 Thank you very much here, you are now live. Right, thank you. Good morning everybody and welcome to South Cams District Council planning committee. Before we get into my notes, I should just alert everybody members of the committee and members of the public that I will be bringing forward the second night and to be dealt with first. That's the family application as we have a request for deferral and we will deal with that as the first substantive item. I'll explain why when we get to that point. So I'm councillor John bachelor and I'm chair of the committee councillor Halings is vice chair councillor Halings of you would like to confirm that you're with us please. Good morning chair. I'm here councillor Halings vice chair. Thank you. We're supported along the virtual top table today by the following officers. Chris Carter delivery manager strategic sites. Can you confirm you're with us. Good morning chair. Good morning everybody. Thank you. Steven Reed senior planning lawyer. Good morning chair committee. Thank you. And in senior democratic services officer taking the minutes today. Good morning. Thank you very much. I introduce individual case officers when I invite them to speak. Just a few housekeeping announcements. Please make sure that your device is fully charged and switch your camera and microphones off unless you're invited to do otherwise. When you're invited to address the meeting please make sure that your microphone is switched on. When you finish addressing the meeting please turn off your microphone and camera immediately. Speak slowly and clearly and please do not talk over or interrupt anyone. Please ensure that you have switched off or silenced any other devices you have so that they do not interrupt proceedings. The normal procedure planning committee is to take recorded votes and we will continue with this unless there is clear affirmation. When we move to a vote on the 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 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 cameras off after your introduction. My name is John bachelor I'm committee chair and one of the members for Linsen. Councillor Anna Bradnam please introduce yourself. Apologize for the noise yourself chairman. Good morning I'm Councillor Anna Bradnam and I'm a member for Milton and Water Beach. Thank you. Councillor Cahn. Good morning I'm Councillor Martin Cahn and I'm a member for Histon Input and Orchard Park. Thank you very much. Councillor Fein. Good morning Peter Fein representing Shelford Ward. Thank you. Councillor Dr Hawkins. Good morning everyone and to me present Cody Cott Ward. Thank you. Councillor Halings. Good morning everybody Councillor Piper Halings representing Histon Inputton and Orchard Park. Councillor Ripeth is not with us this morning. Councillor Roberts please. Good morning Chairman. Good morning everybody. Deborah Roberts district councillor for the Foxton Ward. Thank you. Councillor Heather Williams please. Morning Heather Williams I represent the Morden's Ward. Alright thank you councillor Dr Richard Williams. Good morning thank you chair I am the member for Wittlesford Treplo Heathfield in Newton. Good thank you and councillor Wright. Good morning councillor Nick Wright, Caxton and Patworth. Good thank you very much. So I can confirm that the meeting is quiet. If at any time a member leaves the meeting would they please make that fact known to me. So that it can be recorded in the minutes. So members of the public are aware if a councillor is absent for any part of the presentation or debate about an agenda item then they may not vote on that item. We have several public speakers today and I would just like to explain how public speaking will work. This meeting is being broadcast live via the council's website and public speakers are reminded that by participating in this meeting you are consenting to being broadcast and to the use of the images and sound recordings for webcasts and training purposes. When you come to speak you will have three minutes to address the committee. When you start speaking we will start the time up. Please ensure you switch your microphone on before you speak. When your time has elapsed we will ask you to conclude your speech. Once you have finished speaking we may wish to ask questions. 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 are reminded that any questions to speakers should be for clarification purposes only and the process for this shall be as follows. I shall ask if there are any questions. If you do have questions please ask to speak via 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 speaking time. Therefore I request that those registered do not interrupt outside of their own time. Once the committee has heard from all speakers and planning officers we will form views on the application. The planning committee will then vote. The outcome is decided by majority vote and in the event of a tie I as chair have casting vote. When planning committee members vote please can they ensure that they identify themselves and speak into the microphone so that the vote is understood by committee and those watching the webcast. Members are reminded that they should indicate whether they are for against or abstain when their name is called. Thank you very much. So that's the introduction. I will now move to the agenda and ask if we have any apologies. Mr. Senior please. Thank you chair. Just the one apology then from Chancellor Judith Rickford. Thank you very much. I will now go to item three which is declarations of interest. Does anyone have any declarations of interest? Chairman. Yes, Councillor Roberts. Thank you Chairman. Yes, I am a member of Farmer Parish Council who have obviously put input into but I come to it afresh though obviously I will be explaining why we have nobody on this morning now. Thank you. Just as a formality I think all of us who are present at the last committee meeting where we initially dealt with that one would also be declaring a non-procurement interest in it. And if we actually decide to actually hear it today then we would all be coming afresh. That applies to all members of the committee except for Councillor Haley who was not present at the last one. I know for the benefit of the minutes that is a general declaration. Chair. Do we have any more? Yes, Councillor Toomey Hawkins. Yep, Councillor Hawkins please. Thank you Chairman. I declare an interest in the borne for my guestam factory. I have been at meetings where it was discussed and I come to this afresh. Thank you. Okay, thank you very much. No other decorations? No, Chair. Oh yes, Councillor Nick Wright. Councillor Wright. Thanks Chairman. I have a non-procurement interest in it. I know the farming family that own Bourne Airfield, but I don't know if they're connected to this. They're not the applicants. I don't recognise some of the applicants, but Bourne Airfield is mentioned a lot and I know the farming family is friends. Thanks very much. It's noted. Okay, now on the item of four minutes of the previous meeting. This is the meeting held on the 11th of November and it can be found in pages one to six in our minutes. So members, any points of accuracy? Do you wish to correct? Councillor Heather Williams. Councillor Williams please. Thank you Chairman. It's just on page six and enforcement report. I did raise concern as to the year-to-date figures the emails received in close being out of kilter from previous years. And I definitely did say it because I had a lovely follow-up from enforcement who contacted me. So if we could get that included in the minutes please Chairman. Thank you. I'm sure Mr Senior has noted that. Anything else on that? No Chair. Okay members, are you happy that I signed this as a true record of the meeting on Wednesday the 11th of November? Agreed. No one against? No, okay, good. Yeah, I'll just abstain seeing as I was absent. Yes fine, noted. Alright, now move to the substance of the day. I'm going to bring forward item six first. As we have a request for deferral. I have a statement from officers which I will now read. So first of all, let's clarify what we're talking about. We go to page 43. So it's item six. This is at Fowler Carried Tree Field Shepard Road, Fowler. So the statement from officers reads since the committee report was written. Letters have been received from solicitors acting on behalf of the parish council in respect of the fallback position. Namely the previous class Q for two dwellings that was agreed by the council. Members will recall that this issue was central to the acceptability of the application. In response to these letters, the applicant solicitor has submitted responses that are directly opposed to the view of the parish's legal advisor. It is considered that the detailed legal points that are being made in this correspondence require further consideration to enable members to make a robust informed decision. It is therefore recommended that the application be deferred to the January committee to allow officers to provide members with a report that is properly considered the new points that have been made. So given that statement from officers, I am proposing that we defer this item to the next convenient meeting. Do I have a seconder for that? I have a seconder from the Vice Chair, Councillor Haynes. I also have two requests to speak from Councillor Heather Williams and Councillor Roberts. Okay, Councillor Heather Williams, please. So we're now debating the deferral. Yes, on the deferral. I understand the reasons that have been put forward for deferral. I'm just concerned by the report. It says the decision was due by the 13th of November. So I think it's quite right, because I must admit I'm slightly confused as well with the recommendations for that position isn't to be relied on either. And these areas that have happened, it is concerning and does need to be looked at and all the evidence is given. But are we putting anybody at risk of losing on non-determination of this application? Because it feels like if there is, it's our fault if there is. Thank you very much. Councillor Williams, take advice on that. Mr Carter, could you advise us please? Yes, thank you, Chair. There is a theoretical risk of an appeal against non-determination. However, I know that the applicant is looking to try and resolve the matter through the committee process in discussion with the council. The detailed correspondence that's been received, both from representatives of the parish council and from the applicant, does need to be considered carefully before the committee is given further advice beyond the report that currently sits in front of you. So yes, Councillor Williams, there is that theoretical risk, but in my opinion it is unlikely that an appeal against non-determination would be submitted given the circumstances of this particular case. Thank you, Chair. Thank you very much. Councillor Roberts, please. Thank you very much, Chairman, and thank you to the officers who have put this proposal forward. The parish council have taken on a legal consult, a legal planning consultant in the shape of Mr Philip Kratz. Mr Kratz was due to speak on behalf of the parish council this morning, and the chairman of the parish council and the chairman of the planning committee were also going to be listening into the debate. We all got an email yesterday afternoon informing us that actually it was going to be deferred. It wasn't a question of maybe that it was going to be deferred and would hopefully be coming back in January. And the planning committee chairman of the parish council replied to that. Thank the officer for informing him that that was the case. And Mr Kratz was contacted and has been stood down. So, you know, ready for hopefully January. So it is a case now that parish council's representative is not available. Neither of the parish council because they were told it was definitely going to be deferred. Thank you very much. Chair, you're on mute. Yeah, sorry. Yeah, you're quite right, Councillor Roberts. The recommendation is to defer it, but the process is that the only people who can defer it is you, the committee. Thank you Chairman, understood. Chair, we have councillor Fain and councillor Richard Williams. Thank you very much. Councillor Fain, please. Thank you, chair. It is clear that our agreement to a deferral was taken for granted. We defer far too many applications. We spend far too much time reconsidering applications which have been considered before. There were some simple legal issues in this case, which in my view, there was plenty of time to sort out before this meeting. You're on mute. Councillor Fain. I don't know how much of that you heard because I was... They heard most of it. Is that the last minute? So just to conclude, because of the assurances that have been given to the parish council in this case, I will go with the flow as it were and vote for a deferral, but I do not intend to not normally regard that as acceptable to keep deferring cases beyond the due determination date and we must stop doing so as a committee. Thank you very much. Councillor Fain, which one that's noted. Councillor Richard Williams, please. Thank you very much, chair. I was actually going to start by making a very similar point to Councillor Fain. I agree wholeheartedly with what Councillor Fain has said, but given what Councillor Roberts has said, I don't really think we've got much choice now, but really that shouldn't happen. That people, parties involved shouldn't be told it's going to be deferred. They should be told it's going to be a proposal, but I was going to ask a more substantive question, which is about the nature of the legal dispute because... Can I just have some clarity as to whether the dispute is now about the potential for class Q committed development rights to be a fallback? Because it's clear that there are no existing class Q rights from the 2018 application, so that matter has been dealt with. The only reason for deferred would be if there is now a dispute about the potential for a fallback position on class Q. Otherwise, there's no reason to defer, but as I say, I think now, given what Councillor Roberts has said, we've probably got no choice. Okay, I'll take advice on that then. Mr Carter, do you have a view? Thank you, chair. The case officer is with us, I believe, David Norris, but the nature of the dispute relates both to the... whether there is an existing class Q that's still being disputed between the parties and also whether or not there may be a future class Q fallback position as well. So that's a position that's changed since the published report due to the representations on behalf of the applicant. But Mr Norris, if he's with us, may be able to advise more comprehensively on that point if required. Right. Mr Norris, did you want to add to that? Yes, thank you, chair. Come off what Mr Carter said, yes, that's very much it. There is no agreement between the parties that there is an existing class Q consent. The legitimacy of the class Q consent is in question as to whether the condition that was put on it erroneously does nullify that consent. There's no clarity on that at the moment, and that really is a substantive point which needs to be considered properly by solicitors. Chair, can I just say one thing? You like to come back, yeah. Yeah, thank you. I mean, just on the future of class Q rights. I mean, I think it's important, the next time we look at this, the key question is whether there's a reasonable prospect of a fallback position, a reasonable prospect of class Q rights. So I mean, that's a matter of planning judgments and a matter of fact for the committee to determine. So we need evidence, but it's not actually a legal matter about the future class Q, whether it's reasonable prospect. That's for us. So I hope we're not going to be too tied up in a debate about looking for an answer when actually it's a matter of planning judgment. Thank you, Chair. Okay, thank you very much for that. Councillor Heather Williams. Sorry? Councillor Heather Williams. Councillor Williams, do you want to come back, please? Yes, please, Chairman, just based on the debate as it's gone. I will completely support a deferral on this application, as others have cited, but I'm very concerned about the approach that's been taken and the fact that people that would do speech today have been told it will be deferred. I mean, that's predetermining a decision of this committee, which we're always warned against. I mean, what would have happened if we had decided not to defer? As you say, it's only within the gift of this committee to make that decision. I'm afraid time and time again we're seeing too many of these sorts of things happening on consultations and procedural matters. And I'm very concerned that this could have been either we could have completely let down a parish today, or we could have potentially done something that would mean it would come back through the courts. So very concerned at the approach that's been taken. And I think it's important that we, as a committee, record that this must not happen again. And we must not be blackmailed into deferrals, as it feels in this case. Right. Thank you very much. Any further comments? Can I just say that, and I'm sure that I'm sure that council, thank you, Sharon. I'm sure the council of Williams isn't meaning that at the parish council. The parish council is. One more time, please. The parish council is obviously very concerned about what happened in November and then realised that the information that we were given about the previous approvals actually was very questionable, well, more than questionable. And that's why it was brought back. And I would have preferred, and I had a very decent conversation with Mr Kelly and Mr Norris only a couple of nights ago about all this. And I would have preferred if it could have waited and not come on today, but came on in January, but it is as it is. But there are serious differences of opinion by the legal teams here. And it's imperative that we actually hear those. And I think what I need to ask Mr Kelly, sorry, Mr Carter or Mr Norris to do is, is make sure that the two documents that have come in from the different lawyers are actually put in full as well, maybe sent out to members as soon as possible. So you can actually read the arguments that have been put by the two legal people. So you've got further information when hopefully this will come back in January. Thank you very much, Chairman. Thank you very much, Councillor Roberts. So Chair, myself and then Councillor Williams again would like to come back. Certainly. Shall I deal with Councillor Williams who I'm sure wants to comment on Councillor Roberts's point there? Thank you. Absolutely not anything at the parish. I told the parish as it's important that we hear from them. My concern is the communication that's happened from this council to the parish, which has forced us into a position today because this this council, the district council has told the parish council that it will be deferred. And my frustration is that this is coming forward as to mistakes made by this council. And now we're in a position where it has been assumed that as councillors of this council, we will vote in a certain way. And I feel this is not for others to assume a vote. But absolutely the parish council needs to be heard. Three times now. Thank you very much. Good. That's all noted. Councillor Halings, you wanted to. Yes, I think and I wasn't in the meeting obviously last time, but I've read all of the information and heard the comments this morning. I just want to think we these be careful with with language and the use of blackmail. Obviously isn't something that would be appropriate to this meeting. That's that's what I wanted to comment. Yes. Okay. Thank you very much. I think that's all the speakers of that. Can we go to a vote then tonight? So the proposal is to defer this for the reasons being outlined. Can I take this by affirmation? Agreed. Agreed. Is there anyone against? Anyone wish to abstain? No. So I take that as an affirmation then and that item is deferred. Thank you members. Thank you chairman. Thank you officers. Thank you very much. Okay. We now go to back item five then which is on page seven of the agenda. So we're at Bourne. This is application 20 stroke 02568 stroke FUL. It's born in the former guest stamp factory site on Bourne airfield. So the proposal is for a hybrid planning application. Consisting of full planning permission for phase one and outline planning commission with all matters reserved. Accept access for phase two of the development of the former guest stamp factory site at Bourne airfield. Up to 26757 square meters or 288,000 square feet of commercial floor space purposes. These user classes B1C light industry B1B research and development and B8 warehouse and distribution. With supplementary use class A3 restaurant cafe D1 day nursery crash and D2 gym. Associated car parking service yards external earthworks attenuation basin and landscaping. This application is subject to an environmental impact assessment. The applicant is the the Agio the Agio pensions price limit. The presenting officer will go through the clear considerations. This is not a departure. And it's brought to committee because this is a major application. Extension of time is shown on the agenda papers is the 15th of December. This is now incorrect. This is the 29th of December. As the consultation period has been extended. So before the officer presents this, I'd just like to ask Mr Carter to explain to the committee. Why the public consultation period has been extended. Yes, thank you chair. Thank you. The application is subject to an ongoing consultation period, which was triggered inadvertently when the committee notification letters were produced. I'd like to reassure members that the letters which were sent out to notify parties of the committee were correct, but the planning software system updated the website in incorrectly and extended the consultation period until the 29th of December. As members may recall a similar issue, although with a different cause took place earlier in the year. In those cases, the committee resolved to delegate the decision to grant or refuse to officers subject to no issues being raised during the additional consultation period. And the recommendation would be updated to reflect that same approach on this occasion, subject to the agreement of the committee. Thank you chair. Okay, thank you very much. The recommendation is for approval and the presenting officer is Kate Poiser. Kate, if you would like to make your presentation please. Thank you chair and good morning everybody. I should just upload the slides. About the delay, I'm getting there. Can you see the slide yet? We're seeing your desktop. Right, my apologies, my apologies. Nice garden. I'm just going to swap screens over and hopefully it will come about. You turn your camera off please. It's Ray Chinson. Thank you. Right. I don't think you're seeing the slide yet, are you? Chair, forgive me for interrupting. Kate, would you like me to share the slides for you? Yes, please. If you wouldn't mind, I would be grateful. Okay, I'll just do that now. Chair, whilst that's happening, can I speak? Who is this, sorry? Stephen Reed, chair, if I may. Okay, Mr Reed, yes. Heather Williams has put in the chat that she wants clarity on what Mr Carter has said, so I don't know whether you want to address that first. Thank you. Let me see. Could we have the presentation first, do you think? Is this a pressing matter, Councillor Williams? It is, because depending on the answer will depend if I move for a deferral chairman. Go on then. Mr Carter, can I clarify that, so the public consultation, people will have a right to respond up until the 29th of December. Is that from what you said, sorry, the response clarified that people can comment until the 29th of December? Yes, that's correct, Councillor Williams. Legally. Yes, sorry, Sandra. That's okay. As the born development has already been postponed and as people have a right to speak on this application, and this is not a small application, this is classed as a major application, I would move for deferral that we look at this once the public consultation has closed, because we cannot afford to make such a big mistake on a major application if there is one. When this previously happened, we did some cherry thinking of some that we thought were less contentious than others. I don't think any of us can say that Born Airfield is not contentious as a site. Therefore, I would like to move deferral to the public consultation has actually closed, Chairman. Chair, may I respond on that point? You're muted, Chairman. Right, sorry. I'm just calling for a seconder there before we go back to Mr Carter. Does anyone wish to second Councillor Williams' proposal? Councillor Nick Wright has asked to speak, I don't know if it's to second. Okay, Councillor Wright. Yes, I'm willing to second this proposal. My reason is that if members of the public raise an important issue outside what we already know, we could be influenced by that as councillors in coming to this decision now. We don't know what's going to come forward and I would absolutely recommend deferral on this. Otherwise, we're going to get into a mess with it. Okay, thank you very much for that. We just go back to Mr Carter, who I think we wish to comment. Thank you, Chair. Yes, just for members to consider when making this decision, there's been a very limited number of public representations, notwithstanding the objection from Born Parish Council. This is called the Cock Parish Council does support the scheme and with the items which for which we had to follow a similar process earlier in the year. The wording that the committee agreed to and which I repeated in my explanation earlier would require the matter to be referred back to the planning committee if any issue is raised. So any further representation is raised. Thank you. My advice would be that the committee can safely consider this item today subject to that caveat and that if something did come in between now and the 29th of December, then the matter would need to be brought back to the committee for further consideration. Thank you, Chair. Okay, thank you. Mr Carter, could you just take down the screen so we can. Apologies, Chair. I'm trying to do that. I'll just try again now. Okay, so members, we have a proposal for deferral on the basis of Councillor Williams's comments. The debate is open. Do anyone wish to speak to this, please? Do we have any speakers, Vice-Chair? I'll put it to the Board, Chairman. No, Chair. Okay, so let's put that to the vote. Yeah, we have Councillor Martin Cahn. Okay, Councillor Cahn. I simply wanted to comment that in this case the youth's class of the site is not changing. It's already in industrial youth or former industrial youth. So it's not quite, I think, as controversial as some of the other decisions we've made. I don't see that the argument is as strong, even though I can see that it may be considered a major development. And Councillor Timmy Hawkins. Thank you, Councillor Cahn. Councillor Hawkins, please. Thank you, Chair. I am not in favour of a deferral. There has been a lot of consultation on this. And as Mr Carter said, other than the comments from Bourne Parish Council, there is no serious negative comments about this proposal. And we have been here before. This site actually already has a current planning permission for employment. So I'm not sure I see where the controversy is bearing in mind. We were talking earlier about deferring too many applications and now we have a proposal to defer another one. Doesn't seem consistent to me. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Hawkins. Is that it? Do I get to sum up my motion, Chairman? No. Councillor Nick Wright has asked to speak before Councillor Williams sums up. Okay. Councillor Wright, please. Thank you, Chairman. And look, this is just another case of the planning application coming forward before we've got the consultations in. We've been to the High Court on this. You know, even if it is a mistake and we saw that on the previous application that we've just dealt with, mistakes are made. We've got to get this right. We can't bring stuff to the planning committee until you've finished the consultation process. And it's all right letting officers make up their mind when everything's in. If it comes in or not, we have to wait until the consultation process is finished. And that is very clear. That is my opinion. Right. Thank you very much indeed. Councillor Hawkins. Sorry. Councillor Williams, would you like to sum up then please? Thank you. Just to say that a consultation is not simply for those that want to object. It's for those that wish to support as well. Hang on. I'm sorry to interrupt you, Councillor Williams. I see that as a late entry for Councillor Richard Williams who would like to speak. So I come back to you just in the moment, Councillor Williams. That's fine. Councillor Richard, please. Apologies, Chair. It was a late entry. I'll keep you very short. Look, just to say, look, it's a matter of law that you can't determine a planning application before the consultation is closed. I mean, it does seem pretty clear. Thank you. Thank you very much. Councillor Heather Williams, then please. If I'm safe to go, Chairman. Yeah. Then we have a vote. Okay. I would say what I just said a moment ago that responding to a consultation isn't an indication of support or refusal. People can contact us up until the date the consultation ends, regardless of whether it's accident or not. And on the ground to consistency, I raised this when this happened some time ago. My understanding is those ones that went through weren't actually tested thankfully. But we don't really know if this was to be tested. And there is split opinion on this. One parish council has no objection. One parish council does. And I'm sure we all want to hear from residents. And it feels that, again, we will be putting ourselves in a very uncomfortable position that if something new was to crop up, we then have to do it having already determined one way and the public confidence in us would be if we were to come to the same conclusions time before despite the new comments, you know, faith will be gone. And quite understandably so if we don't defer. Thank you, Chairman. Okay. Thank you very much for that. We'll go to a vote then. So I do a roll call. So the proposal is to defer this item until after the end of the public consultation period. So if you're in favour of that, you're for it. If you're against, you're against. If you wish to abstain, you abstain. So I will call members now. So Councillor Bradman, what's your vote please? I'm for deferral. I had a number of questions that I wanted to seek clarification on, which I shall do in the intervening gap. Okay. Thank you very much. Councillor Cohn. Again. Okay. Councillor Fein. Against deferral. Thank you. Councillor Hawkins. Against. Thank you. Councillor Rippers is not with us. Councillor Roberts, please. For deferment, Chairman. Thank you. Thank you. Councillor Heather Williams. For. Thank you. Councillor Richard Williams. For. Thank you. Councillor Wright. For. Thank you. And my vote is... Chair, I think you've missed me out as well. Oh, sorry. Councillor Hawkins. Hailing, sorry. Against. Against. My vote is against. So it's one, two. It's five, four, and... Chairman, I think it's five, five. It's five against. So it's a draw. So in this circumstance, the chair has the casting vote. My casting vote obviously will remain the same, and I'm against. So the deferral falls by six votes to five. Thank you. We've dealt with that. So we return then to the agenda item. And the officer is about to make a presentation. If we can go back to the presentation, then please. Right. Thank you, Chair. I shall have another go at loading up the presentation. Hopefully I'll get it right this time. Right. Can you see the presentation now? Yes. Yes. Good. Good. Just a delay there. Right. Thank you. First of all, there is some further updating to this item. The County Highway Authority has reconsidered its request for widening of the stretch of footpath between Bossertsway and Clare Drive. It now wishes to withdraw this and raises no objections to the development. Condition one, which requires this to be carried out, and therefore omitted from the officer recommendation. Right. Move on to the next slide. Chair, my apologies. Can I interrupt? I'll have a slight issue with the stream when we've been sharing and unsharing the slides. It's got a little bit frozen. Can I just quickly sort that out, please? Yep, please. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Apologies for the interruption. We are now live again. Right. Thank you. Sorry for that interruption. There was a slight technical issue. We're going back now to the presenting officer. Right. Thank you, Chair. This slide shows the site within its context. The site is outlined in red. It includes the Access Road bomb called to Cook Roundabout to the sent next road known as Wellington Way. Here it is. I will run the pointer over it. At St. Neat's Road, the A428 runs east-west across the top of the slide. The village to the east is Highfields, Caldecott, separated from the site by Small Woodland. To the west is the David Ball Industrial Site. To the northeast corner lies Agricultural Fields. Born airfield lies further to the east and to the south. Part of an old runway can be seen running diagonally to the west there. This application site lies within the strategic site of Born Airfield New Village. This slide shows the Spatial Framework Diagram taken from the Born Airfield New Village Supplementary Planning Document. The application site lies within the purple area and occupies most of this space. The remainder of the purple area includes the Phase 3 land of the Cassante site and the David Ball site. The pale yellow areas would accommodate the proposed 3,500 new dwellings. The dark yellow for mixed juice. The light red area would be the village centre with shops and other services and the small red circle for our neighbourhood hub. Dark green is existing woodland and the lighter greens for green corridors, open spaces and strategic landscaping. Except for the purple area, the rest of the site is owned by countryside properties and the Taylor family. A separate application for planning permission has been made for this land. It is an outline application for the new village. Whilst it has not yet been determined, it has progressed a significant way through the planning negotiations and will be the subject of a special meeting to members. The supplementary planning document for Born Airfield New Village includes the existing employment site and requires there to be good connectivity between it and the new village. The applicants for both the Gestamp planning application and the new village have liaised throughout the process to achieve this. The access parameter plan, the new village has indicative links into the settlement site and these are reflected in the layout of the Gestamp site plan which will be displayed later. The green dashed lines on this application are indicative of those links. This is an aerial photograph of the site taken from above the A428 looking south. The application site is here. The Born Airfield New Village site includes fields in the foreground and the fields the other side of the application site and includes the woodland beyond. It also includes the narrow stripper land on the edge of the woodland and the field in the corner. So land here is part of the Born Airfield New Village and round here and the woodland and a strip coming up here. As you can see, the application site is enveloped by the new village site. Highfields Corticot is over here. Here is the access road known as Wellington Way. It is in the ownership of countryside properties and the Taylor family. The applicant for the Gestant site has right of way over this access. Wellington Way will be reconfigured as part of the new village scheme and would include segregated facilities for pedestrians and cyclists. It is intended that it would be implemented with the first development phase of that scheme. This is a parameter plan showing three phases of the development of the former Gestant site. The blue is phase one and includes details. The yellow phase two is in outline and the orange hatching is phase three which does not form part of this application and is to be submitted at a later date. The green is strategic landscaping and black is existing access road. This is an illustrative master plan. The details of phase one are shown and the details of phase two are indicative. This site here, this is phase two and that is indicative. The two green corridors are shown, the central corridor and the land to the east. Central corridor and the land to the east. The green corridor shows a spiral for surface water drainage running its length with a pedestrian cycle path running a gentle serpentine course through it. The units either side would front onto the corridor. The eastern corridor would contain an attenuation basin a pedestrian cycle path and planting. Unit three butts this area. It is the largest unit on the site and it is intended for a named occupant rail bridge design partnership. Both of the pedestrian cycle paths would link to intended paths beyond the site and into the new village scheme. Servicing would take place to the rear of the units. Small units which may be suitable for businesses are to the south. Local businesses are to the south. Shared car parking is to the north of the site and some to the south. These areas would serve the individual units. Cycle parking is scattered in various locations around the site. The layland eye hedge referred to in the report would be replaced by new tree planting belt along the top here. The land beyond is intended for mixed development under the new village scheme. This slide shows the two main elevations of unit 3. The remaining elevations are largely blank. This would be the largest unit on the site, measuring just over 14 metres high. It would be clad in shades of grey with gold highlighting the inside of some of the fins. This slide shows the front and rear elevations of units 4, 5 and 6. These are medium small units fronting onto the central green corridor. The architectural style of these units would be consistent across the site. This is the multi-storey car park that would occupy the northeast corner of the site. As you can see it is just two stories high and if you look at the ground level you can see that it would be partly sunk into the ground. And this is the final slide. It is an artist's impression of units 1 and 2, the north facing elevations of central corridor running between them. That is the end of my presentation. Thank you. Thank you very much. Members, any points of clarification you would like to raise with the officer? Councillor Bradman. Thank you. Councillor Bradman please. Thank you Chairman. Forgive me, I have a number of questions to do with the conditions. This relates to where they have been recommended and I cannot find them in the conditions in the recommendations. So if I might just go through them and then perhaps... This is clarification on the presentation. I mean you can raise the conditioning when we come to the debate. Okay, if you prefer I will leave it until then Chairman. Thank you very much for that. Vice-chair do we have any further questions? No further chair. Okay, thank you very much for the presentation and we will go to public speakers. I understand we have two representatives for the applicants. Mr Aitchison and Mr Biedman. Are you with us please? Yes, Chair. Mr Aitchison here. Yes, and Mike Biedman they say as well. Fine. Okay, could we take down the presentation please so that we can see each other? That's good, okay. Thank you very much. So if you're not speaking Councillor Bradman would you turn your camera off please? Thank you. So gentlemen you know the system is three minutes and then we'll see if members want clarification on the points. So when you're ready off you go. Good morning Chair, Councillors. I am Jeremy Aitchison of Aitchison Developments. My company was appointed by the site owner Diagea Pension Trust two years ago and the vision was to create a development that would exceed what a standard industrial estate offers in every possible way. We wanted to create a place that would attract both local industrial businesses and larger technology companies. We wanted a highly sustainable development that looked amazing and that would attract high quality companies and their staff. That development is called Born Quarter. It was a visit to the high tech campus in Eindhoven, Netherlands in March 2019 that gave our team the inspiration for the design that is the subject of this application. We decided that a landscape led parkland setting using very high quality materials would enable us to develop buildings that are immensely flexible and can provide both standard industrial units through to buildings that can incorporate large office and laboratory areas. We are sure that the staff from all the businesses that choose to come to Born Quarter will appreciate the environment that we are creating that includes a cafe, crash, gym outdoor trim trails. We are delighted to have signed our first tenant, the Cambridge Design Partnership. Born Quarter will deliver much needed commercial space on what is currently a brownfield side and will eventually deliver an estimated 800 plus jobs. Thank you chair and thank you councillors. Good morning my name is Mike Beadman I am the director and founder of Cambridge Design Partnership and the lead tenant as Jeremy just said. As a quick background, Cambridge Design Partnership started in Toft and has consistently grown at about 20% per year since 1996 when we started. We continually adapt and diversify our engineering consultancy making us now one of the top four consultancies in the Cambridge area. We've been based in Toft from that outset and our countryside location is an important part of our image for both clients and our employees. Since 2016 we've been looking for potential new sites and as various planning applications recently have shown we've now overpacked our site in Toft with temporary buildings and we've taken on additional space most recently in Barton and central Cambridge just to cope with our expansion and manage our temporary hopefully distancing challenges of this last year. This has highlighted that working on a distributed site is actually very inefficient for us and so we've been looking at options from as far afield as Camborn, Sauston and elsewhere but they're all single buildings the opportunity at Bourne Quarter offers us that ability to regroup into one large unit unit three with a second floor inserted or a first floor I should say becomes a 56,000 square foot building and gives us the opportunity to expand into a similar sized building again in a few years time with the second phase. Over the last year we've worked at length with an interior design team and the architects to fit out to design a fit out that's suitable for the next 20 years and the hope that we can move in in early 2022 and for our employees Bourne Quarter is again west of Cambridge same distance from central Cambridge but with even better cycle access and other transport options and so it offers a perfect solution for us for the future of our business. Thank you very much Members, do you have any points for clarification you'd like to raise? Not so far, Chair. No, okay so thank you very much then gentlemen that's noted and if we move on to the next speaker and that is Councillor O'Brien Councillor O'Brien are you with us please? Yes I'm here and the name is O'Brien O'Brien, okay I was just doing my best as we have penalties for that and I understand you're representing Bourne Parish Council can I just confirm for the record that you have the permission of the parish councillors to speak on their behalf? I do have the permission of the parish councillors to speak on their behalf thank you Chair and councillors and first of all can I just have a minute to acknowledge the fact that the consultation for this application is due to end on the 29th of December so we were as a parish council very surprised to learn that it was coming forward to committee today and remain surprised so from there I'd like to just cover the fact that we object to this on a number of grounds mostly transport since the transport assessment was published by the developer in May 2019 you'll all know that the Canberra and Cambridge Busway project has been suspended and so there are about 12 occasions in the transport assessment document that reference this busway providing better connection and alternative means of transport to assist reducing congestion the segregated busway means that more journeys can be made by bus it's a critical transport infrastructure to help support and shift from the reliance on the private car to more sustainable modes of transport now we don't know what's happening with the Canberra and Cambridge Busway notwithstanding the latest developments and so the assessment from transport to suggest that there will be a significant shift away from private cars or to say the least secondly we have serious concerns over the discrepancies between the number of car journeys that the transport assessment suggests there are 624 planned car parking spaces and we're told that there will be up to 800 people working on the site yet in the hour between 730 and 830 in the morning the transport assessment suggests that there will only be 124 cars entering the site now we don't understand and would like further time to assess why in a development of 800 people with 624 car parking spaces only 124 cars will enter the site during the morning rush hour so that needs further investigation and then finally surprised to hear Councillor Chumay-Hulkin say that there's nothing contentious about this but you'll know that cumulatively in terms of born airfield and it's nice that I can legitimately make comments about born airfield even though this isn't the born airfield application but the born airfield application does need to be taken into consideration because Wellington way will also be the way in which people can access born airfield so cumulatively who has done the assessment traffic moving towards children roundabout from Wellington way for born airfield, the born quarter and all developments on Caldercott Highfields so I suggest to the committee this is premature, we should have the consultation open until the 29th of December there are significant issues around transport in relation to the high quality public transport and its delivery the number of parking spaces related to the number of journeys in and out and cumulatively what will happen at Children's Roundabout when born airfield, the born quarter and all developments in Caldercott Highfields are completed, thank you Thank you very much Members any points of clarification you'd like to raise with Councillor O'Brien I can't see any at the moment No Chair Okay so thank you very much indeed Chair, Councillor Roberts Oh Councillor Roberts, yeah please Good morning Councillor O'Brien, hope you're well I wonder if you could tell me obviously you've made mention on a couple of occasions in your presentation about the consultation exercise and obviously you heard that we did have a vote on it Do you know if your parish council then is intending to put in further observations in that period up to the 29th of December we would be looking to put in some further qualifications around the number of car journeys listed in the transport assessment and also because of the development since we first consulted on this the Camborn to Cambridge busway has been suspended so our initial assessments have been coloured by that further time to determine the outcome or impact of the current developments around the Camborn to Cambridge busway means that we will need to put in further consultation Thank you very much for that Chair, the legal officer would like to speak Thank you, Mr Reid please Chair if I may can I suggest that we have a five minute adjournment On what grounds? On the grounds that effectively Councillor Roberts has in effect established that Bourne Parish Council will be putting in further representations following today and prior to the end of the consultation period Okay Thank you Alright members we will adjourn for a few moments so I take advice from the legal people Thank you very much Chair you are now live again Alright thank you My apologies for that adjournment We have a discussion and Mr Carter would like to address the committee Thank you Chair First of all just for members awareness the reason that the application was still brought to the committee notwithstanding the ongoing consultation period was that a full detail consultation on this application had already taken place representations had been received from the local parish councils and others as you would have seen the additional consultation period which was triggered for the reason I explained earlier was an error and did update the website to reflect that the consultation period was on 29th December Following the comments of Councillor O'Brien on behalf of Bourne Parish Council it appears inevitable that further representations will be received during that period and for those reasons I would advise the committee to consider again deferring the application until the January meeting which will be after the conclusion of that consultation period Thank you Chair Happy to take any questions on that Thank you very much Any clarification required on that? It's perfectly straightforward I think but clearly Chair If any further comments did come in before the 29th of December then we would have to reconvene and bring this back to the next meeting so in those circumstances it seems that there is little purpose in us pursuing today So I have some speakers Several questions to speak We've got councillor Wright, councillor Fain and councillor Richard Williams Thank you councillor Wright please and councillor Roberts Thank you Thank you Chairman for allowing me to speak Again I'm really concerned about this If we vote on this today we are predetermining ourselves when it comes back You can't behave like this If the consultation process is running you can't vote until you've considered all the applications in It's chaos to carry on like this We need to defer this Thank you I'm about to put a proposal to defer it If that's what you're requesting that's what's going to happen If you want to make other comments that's fine councillor Fain I just wonder whether the applicants are entitled to review on any proposal to defer I'm afraid not as the Richard Williams Thank you chair I understand that these things happen because of accidents and it's not necessarily office as fault but there are legitimate public law rights, legitimate expectations are created by consultation expiry dates and these are legal rights and we shouldn't be trying to override them I'm glad we've got to the right decision in the end but we could have done this much more quickly Thank you Thank you very much Councillor Roberts Thank you chair I don't know if anybody's proposed I think maybe councilor Williams, Richard Williams is maybe proposing and if you need a seconder I will second it chairman I think we have to we're not above the law we are obliged to be legal Indeed I will be making the proposal You have councillor Heather Williams and councillor Martin Cahn Heather Williams please Thank you I'll support the deferral now as I supported it early on it was quite clear and it's a shame that we've wasted lots of people's time today when we could have had this decision so not a lot earlier Thank you and councillor Cahn I simply wanted to say that I think the procedure has actually gone the correct way we are committed to try to prevent deferrals and it seems to me that there was a way forward earlier on the information we had earlier on to proceed without deferring with this additional information it changes the situation and it's clear to my mind that we now do have to defer we haven't gotten the option so I think we've proceeded the correct way we've shown our willingness to try to avoid deferrals in the light of information we have to change our opinion unfortunately we do have to defer that's the situation Okay thank you very much I don't think we're very much Chair if I could just comment Who is that It's Stephen Reed chair for me Yeah Mr. I think some members are using language which suggests that actually a decision has been taken that decision hasn't been taken what you're going to do is to put that to the vote and see if members wish to so I think the language used by a couple of members in this part has assumed that it will now be deferred that assumption cannot be made until it's put to the vote Yes thank you I'm sure we will appreciate that No other speakers Councillor Halins No chair Okay we're going to go to the vote then I'm proposing that given the chain circumstances that this is deferred could I have a seconder please I'll second that chairman that's Councillor Bradnan Councillor Bradnan thank you Do we need to go to a vote is this affirmation Anyone against that Agreed Agreed Agreed So no one against So that is passed by affirmation Item 5 of born is deferred Alright thank you very much We just came up to 11.30 I think we have a 10 minute break If you'd like to come back again please at 11.40 11.40 So Aaron if you could close us down please Are we off air Aaron Is Aaron still with us Hello Yeah I think we still seem to be live chair Yes but I'm trying to Contact Aaron Can you hear us It's Chris Carter I'm just contacting Aaron now by phone Thank you very much chair We're now live again Welcome back to South Cams District Council planning committee My apologies All those associated with the born application that we're not in a position to proceed on that one We're now moving to agenda item 7 which is on page 55 of the agenda This is an audit report on process review Jonathan Talley who is the Head of Shared Internal Audit will be presenting this review It's before us to be noted Mr Talley would you give your presentation please Thank you very much chair and good morning everyone So for those who have not met me before my name is Jonathan I'm the Head of Internal Audit for the council and we completed a review in response to the two recent planning permission incidents where decision notices were issued in error We wanted to respond promptly and group leaders agreed that our report should be presented to the planning committee My reports attached to the appendix A which starts on page 57 Hopefully the report is fairly easy to follow But I do appreciate some of you may not have seen an audit report before So I was planning to just provide a very quick summary of the report and highlight some key points So on page 57 we have a cover sheet and simply that just includes summary information such as our opinion on the control environments the number of actions that the council implements as part of this review process and you might find it also useful to look at our glottary of terms on page 74 which explains some of the terms we use Our executive reports starts on page 58 and this sets out our scope and objectives Simply in both cases we wanted to identify what went wrong so that we could start to put mitigating controls in place Our summary findings are on page 59 and the key points that I would highlight here Both the cases were the result of human error and there's clear supporting information that shows the council intended to process these correctly The council has procedures and separations of duties in place which provides an element of checking prior to completion that's due to demonstrate that the controls were effective The council did quickly respond to both incidents and contacted customers to apologize and also took immediate remedial steps and have been updating procedures to help prevent these from happening again I think both cases need to be seen in the context of the current environment and I've highlighted there are multiple factors which have contributed to the procedures not working effectively These are important to consider when reviewing and developing further controls to mitigate the risks My detail findings are on pages 61 to 68 now I don't propose to go through these in detail but suffice to say for each case they explain the contributing factors and also opportunities for improvements On pages 69 to 72 this is where we have our management agreed actions This is fairly typical of an audit reports and simply it's an action plan for improvements developed from the detail findings earlier in the reports We're asking committee to note the contents of the reports So thank you very much Thank you very much Mr Tully Before we get into discussion on this can I just clarify with you given our experience this morning that are you satisfied that lessons have been learned from these particular two cases I believe so as I've highlighted in my reports one of them in particular was unusual and not something we've had to deal with before It might be unlikely to happen again but certainly they've learnt from this and we've seen immediate remedial action put in place to help improve those controls But it wasn't the error this morning somewhat similar to the one that you were investigating and a system going its own way Potentially there's always different risks that can materialise What I am happy is that as soon as these are being identified they are putting controls in place to improve them and try and prevent those risks happening again What we cannot without a crystal ball is predicted what different type of risks may materialise in the future I hope you've got a crystal ball Okay Do we have any speakers Yes Chair but councillor Heather Williams councillor Williams please Thank you and thank you for the report and it coming to us swiftly I just wanted to do one clarification and possibly have to declare an interest as a group leader as was referenced on the distribution list it did come to group leaders ahead of that discussion about what the process so that came to group leaders ahead of fine committee which isn't referenced on there so for transparency purposes I think it's important that that's included just picking up on something that the chairman just referred to about I think there is differences these were about decision notices going out whereas the problems we've experienced today about consultation extensions accidental now that is something that I believe it was five or six some months ago and we've then had a case of two more today so I don't believe that is an area of work that internal audit has looked at is that sort of accidental extension of consultation but maybe following on today might be something worth pursuing and looking at but on the report itself I know that you've identified a human error I would just like but I was just wondering to make sure these things aren't repeat problems when we move to the I might pronounce it eye doctor uniform I think I've got that right I'll be honest IT's not my strong suit when we move to that system what training was provided to officers and what further training has been identified because it may be human error but that doesn't necessarily mean that the four lines blame those on those humans if we provide radical training for example then that's inevitable that the mistakes are going to happen so is that something that you've looked at what training has been received or perhaps this is more towards Sharon Brown about has training been identified and required moving forward I think those are my my list thank you chairman chair you have Sharon Brown who was requested you have other members of the committee too but I wondered if you'd like to ask Sharon Brown to speak first yes please thank you chair first of all I'd just like to reiterate the public apology that has already been made in relation to these errors so clearly it's very unfortunate that these errors occurred and we have put as many measures in place as we can to ensure that these errors do not happen again there is an ongoing process in relation to those as per the recommendations set out in the report we are undertaking a process review in relation to decisions processes on the system and with officers who are signing off those decisions and that will be completed in early January we have put additional prompts into the system to address that so that officers are warned when they're on the recommendation and decision screens and we're also taking forward the other recommendations in this report in relation to the other matters that have occurred with the notification letters as members will be aware we've had a number of ICT issues these are not necessarily always related to the planning software system but we've had a number of systems closed down over weekends where we've had works being carried out maintenance works relating to server upgrade projects and also to technical difficulties corporately and maintenance etc the reasons that we changed the notifications were to extend the consultation period what we did not know was that the consultation period was imposed on all letters that went out so one of the points that was touched on was when you've got new processes and new systems it's making sure that you're fully testing the new system so that if you do make a change to it you understand the wider implications of making one change and what implications that would have on the rest of the system so we've got a much tighter process in place now for systems changes we have introduced a service champions group where changes to systems require authorization only for myself and the head of development management Nigel Blaiseby and we are also undertaking further training in relation to Councillor Williams his point about what training was undertaken uniform training was undertaken in advance of roll out of the new system obviously there's a clear need to make sure you're repeating that training and refreshing that training as you go forward and we've had a recent session refreshing the senior officers who sign off decision notices and undertaking some further discussions with those officers to make sure they all fully understand the importance of this process and that we're all following one single process and reaching the sign off of decision notices thank you all right thank you very much this is time I don't have anything further you wanted to come back on from Councillor Williams's comments I think just the only outstanding point there was on the first one about the distribution list so I'm happy to update that to reflect it once a group leaders but okay we have further speakers do we Councillor Halings yes we do so Councillor Heather Williams followed by Councillor Bradnam okay thank you Councillor Bradnam followed by Councillor Carn okay Councillor Bradnam please thank you Chairman I just wanted to say that I'm very glad that we've done this review and it's very thorough and thank you to Mr Tully for doing that my feeling is that all of the right actions have now been taken you know apologies have been made it was an accident and it was an accident that evolved from a changing computer system and I think some of those changes are very hard to predict what the knock-on effects will be and also one of the cases was a very unusual one and that's probably not a case you would necessarily have anticipated in the testing process so I'm very pleased to see the immediate actions that were taken and the long-term actions that are planned and I think this has been properly investigated properly analysed and I'm confident that we will go forward to you know properly however strange and peculiar combinations of cases particular circumstances and computers will inevitably sometimes throw up these situations that we can't predict so I'm fully confident that we are doing whatever we can in the circumstances to resolve the issue thank you Chairman okay thank you very much for that Councillor Kahn please I'm also happy that we've dealt with well I think these two particular cases but this planning community has also demonstrated other problems there's clearly a general problem to do with confusion regarding consultation end dates because this has happened several times and it's important that this is resolved but I'd also refer to the other application in Falmia where there was this problem to do with the date on the Q class permission which was that was done under the previous system before the computer system was coming under so it's not just a modern problem and I if this previous Q class had been implemented you would have had an application which was implemented which in fact was out without planning permission it could have been very serious I am concerned that there may be other cases which we are unaware of and where development may have taken place where there's an error and I don't know how one could check that and I would like advice upon how we could check that there aren't other examples of this problem. It only arose very much later when we were dealing with the second application we found out there was this problem it had been sitting there like a time bomb all this time. Thank you very much. Councillor Halings do we have any further speakers? Yes, we have Councillor Richard Williams and Councillor Debra Roberts. Alright, Councillor Williams please. Thank you very much chair I just reiterate the points that have already been made by looking into this consultation date issue which does keep cropping up on this report again I'd like to thank Mr Telly for the very thorough report I just had a question about something that's on page 8 of his report page 64 of our bundle and this idea of applications being referred back to case officers for final approval before they're issued I mean I think that's dismissed as a or not favoured as a routine solution but the report does say this process is in place at other councils so I suppose I really got two questions is how common is this in other councils are we a real outlier in not doing this and is there not a case to do this whilst we're in this pandemic situation and people are not working in the office and can't pop across two desks and ask somebody anything at least for a temporary period might not that be a good solution until you know we get back to normal working given everything else the report says about the impact that you know remote working had on these problems thank you all right thank you very much for that Mr Telly you're having comments on that thank you I don't actually have statistics to hand us to all the different councils this has came up from in conversation with other officers who work to different councils so I couldn't give you a comprehensive statistic across the nation but it's a fair point the challenge of what we have to do is manage risk versus processes efficiency and Sharon might want to come in at this point but I know it's part of their process review these are things that they're considering about the smartest way to work going forward Sharon did you want to comment on that yes I did so this is indeed part of the process review this is one of the options that we are considering and obviously we're weighing up as Jonathan has said in relation to minimizing risk as opposed to maximum efficiency and just coming back to the point about the notification letters we have removed the level of automation in the system which created that problem in relation to the notification so we've stripped the system back by a layer so that should not happen again thank you Councillor Roberts please thank you very much chairman I have nothing really to say other than thank you to Mr Tully for the work that he's done up today he's obviously read the remit and has acted accordingly so I think that's very good but my concerns are the further ones that we need to look at this consultation process and I don't think members have covered themselves in glory today I don't think we should be just critical of the offices and the internal procedures actually when somebody says to a committee as did Councillor Richard Williams who is our legal beagle as a member for those of you that don't understand he's very knowledgeable this is his line of business so when a councillor with that background says to you actually you have to act legally you have to act ultra-variate you have to do it properly and then an amount of us decide that we'll take no notice of that and we'll continue on and then obviously we've run into the embarrassing situation that we've had this morning so I think it's time that we also as members started to be less arrogant less full of ourselves and actually listened to the arguments that are put in a much more sensible way than we are doing and I would say that the family everybody acts on the in good faith okay thank you can I just say with regards to the family of one as well the other thing that needs to be in our minds here is that the family of one was a question of somebody not properly checking and the fact was that again it was outside of the organisation people outside of the organisation that saw the mistakes now that is not acceptable it must not be members of the public who are having to pull us up and tell us that a huge mistake has been made and so I will go back to if Mr Tulley continues his exercise and flesh his further stuff out I think we've got to get this over there has to be much more checking if you were in private business and you were writing something you would get somebody to read the draft and go with it with you and I think there's not enough of that actually going on but I think what you've done today Mr Tulley okay thank you Councillor Haynes any further speakers no further speakers so we're asked to note this so I'm sure we have noted it and we move on so the next item on the agenda is item 8 enforcement reports is the enforcement officer with us this morning it's Jakarta you know if the enforcement officer is available he doesn't appear to be there chair so I'm happy to take any questions away if members would like what I did after the last meeting was to ask the enforcement officer to respond directly to individual members who had issues and I'd propose to do that again if there are any clarifications required alright fine thank you so members do you wish to raise any comments Councillor Haynes do we have the speakers we have councillor Nick Wright Heather Williams councillor Williams and councillor Bradnam thank you councillor Wright please thank you chairman and I think this is the second meeting in a row that we haven't been able to be assisted by an enforcement officer I would just like to question with that in mind the strength of our team we've lost some very good enforcement officers in the last year through various reasons and I'm anxious that you know they're struggling to cope when they can't attend a planning committee and you know that is a matter for the leader the leader in the planning service to look at and yourself chairman as well as the officers and I'll leave that with you I'm anxious to speak about Cottenham which doesn't appear on this report I'm conscious that we've had an action there running for over three years now and it's been in the courts we've had one interim report a year ago which said that the legal team were considering going to the high court and doing injunctions there as I know this hasn't happened and it's just being allowed to drift if it isn't dealt with the offences there will become legal because the amount of time it's being left you know it's not appropriate that as a council we don't take action where there are clear breaches identified by the courts as they were in 2017 I don't think since that time there's been any improvement apart from 60% of the people complying with it that's still left 40% who didn't and in spite of fines and things you know through the local courts nothing has been done and the breaches are still occurring so I'm going to request that we have a legal officer at our next meeting we have a monthly update on that site in our report which conveniently has disappeared so we can all forget about it but residents of Cochnum have been contacting me about this and I am very concerned thank you chairman okay thank you very much for that I'm sorry Mr Carter has heard that as has Sharon Brown okay we have moved on then to Councillor Heather Williams please thank you chairman firstly I'm aware that Gordon has left the authority and I'm sure like many of us he was a great officer for us so I'd just like to record well my thanks I'm sure that of the committee he's done at the authority who is an excellent enforcement officer and I would like to raise again concern around the year to date figures on the amount of cases closed and you know what else but in a constructive way what else do the enforcement team need or what support do they need to be able to be closing more cases and taking more action and I do I am concerned about the case that Councillor Wright mentions as well but yeah what what is going what is going on to make this so different to what it has been in previous years thank you chairman thank you Gordon yep Mr Carter do you want to comment on that Chair through you I think Sharon Brown may wish to comment on that alright okay thank you very much Sharon just in general in relation to the enforcement resources we've had some agency staff supporting the team in recent months but we are proposing to carry out some permanent recruitment in the new year in relation to the enforcement team but we are replacing Gordon in the short term so that the numbers of staff in the team are consistent with the number of posts is just some of those agency staff at the moment but they are experienced agency staff in relation to what improvements we can make to enforcement processes and speeding up the serving of notices and increasing the number of notices that we serve and responding more promptly to enforcement issues we will be undertaking a wholesale review of our enforcement processes next year this is something that we will be bringing forward to our new service plan and it's going to be a top priority for the shared planning service and that will really be a back to basics review there will be some benchmarking also with other local authorities who've got very good records of serving notices and efficient procedures, thank you Chairman could I ask a supplementary thank you it's just the reference to agency that we're having agency staff I'm just conscious that quite often people live quite far away and obviously we're something like enforcement where you need to be out on site sometimes same day can we have some assurance that the agency staff that are in do are on site and are in the vicinity five days a week or is it being done remotely because that would be very concerning and might explain why they're not able to get on site so quickly thank you Thank you Councillor Williams I can assure you that we do respond within the team to urgent requests to go on site and so particularly what we look for in enforcement officers when we recruit them is that ability to be able to respond quickly and if necessary to carry out site visits. We also share the responsibility so say if one enforcement officer isn't around then another enforcement officer would pick up that site visit and that has been the case in a few other in a few recent site visits and so we have the shared enforcement team so we have the officers who also cover the city area and there is flexibility of deployment between the staff Thank you Councillor Bredlin please Thank you Chairman I thank you very much for that. My questions relate to page 81 in the agenda I firstly wanted to say thank you very much to the enforcement staff for actually serving the enforcement notice on Land North East of Fenroad it's actually not Chesterton, it's Milton there is a common confusion there, there is a Fenroad Chesterton and a Fenroad Milton and this is actually Milton that we're talking about so please could that be corrected in the report Secondly that whilst I'm very glad the enforcement note was issued this was on grounds of change of land use and that could have been established I believe it could have been established much earlier on it was first reported in April this year and as a result because in fact people were asked to report on noise disturbance all through the summer people were diligently making recordings of noise but actually the concern that the parish council and indeed I and Councillor Smith had was that this was actually a change of use which was not within permitted terms so I'm sorry that it took so long for that conclusion but I'm very glad the enforcement notice has been issued but I know Councillor Smith and I are both asking since the time duration for that enforcement notice to be enforced has actually been passed 28 days plus 28 days we'd like to know what action has been taken on that so I'd like a written response to that if I may and the second thing is I just wanted to check why there were few notices served is that because of lack of sorry in the table above at table one I wanted to know is that because of human resources you know they're not having enough stuff or is it because the magistrates courts were not functioning at that time do we have an answer to that Chair through you I didn't know the answer to that I can try and find out what I might surmise just from previous experiences that oftentimes will try and resolve things through negotiation rather than going straight to serving a notice of some kind so that may explain part of that but I'll take that away and see if I can find out an answer for you and thank you can I be assured of a written answer to my previous question yes I will request that is given to you as well thank you thank you very much Mr Carter very much I don't have any further speakers I then think so we're about to move on but before we do so echo council writes concerns that this is the second meeting where we have not had an enforcement officer present for this I would expect to see an enforcement officer with us at the next meeting thank you that's item 8 completed we are now looking at item 9 appeals to give planning decisions this is on page 83 comments appendix 1 shows the 5 appeals where decisions have been made all being dismissed in our favour any comments on this no chair no comments to make happy to see any questions right any questions members are you happy with that I think that's noted them chair I'm sorry I had the Williams alright yeah council Williams please thanks chairman and it was just really pleased to see the outcomes obviously the appeals have been successful and I just wondered given some of the speculation that's been about are any of the appeals coming through challenging our five year land supply or have we been able to defend any of the appeals just hopefully but the room is to bed thank you for that Mr Carter do you have a view yeah so just there with me one moment chair my screen just frozen just trying to scroll down to that page apologies so one of the informal hearings in Sauston I have looked into this council Williams following I think you're raising the issue previously the appeal statement submitted by the applicant does comment upon five year land supply but does not challenge it in any substance they've just raised this as an additional issue so the council will respond to it at the appropriate level but no none of those appeals as far as I'm sorry none of those other appeals as far as I'm aware have raised any issues around five year land supply thank you thank you do they cite a number at all I don't know the answers that council Williams but I can ask for a copy of their appeal submission to be forwarded to if you'd like to review it or I can find out the answer and just give you the answer thank you both if that's okay thank you chairman thank you thank you very much councillor right councillor right please thank you chairman my question is to Mr Carter as well a well-known local tweeter tweeting this morning that our five year land supply is 4.2 years has particular relevance today with the announcements yesterday the only way that that planning application could get through is if we don't have a five year land supply so it is a relevant question and we're all wondering where this 4.2 years comes from that's to Mr Carter thank you chair sorry I haven't been seeing any tweets this morning I'm happy to obviously take your word for that councillor right the councillor's position is that it maintains a five year land supply as it's out in the position statement that hasn't changed obviously the council keeps that under review and if that comes up as an issue in the appeal at Sourston then it would be addressed at that point I can't advise any further on that at the moment I'm afraid okay thank you very much I've got no more speakers on that so we're noted those just a reminder that the extraordinary meeting which was to be held on the 18th of December to deal with the main born application has been put off until the new year the reason for that is that there's been a significant amendment coming from the applicants not anything to do with our systems fortunately so I now declare the so our next meeting will be Wednesday the 13th of January I now declare the meeting closed thank everyone for their attendance and thanks to the members of the public viewing who are still stuck with us through the morning and the last thing I need to say is Merry Christmas to you all and let's hope for a happier and healthier new year thank you very much thank you chairman thank you chair I can come