 Fawr, iawn y lleio. Y Llywyddyn cherdd, ymlaen i chi'n gweld y dyma yng nghymru, Ileiddiant Ileiddiant Cymru, Felly, mae'n cyflawn i'ch bod eich ddalunion gyda'r hyn yn dod yn dweud â'r Chyfe Croethol. Gall dieddyn nhw'n gweithio'r cyfrifiad dros chi, bydd'w'n gallu chweithio'r cwmbr ei ddyn nhw, dweud â'r gyfrifiad, mae'r bwysig yn gweithio'r gyfrifiad yn gweithio'r gyfrifiad, ond mae'n llawer o'r gwerthoedd yn ddechrau rhyngwbl mun Arddur. O'r cyfnodd dwy goeser iaeth i'r gymryd ar y ffartwyr o gair, yn y ffartwyr ychydig? Os rwy'n ffacech amdano'r cyfnodd dim yn ffartwyr arall? A oedd yn fawr, mae'r panch yn ffartwyr yw ddweud deoliadu, a oedd amdano'n gydechrau'u iaeth i'w mikrofoedd yn y camryd, angen dw i ddim yn dwy'n dw i'w ddweud? Os rwy'n ddim yn dweud o'r cyfnodd o wynthawdd, o gyfan o'r ddweud y ddweud, a'r wych ei fod yn dweud, so that they do not interrupt proceedings and that goes for all of us in the chamber as well. When you're invited to address the meeting please make sure your microphone is switched on, when you've finished addressing the meeting please turn off your microphone immediately, speak slowly, clearly and please do not talk over or interrupt anyone else. So members please note if we do need to vote on any item we should do so via the electronic voting systems in front of us and only those members who are present in the chamber will be eligible to vote. Committee members I'm now going to take a roll call so after I call your name if you could switch your microphone on and introduce yourself so those who are watching know who we are and that we are here. Okay thank you very much apologies for the inconvenience there having some technical difficulties which I think we've gotten to the best point to be possibly can so we are going to continue. Members I got to the point when I was about to introduce you all and take a roll call so when I do read out your name please do switch your microphone on, introduce yourself and then switch your microphone off so those watching know who you are and that we are here. So as mentioned at the beginning I'm councillor Henry Batch one of the members for the Linton Ward and I'm the chair of the committee and the vice-chair is councillor Peter Fane to my right. Good morning all Peter Fane, Shelford Ward. Thank you and councillor Ariel Kahn. Ariel Kahn, Horstyn Cumberton Ward. Thank you and councillor Dr Martin Kahn. Martin Kahn, history and influence. I think 40 if there's no more entries are viewable from page one onwards in our agenda packs. That is right I read that as the four names listed with the four against and the other five being in favour but it might be helpful to clarify that in the minute. Lawrence I don't know if you've noted that it might just be handy just to it might be easy just to just to name all of the councillors in favour than all of the councillors against just for clarity just because it's not yep that's absolutely well with those two changes we will agree the minutes as a correct record and with that members will move on to the substantive business and we begin with agenda item number five which is on page seven of our agendas. This is an application at the land to the rear of one b overroad willingham which was a previously deferred application at this committee so it's coming back to us. The proposal was a reserved matters application for 26 units 10 affordable units and ancillary arrangements. The applicant is a Mr Ernest win and the reason is before us is in the wider public interest and it has been called in by local member and the parish council so I'm going to hand over to the case officer now this Alice Young who I'm hoping is joining us online Alice. Yes thank you chair. Good morning so we have the report in front of us if there's any updates to that do let us know but if you could introduce the report to members that will be great thank you. Thank you chair so as the chair is outlined this is a reserve matters application the land to the rear of one b overroad willingham and it's a reserve matters for the erection of 26 dwellings including 10 affordable units and ancillary access arrangements. The application site is located on the southwestern edge of willingham village to south of overroad and lies outside the development framework. The site is rectangular and is cited in a backland position behind residential properties fronting overroad. Residential properties surround the site on all sides except from the southern side. Apart from the application site to north and east is located within the flood zone two and three. This includes the access into the site from overroad flood zone three is located to the north and west north and northeastern sides and cascading down to flood zone two towards the centre and extreme south east side and flood zone one to the centre and southwest side. There is a three meter electricity easement along parts of the eastern and western boundaries and along the full extent of the southern boundary. The proposal seeks reserve matters consent for the appearance landscaping and layout and scale for the 2015 outline permission for the erection of 26 dwellings including 10 affordable units. The application has been amended since the original submission to overcome officers concerns and to address members concerns. I'll just briefly go over the proposed site plan and then show you some proposed elevations and street scene elevations and then we'll get into how the development has been amended to address members concerns from the previous committee meeting. So the proposed access is from overroad and goes through the site between the two properties fronting overroad. It's 26 dwellings and these would range from one bedroom semi-detached dwellings to four bedroom detached properties arranged along a central access road with a turning head located to the south. A local area of play is located to the north eastern corner butting the boundary with the Lawnings and Salvador which front overroad. The boundary treatment would be retained along the southern boundary butting the open countryside and the remaining boundaries would be enclosed by either the existing 1.8 metre ffencing or new 2 metre close board offences with soft landscaping on the western boundary. So these are the street scene elevations. So the application was deferred from the June committee meeting by members for officers to clarify concerns from the lead local flood authority and due to the road layout and the consequent highway safety issues with the refuse vehicle over-sailing the pavement and the location of the open space and associated impact on residential amenity. Members also mentioned car parking for plots 8 and 9. So these matters will be taken in turn. So drainage members had concerns regarding drainage of the site while drainage is largely a reserved is largely a matter dealt with that outline stage when establishing the principle of development. The applicant has provided full revised details of drainage of the site in this reserve matters application to a leading over all of the hard standing across the site with the surface water being conveyed into a cellular soak away below the local area of play. The lead local flood and drainage officer both now do not have any objections to the proposal and officers therefore can are satisfied that the site drainage is considered acceptable. So in terms of road layout members also expressed concerns as to the layout being too tight for a refuse vehicle to adequately turn within the site without over-sailing the pavement. The turning heads within the south east of the site has been enlarged and updated vehicle tracking diagrams have been submitted to demonstrate that a Southcams standard refuse vehicle can adequately turn within the road layout without overrunning the pavement. Furthermore, the radii of the access entrance to over road has been increased to 8m to allow sufficient space for larger vehicles to enter the site. The highway authority now do not object to the application and consider that the proposal would not result in highway safety issues and therefore officers are satisfied that the road layout is acceptable. So in terms of the open space members raised kind of or queried why the open space was located in the north eastern corner it's been cited here due to the shallow depths of the adjacent neighbouring gardens and the harmful immunity impact that would arise from siting dwellings in this location. Given this and the outline planning permission being specifically for 26 dwellings no more and no less this is limited the siting of the open space to this north eastern corner. Notwithstanding this officers consider that the location of this open space is acceptable in the overall layout and context of the site. Members also mentioned that all dwellings did not have access to two off-street car parking spaces. To respond to these concerns the scheme has been amended to increase provision for plot 8 and 9 which I'll just point out here so it's these two smaller units these are one-bed units. So this has been increased so there are three car parking spaces for these two units. Paragraph 2 of policy TI3 states that provision should be should take into consideration of various factors including car ownership levels, local services facilities and public transport. Both plot 8 and 9 are one-bedroom properties and are least likely to own two cars or be inhabited by a family. Given this alongside the local services and public transport within Willingham officers consider that this level of car parking is acceptable on site. So amenity was raised previously as an issue. The amenity of surrounding neighbours has really determined the revised site layout. All properties would be in accordance with the district design minimum distances. Officers note that there has been a third party comment which contends that the proposal does not comply in this case for Mossfields but the design guide states an acceptable distance so Mossfields is here sorry but the design guide states an acceptable distance between the neighbouring habitable room and a blank gable wall is 12 meters and as you can see this exceeds the 12 meters guidance in the district design guide. Mossfield is approximately 16.5 meters from the blank elevation of plot 4 and this is staggered it's not directly opposite so officers find this relationship acceptable. As you can see the other properties surrounding the site do also comply with the 25 meter between the rear which contain habitable rooms so this one over road one B over road and Dreslin here also comply and it is the same in this instance for the properties to the west and then these are the shallow gardens I mentioned earlier which were very much a constraint of the site layout. These properties also do comply with the minimum distances. You'll note that this plot 26 is located within 10 meters I think it's about five meters away or five to seven meters away from this property on Aspenall's yard. You'll note that it's staggered away from the property and the rear garden is sited here. This shows the 45 degree line the property is staggered away so it does not obstruct the 45 degree line when taken from a habitable room from the front elevation. So taking all factors into consideration officers consider that the planning committee approved the application subject conditions the wording of which would be delegated to officers and just to provide an overview of the conditions which officers are recommending these include material sample panels, carbon emissions reduction, EV charging, broadband, etc. We've also added on since the previous planning meeting a drainage compliance condition and the wording of which is in full here and this basically secures the drainage to be in accordance with the details submitted as part of this reserve matters application which have been approved by the lead local flood authority. So thank you and if you have any questions let me know. Alice thank you very much that's very thorough presentation it's appreciated. Members we do have a public speaker on this application but before we do I will offer members the opportunity to ask any questions of clarification for the officer on her presentation. If anything wasn't clear councillors can and then Handley. I'd like to look at this site. It surprised me how high the buildings were in the joint in Aspen on Ciara joining their military story. The final house that you showed the distance for with the two blank walls seven meters apart um it's worth noting that the house in in Aspen on Ciara is three-story and therefore did you consider the the effect the impact upon the house in the new development whether the three-story house would be rather overbearing in relation to it but not in terms of visibility into habitable rooms but in terms of the actual presence because I wonder whether that was a concern. Did you get that Alice? Yes thank you chair um in terms of um the amenity for future occupiers of plot 26 or for the amenity for the neighbour in Aspenall's yard sorry that wasn't clear could that just be clarified please. I was thinking of the amenity of the new house number 26 rather than the three-story house wouldn't be affected. I don't think it would really be affected. So in terms of the amenity for plot 26 yes this has been considered and officers find this relationship acceptable given the um sighting away from the boundary and its staggered nature. Thank you Alice. Councillor Handley please. Thank you chair um can I ask a question about piling because um there's no mention of piling here I know that the developer has said that there was there was no need for piling but given that part at least part of this land is in a flood zone there's always a possibility that they may run into a problem and have to go into you know have to use piling the people the residents of Haydenway are very sensitive to that because they have to endure a lot of percussive piling during another development. I'd like reassurance that there's not going to be any piling and if there is it's properly conditioned. So um the applicant and agent have um confirmed to us that piling would not be used during the development of the site um if members were particularly concerned then um I think subject to Phil um we could um provide a condition or an informative on the application. Sure I will say the an agent of the applicant is with us today as well so it might be a question directly for them too about piling but if you want to come back I understood you will get an opportunity in a minute we're just seeing if there's any more questions or clouds for the officer then we'll bring yourself in. Okay um Councillor Heather Williams please. Thank you chair through yourself just a couple of questions one of which relates to the affordable housing um so we've got the affordable and market breakdowns but not whether they are sort of social rent shared ownership and the like unless I've missed that somewhere else um and I just wondered if you could demonstrate where in the site the affordable units are allocated for you had a sort of a site plan with the 26 houses on it if you could identify for me which ones those are um and the other was in relation to the conditions just to reassure us that things like working hours and the like because of the proximity it is quite close to to a residential area it's not you know in middle of middle of brownfield site and middle of nowhere um that they were secured at the outline and if not you know we will deal with that now um but mainly on the sort of pepperpotting basis because I'm just conscious that we are below the 40 percent mark and if we've got any information on on how the affordable housing will be dealt with. Sure so I think three questions there Alice the split of the affordable units i what type of affordable units are there on the site where exactly they are on the site and conditions around working hours etc. Thank you chair um in terms of um affordable housing that has been um agreed in the section 106 agreement um and in the outline consent so this um reserve matters in is in accordance with the um matters agreed in those um agreements um in terms of where they are in relation to the um site and whether they're pepperpotted um I'll just get up a site plan now and I will go through um where they are cited so if you bear with me a second whilst I get that up so um in terms of affordable units the um the uh plots eight and nine here and here if you can see my pointer are one bird units and these are affordable um sorry there's been a request um in terms of types are they affordable units shared ownership shared rent what we um affordable rent sorry what's the what type of yeah so so the type of housing has been secured in the outline um section 106 and I can get that up to you confirm the split but I imagine it is um 75 25 split as per um typical on this type of housing development um but I can confirm that um after I've gone through which ones are affordable on the on the site plan sure okay I appreciate you probably have to look that information up from the original outline uh or the 106 agreement from that but um yeah if whilst we're going through the process if you could find that I think that'd be helpful for for members just to get that information of course they're happy to do that I'll do it after I've I've shown you which ones are are affordable units so um so plot eight and nine are affordable units here with me a second I enter that's going a bit so eight and nine here are affordable units 23 and 23 to 26 so over here this collection of four 21 and 22 here and 14 and 15 which are over here so there's uh two in this section of the site two in this section of the site and these here um for reference as well so plots eight and nine are one bed two person units um 23 to 26 are two bed three person units 21 and 22 are two bed four person units and 14 and 15 are three bed five person units okay that's helpful Alice but yeah as I say I think it'll be helpful for members if we knew which of those units were you know shared ownership which were um affordable rented etc etc so yeah I appreciate you don't have that information to hand but when you if you could find it or an officer could find it I think that'll be helpful of course um Councillor Martin can you comment commented item 653 in the report outlines the experience of the different units I think that that's what was requested by the affordable housing team whether that's what we have in reality or not is I think what we're asking sounds as though if you're describing that it matches what they've got here good no it's hope so um okay members if there's no more questions of clarification for the officer we will then move on to our public speakers of which we have one Mr Colin Williams I believe who's from the developer Thistle Boone Estates large part my apologies okay no problem well if you've done all right I'm just reading the page in front of me apologies but um yeah if you could press the button on the right hand side at the bottom the big silver one that switches your microphone on and off and then you have three minutes to um to give us your views on the application and then at the end if you could stay seated in case there are any questions of clarification for yourself so Mr Williams please whenever you're ready can you everybody hear me clearly good morning and thank you for taking the time to hear me put forward representations in support of the site my name's Colin Williams I work for the developer Lodge Park Himes based in Northampton the site attained outline planning permission including access back in 2017 and we're here today to determine the reserve matters of the siting of the buildings and the materials etc and I'm hoping there's nothing from preventing you from granting this planning permission and allowing us to develop the site we've been working with the landowners for the last two years to get all of these technical issues sorted out with regards to drainage and uh and access and whatnot and piling indeed and I can confirm there will be no piling it costs too much but um we have a small local business employing 45 of this staff and 50 based site based employees and on top of that we'll be using the services of local contractors bricklayers carpenters carpet fitters painters etc and in these difficult times these kind of work opportunities are really important to the local economy and to small businesses we are developing this site on behalf of stonewater affordable housing company a registered housing provider who will be offering the units this is all of the units for sale on a shared ownership and market discount basis this is beyond the section 106 requirement of 10 units that is in for planning we've put forward an amendment to section 106 we will be shortly to secure those in perpetuity with the cost of living crisis and the difficulties that small families and people are trying to get on the housing ladder are facing this type of site is really crucial and willing them and the surrounding villagers do not have too many opportunities and it's extremely important bearing in mind the site got planning commission at some time ago and it's been subject to various changes like with regards to the planning officers and with the COVID outbreak and whatnot it would be galling to all of those concerned to see this drift further down in these critical times we can all see in the papers on daily basis there seems to be a lack of affordable housing and here we have a real opportunity to make a difference and I'm hoping that you guys will grant planning consent and allow us to crack on and deliver the site for the local people just on top of that the site is providing over 217 000 of contributions towards education and other local facilities and again it's much needed at this at this kind of time I don't really have anything further to add by respectfully request that you grant this planning consent and I am here on hand to answer any technical questions and can confirm that we are actually going to build this site it's not some kind of land banking exercise have I run out of time yet? I know you're very great for your under time so I appreciate that but I'm going to be here on hand and please ask if there's any things to do with the piling we're very yeah we would work with all the local folks who are going to be around the edges of the site we've got local site managers and whatnot who live not too far away so we're very keen to crack on with it and develop this for people trying to get into the housing lab and whatnot you know we appreciate you being here to answer any technical questions that members may have so you know thank you for for taking the time to be with us we do have some questions for you of course yeah I mean it is too technical I won't be able to answer it but you know a lot of times you get sort of a planning bod here it doesn't really get involved in the technical and the nitty gritty and they just come out with all of the spiel that's buried within the papers like technical stuff but I felt that in this particular instance after going to the last planning meeting it would be useful for somebody to actually come along he's going to take the responsibility for actually building this project you know actually put in the bricks together and delivering it in a meaningful way that that's appreciated but let's see what the councillors have for you so we have councillors Williams and then Handley thank you chair and through you through yourself um my question won't be a surprise it's in relation to the affordable housing because I think what I just heard was it's all going to be affordable housing or some sort of from what you were saying about really which yeah so if you could clarify what was um what you just mentioned and actually if you could clarify which units will be shared ownership and which will be affordable rents um because that might be something that you have off the top of your head perhaps um thank you chair I know that there's three shared ownership out of the ten and seven and seven of them are affordable rent I can't remember off the top of my head which exact plots they are this is the section 106 element of the 26 units that Alice referred to earlier the balance of the site um we're going to be working with Stonewater a very reputable very very big registered housing provider um they'll be using Homes England grant to support the balance of the site as shared ownership we've put forward a draft section 106 proposal for the housing officer um because Homes England would need that signing off before they put the grant funding into it I'm hoping I haven't actually gone mad with all this because I didn't want to muddy all the waters with what's been going on with the planning recently but it is it is in circulation and the idea is if we can get the planning consent today we can then buy the site off the landowners there's about four of them trust and whatnot and then we would become the owners and then it's a lot easier for us to then just sign this section 106 one of the owners is 93 for example he's quite confusing to try and explain to lots of people who don't deal with this stuff on a daily basis what is a section 106 who's an affordable housing company why do we need to change it you know what is all this extra stuff we need to do so I'm I'm just being very candid about the situation you know thank you Chet so if I could first clarify that my understanding is correct because this is a bit of a change to what's in our in our papers and then if I can take some advice from officers as to what exactly we are taking into consideration here and so my understanding is the 10 under the section 106 that that is agreed on the seven and three and hopefully officers will be able to tell us where in the site those are but the remaining 16 which in our reports are referred to as market housing you're saying that those will actually become shared ownership following a grant from homes england is that correct yeah that's what we're that's what we are proposing to do I mean obviously that's not been put forward in the planning I mean but that is what is going to happen in reality we have a contract with the landowners to deliver that and we're in contract with stonewater about to be with haven't signed with them yet because I've been waiting to see if this planning permission will go through okay thank you so can I take some advice from officers and perhaps legal advice chair um that when we make our decision today are we are we making it on the basis of 16 market houses which would be the normal steer but I think we should clarify that um and should should these become shared ownership would that require a change in the planning commission that would have to come to us again or is that something that can be changed through the 106 or is it something that we we need to take into consideration for example put in a in the event of as a condition of our agreement today if just to make sure we're very clear chair as to what it is we can and cannot take into consideration thank you chair I will let officers come back but my understanding would be that we're making decisions on what we have in front of us today not what may or may not happen in the future that's what we need to decide today in terms of any changes to the 106 I'm not sure whether that will come back here or not I'd imagine probably not but I can give officers an opportunity to to clarify that for members if they can thank you chair apologies for being to my um legal advisor as well um obviously the proposals as you rightly said at the moment is for a scheme which includes 10 affordable units only those 10 units are marked on the site plan which Alice has pointed out um the 106 requires that the mix is seven affordable housings for rent and then three shared ownership affordable housing units so that makes up the 10 where those uh those are located at the moment in terms of which specific plots isn't identified in terms of tenure but obviously the plots are identified on the site plan currently in terms of obviously then altering the proposal if it was to become essentially 100% affordable housing they something we'd have to look at in terms of a revision to the 106 agreement as part of the original outline so if that was to change then that is something that that was how we would document that essentially um to create a scheme of 100% affordable housing and that's done under what's known as a section 106a application where you where you can amend the terms of the 106 agreement uh Alice I see you've highlighted yourself are you do you want to come in on this yes thank you chair um just to clarify so this application as um Phil has identified is for um includes 10 affordable units seven of which will be affordable rented and three shared ownership there has been an application submitted to vary that section 106 agreement um it's been submitted recently and it's under consultation um and that is to have all of those units on site as affordable units as outlined by the developer so we are assessing the application on what is submitted in the reserve matters application as um there are four and ten affordable units um not fully affordable it's not a fully affordable scheme yet um that's a separate process and a separate application which is currently in the system so hopefully that clarifies matters um I think probably not actually so if I'm so in terms of what we're looking at today we're we need to make a decision today based on the information in our agenda papers albeit there is a live application with the council to change that allocation of affordability is that right yes so there is a separate application submitted to the council which varies the section 106 so if we were to approve this application today and then officers were to approve that change in affordability that would then override any decision that we make at committee today excuse me I don't believe that would be the case I think you're determining what's in front of you today that's I'm just telling you what is likely to happen in the future and what our plan is as evidenced by Alice and I think you know it would be up to you guys in the future if you didn't sign that section 106 to change the the affordability of it that's within your gift you you simply won't sign it sure we're going to have some input from the legal officer which might be helpful thank you everyone so the application before you today should be considered exactly as it is take from your mind any application that's currently pending because that is not relevant to your decision today so only consider what you have before you today with regards to the application currently in the system that's a 106a application to amend the details of the previously granted section 106 that was granted on the 18th of or day to the 18th of august 2017 we will deal with that separately that application does not affect any decision you make here today with regards to the reserved matters I hope that helps okay yep that certainly helps me so members we are as we've heard from the legal officer we're just making a decision based on what we have today what may or may not happen in planning in the future so I hope that clarifies is this on this point Councillor Cain I do have some information I wanted to clarify that in any case if the houses became a whole lot became affordable it wouldn't actually require a new planning permission with it because the planning commission is simply substantial am I right on that you're getting some nods so I think that's correct okay um Councillor Handley please thank you chair and through you question for Mr Williams would Mr Williams be given the concerns local residents over piling because of something that happened completely independently of this of this site um I would really like to seek reassurance that there will be a condition applied such that if piling becomes necessary uh it's um well it's it's properly controlled uh I don't I don't know how you might do that but I think it would give the residents of Hayden Way who suffered this because of piling really intrusive piling it will give them the reassurance that they they need um well this is a question for yourself Mr Williams so yeah um we know about the Brampton Valley Way situation um they were using driven piles if we were going to use piles they would be viable which would be a lot less impactful if that's actually English right I don't know sounds right I'll use it um everything that we're doing is going to be NHBC registered everything that we're going to be doing is going to be vetted like crazy by an RSL we've got employers agents calling all over us we're a grade one builder we'd be using if we had to we would be using all the piling maps and all the safety measures and everything else and telling everybody what was going on at the moment bearing in mind we've carried out a number of tests all over the site for drainage and done loads and loads of site investigations on the thing just to be sure that we know we're walking into something we know what we're doing we're not going to lose money um we're not going to be using them but you know happy to take some kind of um I don't know what else I can really offer above that I mean we're going to be belting braces with the NHBC and the employers agents for the for the housing association um you know we don't want to be building something that's going to fall down obviously but equally we don't want to be spending a lot of money on excessive foundation solutions that are not required yeah we I'll raise this again in general sure okay yeah as I said if you do want to revisit that before we take a vote absolutely we can go back to them uh members any final questions of clarity for mr williams before we move on nope well mr williams thank you very much for taking the time to speak to us it's very useful we appreciate you coming into the office thank you very much okay members we don't have any further public speakers on the matter so we're going to move to the debate section so this is an opportunity for members to put their views forward um or equally another opportunity to ask any questions of officers uh before we make a decision on this one so I have councillor Handley first of all yeah sorry I just a label the point uh um I would like officers um advice on I don't want to set any conditions what will be over us for the developer I really don't um but I do feel we need to give reassurance to the later neighbours um about piling um even if it's just a condition that uh gives them that reassurance that if it is to take place it will be properly monitored and controlled okay well I'll put that to officers then would there is there a regular piling condition that we can or have added to to planning applications in the past uh thank you chair we we do have conditions that seek to control the nature of piling where where we feel it's necessary um in relation to the construction details of the scheme uh so we we we can impose a condition where that in the event piling is required we can ask for details to be submitted in the grid of the nature of the piling scheme obviously that is only then kicking in if piling is required it's not it's not something that would be onerous on the developer it as I said un kicks in what if that was required by reconstruction so we could have a condition in that case chair I'd like to propose that we do include such a condition I'm not seeking to ban any thought of piling just simply to make sure that it's it's properly controlled okay um before we move on with that I do Alice I have seen you so if you do wish to come in on that point please do thank you chair um sorry it's bit difficult when it's bit hybrid um a condition um with regards to piling was on the outline consent I've just um got the wording on screen for you now sorry it's if it's a bit fuzzy um but it is a condition which is a standard condition and is along the lines of what um Phil has just outlined basically requiring them to provide a report and method statement for piling if um they need to pile on site so that's that's useful just for clarity that was on the outline planning permission and so that would still be applicable to any building work that takes place should we approve today yes yes thank you I'm happy with that chair good appreciate thank you Alice thank you that's very helpful um next speaker Councillor Fane thank you chair um obviously we're considering this application of an issue even though we have heard much of this before um I think the issues that were raised today including piling I think councillor Andy has set aside on that on affordable housing we're looking at the application before us um if a separate application were to come forward to increase the amount of affordable housing shared ownership then I would hope that could be dealt with by officers separately um if we look at the the key issues that we dealt with previously um on the drainage both the LLFA and the our own drainage officer are now satisfied that the drainage strategy would provide appropriate mitigation surface water on the um highway safety issues the highway authority now do not object to the application and consider the proposal would not result in any highway safety issues um on the car parking issue um and paragraph one four for those who want to follow this given this and the conditions local transport and so on officers consider that this is an acceptable level of car parking provision on site it was our concern about um open space that is now considered by officers to be acceptable in the overall context and site layout um I think that we should now be in a position to move to a vote and I would propose to approve this application as recommended by officers thank you councillor fame um councillor williams please thank you chair um so I wasn't on the original application in June I was at the LGA conference so I think you guys are probably having a different different set of strategies to me that day but it has been very useful to go through it um today and and the additions but when I looked at what committee discussed um I did watch the debate what committee discussed then to now those issues have been as far as I'm concerned resolved by um and we can see that in the removal of the objections um there are the issues for the surrounding neighbours and those I think while we can you know we can empathise with that within our policies that we have and the framework that we have this development is acceptable um and I make that decision on the basis of there being potentially 16 market houses there it has complied with the 106 that was set in 2017 though of course would much prefer that it was all affordable and I think it would be a perfect site for that um but I am going to support the application on the basis that there potentially is 16 market houses there and the 10 affordable um and uh yeah I think as Councillor Fane said happy to have it go to a vote indeed for for what it's worth my views are the same I think the three issues that we defered the application on last time in my view have been addressed and that's backed up by technical technical officers so members councillor Handley and then Harvey yeah one final thing um I just say that I did receive some comments from a neighbour about a mean amenity about the proximity of new houses to their properties um but um as young has covered those off uh to my satisfaction so I now feel that I will be able to vote in favour of this so I appreciate that has been a proposal to move to a vote but I will take councillor Harvey as he did raise his hand if he has another point to make that hasn't already been made yeah um just a general point um paragraph three on page 40 references in the second paragraph of that um item um I should read uh distribution network operator and the same error actually occurs in item seven under on page 84 under item 11 so that seems to be a sort of um systematic error in the agenda right up there um but more specifically um coming back to page 40 item four I think it would be a shame um if at least the cabling couldn't be um seven kilowatts for these EV chargers because that's very much the standard for domestic EV chargers and in fact you know seven kilowatts gives you the ability to charge um a sort of modern standard of EV overnight whereas three and a half kilowatts um wouldn't and also I think UK power networks are moving more and more towards um smart charging which means the charger wouldn't operate when electricity is in short supply but would um when it isn't if you like so you need a higher peak amount to make that work because otherwise you know you're you're reducing the time window and therefore you need a seven kilowatts for say five hours rather than three and a half kilowatts for ten so um that's just a a general point um on our conditioning of applications thank you okay thank you very much that's pretty bit technical for me but uh appreciate appreciate your insight on that um members we've had a few proposals to uh to move to a vote on this does anyone wish to second that I think councillor Handley had proposed initially councillor Williams would like to second yeah um okay members I haven't heard anyone speak against this do any members have an inclination to either vote against or have stain on this application no so our members inclined then to support the officer recommendation which is on page 39 which is to approve the application subject to the conditions laid out below agreed is anyone wish to vote against or abstain no so we can take that as agreed unanimously so that application is approved Alice I'll see your hands up we have just taken a vote so we can't change anything but if you want to if you want to chip in with anything finally you're welcome yeah sorry there was um an additional condition which I laid out on on the slide in my presentation which was a compliance condition for drainage details to be carried out in accordance with several documents that is not in the committee report I mentioned it in my presentation just to highlight that for members sorry okay no that's that's useful to highlight appreciate that I was just going to say chair that I think there was an assumption that that would be included when we took the vote yeah indeed so I don't think anyone have any any issues with with approaching it that way so thank you very much members with that additional condition that Alice just mentioned the application is approved thank you very much thank you Mr Williams members and then I wish to take a break now or do we want to carry on okay we'll we're going to take a short break members um we'll take a short 10 minute break it's five past on this clock up here we'll restart a quarter past on the dot thank you very much we'll go thank you very much hello and welcome back to came south camshere district council's planning committee we've just had a short recess and we're now restarting the agenda our item number six the application is at cambridge city football club in the parish of sourston the application in front of us is a section 73 variation of condition application the applicant is mr k satchel and the reason it is before us is because the original application was a departure application so the subsequent section 73 we have today would also need to come to committee for a matter of continuity the presenting officer is joining us in the room mr tom chennery tom good morning thank you chair so I will hand over to you to give us any updates on the on the presentation and then if you could then present the application to us thank you thank you chair um there are no updates to the report or the application um the application before members today seeks to vary condition two which relate to the approved plans of the original planning application and condition eight which is for the cycle parking um and that was for the approved planning application at cambridge city football club which is in sourston uh the application site is located to the northwest of grove road in sourston the site is located within the green bell and it is outside of the development framework boundary and there is a residential development to the south of the site um as you said chair the applications before members today is the original planning application was a departure from the development plan which was originally determined at planning committee this requires any future application associated with the proposal to be determined at committee um there was uh community areas um and a public footpark and cycle route which were part of the original proposal they are being retained there are no objections from neighbours parish council do support the scheme and the application is being recommended for approval I'll now take members through the slides this first slide shows the originally submitted location plan of course yeah thank you much yeah the this slide shows the uh so it's the council GIS map um it just indicates the area in green is the green bell um so obviously it's essentially covered by it um and it extends to the north and west um residential developments to the south there is an area just down to the south here which is protected tpo so it's all completely protected there and as you can see this is the residential area to the south and the um commercial and business units to the south east um main considerations for the planning application um are the impacts the development would have on the green bell the impacts the proposal would have on the character and appearance of the area impacts on neighbouring immunity any ecological implications um any highways car park for cycle parking issues and flood risks the site is located in flood zone one although there are um as you can see on this map small areas of surface water um so there's quite an extensive site history um for the application which I'll briefly go through with members just for clarity um so in 2014 the application was originally approved in planning committee um that was then went to the secretary of state who confirmed that it could be determined by the local planning authority um that in 2015 the application was then approved the call to appeal then quashed the planning commission um for the reason that the um the reason for its proposal being acceptable in the green belt was not mentioned so therefore the decision was quashed an application was then resubmitted and was once again considered by planning committee and that was approved again um the secretary of state then once again confirmed that the planning decision could be made without their involvement and the planning permission was then granted on the 7th march in 2018 this slide shows the google maps imagery to showing the site in its previous state this slide shows the existing site plan and so this is what was approved I'd just like to clarify to members um just the areas that are being altered um so the uh terrace buildings along the east north and west stand are all being amended um and these cycle spaces in this bottom corner are being moved um and this ticket office here is being removed um I'm about to show a proposed site plan which indicates that um so as you can see the width of the uh stands and terraces are being reduced in size um a ticket office has been removed um these cycle spaces which were originally in this location here have been moved into this um section over here um they are essentially the main amendments to the scheme this is the approved stadium elevations um I'd like to point out to members the canopy area at the top and the materials as the proposed stadium elevations are slightly different um so they retain the colour scheme and the materials are the main change and the top aspect has been um has been removed and altered um the sizing is essentially the same these plans show the existing approved terrace elevations once again I'd like to point members towards the plan at the bottom which shows their extent and this is the proposed terrace elevations um so they are broadly similar um this proposed front elevation does show the east stand which does have disability um spaces within it these are the current site photos so work has started on the site um so the majority of the work at present is hard standing and part of the main stand sort of the structure has started um the green area here is the community land which is part of the original application once again as you can see this bottom photo shows the um access and that's being created and as you can see the pitch has been laid and the floodlights have been installed these two photos go show this is the car park area um the majority of the car parking is um and once again the bottom left photo just shows the uh stands being erected um and the pitch area so regarding the application um so the worst concerns raised by the urban design officer and landscape officer I'd just like to clarify these were concerns they wouldn't they didn't object to the application as such they just raised some concerns regarding the design um the parish council support the application there have been no objections from highways the lead local flood authority ecology sportingland environmental health archaeology and we've not received any third party representations regarding the development so regarding the playing balance so officers are recommending for the application to be approved um the proposal will not cause harm to the character and appearance of the area the proposal will not cause harm to the openness of the green belt development is considered to be a minor alteration to the approved scheme um the alterations allow the scheme to be viable um and no concerns have been raised from other consultees um as I highlighted the other considerations that the concerns were raised by urban design and landscape there were some comments raised regarding cycle parking but they have been um a condition has been added to the report in order to overcome those and I'd just like to clarify the concerns raised by urban design and landscape were not an objection they were just a concern thank you chair tom thank you very much that's that's very clear members we do not have any public speakers on this although we do have um someone from jk design who i'm assuming are the designers of this scheme available should we have any design specific questions um given the fact we have no one as you officially be registered to speak we may as well go straight to the debate and but also this is also an opportunity to ask any questions of clarity of either officers or the gentleman from the design agency so we will kick off with councillor handling please thank you chair that's a simple question for mr chenry on the bike storage um you said that that's been is it being moved or removed or is it just being moved to another part of the site it's being moved to another part of the site so originally it was in this area here of sort of circled it was there um due to the requirement for emergency service vehicles and its proximity to the car park um which raised some questionable safety issues it's now been moved to the end of the site um in this area down here so the number of spaces aren't being altered the reason why it's been moved is because as i said there's a requirement for emergency service vehicles it was too close to the car park also the um majority of people that would be using the site would be using a 3g practice pitch during the week and then obviously match days would be at the weekend um so it would be closer to the practice pitch for them so that's the reasons why it's been moved but the number of spaces are the same thank you very much and we next have councillor martin carne please um i'm just going to comment and you want to see why i mentioned that i lived next door to the site 40 years ago um i i lived on one of the houses back at on woodland mode backing onto the site uh the area and i wandered through the area at that time 40 years ago and i i really wanted to highlight something it's not really and to the application what are that area the majority of the area was a nice wet woodland majority of it was woodland it's a small area of fenland in the middle it's a sort of site which is large the very much under pressure it's a good example of the pressures we've had over the years permission at that at that time it's been used as a tip for joining tileworks uh very much a tiny area can i thought it was about half actually it's about tiny area compared with the final tip site and in fact the whole much of the woodland and much of the fenland was lost clearly now this has been given permission the area of the site was completely changed but it's an example of the loss of these sort of sites in the countryside and i think it draws attention to what we why we now have to be very very strong in protecting wetland areas in the future these sort of areas because they really are under pressure um but in terms of the actual application um i think there's a minor alterations to a site which was already a fate of complete um it i a bit disappointed that some of the wide open areas doesn't include more perhaps some replacement planting but that that's the way it is that's already gone i don't really see any objections to the application as it is good thank you always useful to have some some extensive history on the site so thank you for that um we have councillor sanford then williams then fein please um councillor sanford thank you chair um through you mr chennery could you flip back to the slide that showed the proposed stand i wasn't sure when it said front whether that is facing the presume that's facing the carpark the axis row not the pitch the top one and the bottom one is facing the pitch is that correct yeah that's correct so the bottom elevation would be the one facing the pitch um and the top one is the one it technically faces the community area so if i just go back to this plan here so this is where i'm highlighting along here um this is the front elevation so it would face towards the community land okay that helps thank you thank you councillor williams thank you chair so i think the actually the changes that have been made to the design of the terraces actually removing the sort of i don't know what it's called the framework that was above the top i think actually reduces its impact to the to local areas i think that's a positive change um the the cycle we've um storage we've assessed that is not being removed it's being moved and i think they are very sensible grounds for emergency vehicles so we should take that i was surprised i saw what what appeared to be for a terrace for standing which i'd have thought new stadium would get more seats rather than standing but that's that's a matter for them um and i take it that all complies with what they all need to comply with from a regulation point of view and i'm assuming that's not something we take into consideration today what the fa would would or wouldn't consider so from a planning perspective um if we don't have to take that into consideration then um i think what what is proposed they are pretty minor changes the biggest one is is the restructuring of the roof structure and the outside which i would actually see as you know less impactful so happy to to go forward with it chair i don't have to clear an interest that part of my degree is in sports law on stadiums but just in case no if anything that qualifies you more to talk about this i'd imagine but um okay we have councillor fein uh finally then hopefully we can go to a vote this um proposal paragraph 16 not considered to cause any harm to the character appearance of the area or to the immunity living conditions of any neighbouring properties the matters of principle were determined many years ago indeed i think it's worth us just bearing in mind that this was first brought to the planning committee which agreed it in principle for approval on the 4th of june 2014 that by my calculations is 101 months and a little bit extra um and i think therefore it is time for us to move to a vote on this good do any members wish to ask any more information or we all content to make a decision on this councillor hardy yeah um thank you chair i just wondered since this was originally put in train where um the um ability to turn right at the end of vapor home high streets been removed so you now need to commit quite a long detour to the roundabout by grant park sorry vapor home research park and therefore there's a strong incentive to take the right turn at the end of vapor home road which links up to the 505 but that is quite a quite difficult turn to make if you're exiting a football match i would say because you've either got to cross the traffic or do a sort of rather sort of 270 degree left turn i just wondered if that if the traffic management planning has taken that change into account thank you councillor hardy sorry i missed after that so i was talking to the uh the officer you weren't proposing anything there were you the apologies just um reassurance that the traffic planning has taken that change into account perhaps some reassurance from an officer that the highways and traffic management has been taken into account for this application uh yeah so highways and highways were consulted and they have no objections to it and they just the second recommended conditions on the previous scheme some have been discharged to have they said as long as they don't change then they have no objections to it so um that should come thank you very much um okay with that members i think we're put in a position to make a decision on this um it's been pointed out to me uh the recommendation actually says approved subject to conditions forward slash s106 it's been pointed out there is there are no section 106 obligations with this so that is simply just an area in the paperwork so all we're doing we've just been asked to make a decision on the recommendations on page 61 which is to approve subject to the conditions laid out below so if everyone is content with that can we take that by affirmation agreed and for clarity is anyone wish to vote against or abstain nope so that application is approved unanimously thank you very much um okay members we we're only 15 minutes on that one so we're going to carry on we will move on to agenda item seven which begins on page 69 of our agendas the application is at number 33 south road grade abington the proposal in front of us is for the demolition of a hay store an erection of a single detached dwelling the applicant applicants sorry our mr and mrs wincox and the reason this is before us is because it has neighbourhood plan implications and was also the recommendation of the parish council was in conflict with that of the officer uh the presenting officer is joining us online i hope and that is samaya nakamya samaya good morning good morning chair thank you um and just get my presentation just to say you are quite faint on uh the audio is quite faint i don't know if you can increase that somehow um is this better uh yeah sorry sorry that is better thank you very much so samaya um if you could give us any updates to the report in front of us and then introduce the report to members please thank you okay thank you chair um there are no updates to the report or the application um just getting my presentation ready can you confirm that you can see my presentation and the red pointer we we can yes okay thank you um so this application is at number 33 south road in great abington and the application is for the demolition of the existing hay store and the erection of a new dwelling including all associated external works and reinstating the granny annex to stables slash ancillary buildings to serve number 33 south road so in terms of the context um the application site aged red is located south of south road and east of number 33 south road which is this one here the site occupies a large former um higory building which is currently used as a hay store and to the south sorry to the west and northwest of the higory building are um outbuildings of which one has been converted to into a granny annex and the others are in different ancillary uses so what i'm talking about is is that this one here so this is the um higory building and this is the site here the application site these here are the outbuildings so this is a carport and this one here is the granny annex and then the rest of them are outbuildings and this is number 33 south road so just to show you some photographs um so photograph number one is looking from the existing entrance of number 33 south road towards the site and the site also includes um so extends beyond the fence so this part here is part of the site so that's the um higory building and beyond this fence here is also the site application site um as you can see here in 4 to 2 so this is the um higory building to be demolished so 4 to 3 and 4 shows the um outbuildings 4 to 5 is looking from um number 34a which is east of the site and towards the application site so this is number 34a and beyond there is the site 4 to 6 is um looking from the site towards number 33 in terms of the proposed development so here is the proposed block plan and over here is the dwelling to be built and the associated garage and just to let you know that the dotted purple line is where the higory building footprint is and then this is the proposed access onto the site here are proposed floor plans and basement and then here are the proposed elevations and then this slide here shows the existing and proposed floor plans and elevation of the annex so these are the the existing um plans and elevation for the existing annex and then the proposed um reinstatement of the uh um stables so this slide shows the proposed street scene elevation um showing a revision to overcome one of the parish um council's objection which relates to the dwelling not being subservient to the existing dwelling house what the applicant has done is to lower the ground level to 400 millimeters so they lowered this part so that the proposed dwelling is lower in height than the existing dwelling um other um concerns raised by the parish um relate to um the new building not being on or adjacent to the old higory site but adjacent to a hay stall so the applicant confirmed that this building um that is the higory building um was formally formally a higory building and then later was turned into a hay stall and also the location of the higory is confirmed by a map um in the um neighbourhood plan which is shown here um where the green dot is um and therefore the proposed um dwelling will not as we will be built adjacent to a higory site also the other concern the parish raised um was relating to the dwelling is closer to the road than the original dwelling and therefore doesn't meet the principles of the neighbourhood plan so with regards to the neighbourhood plan policy g al slash two um point seven is what is being referred to here which requires so here is like i've um taken a snapshot of that which basically requires additional dwellings is set um back from the road at least as far as the original higory but will not be placed significantly further back and within the building line identified on maps one and two so this map this is from map two um showing where the higory buildings are so the proposed um dwelling and detached um garage will be um forward of the front building line line of the um former higory um officers note that um there is some conflict with um point four of the policy however officers consider that if the dwelling is set further back as per the requirement the proposed amenity space which is this area here would be significantly impacted also given that um there is a setback of approximately 8.4 meters from the road officers are satisfied that the location of the dwelling is appropriate and not out of keeping with the character of the area um the other and final point um that the parish raised of concern was relating to the two buildings being so close together which could be seen as over development of a small area of the of the plot officers notes that indeed um the dwelling um will be closer to existing outbuildings but um there are of lower scale and would appear subservient and would not be sorry and would be read as um outbuildings in relation to the proposed dwelling also the um existing separation between the existing dwelling and the proposed is significant so this this just shows you the distance which is about 46.5 approximately from the building um to the existing building the proposed building to the existing um so in terms of the separation um this would minimise the sense of over development um furthermore the enabled plan makes provision for the erection of a new dwelling on or adjacent to an existing piggory building and therefore cannot be considered as um over development so in terms of the planning balance um the site is located outside of of great abington village framework and on the former land settlement association estate um it is therefore recognised that a new dwelling on this site would not normally be supported under policy s7 however um given the given that great abington has had enabled plan adopted and policy g al slash two allows one dwelling one additional dwelling on or adjacent to the site of each original piggory site officers are satisfied that although the requirement so the required setbacks required and the point seven of the policies not met the sighting of the proposed dwelling is acceptable and will not significantly harm the character of the wider area um officers therefore recommend that the proposed development should be approved by the committee subject to um conditions outlined in the report thank you chair so my thank you very much for the the presentation that was useful obviously um difficult for the committee as we have a you know neighbourhood plan policies to contend with here as well as the council's own policies um so we do have a representative of the parish council here to speak with us but i will offer members the opportunity to ask any questions of clarification of the officer if anything was unclear in the report we have councillor fein first of all is chair i wonder if you could just go back to the exact wording of condition g al two of the neighbourhood plan which Samire put up four while ago is that possible Samire yes just bear with me chair i'm just getting the um sorry just bear with me i'm just trying to share we just had it there Samire a second ago yep yeah we've got it now we can see so it's point seven i think that's the points in question this point here yes chair my my question on this was that that states that the additional dwelling is to be set back from the roads as far as the original piggery but not significantly further back and within the build line i just wondered whether that condition is capable of being complied with three chair i don't believe that they can really because of the site constraints i'm just going to go back on my presentation to just show you the layout of the just sorry spare with me i'm just trying to get my presentation sorry i'm just there with me please sorry i'm just trying to take your time um i'll tell you what Samire we do have the parish council to hear from so if you need some time we can hear from them and then come back to you if that's better um no i'm ready yes i'm ready okay so this is the property boundary of the site and indeed they won't be able to comply with that because the footprint of the original piggery building is this purple line so if they go further back in a sense they can but the issue is that the private amenity space would be significantly impacted and and so i don't think they can fully comply with that policy so thank you so officers views is that this particular application is outside of neighbour plan policy but officers views is it's probably the best we're going to get to fit within it because anything further back would be minuscule exactly yes okay understood thank you thank you members any further questions of clarity for the officer in that case we will invite councillor tony orgy from the parish council to join us tony welcome if you could switch the mic on please it's the silver button on the right hand side there we go we've got you thank you very much no problem before you do begin i'd need to ask if you have permission from the parish to represent them here today yes i do good superb so i know you're familiar with the process but for clarity three minutes to address the committee at which point there may be some questions so if you could stay seated over to you tony thank you okay bock thank you very much since the parish council that objection was submitted revised plans have been submitted that it reduced the height of the building proposed building and if the committee is minded to approve this application an appropriate condition can ensure conformity with the neighbourhood plan and that's actually condition number 20 however the parish council maintains its objection for the following reasons paragraph 8.9 on page 74 states that the application proposes to demolish the existing hay store which is a former former piggery stable the parish council challenges the accuracy of this statement the parish council believes that the granny annex referred to in the agenda papers and by the planning officer was the old piggery when the former lsa was sold off there wasn't a hay store on this site the hay store was erected by a previous resident after the lsa was sold off its construction is completely different to the old piggeries it is made of metal with open sides the old piggeries having a wood a brick plinth wooden sides and asbestos roofing so the parish council does not accept that the proposed dwelling is on or adjacent to the site of the original piggery paragraph 8.15 on page 75 sets out policy gl stroke 2 of the neighbourhood plan point 7 states that the additional dwelling is set back from the roads at least as far as the original piggery but will not be placed significantly further back and within the built line identified on the maps that you've seen the proposed building fails to make this requirement to set closer to the roads than any other building on the former lsa estates following the adoption of this neighbourhood plan and would form a precedent that will be in contradiction with what the neighbourhood plan is trying to achieve the proposed dwelling would compromise the openness and appearance of the immediate area by being so close to the road and if this was repeated on other sites along in the whole area of north and south road and chalky road then that would alter the appearance of the whole area so in summary the parish council's position is that it believes that the proposed dwelling does not meet the tester being on or adjacent to the site of the former piggery as required by policy gl stroke 2 of the neighbourhood plan and fails to meet requirement seven of that policy thank you thank you very much councillor um i'll ask members if they have any questions of clarification from your statement um i do have one myself just going back to the question of the piggery if i understood you correctly the parish council's view is that there was a piggery on the site the land settlement was sold off the piggery was then demolished a hay store built in its stead and now any subsequent applications to build on that site shouldn't be seen as building on a piggery site but on a hay store site is that fair no i don't think that's right okay i've misunderstood the hay store wasn't well the parish council believes that the hay store was not there when the lsa was sold off in the 1980s but was subsequently built and the the old piggery is now what is referred to as the granny annex okay i think i've understood thank you for clarifying councillor williams and then can't please thank you chair through yourself same point but just to completely be clear is it possible to have the map of the existing site samaya any chance you could put the map back up no the existing it might be an aerial aerial shot that we had at the start yeah it was at the first samaya i don't know if it's possible to put the first aerial image up that you showed us at the beginning of your report yes chair just bear with me please let me do that just want to clarify chair with councillor orgy exactly um where we're talking about can you see my um yeah presentation zoom in into the aerial photograph do yourself chair to councillor orgy so the the agricultural roofed building at the front sort of within the circle yes the hay is the haystack haystall haystack haystall um and the buildings behind it are the piggery is that correct that's my understanding yes that would make sense i have to say chair i've never seen a piggery look like that before the parish councillor's view of where the piggery was is based on um residents knowledge of the site um and one of the um those residents is on the parish council themselves and other residents have um also agreed that that was the situation thank you chair this follow-up question may be more for officers um the can i can i put it now because it might mean some clarification with mr orgy um the neighbourhood plan refers specifically to the piggery how do we stand if it was put together by the parish council on the basis of the piggery was that at the the rear do we take our interpretation or their interpretation because i'm assuming council was a bit you were referring when drafting that neighbourhood plan you were referring not to that hay haystall but the buildings behind is that correct yeah the parish council's view of where the piggery was is is different to the description that you've got in the agenda papers so that that was your um the spirit in which you drafted the neighbourhood plan was for those real properties yeah the granny and it's okay basically when when the lsa was built the properties and the piggeries were all placed about 15 meters away from the road so they formed a continuous um set of buildings with a uniformity that isn't typical to the open countryside but far more widely spaced than an open area okay thank you so we know the motive of the parish council and drafting it so officers can you please give us some advice obviously the spirit of of the plan sure perhaps it might be useful if officers could um indicate on i mean i'm assuming is this map we're looking at now on the screen as to which map the officers were using when making their recommendation to us today in terms of the location of the piggery yes thank you um through you chair so this is map two um that is included in the neighbourhood plan and the green dot here is where the haystall and the haystall would have been so and the pick the former piggery would have been um so with regard to the outbuildings these are the outbuildings that were behind the um former piggery so when officers are making a decision of where the former piggery um was located or is we would look at this area here um just to give you some additional information i'm not sure if it's going to be helpful but the applicant did explain that the piggery which was along this location here had an out shoot which was then demolished 15 years ago and then a carport which um carport was built in its place but then the section of the um piggery which is currently in situ um was retained and then later within that period of time was used as a haystall and remain as a haystall since then but before that it was a piggery um so this is where officers this is the area we would look at where the great green dot area is and not these um other buildings thank you chair i'm not sure that has answered your question piggery is basically where the granny annex is now so there is a difference of view there no thank you council i think that does well that clarifies how the officers come to their recommendation also clarifies the parish's objection based on the the location yeah so i think we're coming from different points of view in the sense the officers look very much at that um plan that's that's a fair approach to use and i've quoted what the parish council believes is a historical case okay okay but i think that's hopefully clarified where the where the discrepancy is between the parish and the officers view if that thing or did you want to follow on that point thank you it does what i'm not clear on is the the neighbourhood plan specifically refers to the piggery and are we interpreting that policy on the basis of the the local knowledge of where the piggery is or where the officer believes the piggery is i'm not quite sure where we're actually applying this policy now i would my understanding would be that the map we're looking at now is part of the adopted neighbourhood plan so that's what officers are working from but i don't know if Phil perhaps could weigh in on this through you chair yeah obviously this is an adopted plan within the neighbourhood plan that has been made so we have to give that full weight um obviously historically obviously what we've heard from the from the parish is perhaps that possibly the piggery was behind there but we've got a clearly marked plan here which shows where all the piggeries are considered to have been positioned within this area and we have to take that um as as part of the assessment when these applications come forward yeah um now thank you for i think that's important because that obviously is a key consideration we're going to be looking at today is whether this is conforming with the neighbourhood plan policy or not um Councillor Martin can please um i mean i was going to ask about the position of the piggery again so but but the the policy says adjacent to a piggery site and if the piggery was just um if you had the carport area which was indicated on the plan as a building which appears from what people have been saying also to be part of the piggery um and or it's and it's also very close to the corner to the piggery does this meet um do you think this meets in terms of the um determination of adjacent i accept that the distance from the road is a different issue but in terms of being adjacent to the piggery would that not meet the planning would you not consider that met the planning requirements of the objectives of the um neighbourhood plan the policy says are nor adjacent to and obviously adjacent is a word that needs to be interpreted and the the parish council have interpreted it that it doesn't believe so in this case but that's the decision for you to interpret i'm afraid yep okay i think again that's an important point to to clarify um councillor harby these question for councillor orgy thank you chair um yeah we're just questioning really um whether the parish council would would accept that looking at that map it seems that if the piggery originally was where the um annex is rather than where it's shown on the map that that would be sort of anomalously further back from the road than than the other piggery is which i assume that the other green dots along the same line so that that was one point and i suppose um just towards the end of your uh peace um councillor orgy i think you one of your worries was that um this this could set a precedent for other people to sort of muddy the waters in in terms of where the piggery actually used to be but i mean i suppose as long as we're clear that this um decision whatever it is would be made on the basis of um where where where we believe the piggery is rather than it kind of creating a precedent for buildings to be a certain number of meters from the road i i i can't really see that that would be a worrying precedent because the number of cases where it isn't clear clear where the piggery used to be is going to be quite small i would imagine well well there are two parts that one which is that um when i looked at the map myself i i thought it was unclear that there there seemed to be a difference between the exact point of the green dot on the plans the maps that you've seen and what local residents of um and parish council have said about where the location the piggery was that's why i circulated that map um yesterday two members of parish council to see if there are any further comments about it and i think it is it's unclear i think is is is best but that's separate from the issue of the position of the house um in a sense because as i said when the lsa was formed all the houses and piggeries were about 15 meters away from the road and that created an appearance and if there's a precedent set warehouses can be built much closer to the road and that is then taken on by further applications on other sites if that happened then that would begin to change the appearance of the whole area so the two are separate in a sense so so just for clarity on that point then so the parish council view would be that if because the house is built further forward than the line of the existing piggery whether that may have been um and is technically out of line with the neighbour plan policy the parish's view even though the officer has explained that on balance it's the best location for a house on the site regardless of the neighbour plan policies the parish's view that regardless of best location or amenity space uh it should be refused purely on the fact it's in in contradictions to the neighbour plan policy yeah that was one of the specific reasons we put forward okay thank you that's that's clear for me um members any final questions for the parish councillor uh if not we will go to the debate so councillor thank you thank you very much we appreciate you taking the time to come in and speak to us this morning um members okay we have no further public speakers so we will be moving on to the debate section of proceedings so this is an opportunity for members to put forward a view if they've come to one or equally to ask officers any further questions of clarity if that will help make um make their minds up so members i will hand over to yourselves if anyone wants to kick us off councillor martin can i can understand the concern about reaching the uh any of the conditions on the um of the policy of the neighbour plan but i think looking at this it is broadly meeting the objectives it is an unusual sight i would regard being diagonally uh near the piggery to be in my terms adjacent the question is whether it's further forward than the line of the piggery well the other piggeries are set back about that position and it seems to me that to be further back would be out of keeping so that seems to be the best location in terms of that site now the the other question is whether it's too close to the road and that seems to me in the biggest objection and that has to be set against the fact that you're demolishing a haystall a haystall which is not really an attractive it's a modern uh building of not not very attractive um and the new building would certainly be much more attractive than what is being replaced so there's a benefit in that way to tell against the fact that it's a bit closer to the road i would regard eight or nine meters as set back quite a long way from the road uh it's um not 15 meters but not in this these buildings are quite far apart it's a much more open appearance than we might say in an urban area where the building line is very strictly adhered to and my general feelings it probably keeps the character in the general sense um or that it was intended um and i if we start my general feelings that we should approve but we went through the label plan we agreed the policy to have additional houses in a similar style and it broadly i think uh meets that what with the problems of the community space this i think is the best deal that we're going to get and it's probably worth my general feelings that we're going to support with this proposal councillor williams please thank you all thank you chair um i'm actually finding this it is i think it's quite difficult in in the balance because um i have to say the abingtons when they've come to us have always been very reasonable um applications and supported things and as well as a you know they take planning very seriously and do it very well and they've spent a lot of time and effort putting together the neighborhood plan we've always referenced um what support that is for us in decision making and i'd say we're normally inclined to give it as much weight as we possibly can as a reflection of of the local views um i have to say i have sympathy with uh the location of the pigories being the long run behind to me that seems more in keeping of what i would expect a pigory to look like rather than what is being there but mindful of the advice given by officers that it's literally where that green dot is um as much as i may agree with the parish council that's not something that i can take into consideration if i've got to go where the green dot um i agree with others that you know it's important whatever development we have that there is residential amenity for we've got to think of the future residents as a as well as and the existing residents um and i do hear very loudly the concerns about precedent um although equally i know we're always advised that there is no precedent in planning um and i think we would have to be very very clear chair if we are to approve this um in recording our reasons for approval of it um which would hopefully alleviate any particular interpretation of it not being what it is today in future and may alleviate those concerns as i feel that we're in a situation where the balance really is about about harming not complying with um 2.7 and and the information that it's basically impossible to imply with it without it being a postage sized stamped house so i would like us um to be very clear that that is our reason is that because we do not believe that there's any other possible layout that would commit the um development here and that record our concern of its proximity to the road but on planning balance we appreciate that there are constraints of the site and that is why we are willing to step away from 2.7 um if that's possible make that really really clear so in the future if there are sites that come forward that do not have those constraints um this isn't a precedent as is being set um potentially as as concerned by the parish council um i can see i've created pause for thought from officers in saying and doing that so i'm open to advice as as always chair but i do think we we owe it to the parish council if we are to support this to be very very clear and to try and um future proof this as much as possible thank you chair so what i'll do on the back of that then i'll ask officers if there is should approval be granted if there is anything um that can be included in the either the decision notice or any kind of official documentation to make clear that this was an exception because of the reasons council liens has just indicated if there's any possibility of anything along those lines obviously the the point of the debate will be recorded in the minute um in terms of the deliberations made by members of the committee um whether that's then relevant to the decision notice uh i'm not quite as convinced um you you could potentially at best probably put it informative but obviously the nature of the debate and the reasons that you arrived to your decision would be recorded um as part of as part of the minutes of the meeting so i'm not i'm not sure there's any value in in adding anything to a decision notice if you if you were mine to approve although noting the areas of potential concern that have been raised my on on that point i will say my my only observation on this scheme and north standing obviously we're satisfied that it the the proposal of me to the general thrust of what this policy is about is that the size of the site um is obviously dictating where the position of the dwelling is whether there's scope for that site to be increased i don't know which would allow um or potentially then looking at the the sighting of the dwelling within the scope of that site but obviously we've taken the scheme for us we consider that it still protects the open rural character notwithstanding the building line that is is contrary to point seven within the adopted open plan policy that has been referred to thank you chair and i'm i appreciate that um we want to get to a decision point on this but so we've been shown the site plan um was it forgive me if i've missed it was it shown what um is in control of the applicant so the the red or the blue line i never remember which way around they are the application sites the red line uh i'd like to ask somebody to go back to this the location plan with the scheme to know just what blue land was yeah just taking on board what you just said about you know we're basing our decision here on site constraints it would be very very informative to see the blue line whether they're real site constraints or fabrications i think somebody's just displayed that for us here no this is the blue line which is in the ownership of the um applicant number 33 and then this is the um red line showing the parameters of the of the proposed development of where the proposal will be thank you chair so thanks chair in that case i would suggest actually that the site constraints that we were concerned about are not necessarily site constraints because that could be remodelled to give the residential amenity behind a property in line with the um with the neighbourhood plan it's just the applicant is choosing not to comply indeed yeah but that's what it looks like from looking at the plan here i mean as we are told constantly we have to make decisions based on what we have not what may or may not be possible outside of the application um i've got and of course it's our decision how much weight we add you know we add to that that argument um i was going to speak next but i appreciate there are others so i will take them first councillor martin carn wanted to comment in terms of that issue looking at the aerial photograph it appears to the area immediately behind which will obviously you're thinking you could set it further back um is actually amenity space for the granny annex and so i suspect that that's i suspect that's why it wasn't put further back i mean yeah yeah i think we can speculate as much as we like but we have to judge it on what we have here um councillor handley please i'm just about to say what you've just said and that is that we can only take a decision based on what's we've presented before us i think if there's any dispute over the the neighbourhood plan you know um sort of long standing residents have said well that's not right surely that should have been you know that should have been considered before the neighbourhood plan was approved so i'm afraid i i i i've sympathy for this but i think that you know we have to take the neighbourhood plan as we've seen it and i can't really see any reason not to approve councillor harvie please yeah just um thank you chair to agree with everything councillor handley has just said and also say what um in terms of precedent setting i think given that we've got a a plan that shows where these pigories are um it sets them more dangerous precedent if if we sort of start arguing about where the figury used to be because then you know everyone could use that argument and i think if we've got a plan and we've got a map really the most sensible thing is to assume the map is correct that that's my view we'll take councillor fein next then we'll come back to councillor Williams thank you chair the the overall position of course is that we have a recommendation to approve which takes account in 1.2 of the gail 2 of the adopted neighbourhood plan allowing one additional dwelling honour adjacent to the site of each original pigory now wherever the original pigory was that may be a matter of dispute this is clearly a site adjacent to it so that when we turn to page 75 815 the detail of that neighbourhood plan policy again it is clearly a dwelling honour adjacent to the site of the original pigory the question then relates to paragraph seven um and clearly there must be some doubt as to whether we are working on the basis of some 1980 map which we haven't seen the recollection of people who lived in the village at that time um the the site of the original pigory must be in some doubt in this particular case of course this is a policy applying to all the pigories um in the case of other properties it was 15 meters back it is very difficult to see that it would be possible for that to be the case here and indeed if it were that would not comply with paragraph seven paragraph seven it it must be set back from the roads at least as far as the original pigory but not play significantly further back so we cannot say that this should have been placed further back to the extent that GL2 is capable of being complied with in this case it is complied with in my view and we have to go by what is actually on the neighbourhood plan including the maps in the neighbourhood plan and not I'm afraid by the recollection of residents including parish councillors as to what may have been there in 1980 so on that basis I think that we should accept the officer's recommendation and approve thank you um I'll come back to councillor Williams and then I'll give my view then hopefully we can go to a decision thank you chair um it's just in the proposal it references about the demolition behestory or a retro a single detached dwelling external and reinstatement of granny annex to stables ancillary buildings so the granny annex is going and being brought back to stables in the red line in the site development are those is the granny annex and that part of the proposal included is my first first point so my you're not sure if you heard that but it might we might have to ask you to bring the map up again I'm afraid because my impression chair is it's that long building strip on the left yeah um through you chair that is correct it's not included in the red line um I'm just going to share my screen to confirm that well um it's being displayed chair so my question is if it's not in the red line red line it's not in the site that we're discussing but it is part of the proposal where where we are on that on the development side of things in relation to the red line it may be of no no consequence but I would expect the proposal that we're discussing to be within the red red line normally and the other thing for myself I have to say whereas I started thinking I probably have to support I'm now thinking the other way and the development itself the house itself does actually the way it's designed comes across and then comes towards the road and goes back in its design which brings it closer to the road as opposed to having a flat edge and I think that might be something which I look for in a reason for refusal chair um but I'd be very interested about the red line because normally we insist that the proposal was within the red line through you chair it is possible to still control development by condition because it's definitely within land that's identified as blue land as part of the application so even though it's not within the application side itself the land which it's associated with is within blue land in the control of the applicant in this instance we I'm satisfied we could still control the reinstatement of the annex to stables or removal of the annex essentially by condition as being part of the blue land identified on the application so if we can use that as as being included because it's within the blue line so too we can include the whole site in relation to site restrictions if we're using it for one surely we can use it for both in terms of what the reason for it being forward was because we needed a space for residential amenity behind um and we were told about site constraints that's a lot of blue line behind so surely the site constraints for the residential amenity space that garden essentially behind could be used within that site so therefore the site restraint in my view doesn't stand because I'm taking consideration in the blue line I think because there's a specific building that's identified within the blue land that contains the annex it's quite clear as to and that plan is provided as part of the application it's quite clear that that is the building that would be identified to be altered back to stables whereas a garden area at the moment if we were to arguably extend the red vine which would form part of the application site itself that that becomes an arbitrary line which isn't defined whereas we have got a specific building which is defined under the application and within the blue land so we haven't got an extent we haven't got a line that we can draw and say well that's that's now your new application site for where the development will take place of the sorry what's the current class of that land behind without looking at the planning history I'm 100% clear on that um obviously number 33 is a residential dwelling um whether there's any other mixed use use of that land I don't know without looking at fully of the history um whether to say that's completely residential cartilage again I'd have to look at that in more in some more detail but it's obviously the cartilage of number 33 as it currently exists okay um councillor Martin Cullen I'd really like some information that really if you the proposed outside the red line to change that at granny annex to staples um but I wonder they would not if we ground permission they wouldn't be obliged to change them to staples would they that would be something that they could choose to implement or not am I right in that yeah so the condition that we've put on the planning uh well the proposed recommendation is that the annex is to be removed not that they then have to convert it to something else although they said it will be staples but the key the key point is that obviously that ancillary accommodation is no longer provided it's a dwelling that's provided instead and so to meet to meet the requirements of the neighbourhood plan it's removing that annex accommodation and being replaced with another dwelling thank you so um I'll give you my views now as one of the two local members for for Great Abington so um as someone that represents the area I do know that uh developments on the land settlement since the adoption of the neighbourhood plan um have been very closely looked at because clearly Great Abington had the first adopted neighbourhood plan in south Cambridgeshire which essentially has one policy which covers the land settlement whereas I appreciate other large villages have multiple policies um I think the neighbour plan should be very well respected otherwise we would be sending a message in my view to others that you know what's the point of having one if the policies aren't going to be followed so for me the two issues that um that I have um some umbridge with uh one around obviously we've heard from the parish council about the location or perceived location of the piggery albeit we have to go by what the adopted neighbour plan map show so essentially that negates that one concern I had um the second one is against the policy that we know we are in contravention of i.e. the how far forward the line of the new proposed dwelling is in relation to the piggery um we've heard from officers that they came to their recommendation of approval based on a planning balance that that's uh the contravention of that policy is outweighed by the fact that the anything in line with policy would give a much smaller amenity space um but for me in my view is we're told that we have to judge it on what's in front of us and personally for me the fact we are in contravention of a very clear neighbourhood plan policy regardless of what the alternative would be is for me I give a lot more weight to that as an adopted neighbour plan policy than I appreciate officers have done so for me I appreciate I'm probably in the minority here but I see that as a as a strong reason for refusal so we'll be likely voting for refusal based on contravention of point seven policy g al slash two so that's where that's where I stand on that particular point so members if anyone wants to make any further points that haven't been raised so far now is the opportunity no so in that case then unless officers want to chip in with anything further I think we're probably in a position to take a vote on that members obviously we have a recommendation in front of us which is on page 82 yep so we'll come to the if people are reminded to vote against the reasons for refusal but currently we have a recommendation to approve subjects of the planning conditions below albeit we have had some dissent for myself especially um as to that so my one reason for refusal should it be voted down would be contravention of point seven g al two in the neighbour plan policy and councillor Williams I think you had a second um it was to do with the design of the and scale of the building I mentioned about how it actually comes close to the road so a bit of both but for me it is actually the sign of the dwelling itself as well through you chair I think we need to be clear there about whether it is actually the appearance of the the dwelling itself or is it just its sighting there's the problem which from the debate that I've heard it's about the sighting of the dwelling itself rather than its actual appearance but I'm happy to hear any comments around that yeah for me it the appearance was an issue as well it might not been uh for council bachelor the fact that if you if you look if it was a sort of straight flat edge you whereas opposed the design of it is it actually comes out on intrudes further as hard I'm trying to describe draw it in the air um so for me that design is not helpful to the situation the compliance of the policy either and actually the appearance that it would have it would appear like part of the building is coming out towards the road which I I don't believe is is right um but if you want to go on one policy that's fine I'm just making my point as ever chair sure I mean personally for me it was just the contravention of the location rather than the design but and for me that would be enough to refuse it on um if you're content with that we can carry on on that basis sure yeah we can I mean I I don't think it will make much difference but um I mean I think we're in a position where we can make a decision so members we've heard the reason for refusal should members be minded to refuse and obviously we have the reasons for approval listed in the um in the in the papers beginning on page 82 so I'm going to take a recorded vote on this Erin if you could set that up so members using the keypads in front of us you press the blue button to indicate to you or voting you press the green if you're in favour of the application red if you're against and if you wish to abstain press yellow well I think we will now need the draft wording I think Phil as reasons for refusal because we are tied three votes in favour three votes against and two abstentions which will likely mean I have to use my casting voters chair which I'm chuffed about yeah wrong don't worry we haven't made a decision on that one yet don't worry so I'm going to ask Phil if it's possible to so we're just trying to display the reasons for refusal or reason for refusal just having some technical difficulties in displaying the reason for refusal and writing here we go okay there Phil did you yeah please if you could through you chair um okay so I've got uh some draft wording here that we can finalise any minor details but generally based on the debate that's uh happened the proposed voting by virtue of its citing forward of the building line of the original pigment would result in a former development that is harmful to the character of the area and out of keeping with the open and rural character of the land settlement estate the proposal is therefore contrary to point seven policy g al slash two of the great Hamilton land settlement association estate neighbourhood plan and policy hqs one of the south cambridge a district count count count south cambridge a sdc vocal plan 2018 so that would be the reason for refusal should I use my casting vote to refuse as I voted for refusal initially I'm going to be consistent with that and use my casting vote to refuse so based on that reason we're looking out on the screen that application is now refused so thank you very much for everyone who took part in that debate thank you councillor orgy for taking the time to come in um we appreciate your input there um with that members it is half past 12 um I think the next item will take quite a long time so I'm going to propose we break for lunch now for half an hour uh coming back at five past one by this clock here and we will then take the final item on our agenda so I apologize to everyone that is waiting I appreciate it's the last item on the agenda so and we appreciate your patience but we will now break for half an hour and when we come back we will be taking the combatant item thank you very much good afternoon everyone and welcome back to this meeting of south cambridge a district council's planning committee we have just had a short recess for lunch and we're now about to rejoin the agenda at item number eight that is on page 89 of our agendas and the application is at the land to the rear of 64 barton road combaton the application in front of us is for a single story three-bedroom dwelling and the associated works with it the applicants are mr and mrs mark and sally arnold the reason it is in front of us today is because the recommendation of the officer is in contradiction to that of the parish council um we sorry the presenting officer who will be presenting the report to us is charlotte spencer who i'm hoping is joining us online um i see jessica marshall has joined us is it possible to switch your camera off jessica thank you very much charlotte good afternoon afternoon can you see me so my camera wasn't coming on then yeah we can see and hear you fine okay that's that's fine so um yeah over to you then for any updates to the report and then to present the report to members please okay um so the only update is that i noticed in my report um that there was a typo regarding one of the um site history's reference numbers and it should actually be s slash zero five six four slash fifteen slash f l so this is for an application for a single story three-bedroom dwelling house to the rear of 64 barton road in comberton so this is the location um the site comprises part of the rear garden of number 64 barton road which is a two-story detached dwelling located to the south of the road um as you can see number 64 benefits from a very large garden to the west lies a parcel of undeveloped land and to the east the site borders number 68 barton road and the rear garden of number two wooden's close to the south lies part of the garden which belongs to the house dwelling and comprises mature trees so in terms of the constraints apologies there's two maps here um the layer on our GIS for the protected village immunity area kind of covers everything else um it's just had to show two for clarification so this pink area here is the protected village immunity area um which i may refer to as pvaa in this presentation as you can see part of the pvaa does come into the site into the southern part so this purple line here is a public right of way and the pink line shown here is the edge of the conservation area and everything to the west of the line it falls within the conservation area and there's three tpo's on the site shown by these blue circles and the site is within the development framework you see the boundaries in the black dashed line and anything outside the development framework in Cometon is within the green belt um so there has been some site history on um this site um it's relevant to this application um this is actually the third application for a new house on this particular site um this is the first one it was refused in febru 2016 it was refused as it was considered it would have an adverse impact on the character of the area and conservation area and would harm the tranquility of the adjacent pvaa it would result in a detrimental impact on the condition of the adjacent oak trees and it would not make adequate provision to preserve the residential amenity of the occupants of the dwelling uh this application went to appeal and was subsequently dismissed the inspector considered that it would have a detrimental impact on the character of the area conservation area and pvaa however the amenity of future occupiers was acceptable so the second application um on the site um was refused by committee on 20 of june 2019 um in this case it was refused as it was considered that by the virtue of its siting scale and massing the dwelling would significantly erode the relatively open and undeveloped nature of the application site and the semi-wale quality which is significant to the conservation area and it failed to preserve or enhance the character of the appearance of the conservation area and would harm the tranquility of the pvaa um just to make members aware the applicant did seek pre-application advice for the current proposal in 2021 officers were mostly in support subject to further details regarding materials, access trees and ecology so if you bring you on to the um proposal in front of members today so the new dwelling would be located here it's about 60 meters to the south of the host dwelling the site would be accessed by the existing driveway to the host dwelling but this would be amended a parking area has been provided to the rear of the existing garage um this dashed line here gray which i've zoomed in and made purple to make it clearer shows the line of the pvaa and as you can see no built form um protrudes past this line and then 1.2 meter high post-email fence would be used as the seven boundary treatment here so these are the proposed floor and roof plans so the maximum width would be 14.3 meters the maximum depth of 7.1 meters a cycle store and bin store would be provided here um a courtyard would be provided here to allow light into some of the rooms and the flat roof would be a green roof so these are the proposed elevations so the dwelling would be 2.9 meters high with the flat green roof with an additional 1 meter high chimney it's this elevation here shows the dwelling from the south so looking at it from the pvaa you'll see the the existing dwelling has been shown behind this one's coming from the north so the view from the the existing host dwelling but they have also shown the outline here the east elevation would be the elevation from the public right of way and it does demonstrate how the height of the dwelling would be in relation to the height of the existing fence here it would only just come up about 0.4 meters higher not not including the chimney which is just projected a bit higher and this is the west elevation and as you can see there is a difference in ground level between the public right of way which is where the fence starts here and the ground level of the site and so these just some photos about the street scene so this is from the Barton Road you can see the host dwelling here so the proposed dwelling would be behind this garage and roughly kind of behind where this land waiver is here and so these are photographs taken from the public right of way and these were taken in october if you're wondering in terms of the foliage of the trees so this this one's further north along the path and each subsequent photo is going a little bit further south so you can see the house being visible here the existing house sorry and the height of the fence a bit further south you can see the existing house through gaps within the trees but further along it becomes less visible and so these are some site photos that the applicant submitted as part of the design and access statement so again this one's just coming from Barton Road number two as you can see here is just by the side of the garage along the public foot path number three is the view towards the pvaa from the host dwellings garden so the house would be roughly here number four is coming from the western side looking across here i don't think it's so really clear from this photo but you might be able to tell the difference in the land level there number five is the view from within the pvaa looking to the house here and then this is just another one along the public foot path and the applicant also provided 3d views of some of the views of it sorry so this is showing the difference from the view from the public right of way so you can see that they're opening this up a bit to provide parking but putting a fence along here you can see the proposed house just beyond just a little bit there from Barton Road you can tell that it's not going to be overly visible in this section i mean and i'm aware the cars in the way which may be causing a problem there but with the slight change here and this is an image they provided and which shows the views of the house from looking if they're from the neighbouring dwelling so the material considerations are the principle of development the design layout and scale including the impact on the conservation area and the impact on the protected village immunity area residential immunity trees biodiversity water management highway safety parking provision and sustainable design and officers recommend approval subject to conditions as outlined in the report thank you chair shana thank you very much for that presentation members we have a full raft of public speakers today but as usual i will offer members an opportunity to ask any questions of clarification of the officer if anything was unclear from her presentation that's the williams thank you and the previous versions of this were referred to would you say it was committee that decided on these applications or officers um committee decided the 2019 um which was contrary to officer recommendation the first one 2016 that was a delegated decision for refusal because there isn't there wasn't a meeting on the 20th june 2019 do you know when the meeting was uh not off the top might it probably be a bit before then sometimes there's a delay in the decision decision being issued yeah i think i'll probably the date of the decision notice i would imagine there's going to be a committee prior to that um okay members well with that then we will move on to our public speakers so firstly thank you very much your patience if you came in i appreciate it's been a long off a long day so we appreciate you taking the time to come in and very patiently waiting we're going to start with mr edward hellford if he's with us mr hellford if you could take a seat um as with the other speakers i'm sure you heard me address them as well but you'll have three minutes to give your views to the committee at which point there may be some questions of clarity so if you could stay seated that'll be helpful you can switch the microphone on and off using the big silver button on the right hand side um and then we'll hand over to you whenever you're ready please oh well good afternoon mr german and ladies and gentlemen uh i'm edward hellford and i live at the other end of the footpath which passes by this site um this latest application for development on this very spot um is uh one of five only only two previous ones were mentioned by charlotte but there were the three others um the um they've all been rejected and all on really basically the same ground that uh they harm the conservation area and the protected village amenity area uh now the conservation area was introduced in 1973 specifically to stop urbanization of the village center and this application is urbanizing the part of the conservation area conservation areas as you know have strong legal protection under the listed buildings and conservation areas act 1990 and the council's planning policies ensure compliance via policy ch5 now and as you know obviously obeying the law is mandatory it's not discretionary and so ch5 or the conditions of ch5 must be followed otherwise we will will be effectively breaking the law um now the the law actually requires and the ch5 requires that the character of the conservation area must be conserved or enhanced unless there's some other overriding public interest um excuse me the um the question is um can building a modern house is very fine modern house but it's a modern house over an ancient badger set with its driveway partially occupying an old uh an ancient footpath to be classified as conserving the character of the conservation area or is it even enhancement perhaps we should build new houses all over the conservation area and enhance it that way perhaps there's another overriding public interest well the the applicant will benefit of course but the public immunity will be greatly harmed we won't it won't be able to walk along the um on the leafy path such as it remains which was originally the path from the village pump to swains lane and um you won't and you will pass uh brocs clothes uh where there's a group of fact listed buildings it will um become uh at the uh at its northern end the driveway of a modern house um now the tall fence was erected after the last uh the approval for the extension of the existing front house which was more than more than doubled in size at the time and it was specified that the uh view of the conservation area should be maintained by having a fence which was only 1.2 meters tall and uh could have a trellis above i think you ought to know that know that um the end of the path is called brocs close that's a reference to the badges of course we've always been lived there um dig divots in my lawn if you could sign please mr helford have i finished if you could conclude please that would be great conclude certainly we're over time but if you could summarize that's fine okay um well i'll just ask the council to take that into account thank you very much mr chairman thank you very much mr helford um if you could stay seated in case there's any questions of clarity from committee members members do you have any questions of clarity for uh mr helford no i can't see any i think that was all very clear so thank you again for your time and and for your patience in uh in waiting for your item today so thank you very much um members we're now going to hear from the uh i believe the architects of the application mr simon redmond mr redmond are you with us yes hi i should probably um uh state i do have an interest here as in the architects practice that mr redmond works for has in the past worked with my employer albeit we don't have a current ongoing relationship so i've took legal advice and there's no conflict there so i just wanted to put that on the record but mr redmond welcome um as with the other speakers today three minutes to address the committee at the end of which there may be some questions of clarity for yourself so please do stay seated uh if there are any questions for you so over to you whenever you're ready thank you thank you committee the owners of 64 barton roads see consent for a dwelling to the rear of their house previous proposals for a two story property were refused due to their siting scale and massing the south facing site is relatively flat for the garden for the proposed dwelling extending into the pvaa and it also includes a belt of mature trees which through the diligent maintenance of the owners make an important contribution to the character of the pvaa the track along the eastern edge gives access to the dwelling and the public right away linking barton road to swains lane the right of way will continue unimpeded though surface enhancements will make it more pedestrian friendly both the site and the gardens to the east are enclosed by solid fencing and importantly the site is around a meter lower than both the public right of way and these gardens the scheme delivers a single story family home with simple elevations clad in natural materials in total contrast to the previous two-story pitched roof traditional designs this new design is a delicate pavilion glazed to the south offering beautiful private views of the spectacular trees it is less than half the height of the previous scheme and its flat green roofs serve to replace the loss lawn with more biodiverse wildflowers and this is a low energy design it lends itself to efficient construction and the owners of commissioned specialist thermal modelling which confirms it is viable for year-round natural ventilation due to the pronounced falls in level towards barton road the house has little or no presence from the public realm and as a result neighbours and pedestrians will enjoy the same sight lines over the boundary and into the undeveloped gap within the conservation area the scheme was submitted for pre-app and officers reacted positive positively to its principle and much of its detail and a full suite of supporting documents has been submitted with the proposals addressing the weaknesses of the refused schemes and the concerns raised by neighbours and parish council all proposed land and building heights are based on accurate digital third party data a qualified ecologist has surveyed three times on each occasion confirmed no bad directivity or tunnels within the construction site and that the nearest set will be adequately protected by standard practices and these findings have been accepted by the local ecologist a tree survey establishes no harm to the mature trees and this assessment has been accepted by the local authority tree officer environmental health and the drainage engineer consider the proposals to be acceptable the map team has no objection to proposals in relation to the footpath as long as it remains open and unobstructed and highways have also been satisfied that all necessary criteria have been met to my mind the conservation officers views on the proposals impact carry significant weight they confirm no impact on listed buildings that the house will have an appropriately sized garden that the design preserved preserves the character and appearance of the conservation area the materials are appropriate that no conservation conditions are required and that the proposals are compliant with policy and h14 so to conclude this is a desirable low energy dwelling aligned with the authorities aim to enhance residential building stock it protects and preserves the green gap generated by the large plot whilst at the same time avoiding adverse impacts upon the conservation area PVAA and neighbours extensive submissions by the professional consultant team have all been endorsed by the local authorities officers and consultees the recurring local objection stating that building next to a PVAA is illegal is inaccurate full policy states that development adjacent to a PVAA will not be accepted if it would have an adverse impact on the character amenity tranquility or function of the village it is our view that the consistently positive consultee responses demonstrate that the proposals will avoid any such impact and as such the policy is satisfied support across the board from south camps camps combined with our targeted response to all concerns relating to previous proposals clearly demonstrate full policy compliance with a sustainable elegant and unassuming piece of architecture and based on this conclusion I'm under no doubt that this proposal should be approved thank you thank you very much for that um members if you have any questions of clarification for the architect of the scheme we have councillor's fein and then martin carn please thank you mr redmond um I just wanted to ask you to confirm um she said I think I understood mr halford but who spoke before you to have said that this would be a modern house over an ancient badger said and that the path to swain's lane would be lost you said that um the nearest set would be adequately protected and that the um public access would be retained yes that's correct the uh the consultant ecologist has surveyed three times they identified the major badger set which was around 19 meters from the site boundary they also identified a small um entrance um alongside the boundary fence which due to its uh recent appearance and minimal amount of spoil was deemed to be minor and suggestive of a a short length of excavation he also was the view that it ran parallel to the fence and did not extend underneath it so um and he's also suggested that some observation could be carried out pre preconstruction and enshrining condition to further evidence that but it is his professional professional opinion which has been ratified by the ecologist so that there is no set under the development site and in terms of the right of way the right of way will continue it's simply that the northernmost part of it um will pass alongside the development and 64 Barton Road and obviously there will be surface enhancements with um permeable material and bound material next to the highway so it will be maintained and kept open um impermence thank you councillor martin carne so i was going to ask what the uh how the building because of the concern about the budget set so how is the what sort of foundations are you going to be providing will it be a slab foundation or an excavated foundation because that obviously might have an effect worthy to prove to be a budget set related date um clearly the other legislation covers disturbance the budgets which were coming to force that sort of situation um it's anticipated that there will be conventional strip footings um and a ground slab so minimal excavation certainly no piling thank you members any final questions for mr redmond one of the concerns that was expressed in the comments was the that um the circle way will be quite close to the budget much closer than the 19 meters um and that since there's quite a lot of excavation might cause problems um isn't necessary could you place the circle way at a different location absolutely yes the circle way location will be determined by those criteria and it will be um it has to be a certain distance from the dwelling as well so it will be in the area um between those constraints if you like yes but it is in the direction towards the budget set i mean could for instance you put it under the car parking out would that be and would that require separate planning approvals i'm i'm just wondering whether there's any flexibility about that there is flexibility yes um and i don't believe it would need new planning but i don't the sustainable drainage officer doesn't consider it of sufficient size to impose any specific conditions on it and they haven't wished desired they haven't asked to see details prior to consent okay thank you for that there's no further questions for mr redmond will say thank you very much again for taking the time to speak to us and for coming in and for being so patient in waiting so thank you very much well thank you okay next we are joined by uh representative of the parish council who i believe is joining us virtually do we have councillor jessica marshal from commonson parish council you do thank you good afternoon hi good afternoon and thank you for joining us uh first question i need to ask is do you have the permission of the parish council to represent their views here today i do good good start so as with the other speakers councillor will give you three minutes to address the committee at the end of which there may be some questions for yourself so if you can stay on the line that'll be helpful thank you very much the site is a site of interest to the parish council not only because it has been subject to multiple um planning applications in the past which have been refused but because it is um situated part partially within the pvaa and on the edge of a conservation area within our village the centre of our village has um a pvaa which is called the green lungs of combaton and this one's all the way from the north down to the south in in the conservation area on swains lane and the aim of the green lungs is to provide the village with this nice green belt part of land um which brings wildlife right into the centre of our village including as it has been mentioned um a very ancient badger set which is immediately adjacent to this site um we are very concerned to disturb this badger set and we we hope that that is something that will be taken into full consideration also linking the northern part of our village to the southern part of our village are some very ancient footways and this footpath is one of these it's um a green footpath it is well used it has wide um grass area in this part of it and until recently also enjoyed views over the pvaa part of the village more recently um ffensing has been erected which um does partially obscure some of this view and that is um shown in this application and the application shows that the um dwelling will exceed the height of this fence the other area of concern for the parish council is um that the path proposed um public footpath will be running over the driveway of this new dwelling and there is therefore no space for a car to adequately pass by this footpath and putting another dwelling on in this area is going to add to um a dangerous situation bringing more cars onto this public right of way um especially once you consider things such as wheelie bins etc um on this footpath area and cars moving around another area of concern is that on the plans is shown that heat pump will be within the pvaa and we are very mindful that that should be brought to your attention we are also concerned about the um ancient the trees significant trees on this piece of land and they are part of the um development easing into the conservation area we are concerned that um building near to these trees is going to have an adverse effect on them and that the root system is going to be quite large as a parish council we have received petition um from local neighbours in wittons close and i want to bring that to your attention because there is significant um objection to this planning application and um it is it is not the case that there is significant um uh um desire to have it here although there have been some positive comments as well councillor marty if you could sum up please we're over time okay thank you very much so um those are the the factors that i i wish you to consider um with this application thank you very much great thank you very much councillor um members do you have any questions of clarification for the parish councillor no i don't see any so again councillor marty will thank you very much for taking the time to speak to us today um with that members we will move on to our final public speaker who is one of the local members and i believe is also joining us online councillor Lisa redrup are you with us Lisa ah yes hi hi there yeah we can see in here you fine thank you for joining us and thank you as well for being so patient in waiting for your slot um so as with the other public speakers you have three minutes to give your views to the committee at the end of which there may be some questions of clarification for you from committee members so if you could stay on the line that would be great so please whenever you're ready okay um thank you very much and thanks for allowing me to speak i'm here to represent some of the views that i've i've been sent um and i'd like to ask you to please consider carefully the the objections that have been raised in response to the application which as you've heard of focus on the impact that this proposed development would have on the conservation area and the protected village immunity area um this concern that the proposal might harm the conservation area through further urbanization of the village rather than sustain or enhance the conservation area and also that it offers no overriding public benefit for example the proposal includes removal of four meters of hedging along barton road so affecting the appearance from outside the property um and it also may erode the rural look and character of the north end of the public footpath by opening up a section for vehicular access through a driveway and adjacent parking area and also there's the new house which although single story does have a large footprint there's also concern that it would impact on the tranquility and character of the protected village immunity area by developing land immediately adjacent to it and so losing the undeveloped area between the pva and the existing housing the southern edge of the new house is planned to be directly along the boundary of the pva and as we've already heard the soak away and air source heat pump are planned to be within it so it does seem that there could be disturbance or damage both during construction and beyond there's also concern that development could adversely impact the protected mature oak trees in the adjacent pva both immediately by disrupting their roots and in the future if occupants of the new house want them reduced or removed for example due to shading or interference of the roots with the foundations um I've also been been emailed about concern about impact on wildlife which feeds I guess feeds into the desire to maintain green areas within the village many different species have been seen in the vicinity including birds of prey the badgers and great crested newts and I've also had reports that neighbours have seen badgers or badger activity in the direct area and so there has been a request that badger sets are not disturbed uh lastly I'd just like to say that the level of concern felt is indicated by the number of people who've taken the time to have their objections noted and so I again ask that you please consider the impact that this proposal would have thank you very much thank you very much councillor red rip that's very clear um committee members do we have any questions of clarity for the local member no I don't see any that was very clear Lisa so thank you very much for taking the time to address us today and again thank you for your patience thank you very much bye okay members those are all the public speakers we have on that item so we're now going to move to the debate section of proceedings so this is an opportunity for members to put your views forward or equally if we have any further questions for officers we can ask them as well so members I will throw open to you and kicking us off is councillor Sanford thank you chair um late yesterday evening I received a representation from over the public against this proposed development uh I haven't had a chance to look at it in detail but he included a lot of detailed pictures of the entryways to the badger sets I'm not a badger expert but it looks like the sets actually go under the site and there's evidence of recent occupation by badgers rather calls into question the ecology survey mentioned in the report whether that is a current and be thorough that definitely sows doubts in my mind as to whether we should approve this application thank you thank you for those thoughts yeah I think I think a lot of many committee members have been contacted by concerned residents so it's worth um it's worth putting that out in the public domain um whether members wish to refer to that not in their comments I'll completely leave up to you um so we've heard from Peter we're now going to hear from Martin Cohn please I also received this representation of the gun in a badger set so um it is certainly a matter of concern um uh I went out yesterday actually to look at the site on the site and have a look at it um the he proposed three locations including one proposed the in the middle of the site there was no evidence of any activity in the middle of the site of where the actual building is going to be there's certainly nothing active there um the as you heard in report the the the suggestion was that the existing the activity on the boundary was only a short distance tunnel but uh we can't be sure that's why I asked about the socoway because that seems to be the site which might cause some problems and wanted to know whether that would be a constraining in the building development it appears that it wouldn't I'm not I might want to have advice from the planters whether if they change the socoway location that would require separate planning commission or approval but I think we need to take concern about that uh other legislation means that if a badger set is starts to be disturbed you'd have to stop development because that's protected by other legislation from planning legislation so um we really need to think what would happen if that that occurred um were it to be approved um and that's a consideration that I would want to were we to approve it I would want to be considered in in in terms of conditions that we might we might apply okay so picking up on those two points and so I think your first question was around uh should the proposed socoway need to be moved to a different location would that then need to come back to planning or could that be done without planning so I'll ask officers that first I don't um Phil if you can answer that or yeah I'm happy to see that up chair um given the extent of the site I imagine it would still be within the redline area anyway so I can't imagine that it's going to fall outside of the land that's being indicated for the development so I don't think that would be a problem for or okay and then I think the second question um uh was around the badger set if it turned out during construction the badger there was a badger set beneath the site and it would be disturbed due to construction would construction need to cease I think was your question I was almost stating that the other legislation would cover that but I was really talking about the socoway area which is the only area which seems to me likely that there will be a problem from the from from the information we have okay understood um but I think yeah as officers have said they could move the socoway without the needs to come back for full planning permission um okay we next have councillor's fein and then Heather Williams thank you Chairman as it was pointed out to us there have been quite a few applications clear to me whether it's uh three or five but uh regardless I don't think that should be seen as a problem the fact that an applicant seeks to amend their proposals to take account of previous concerns and then indeed goes to pre-app uh should be seen I think as a as a benefit uh and the resulting building is clearly of low impact design that is low energy which I think is particularly important in current circumstances um it is single story and I think 1.4 meters above the level of the the fence between there and the uh footpath and has a green roof now look at the impact firstly on the come back to the pva in a minute but on the conservation area we have the assessment of our conservation officer 615 um as I said due to the levels of the site and the proposed sedum roof impact from the surrounding area would be minimal and the key question which was raised uh for us by Mr Halford the key question is is the impact on would the proposal preserve the character and appearance of the conservation area and the conservation officer's assessment at 615 is that it is considered the proposal would preserve the character and appearance of the conservation area um there was a question raised about the impact on the trees and again that was dealt with by the council's tree officer 825 on page 100 um that in the light of the information received there is no negative material impact to trees subject to compliance documents so then we come back to the important point about the effect on the pva and the policy on that of course is summarised at 85 on page 97 um develop would not be permitted on or adjacent to the pva but there is a condition to that if it would have an adverse impact on the character amenity tranquility or function of the village and not actually of the pva itself um but I think we can interpret that as meaning on the its effect on the pva itself well the assessment by officers is that the pva positively contributes to the tranquility of this part of competent and therefore if that was disturbed presumably that would affect the tranquility or function of the village now I can see that there are some potential impacts on this uh it is clearly directly adjacent to the pva or to a part of the pva uh the council of martin carne has raised the question of the potential soakway and it's possible impact on the badger set which we are assured would not be directly affected by this um it was mentioned that it is a very sustainable building proposed uh I don't know to what extent the heat pump might have impact on the pva I guess that might depend on the type of heat pump whether this is boreholes or whether it is slinkies I mean clearly if there were slinkies going in to the pva which is perhaps a question I should have asked earlier then forgive the terminology um I think we all understand what that means here if there were slinkies going into the pva it would be very hard to conclude that that is not having an adverse impact on the character and tranquility of the pva and indeed the badger sets um but we have no evidence to to say that there are the the the heat pump would disrupt the pva so I'm afraid on this point about 85 would this have an adverse impact on the pva I really find that very difficult to assess um the assumption must be that because it is directly beside it and indeed has doors opening towards it that there is likely to be an adverse impact on the tranquility of the pva and that's the way I'm inclined to think okay thank you for that um next speaker is Councillor Heather Williams please sorry thank you chair um so yes so I do agree that you know there's nothing to stop people coming back with different proposals and there has been significant change I think the applicants have gone and made steps um to try and improve the situation for when we last saw it um but we do have to still judge it as we see it now and I think with this application a lot of it is subjective isn't it we're not it's not a rule-based system um and we're discussing harm and conserving and enhancing which is um going to mean different things to different people I think we have to have to accept that um but for myself it's policy hq1 1b says that we should be about high quality design and conserve or enhance important natural historic assets and their setting um I don't believe that this does conserve the the historic assets and the setting so we now have to ask ourselves will it enhance it um I don't consider due to the you know the design and the way the the scale of it I appreciate why it's been made a single story um but that does increase the the land footprint that it uses and equally the the materials that are proposed um I'm afraid I'm I'm going to have to agree to disagree with uh what has been put in the report for us I I do not consider that it is conserving or enhancing um the historic asset and the setting of it the other thing that we're asked to consider in these cases is about the balance between public benefit and the and the preservation I cannot see that this contributes any public benefit other than one additional market property of which I think most people say we're not short of in south cambridge uh so I I don't see a public benefit to to having this one um market house it's not affordable it's not exception sites nothing that we could warrant further public benefit um I do also believe about the detrimental impact the pbaa which has been referred to by um in our third party representations and I do do note about um as cancer fein has said about the tranquility or function of of the the village and the impacts that has um I don't believe that this additional property helps with that I think it is in contrary to that um and going back to its design part of the reason why I don't believe that it's enhancing or conserving is because we have admitted it is very modern in its appearance and modern in its nature um so for myself it's design and it being quite modern and in other places I would welcome a very modern uh design and it would fit in very nicely but when we're talking about you know where it is and heritage assets and everything else it for me it's not right so I would be looking um to actually be refusing this on very similar grounds to last time um where we had about NH11 and the protected village amenity areas laid out in the local plan HQ one on the designs and principles um and the harm to the designated heritage asset is not outweighed by the public benefit of the proposals as paragraph 193 and 196 of the MP um PPF so I appreciate that there has been work done on this um but for me it's still not right um um just because of people's efforts does not mean we can approve today thank you chair thank you very much council Williams um members does anyone else wish to contribute to the debate or raise a point that hasn't been raised previously no does anyone wish to ask any final questions of clarification then from officers at all if that will help them make their make their mind up no can I take it then that members are feel they're all in a position to make a decision on this application sorry to council thank you so I wonder whether I might um I referred to the effect of the heat pump it was said earlier on heat pump would be within the pva which is why assumed although we have no details this would be a ground source I wonder whether officers have any views as to whether the whether the heat pump would have any effect on the pva I'll start um thank you chair um that I think you referred to the the slinky mechanism that's associated with the heat pump um as far as I'm aware that that will be underground so I I don't see how that could harm the pva a because it will obviously be buried and then covered over again in terms of the unit above ground and from my understanding is it a game of very small air conditioned unit sized units which which is adjacent to the dwelling itself so I don't see that that again which would be I imagine set beside the house depending on which side it is and where it enters um I don't see that that is something that would necessarily harm the pva itself I think it's a very small unit um which which won't have a detrimental impact okay thank you for that martin come I was in when I was considering about the impact on the pva and the impact on the conservation area of the design um I think it is worth noting that we went out to look at the site and it is extremely difficult to look into the site from the public for any public areas merely the height I had to clamber up to look in over the fence it's not something that a normal person would see all the bits of the green pva a which are visible from the public area the trees will not be affected by the proposed element so I think that is a consideration it is as described in 8.5 it says that it has affected a gentleman adjacent pva a's would have an effect on the tranquility a minute capital immunity tranquility or function of the village not the pva a which is a different aspect so it is in terms of the village it's presumably the public areas and they affect the pva and the public areas which matters and therefore I see an argument that it's not actually the village is it's not so much affected it's it's it's the private space which is affected or if there's any impact whether you consider the the design as a good design or not I think it's an interesting modern design different from the other but it it creates another feature of interest in the village I'm not sure that I would feel that that's sufficiently strong on conservation area grounds the impact on the area which is actually going to be developed by diversity it's basically a known norm there's not any particular great biodiversity on the site itself and I can see the argument that the biodiversity game can be provided within the building I can see the big major differences between the previous proposal we've actually encouraged people to come and make free application consultations and they they appear to have done that and taken concern concerns we have a this we don't want development in gardens which has a negative impact but we do encourage development which provides additional housing I don't think it's fair to say that we have no shortage of market housing prices of market housing suggest there is a demand for it so meeting our so it does make a very small contribution to our housing numbers I've I've come to conclusion generally that I feel that it probably is something we should accept I was most concerned about the soak away the soak away when it's finished will be underground so it won't make an impact but whether it if it did prove to be an impact on the budget set whether that could be adapted afterwards and having had reassurance on that I feel I generally would feel that it the benefits probably outweigh the impacts thank you very much councillor um members does anyone wish to make any final points before we move to decision on this anything that haven't been said so far okay members I think we can move forward then to the decision obviously there are some members I understand that will be voting against this um I can see Phil has drawn up some form of wording for reasons for refusal should members wish to go down that route um I wonder if you could display those Phil or if perhaps Charlotte might be able to I don't know okay and then we can see if this encapsulates what members reasons are should they want to refuse perhaps you could talk us through this bill yes I'm based thank you chair uh based on the debate it's essentially uh covering two issues which are around the tranquility of the pvaa and harm to the conservation area uh which is essentially what was the previous reason for refusal I feel like we'd like to read out the full wording um do members need the full wording reading out or are members content with the summary Phil's just given okay okay we'll give members a minute um but essentially I think the reason we have up here is regarding impact on the pvaa um those members that are inclined to vote against is that does that does that encapsulate the main reason for refusal or were there others that members wish to put forward so sorry I've been reminded it so it's covering damage to the conservation area and the pvaa not just the pvaa yes I would like to ask if uh should not be considered that um in the case of refusal it could also be argued that uh the character of the area could also be negatively impacted by the by the works by the project so is that the character of the conservation area yeah um do you want to say that Phil yeah three chair I think that's I think that's covered in the in the reason that's on uh the four members is that satisfactory I think officers are on the view that that is covered within the reason for refusal on the screen now okay members um yeah should we go forward over refusal are members satisfied that the words on the screen now uh do cover the the the points that have been made during the debate unless I hear otherwise I will take that as yes okay um okay well with that they're members we have a recommendation on page 104 and that is to approve the application subject to the planning conditions laid out um obviously we have a reason for refusal on the screen should members wish to vote against that um I'm going to ask democratic services if they could start an electronic vote for us because I think we are going to be split on this so Aaron if you could so members the usual process press the blue button to indicate we're voting press green if you want to vote in favour of the application press red if you wish to vote against and yellow if you wish to abstain Councillor Richard Williams obviously not allowed to vote but welcome anyway okay members we as you can see on the screen we have a split vote again we have four votes in favour four votes against so the vote is split so I'll have to use my casting vote again I personally voted in favour so I will continue with that and use my casting vote to vote for approval so I'll for five votes to four using the chair's casting vote that application is approved so thank you very much members um and thank you very much to all the members of the public that took part in that debate um we will move on now members to agenda item number nine so members those are all so members those are all the applications we have to make decisions on today we're now on to uh as I say agenda item nine which is a report on the grades of Cambridge shared planning service compliance policy or in layman's terms enforcement so I'm going to hand over to Heather Jones who is joining us on the screen Heather welcome thank you chair can you hear and see me okay yeah we can see him and hear you perfectly thank you very much for joining us we appreciate it no problem thank you uh so I'm here today to present the report for information to South Cambridge district council planning committee this is on behalf of Dr Tumi Hawkins lead cabinet member and Stephen Kelly lead officer it consists of four documents the report with recommendation appendix a which is the new proposed greater Cambridge shared planning compliance policy appendix b the existing south cams enforcement manual from 2001 and the equality impact assessment which is draft uh I just wanted to point out there is one error on the report itself so that's page one section two uh it says under key decision no and then underneath the text there's the key decision was first published in uh september 2022 it it is not a key decision so I just want to to confirm that to you um the report itself outlines the recent work completed with the transformation team on the uh compliance or with the compliance team and and also um recommends that we present a new policy um which is detailed and in appendix a for consultation the consultation period will be for six weeks as it will cover the Christmas season you will have the opportunity to comment on the policy during that period along with everyone else members of the public etc so do we have any questions thank you okay before we have questions i'll just go ask Phil if he could actually clarify what we're being asked to do with this report just for complete and utter clarity thank you chair yeah so it is just to note that uh we're proposing to go out to consultation as Heather's just outlined and any questions or queries around the the nature of the policy itself can be dealt with once that public consultation period commences thank you so on that to any members of any questions around uh this going out to consultation council Williams and then council Williams thank you um so this is indoors so we're just being asked to note not indoors so that would be an amendment to the recommendation is that right yep okay um and once it's been to consultation does it then come back to us or does it where is the governance for this good question um i'll have to ask officers what the next stages are Heather perhaps you can respond to that uh then it will go to cabinet okay uh council Richard Williams thank thank you chair just a quick one it says on page 115 of our bundle um that there are potential changes afoot as a result of the levelling up and regeneration bill that this would need to be revised i just wonder why we're doing that now therefore why why why we don't wait and see what the changes are because if we consult on this and then we have to change it in six months time or a year's time to consult again uh i i sorry through the chair shall i answer thank you um i think the reason for that is that obviously we're unclear or unsure of what those recommendations will be and we have been on a transformation journey with our enforcement and compliance team and this the existing policy is south cams one is a 2001 policy so we do need to update it even if it will be updated again in a further point in time which which may be you know in 18 months two years okay thank you thank you for clarity on that Heather um members any further questions councillor harvey um yes thank you jack i do you remember i think it's about perhaps 18 months of two years ago we had a new revision of the uh the sort of umbrella um enforcement policy um have i remembered that correctly and it listed the the various um levels of um sort of action that the the council could take um and i remember in that document i mean i think the ultimate act um sort of uh recourse was was sort of compulsory purchase of a piece of land if he i mean this would cover all sorts of um misdemeaners including planning ones but i just wondered does this sort of sit within that wider policy in terms of the sanctions available Heather i'm not sure if you can answer that one I can do um i think what we were referring to was this um the policy in respect of i think that was a housing one um and and this policy is is purely for the planning service so that we can be very clear with our residents what their expectations can be in respect of compliance it is a discretionary service if it's not statutory um and we wanted to make that very clear to to residents and um other members that are really uh you know that that this is important to so uh so i suppose in answer to that the umbrella um document that you're referring to i think was relating to housing this is a planning specific to planning and what we can do in respect of enforcement our final enforcement measures with planning thank you chair thank you thank you for the clarity on that um members if there's no further questions for heather as was mentioned the recommendation isn't to endorse it's actually just to note that this will be going out for consultation so i don't think we need to take any formal decision on that unless officers tell me otherwise no okay so we can consider that noted thank you very much heather for um presenting that to us and we'll move on members to agenda item 10 but before we do that i realize it's been four hours so um i'm going to ask if members are happy to carry on agree we're near at the end so if we could agree okay so just to note councillor Handley is leaving the meeting and i should also mention councillor Richard Williams did join us partway through agenda item 8 obviously has he missed part of the debate we wasn't able to vote but he's very welcome so with that members we'll move on to agenda item 10 which is on page 167 and this is a planning enforcement report or planning compliance if it should be called now um we have john shuttle woods i'm hoping is joining us online to present john hello hello chair sorry you froze there for about 10 seconds so i might be behind you or you might just be picking picking me up now okay yep we've uh we can hear you loud and clear john so thank you very much chair good so over to you john for your enforcement report thank you chair okay hopefully can just confirm you can see some kind of documents up on the big screen or in front of you please chair we can it looks like the papers we have in front of us so you shouldn't be too much frustrated fantastic well it's uh much better looking for myself so i'll go for it so very quickly uh this is the um september stats here so on the 1st of october there are 139 open cases within southcain this year um what will happen due to the deadlines and the fact that we didn't have committee last month uh the stats for october and november will all be rolled over and will be presented separately at next month's committee in december if i just quickly show you hopefully another screen which you can see hopefully you can see appendix one which the enforcement case is received and closed for september uh we had nine uh for september that we received and we closed 12 cases in uh september september was particularly time whereas well as we're running our vacancies on the team we also had uh half of our team members off on holiday uh so actually we're a pretty sparse at the time so there was probably less activity than as per normal and we also managed to serve an enforcement notice relating to some authorized balustrades uh at 31 frog end in great wilbrahim and if i just go back to the reports update on service delivery uh as i mentioned mentioned before last time we did go out for recruitment and we're pleased to see there has been a principal enforcement lead officer uh chris braybrooke he's coming from a neighbouring authority and he will be starting on the 3rd of january but beforehand he will be coming to our enforcement uh away day uh before then so we're going to get to know uh chris i've met him before he's a good guy so i'm very confident it is going to be a very very good addition to the team moving forwards uh tony wallis was promoted as a senior planning or enforcement officer and he's doing a member's job running with that unfortunately the second vacant post we went out for that twice uh for recruitment unfortunately that's not being successful to get a permanent uh person in that role so we're fortunately we have been able to get a good agency person ratio arnell who started uh last week uh ratio's initial area she's been given area team west for the moment so she's going to be dealing with such areas as harton is combaton uh us lucky on the good people down in the morthans and also up in caxton and papworth as well as well as all the other areas in the area team west as the sort of team uh so uh just to let you know that the online website is up and running with all the new details of how to raise the complaints via the new e-form i'd recommend and ask obviously uh members to uh use this e-form you there is actually a first section here in where it says it is a query from another south camp and department i'm quite happy for members to take the box yes so that means you only have to put your email in and the address rather than having put in your address and everything like that so just your email and your name will be sufficient if you want to report anything to us via that method uh we've still got our enforcement register which is meant to be going live at the end of the month which is going to give real-time figures uh as to so you're going to be able to go online like you do at the moment and search planning applications you're going to be doing that with enforcement katies as well however due to iDocs the company that runs the system they want to be there to basically iron out any difficulties and so that's why this is now taking place at the end of the month rather than uh at the start of month as originally planned what we don't want to happen we've been doing some testing in the background and there's some information that's been coming out has been available to the members in the public which shouldn't be made available shouldn't be made available and the problem is this could lead us to a massive data protection potential breaches which we don't want so we could continue doing the testing and we're going to make sure that everything is up and running by the end of the month. Finally just a note on Smithby Fenn may have touched this on last time but we do have an experience officer involved dealing with Smithby Fenn and is working with council colleagues to explore an agreement of council's approach to the site moving forward in the basically there's some issues regarding low levels of occupancy and basically just trying to deal with the ownership relating to empty and vacant awful pictures that's the presentation for the moment thank you very much chair thank you John that's that's very helpful so if i'm hearing you right all the vacancies in the department have now been filled albeit one of them on a contractual basis that is that is correct chair yes i understand that contract is for an initial six month period we're very very lucky there's a number of agency officers out there there are some short-sighted local planning authorities out there who are deciding actually to get rid of half of their enforcement officers and we're managing to pick up you know people at the moment just basically filled a gap where other people getting rid of officers but yet we're going to be a full complement at the start of the year chair good good to hear John we do have another question for you from councillor sanford i do thank you chair John thank you for the update you say details of all enforcement investigations has said electronically to members on a weekly basis i've been a councillor for six months i don't recall seeing any updates possibly everyone in my ward is being very well behaved or possibly the main list is out of date i know there one there there's at least one uh miscreant that we're currently investigating in cactin and patworth so what i will do i will check the report list to make sure you're on there and if not i'll put you on the list great thank you all right thank you john and one other question for you from councillor heather williams thank you through a self-chair too actually um one of which is is good news that we've got a full team um on the enforcement side but you may reference somebody coming through as agency i just wanted to check i've got nothing wrong with agency very good to plug the gap now and then but just um this is somebody that's sort of local working locally um just considering that enforcement is something that you have to go out on site on and everything else um not somebody that's the other end of the country or something so if you could give me some reassurance on that please um you laugh but we've had not necessarily here but other places have had this issue before um and the other is smithie fen which you did touch on however chair i feel like i'm channeling councillor right from when he was here in in the same chair as i am the report is getting less and less the problem is not going away i asked last time that we have if we can't have something because i appreciate its legal case and we can't have something in the public domain then we should have um a closed uh paper on this or some sort of briefing i do not feel that as a councillor the information we are giving or given in in this sense is enough for us to be able to honestly say we are doing our job in relation to this matter we have no from these this just literally two lines and a paragraph i i know everyone speaks to themselves but i do not feel comfortable that this is still on the agenda in the same place as far as i'm concerned from when i first joined this council back in 2018 um so please can we have something that anise enables us to say we have done our job in trying to you know oversee and scrutinize and look at this because as it currently stands members of the public are getting more and more annoyed with this and i can't blame them to be quite frank thank you chair so john i think i you can probably answer the first question i think on um on Rachel Arnold's whereabouts that um uh we can probably i'm sure we can organise as a department a briefing for members specifically on smithie fen with your department's input i'm sure that will be completely possible um but yeah if you could answer the first question i think that'll be helpful yeah i mean i'm not going to divulge where like Rachel lives does she's within a drive a drive if need be to visit somewhere and if Rachel isn't available for any particular reason there's four other members of the team that that do live uh locally that can go out and visit the property so yeah there are there is sufficient resources to go and you know visit visit sites as and when is required chair thank you good to know i wasn't expected her post code just do you want to find out what she was in scotland no i can confirm she's not in scotland councillor but thank you for the question good thank you very much um councillor martin carn please simply to highlight that uh there's a little bit of confusion uh the development uh kendall quarter angerhouse in in in pincton it's referred to both in appeals waiting decision and in the decisions inspectorate i know that's quite a recent decision but just tonight's about that uh john i think that's the next section of our agenda which is a planning appeals so i don't think that's one for myself but um interesting for you to be aware of it anyway um okay members i think there's no further questions for mr shuttlewood will say thank you very much john um appreciate you hanging on to the end of the agenda for us and uh for taking the time to to give us an update on the enforcement situation so thank you thank you chair okay with that then we'll move on to agenda item 11 which is appeals against planning decisions and enforcement action so i believe phil you're introducing this one for us i am chair yep so as councillor williams heather williams has declared in interest she is leaving and taking no part in this section and martin your mic's done off your microphone thank you chair i as we didn't have a a planning meeting last month uh agenda item 11 is in in two parts so we have appeals which were submitted or wait or decisions made as at the end of 28 september which is on page 17 starts at one page page 173 and then the second part is uh up to the 27th of october which starts at page 189 i mean this report of this section is obviously for noting but if there's any particular questions i'm happy to attempt to answer those or take questions away if i come up on the spot now thank you chair thank you phil um members do we have any specific questions on the reporting front of us martin perhaps you'd like to ask yours well it's been explained that the deadlines are different from two different columns so i understand now why it's in both great thank you and councillor williams please thank you jeff um page 191 the uh station of great shelford appeal that the inspectors allowed i don't know if it's appropriate to say in this meeting whether there's any plan to do anything about that or are we just accepting the inspector's decision it's a shame given it was a a non-determination one uh through you chair in in terms of challenging that decision is it the query from councillor williams not that i'm aware of um i've not been advised that that's a line we're looking to take um you know we're at this as far as i'm aware we've accepted the the judgment thank you members any final points on this section of the agenda okay well with that then we will i believe finish the meeting as that was the final item on the agenda so just leaves me to say thank you very much to everyone that's taken part the public speakers and the officers obviously members as well um it's worth noting on next meeting will be at a date in december which i don't have in front of me uh presumably the second Wednesday so it should be Wednesday the 14th of December so behave was very close to christmas so if any members can't make it for any reason please do write subs nicer than early um well with that i'll say thank you very much again to