer to the letter of the 19th of January in which they actually said, and I quote, the Environment Agency has no objections to the flood risk management design aspects of the development. This is subject to the following condition that requires the flood risk management scheme to be subject, submitted at a very early stage of site-wide design, et cetera, et cetera. And then the condition was quite similar to what we've put on the screen. And I mean, it's a difficult application before us, but at the same time, we need to weigh the balance and what weight we give to the considerations. And if the Environment Agency is the flood risk agency who are telling us that this is sufficient for now until the reserve matters point, then I think on that score, I will be happy to take their word for it because they are the professionals in this case. Just to mention, I mean, the other two areas I'm concerned about, which again, I think perhaps it's a case of how we deal with it, is the affordable housing element. The viability assessment has been done. We have the document and it does show that 30% is a minimum that could be achieved. But what I would like to see if we can is for when we do revisions, stepped revisions or stage revisions, whenever that comes in, is rather than give that to transport, to give it to affordable housing back to 40%, then anything after that can go to transport. That is what I would prefer to see. And in terms of the communities, I mean, yeah, I would like communities to be on board with applications. And it's interesting that Castle Richard Williams saying that we shouldn't decide things when communities are not on board. I do recall him approving permissions when communities were not on board. So I think you should decide which way it is that he wants to sit on that one. I'm sorry, I don't recall any incidents of that actually, but thank you. I can give you an example. I voted against the one in Call to God. You voted for it. Never mind, press on. Yes, stop playing games to me. Councillor Hawkins, please. Thank you, Chair. At the end of the day, we do need, I mean, I've read the document through and I would like to see some of the concerns raised by the parish councils to be addressed. For example, in terms of the water mains and the Anglian water carrying the waterway to Milton, I mean, surely with the problems that have occurred recently, we should be able to get some sort of confirmation from them on that issue because that is very important, obviously, to the local community. I mean, if it's possible for us to go through the points they raise in the letter and just see how best, how well the fears have been allayed, that potentially could help. Thank you, Chair. Thank you very much. Nice, Chair. Do we have further speakers? Yes, Councillor Braden. Again, on flood risk, she's saying. Right, does anybody else want to make their statements? On the whole application, you mean? Yeah. Well, that's what we're doing. Chairman, have we got the comment back from Mike Huntington about the flood risk yet? Mike, are you ready for that? Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Chairman. I'll just put that condition up. So the red text is the new text, and the red text that's not underlined is the new text, and the red text that is underlined is a variation of what was previously in the report. So that's what we discussed before. So we've taken Catherine Elsie's comment at the beginning. No matter the matter's application shall be submitted and no development shall commence, and then additional wording underlined, and then additional wording on the reason for the condition. Thank you, Chair. I'd like to propose this motion then, Chair, for this amendment to the Conditioning Portrait too. Hang on a minute. Can I just clarify one more point for you, please? I want some quality assessment on this, please. Mr Carter, as the senior here, is this acceptable to you? I'm just reading it now, Chair. You also have Chris Wayne from the Environment Agency, I believe, wanting to comment on this. Okay. Chair, I'd just like to clarify with the case officer. In terms of the first sentence, no reserve matters application shall be submitted and no development shall commence. Is that no development on any reserve matters phase or no development at all? That's no development at all. I mean, it was originally a no development shall commence in the original condition, which is obviously a stronger condition as you can have no development shall commence at all. Okay. Wouldn't that be challenged? The no development shall commence beginning is already in the original condition in the report. On page 182. Yes. Okay. In that case, then, Chair, no, I don't have any problem with that. I think it just provides further clarity with regard to the reserve matters applications. If I could just briefly bring in Chris Wayne then. Thank you, Chair. Yes, it was just a minor point in the reason, and this is something that the Environment Agency wrote in our letter 19th of January was in the word reason, it's to manage flooding rather than to prevent flooding. Yeah. As preventing flooding, I'm afraid, is near impossible and therefore not attainable. So, yeah, that would bring it sort of consistent with government policy, local policy and common practice. Thank you. Can I just make two points, Chairman, about the... Hang on a minute. I just want to ask for clarification. I'm not sure if this is Wayne yet. Just wait a minute, you'll get your turn. So, can I take it then that this is acceptable to you, as far as you I appreciate that you have ifs and buts and so on, but there's nothing dramatically unreasonable about any of this. Yeah, that's correct. I'd be satisfied with that condition. We'd certainly satisfy the Environment Agency. Thank you. Okay, great. Thank you. Councillor Bradman, did you have a point? Thank you, Chairman. I just wanted clarification that the phrase in the reason that says during a breach of the River Cam defences actually... Sorry, no, it's not that one. It's in the red wording at the second line of the red wording, where it says a scheme to manage the residual risks of flooding from a River Cam flood embankment breach. Does that simply mean the river bank or does it mean some other funding somewhere else west of the river? All right. Let's find out then. Mike, can you help us then? That's the river bank. Yes, so can we just call it the river bank? Yeah, absolutely. Because it's ambiguous. It implies there's something somewhere else. I can't write this stuff. Chris Swain, I think it would be more ambiguous, my opinion is river bank because the river channel itself is some way from the flood defence. So it is a raised flood defence embankment. Okay, sorry, as you were then. Yeah, I would keep it as it was. Bank reverie. Okay, let's... Right, so we've got that now. Who was proposing this? Was that you, Anna? So no, I'm proposing chair, Councillor Williams. Yep, so any final words from anybody? Do I see something come up then? You, Councillor Heather Williams, would like to speak to it. Right, okay. Councillor Williams, please. Thank you, Chairman. I do understand the issues and the concerns that members sharing of this flood are making. And now is a more... It couldn't be a better time than the moment to have it at the forefront of our minds of what we've witnessed. However, I am concerned about the new wording now. I don't think it gives any more reinforcement than the original wording. The only difference being that we've made this wording up in a very bizarre fashion through the meeting. We have the developers watching and I feel we are opening ourselves up to probably quite legitimate challenges, the way we're putting this together for something that I don't think is actually strengthening it. It's just changing it in reference in the camp flood embankment breach and just understand why you want to change the reason, but the condition itself, what does it add? I'm failing to see that based on the original, because it still is, shall commence until such scheme to manage a residual flooding, nothing is going to reach out. You obviously will vote against it. So we've got a proposal. I will, Chairman. Yep, good. So the proposal is from Councillor Bradnum. Yeah, okay. And seconded by Councillor Bradnum. Yeah, okay. Let's put it to a vote. I think we're going to have another roll call. There's going to be more than one vote. So if we can open it up. So what you're voting for is the changes in red. If you favour those, you are four. If you don't want them, you're against. If you want to abstain, abstain. Okay, we do that then. So Councillor Bradnum, please. Four. Four. Councillor Cohn. Four. Thank you very much. Councillor Flane. Four. Thank you. Councillor Hawkins. Thank you. Councillor Halings. Four. Thank you. Peter's with the current Councillor Griffith. Four. Thank you. Councillor Roberts. Against because I think it'll be challenged. Thank you. Councillor Heather Williams. Against. Thank you. Councillor Richard Williams. Against for the reasons articulated earlier. Thank you. Councillor Wright. Against. Thank you. My vote is four. So it's seven, four, and four against. That is carried. So that is a new condition or new wording for the condition. Now we were making progress on trying to come into some conclusions here. So most people I think have already declared their positions. Is there anybody else who wishes to speak regarding the overall project and what their view of it is? So Vice-Chair, do we have any further speakers? Oh yes, sorry. Yes, please. I was asking the Vice-Chair actually. Councillor Hannah Bradenham. Sorry. Councillor Bradenham. Those of us who are struggling with paper at home and trying to write in speak, it just makes it a little bit difficult. Just one other, couple of other things I just wanted to ask about. I have a recollection that burials was referred to both in the amendment that we received, but certainly yes in the amendment on page, sorry, the appendix page five paragraph 20. There was a question from the parish council that this development seemed to be taking advantage of the burial provision which the parish council believed had been provided only for the urban and civic side of the application. And I wanted to clarify with the case officer whether that original provision was intended to be for the whole of the site or whether it was only for the urban and civic side because after all that provision was provided by means of an extension of the existing cemetery on the urban and civic site. Okay, that's that one, and you had the second one, did you? Sorry, and the reference on that is paragraph 709, page 100. And the second one was, I cannot now remember, I have a feeling that the IDB, I can't remember if they, I know they've made some reservations in the first place, but I can't remember if those IDB concerns were resolved or not unresolved. There was one aspect was to do with the fencing of the ditches on either side of Bannold Grove, and one of the IDB conditions is that there should be no fencing so that they can get in at any time and clean drains out. And the second thing was, was to do with, I can't remember something else, but I think it was... All right, let's deal with the other one then. Yeah, thank you. For the benefit of the public, this is the drainage board we are talking about now. Okay, Mike, burial was... Thank you, Chairman. The burial ground issue was addressed in the urban and civic planning application. The parish council extended their burial ground into some of the barracks land. They've got an extension of about just under half a hectare. That provides capacity for another 100 years of burial capacity at the current rate of use. But for both parts of the application? No, for the village. If it was for the full population of the whole of the new town and the village, it would provide capacity for just under 40 years. The urban and civic planning application has a, in their application description, space for further burial ground extension if necessary and appropriate. And this is something that the new town as a whole should provide. You don't really want the two separate parts of the development providing their own burial grounds. It's what's going to be one place. And this will be discussed through the working groups between the two developers at the appropriate time. Okay, so I just wanted to be reassured that the provision that's currently in place is sufficient for the proposed, the phased needs of the whole development, both the RLW and the urban and civic side. Yeah, exactly right. And then the IDB have got no objections to the planning application. Okay. And the ditches, the ditch issue was something that I raised with the chair of the planning committee for the parish council. These are the ditches outside of the site boundary running alongside Bannel Drove just next to Middle Old Farm. And I said, I said that at the appropriate time, if there's an increased usage, pedestrian usage along there, then we could look at how we could address that, bearing in mind the bylaws with the IDB. But yeah, it's classic conflict between people walking around and then ditches. I mean, the rest of the development site within the development site, we're going to make sure the ditches will have shallow sides. And sorry, the point about that though, thank you very much for that clarification. But the point about that was that in the graphic that you showed us in your presentation, it showed the ditch with shallower sides, but still the same width of path. Now, obviously, if the current ditches are steep siding, and the path is X meters wide, you cannot make the ditches on both side shallower without reducing the width between them. And my understanding was that the intention was to actually make the footway and shared equestrian and cycle path wider than it currently is. And I couldn't see how that could be done between the existing ditch lines, as well as making them shallower. Yeah. Well, I know the, well, there's going to obviously have to, within the site, there's going to have to be a lot of re-engineering going on. The ditches will be re-engineered. They won't be, they won't, I mean, some of them might follow the exact routes that they currently do, but they'll be re-engineered. So you mean they might take a slightly different route? Yes, yeah. I think we're getting into too much detail there. Okay. Now, we need to actually draw this to a close. Before I do that, I'd just like to consult with Mr. Carter. For those who were looking to vote for refusal, can we just review the reasons there? Mr. Carter? Yeah. The reasons I've seen issues over the density, affordable housing, consideration of whether or not this is a premature application, flood risk, and highway objections. And height of buildings, Chairman, if I may? Well, I think it goes into the density, because that comes under that same policy number, I think. Okay. Mr. Carter, I think it may be sensible to hear from this assistant director at this point before I comment. Sharon? By all means. Thank you. I just wanted to make some general comments, Chair. I think it's really important to bear in mind in consideration of discussions of going down the refusal route, in particular in relation to some of those matters that were highlighted, that we need to bear in mind the decision that was made on the Water Beach Barracks development, which is a significant material consideration in the consideration of this application. If I could just remind members that the Water Beach Barracks application included 30% affordable housing. 30% affordable housing is also quite a common percentage in terms of the affordable housing amount that is delivered on other developments across South Cambridgeshire. So we need to be mindful of consistency issues. In this instance, we have a viability appraisal which shows that the development is not viable on the basis of the position at the current time in relation to that first phase of development and being able to deliver a 40% affordable housing. The summary from Gerald Eve is contained in an appendix to the report. We've had a very, very similar issue in relation to the Water Beach Barracks scheme. And if you recall, there was a significant shortfall of funding also for transport in that instance. That is a very recent decision. So the weight that we have to give to that is quite a considerable level of weight. So I think it's very important that members consider those issues in relation to consistency of approach between the two developments. Thank you. Okay, thank you very much for that. Now I don't want to open up this debate, but I see there's two more requests for speaking. Is there? Do I see Councillor Hawkins? Thank you, Chair. I'll be brief. One that seems to have been missed or mixed up is on the digital infrastructure. I'm looking at condition 72 on page 196, which just talks about broadband provision. But when you look at the discussion in paragraph 926 on page 135, it talks about digital infrastructure. So from there, digital infrastructure, which included broadband and mobile telephony in the condition just goes down to broadband. I would like that clarified or change it to digital infrastructure, whatever it is, but it has to include mobile telephony, not just broadband. And the other thing is, I mean, I referred to this again, which is the review mechanism and using any uplift that is received to get to 40% and then anything after that to the transport infrastructure. Can we actually take this on board? And because I don't see any condition on that, I can't remember how that came about, but I'd like to do something done on that if possible. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. Mr. Huntington. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. If we look at the new town as a whole and we look at the urban and civic application, the urban and civic application has a minimum of 30% affordable housing going up to a maximum of 40% affordable housing subject to viability review. Because of the discussion that took place at Planning Committee, well, not because of, but by taking into account the discussion that took place at Planning Committee for the urban and civic scheme or the Water Beach Barrett scheme, the concerns expressed at that time about lack of financial contribution towards strategic transport. We took the view on this application that strategic transport would get a bit more money from any review mechanism. If you add the two, if the Water Beach Barrett scheme went up to 40% and the Owl W scheme went down to the state of 30%, the cumulative total being reminded slightly different sizes would be 36%, which is very, very close to 40%. And we considered weighing up the different issues in relation to strategic transport and affordable housing. It was considered that that's why strategic transport was ahead of affordable housing in that review mechanism, because we were looking at the new town as a whole. And then the other condition 72, absolutely, that's the type of tweak to a condition which was thinking about in the recommendation and additional words such as and additional and digital technology. But that's perfectly reasonable to add things like that. Okay, thank you very much. Now we must really draw this to a close. I've got two more speakers and then that's three is it. So I've got Councillor Hayling's is it, Councillor Whitvins, Richard, and are you sure you want to pursue burial grounds yet further? Yes, please, Chair. Right, Councillor Hayling's please. Thank you, Chair. And this is just about sort of where I am on this. And I think, you know, as everybody said, this is a huge proposal and I do really want to respect the amount of work that's gone into this. And, you know, we have a very weighty volume. We know there have been huge amount of consultation in this. We know that some, you know, many residents aren't happy this, but we also know that there has been a long process of consultation around it. It has been important, not on the hoof, but it has been important to work on the conditions today where we can revise them and often taking into account the recommendations of residents themselves who are, you know, very knowledgeable themselves and put those forward. And we have had the experts in the room all day. We've had the consultees together with us to help on this. And we've had briefings as well. We haven't come to this just today. This has been a long period of time and we have all, as members of the committee, had briefings on this to understand, you know, the complexity and how this is all linked together. I think what we have done is made sure that that key place-making element that from the beginning has been there, that this is a sustainable town because it's built around a railway station that enables a modal shift off the A10 from anyone that starts to move into that looks towards the railway station. And it was very heartening to hear Dr. Richard Williams say that he absolutely agrees it should be there and it should be there now. When this came to committee, there was a lot of resistance from other members of this committee who actually voted against having the railway location there. So I think, you know, there are difficult things we've put in key conditions in here around the traffic and constraint coming through Water Beach, opening up the link route around flooding and around the railway relocation. And I'm minded to approve this because it is outline. And I've heard things say that too much is uncertain as if we've never had an outline application for a very big new town before which we have. Outline means that everything is reserved. Everything is reserved for reserved matters. But these conditions make sure that those reserved matters do respect the high standards that are necessary. And that's what we're looking at for. And of course, there's uncertainty because we need to see them come forward as reserved matters. And that's just to reassure those who feel that, you know, not all the details are there yet. As you said at the beginning chair, this is outline. And so in all conscience, I think as somebody said, in all conscience, I was one of those who voted for the railway station relocation, continue to support that as being critical for the development of this new town. And I'll be voting to support this. Right, thank you very much. Councillor Richard Williams, just before you speak, Councillor Williams, I see that I've got two more speakers. I'm calling it a day after that. So that's Councillor Bradman and Councillor Heather Williams. We will make a decision after that. So Councillor Richard Williams, please. Thank you. Thank you Chair. I'll try to be as brief as I can and it is a new point. I just want to address the point that was raised earlier by Sharon Brown about consistency. I completely accept that consistency is a material consideration, but it is just a material consideration. It's not the only material consideration. And I think there are more than adequate grounds to make a decision for refusal. I say not least transport and highway subjections, but also on other grounds as well. Yes, you know, we do have to take that consistency into account as a material consideration, but as I say, it is just a consideration. And sometimes I don't find it helpful if I'm brutally honest. And I know it's done with the best of intentions. We hear a lot about what we're kind of not allowed to decide, but what about what we are allowed to decide? I mean, we can if we make the judgment turn this down and it would be helpful if interventions also addressed the material considerations which we could turn this down and not only imply that we actually don't have any choice because of a previous application. Now that may not be the intention, but that's certainly what comes across is that the committee effectively has got no choice. We've got to approve it. In which case, why are we here if we've got no choice because it was a previous application? Yes, we have to take it on board, but yes, we can also turn it down. And as I say, I think there are more than adequate material considerations weighing against the consistency argument to refuse this application. Thank you very much, Chair. Thank you. Councillor Bretton, please. Thank you. Firstly, I just wanted to check that we had taken on board the request to bring us a condition that Cardite Junction is improved at an early stage. I think Tam Parry took that on following Councillor Ripf's question, but I just wanted to make sure that had happened. Okay, let's do that then. Mike. First of two. Can you confirm that please? Yes, if members will recall, Tam Parry said that when it comes to implementing the Section 106 Detail Drafting, Tam will negotiate with RLW to bring that element of the Section 106 mitigation forward. Good. Lovely to get in. The second one then was back to the burial ground. I just want to refer you to the amendment, the appendix paper that we had at item 20 on page 6. It says this was covered in the Urban and Civic Report, but if required, then this can be covered by an additional preoccupation condition requiring a submission of a scheme to provide a burial ground because every development needs to provide burial space. And my understanding is that the current standing extension that has been allowed by Urban and Civic for the burial ground is for the village. Yeah, if I refer you to the report, the Urban and Civic Report, which covered burial ground space, the cemetery has been extended by 0.44 hectares, which will provide up to 850 new plots. The figures show demand of up to eight plots per annum for the existing cemetery over the last five years. So that cemetery has been expanded, which would have capacity for about 130 years additional capacity. Notwithstanding that for the whole of the town of 11,000 homes plus the village, the demand would be 17, I think it would be 34 years worth of capacity. Notwithstanding that, the Urban and Civic Water Beach Barracks Planning application has, in its development specification, allowance for further burial provision to come forward. And thinking about, and as I said before, the new town will be looked at as a whole. This will be something that come forward between our WR and Urban and Civic in the development in the future. Thank you for clarifying that. Okay then. Thank you. And Councillor Heather Williams, please. Thank you, Chairman. I just wanted to add a bit of balance to the debate here as well, in that we are meant to be debating this and we are meant to be judging it on its own merits of what's in front of us. I think some members have been very keen to jump to previous votes and flesh things like that out. Every debate is different, every situation is different. Yes, we need to be consistent, but I think we also need to be minded that we look at the application on its own grounds in the here and now. We may have found that other applications were found wanting, but that's like saying you have to then follow this through on some kind of treadmill that it must happen next, which is completely not the case. And I think we need to be clear with people that they do have a choice in this. And I think the choice is that for me, there is too much unanswered at this stage, even though it's outline, I do not feel that we are sufficiently along the road. There's too much in the balance. And for me, that that in my personal judgment outweighs the other benefits of this and things have been said. And I do not criticise any other member that seeks to make a different opinion. And it just be nice if they have managed to reciprocate that. Thank you, Chairman. Good. Thank you very much. Could I just say something about the next steps in this process at the committee? Obviously, listening to the member debate, I understand that a number of members are likely to vote to refuse the application. I think it would be helpful at this point if you could take some soundings on the number of members that are likely to vote to overturn the officer recommendation. In that instance, it would be useful if each of those members could specify the grounds on which they would want to base that refusal. I thought we'd done that already, Sharon. We discussed that with Chris and we have a list of items that will be the grounds for refusal. I just think we need to be clear, Chair, in terms of all individual members. So, I think it would be helpful to go around each member in turn to ask them about how they were minded to vote simply for clarity. And obviously, because this is a virtual meeting. No, I'm sorry. This is Sharon. All right. Thank you. You're an officer and you put no pressure. You're putting pressure on members. It's outrageous. All right. Thank you. Let me deal with the matter. I'm quite honest with you, Chairman, but not her. Quite honestly, Sharon, I don't think that's helpful. I'm going to go through it over. Chairman. No, please. Thank you. Sorry. Officers have sometimes asked us what reasons people might give for refusal. We have done that, Councillor Bredman. Thank you. Councillor Chair, I think it might be useful to ask the legal officer to speak at this point. That might help. I think I know the outcome of the vote. As the Chairman's job to make some notes on these matters, isn't it? All right. So thank you very much. Before we do go to a vote, I'd just like to say a word myself. I have to say that Councillor Halings has summed it up very well, I believe. This is outline at the moment. And it's inevitable that you will not get answers to everything. And in some cases, this will have to be a matter of faith that things can be delivered. But all sorts of checks and balances have been put into the conditioning to make sure that this cannot go ahead without the key elements, the station, the highways arrangements, proper funding, etc. So these are all in place. This matter will come back to us again at the reserve matters time. And we are the ones who will judge if they have met those requirements. So on that basis, I am certainly going to vote in favour. So I'm now going to go to the vote and call a roll call. So can I have the exact wording of the motion that we are voting on put on the screen, please? And Chair, does it need to make reference to the conditions that we've amended? Yeah, I'm speaking about that as well. I just want to see what the actual wording now is. Sorry, that's the wrong thing. Sorry about this. I've got three screens and the mouse is all over the place. Right, so it is. Just sort of like this. Let's get this up again. Do you need any assistance with the screen sharing? I'm just copying the amendment sheet onto the other report. Okay, sorry, no worries. So I'm just giving me about 30 seconds. So it'll be that. Chairman, I've put that up. Is that visible to everybody? Yes, it's a bit small. Sorry, I can expand. Right, so in addition to that, we've agreed to changes to the various conditions. So that would be added. In the meantime, I see Councillor Wright is asking to speak. Is it specifically on the approval? No, actually Chairman, it's not. It's on your comments a couple of moments ago and I'd like to give you an opportunity to clarify. That's alright with you. You said while we were commenting that you already knew the result of the vote. I have an idea obviously because that's not what you said. It's opinion. I mean most people have actually declared their position already. That's all I'm talking about. Yes, but you said you knew the result before we voted. That clearly is an error then, isn't it? Well, I wanted to give you the opportunity of correcting that, but also to ask you with that in mind to make sure that there is no political whip on this vote because if there is no whip it needs to be declared in advance of any vote. Indeed, and there is no such thing. Thank you. Right, and we arrived at the... I've just studied Chairman, I've just studied network rail informatives at the bottom. They're just informatives. Okay, good. So we can all see that. So that's what we're voting on. So it's whether or not other conditions that we didn't change. These are the ones that we've changed. Yeah, but we did change the one about only the network rail, only the relocated railway station. That's condition 15, and the 57B. It's here. It just needs B on it then. It's 57. I mean the condition needs 57. Oh, sorry, sorry. I couldn't see that. Okay, fine. Now I'm going to a roll call. So as you see, the proposal is for delegated approval. If you're for it, you say for. If you're against it, you're against. If you want to abstain, you may abstain. So I'm starting the vote then, and the first one is Councillor Bredlum. I'm finding this extremely difficult, Chairman, but I am going to vote for. Thank you. Councillor Cahn. For. Thank you. Councillor Fein. For. Thank you. Councillor Hawkins. For. Thank you. Councillor Halings. For. Thank you. Councillor Rippith. Against. Thank you. Councillor Roberts. Definitely against. Thank you. Councillor Heather Williams. Against, and we'll reserve matters becoming back to committee because it didn't on the other one. Thank you. And Councillor Richard Williams. Against. Thank you. Councillor Wright. Against, Chairman. Thank you. My vote is four, six, four, five against. Water Beach will decide. This is approved. Thank you very much. Thank you for the officers and all the help. Chairman, the point of order has been raised. It needs to be dealt with. If you please not interrupt me. Thank you. So thank you. It's the point of order. I'm not sure we have points of order in the debate. We do. Well, not unless I say so. We'll try that one. That would be unconstitutional. Chairman, you have to deal with it. Heather Williams, what would you like to tell us? It's Richard Williams point of order. It's in the chat. Well, I can't see the chat at the moment. It's there. Vice-chair, do we have some? So yes, we do have from Councillor Dr Richard Williams point of order raised. Okay. Councillor Richard Williams, please. Thank you, Chair. Could I just get your clarification on something and going back to what happened earlier? Can I just have your clarification because this has come up a few times and with the greatest of respect officers that it is the role of officers to distill from the discussion that members have had, the objections or the reasons that members may wish to refuse an application. It is not appropriate for members to be singled out and required to give legal grounds. It is members can articulate their concerns. The chair may summarize as you did, but it is for officers to articulate as neutral observers what the grounds refusal would be if the committee should show choose. Your clarification on that would be extremely welcome. Thank you, Chair. I thought I was clear enough on that and not accepting that. Thank you, Chair. I'll take that too. Okay. It was almost, Chairman, it was almost reason for actually a complaint about an officer, in my opinion. All right, but that's up to you entirely. Now, we've had a long day. I'm getting fed up. At least you're honest, John. We all went home. Thank you very much, everybody for all the input. Thank you to the general public bearing with us. Apologies again for the technical issues first thing this morning. Our next meeting, if you have found this so interesting, is the 10th of February. Can't wait. Sorry. Can't wait, John. No, I'm sure. Counting down the days. I think we've had a report, haven't we, Chair, on the planning advisory about how we can improve this. Now, I really hope that everybody's committed to doing that together to give better service to the public. So I think we're all working on that together. That's what we're here for. Well, tonight then. Thank you, everybody, and we are now officially closing the meeting. Liam, if you could tell us. Thank you. God for small nurses. Just on the note, the report, as we've finished, there'll be a change.