 Mewn gwybod i. Mae'n ddwygoch i'r cymaint a'r gweithio'r cymaint hyn yn ei gweithio'r gweithio gydag i'r Llywodraeth Llywodraeth. Felly, dyna'n gweithio'n gweithio'n gweithio'r Cymru, Llywodraeth Cymru. Mae'n ddiddordeb yng Nghymru, Dr Martin Caen, ac mae'n gyfrifio'r cymaint. Wrth gwrs, maen nhw'n gobeithio'n gweithio'n gweithio'n gweithio'n gweithio, to ensure that their cameras and microphone remain off unless they are addressing the committee. If anyone has any questions on how proceedings for this meeting were at work, please ask now, and the democratic services will advise. Committee members present in the chamber will now invite you to each introduce yourselves. Members, after I call your name, please turn on your microphone and say your name so that your presence may be noted. As I said earlier, my name is of the council of Dr Martin Cann Daeth, drmenwyr, drlaryrApplause 71 y menwyr. Yn entwickelt. Cal downp accent, I am Joe didn't play the boat just as I tried to play everything I wanted to do, even though I played with myself in a boat yard, that appears to justİr, un i mery co xian. Rwf yn fy mery crispyr, ond grant i chyfodol o dwep ar hynny, onn ochr ilinef da. Rwf yn fy mery cy gownio a fy mery xian fedd kart mewn help. Mae'r ffordd mewn gwirionedd, gallwn i'n meddwl yn citodd. Mae'r ffordd mewn gwirionedd, gallwn i'n meddwl yn cwrsio'n meddwl yn meddwl. Mae un o'r ffordd mewn gwirionedd, gallwn i'n meddwl i'ch meddwl yn cyd-gwyrdd. Yn gyfwyrd. Yn gyfwyrd y ffordd yw'r ffordd? Mae'r ffordd. Mae'r ffordd yw'r ffordd. Mae'r ffordd yw'r ffordd yw'r ffordd, maen nhw'n ei gwneud, a'r gwneud y cyfnodd yn cymdeithas. Yn gyfwyrd. Ryfbeth Ryfbeth. Mae'r ddwylliannol o'i gweithio. Mae'r ddwylliannol o'u gweithio. Nes y Blain, y Llyfrinwyr Cymru, Lloran De Mairi Hulman, y dynaf Oedol Dynaf. Mae gennym ni'n ddif Weinidog Cymru ar gyfer dynaf oedd gafodd Arun Clark. Rwy'n meddwl i'n cael ei ffordd maen nhw ar y ddweud i'r ddweud. Os ydw i'n meddwl i'n meddwl, cael ei ddweud i gydigol ar gyfer ddweud i'r meddwl a'r ddweud i'r ddweud i'r meddwl i'r meddwl. Pan rei i'r emails a hynny i'r rhywbeth mewn ystafell arall? Na i amlwg, yna mor gennych FFAT yw ddweud yn 6 eich ddiwun, a hynny mae bod unrhyw ymgylchedd gweithlo'r Llyfrgellau mewn sefydlu gasifio 7 eich ddiwun. E wedi gweld bod gweld o mynd i gael ei wneud yn 3 o ddiwun o'r ddiwun o'r byfferdig. Eich dda i, ar 5, medium 5, 6 ymgylchedd ymgylchedd yw 7, Elthworth. Members, please state now who have not seen any of these documents. I'm sorry, I have seen all of those documents but I just wanted to clarify, do we need to clarify the apologies for absence because I am attending as a substitute? Sorry, this is my first chair meeting, I'm not going to be all exactly correct. Further documentation was received regarding item 5, Gertam, yesterday evening. You should have been provided with copies this morning. I would also like to note that site visits were conducted on Monday the 12th of June for items 5, 6, 7 and 8. Item 2 on agenda today is Apologies for Absence. Lawrence, are there any apologies for absence today? Thank you chair, good morning everyone. So one apology for absence which is councillor Dr Tumi Hawkins who councillor Bradenham has kindly stepped into substitute 4 and we have received apologies for lateness from councillor Heather Williams. Now we come to item 3, declarations of interest. Do any members have any interest to declare in relation to any item of business on this agenda? If any interest suddenly becomes apparent later in the meeting please would you raise it at that point. Councillor Sansford. Thank you chair, I have to declare a non-pecuniary interest in item 7, Avenue Business Park. I'm the local ward member for Ellsworth and I've received a number of representations mostly about email from local residents. However, I'm coming to this meeting with an open mind and will listen to all the presentations before making judgment on the merit of the application. Thank you. Councillor Bradenham. Thank you chair, as a member of Miltonham Water Beach ward I'm ward member for item 8, 95 and I declare that I did speak to the owner of one of the affected properties at the first application, which is the outline application, but I did so simply to advise the gentleman how he might make representations, but I come to this with an open mind. Thank you. I have a non-pecuniary interest in a gender item 8, 95 Arnold Road, Water Beach. For this I will not be participating in the vote nor the debate, but will be speaking as a local member. Thank you. Thank you. Councillor Richard Williams. Thank you chair. It's item 5, it's a non-pecuniary interest, but I just wanted to note that I do work for the University of Cambridge. I have taught for Gyrton in the past, I do not currently teach for Gyrton, and I just want to make it clear nobody has approached me about this application. I will approach it today with a completely open mind. Councillor Bill Handley. Thank you chair. Non-pecuniary, item 7, I visited the site about six or seven weeks ago with the leader. We had the invitation of the owner, but we did not discuss the planning application. He just told us what his plans were for the future of his business if he gets the approval that he wants. I'll look at Mrs Blaine if he thinks that's okay for me just to declare a non-pecuniary on that. Thank you. In terms of item 5, Gyrton. Sorry. I just want to clarify better, sorry. Are you invited by the applicant? The owner of the land. Who is the applicant? Well, I guess, even though it might be, I don't know if it's been done through a developer, but he invited us to take a look at the site and just to look at the layout of the building and so on. If you think I'm very happy to step out if you feel that there's any kind of conflict. My advice is you step away from this one. I will do that. I just wanted to add something extra. As you'll see from the agenda papers, I've been a consultee on this reserve matters application for a gender item 8, so I've been advised, I've taken legal advice. That's why I'm not participating in the debate or vote. I would declare that I'm a graduate of Cambridge University. I think a number of other members may be graduates of Cambridge University. I will take a general declaration that other members who, if they were an answer, they'd be just a general declaration that they're approaching this afresh. I don't think anybody is a member of Gyrton or a graduate of Gyrton, but can I ask anybody to say that? Okay. Item 4, minutes of a previous meeting. Sorry. Councillor Wilson. I don't know whether this is relevant. I'm not a member of Gyrton, but my future daughter-in-law is, so I have had quite a lot of discussions in the past about Gyrton, but nothing to do with this planning application. I come to it with an open mind. Councillor Harvey. Thank you, Chair. I wasn't sure whether you were saying that even if just a graduate of the university one should, but I am. So, just a little bit. I'm treating this rather like we've treated the National Trust in the past, that it's a general, that there will be more than one person involved who was a graduate, but we're taking into that that this is not the question of the matter afresh. Anybody is a particularly graduate of Gyrton beyond that. I don't think these prefer to mention. If we go through the minutes of the last meeting held on the 10th of May, 2023, can I take them on a page at a time for comments? Page 5. Page 6. Page 7. Sir. If I can just be noted as feining for both sets of minutes because I wasn't at either meeting as I wasn't on committee. Okay. And the same for me, I believe. Well, not for the second, but for the 10th of May, I was not on the meeting, so I'll abstain, but I'll consider the 19th. Councillor Wilson. I would say I wasn't at the meeting, so I would abstain as well. Okay. Now the meeting of the 19th of May. Page 9. Page 10. Page 11. Okay. Now we come to item 5. Sorry. Can we formally approve the minutes of both those meetings? Can we do it by affirmation? Just to clarify, so regarding the meeting 10th of May, we are just approving the public pack of the minutes for now, and we will come to the restricting minute at the end of the meeting. Thank you. Okay. Item 5. The application reference number 22. 887 in outline for Goethean College and Huntington Road. Construction of student accommodation and other facilities. I should note that this is an application which lies in the green belt and is the concrete provisions of the development plan, and so if it is approved, it would need to be referred to the Secretary of State for and not only be decided if he doesn't wish to call it him. We have three public speakers. First of all, the presenting officer. Elizabeth Glover. Can you please take a series? Just for the sake of clarity, at page 55, 11.1 in the recommendation, it says the Secretary of State confirming the application. Oh no, it means if it, sorry. Okay. It's conditional. Sorry. Good morning and thank you, Chair. The application for you this morning has been made by Goethean College, Cambridge University, who seek outline planning approval for the construction of student residential accommodation together with ancillary meeting, office in the social space and auditorium, replacement buildings and grounds maintenance workshops, one new vehicular access and replacement car park, replacement relocated sports pitches, and all matters are reserved except for access. Just to briefly run through, there's a couple of updates. We received a late representation yesterday from the Cambridge and Peter Borough Integrated Care services. Just wanting to reiterate their original Section 106 obligation request of 175,680 pounds to mitigate the impact of people post-development on the Huntington Road GP practice. Members should note that as part of this committee report, we've asked for delegated approval to resolve the exact terms of that agreement post-resolution and that remains the case. Another update is couple of typographical errors in the committee report. The amended description should read that the proposal is just for one new access for vehicles as the scheme was amended during the determination period to remove the proposed access at Gertin Corner, but the description of development was not updated at the time of the consultation that is being sent out. The opposite of recommendation on the front page of the committee report is also updated to reflect what it says at paragraph 11.1 and that a recommendation is to approve subject to Section 106 conditions and informatives and confirmation from the Secretary of State that the application would not be called in for his consideration. The application site covers 23 hectares and is the only Cambridge College to be located within the South Cambridge District Council administrative area. The site lies outside of Gertin Village Development Framework, approximately two and a half miles northwest of Cambridge City Centre. The site is bound on all sides by roadways with the A14 to the north, Huntington Road to the southwest and Gertin Road to the east. The Cambridge building is itself a Grade 2 star listed and is set within matured landscape gardens. Many of the trees benefit from TPO protection, however the site is not located within the conservation area nor is it at risk of any flooding. Planning context to this application. This application is an almost identical application which was made by the University in 2015. It is a resubmission of a previously approved master plan. The scheme remains almost entirely unchanged with the exception of amendments secured through the determination period. As I just mentioned, the removal of the additional access point on to Gertin Corner and therefore would not result in any loss of any protected trees. Officers would note that prior to the 2016 determination, there had been extensive pre-applications which were undertaken with Historic England, the Council's conservation and urban design officers, design enabling panel and local stakeholders. The application was approved in October 2016 with a six-year timeframe for the submission of the first reserve matters due to the implications of the Covid pandemic. The first application for reserve matters was not able to be made and the Ex-Namp Commission lapsed in October of 2022. The college met with the council officers here in January 2021 for a formal pre-application discussion to discuss the most appropriate method of how best to manage the existing permission before it lapsed. Gertin College has an overall long-term plan to deliver wider public benefits and to deliver then the objective is to bring all the students back to the site on a residential basis. This would be achieved through consolidation of accommodations and teaching activities, some of which take place off site currently. The master plan would also deliver new teaching at social facilities, replacement maintenance workshops, offices, new auditorium, meeting rooms and outdoor sports facilities. The proposals, whilst not forming part of the detailed plans, also include improvements to the heritage assets and returning some of the existing student accommodation on site back to fellow sets and offices as they were originally laid out. So, as mentioned, the whole site lies within the Cambridge Green Belt. Some of the proposals, such as the sports pitches and the replacement maintenance buildings would constitute appropriate development within the Green Belt. However, the vast majority of the proposal would constitute inappropriate development in the Green Belt. The applicant is therefore required to demonstrate that very special circumstances exist, which outweigh the imprints behind the Green Belt. Key material considerations for this planning application have been the impact on the Green Belt, inappropriate development, BSc's impact on heritage, transport, immunity, biodiversity and sustainability. The application is supported by a number of parameter plans, the first of which I'll show you briefly is the demolition plan. Buildings in dark blue and light blue are proposed to be demolished. These buildings are primarily located here within this part of the site and currently comprise grounds, maintenance buildings, greenhouses and at the top of the site just here is a pair of semi-detached houses which are currently used for postgraduate student accommodation. These buildings do not form part of the listing description. The proposed plans, briefly, this is a landscape and land use plan. Plot A down in this south-west corner would relocate a sports court to be provided on the sports field. The car park would be provided slightly further south into the site from its current position, which is where the mouse is pointing now. Building plot parameter plans. Plot A is down here, this is Orchard Drive Field. This is a site area comprising 1.94 hectares with just 1.97 hectares proposed for built development with a maximum percentage of 45% footprint. I'll show you what that means in a moment. Plot B to the north, this wood is intended for further student accommodation and re-provision of the grounds maintenance buildings and covers approximately 1.42 hectares, for which only 40% would be covered by footprint of buildings. Plot C, this would be proposed only for the auditorium building with a maximum footprint of 25% of this area. This is an illustration as to how the buildings could fit within the parameter plans. With respect to height and built footprints, the design intention is to respond to the existing context and previous extensions. Whilst the design scale landscape and appearance and materials are all reserved for future discussion, should this application be approved, it is anticipated that the buildings would follow a similar sort of architectural language to the existing buildings on site. In addition to that, the maximum building heights parameter plan for Plot A would be typically up to three to four stories, the maximum building height of 18 metres with a small 10% allowance for slightly higher roof profiles for additions such as chimney stacks. To the north of the site, the maximum building height would be 15 metres in Plot B, which is typically about three stories, and for Plot C, the maximum building height would just be 12 metres. This drawing shows an illustrative layout of how the buildings could be laid out. As you can see, long lines of... long linear lines of development which reflect and assimilate to the previous extensions of the historic building. Should the application gain a benefit of planning approval again today, we would expect the applicant to come back to the council for pre-application discussions along with consultation with Historic England to ensure that the design would be appropriate, and the height scale of massing would be appropriate for the layout as well. The detailed element of this planning application, the application seeks approval for detailed access arrangements with improvements to existing accesses at the Merge Run and Grange Drive entrances and the creation of a new access point on Togirton Road. The slide just shows the two, the Grange Drive and the Orchard Drive entrances, being very minor in nature, and these have been agreed with local highways authority as well. This slide is the new access, as detailed in the drawing is called the Law and the Site Access, and will be used solely for delivery and servicing vehicles to the grounds, maintenance and kitchens only. The servicing movement already formed part of the existing day and traffic movements to the university, but they currently use the entrance at Merge Run and Orchard Drive. The junction has been designed in consultation with the local highways authority who raised an objection to this new access point and the mouth of the junctions wide enough to allow vehicles to enter and egress simultaneously. So I'll just briefly run through some of the key landscape visual impact views. The first drawings with the wire lines were prepared as part of the original planning application in 2016, and I'll follow it up with a more up-to-date photograph, but it won't have the new... It won't have an update on the wire line, so that's why there's two of each. So this is a view taken from Gertinroge at the bridge over the A14 looking south-west towards the site. What you can see in the foreground would be the ball stock fence at the edge of the field. This is just an indicative height. This is exactly how it would look. That would be reserved for design later, but you can see in the background that the site is heavily screened and the impact on the openness of the green belt would be very negligible. This is just an updated photograph with the vegetation taken at a slightly different time of the year, but now the A14 has been installed and the vegetation remains in place. View 4 would be a view of Block B. This is an anticipated section of student housing accommodation up to two to three stories. There would be some impact or visual, partly visual, visible from the location, but still, again, screened by existing vegetation and not really impacting on the openness of the open fields of the green belt. View 8 is taken from Huntington Road and would face onto Orchard Drive Field. This is for the development plot A. The Submitted Landscape Visual Impact Assessment identified this as having a moderate positive impact on the landscape and suggested that the built form would create an improved gateway to the city. This is that view now. As you can see, the trees have still in situ and are heavily screened, provide heavily screening. View 9 is taken from the very northern most point of the application site in Grange Field North Corner. You can see very, very localised glimpses of potential buildings and that view hasn't really diminished. In fact, the vegetation has continued to grow. View 10, this is from Huntington Road, taken about 90 metres south of the A14 bridge. The yellow dotted line is the Approved Parameter Plans for the North West Cambridge Development Site. These are plots that are still to come forward as part of that outline consent. However, our site is on the left-hand side of the screen. This would be plot A with a maximum, denoting a maximum height of 18 metres. That must be from the north. South of the A14 bridge. More on the site, but it's south of the A14. Again, that view now remains heavily screened by the existing vegetation. This one's slightly closer, but a similar sort of rounded opposite of Grange Field to the west is the proposed maximum parameters in terms of height. Again, with the vegetation, it's still heavily screened. View 17, this is front. This would be where the proposed new vehicular access is and the northern access has just described on the flooring. These are the detached properties that are supposed to be demolished. As you can see, this is still a lot of vegetation. I think that a couple of trees would be removed to facilitate the new access point, but in terms of the massing, that's the general. That's what they would look like. It's acknowledged that since the time of the previous planning approval, the council has adopted a new local plan and there has been an update to the national planning policy framework. However, the text relating to the very special circumstances test in the MPPF remains unchanged. The master plan, the 2016 master plan, was also considered as an appropriate development under the previous consent. The committee also resolved to approve that by application, confirming that very special circumstances exist, which would outweigh the harm to the green belt. In policy terms, very little has changed. The scheme has been designed in such a way that it retains the open playing fields to the outside of the campus. Development plots would be heavily screened by existing tree belts and vegetation, therefore preserving the visual openness of the green belt and the current relationship between the college, Gertin Village and Cambridge City. University colleges are a defining feature of Cambridge and sympathetic additions to a college could contribute towards preserving that unique character of Cambridge as a compact dynamic city with a historic centre. Proposals would also deliver extensive landscaping and biodiversity improvements, minimising the extent of harm to the setting of Cambridge. Post-development on plots B and C, which are the sites between the existing buildings and Gertin Village, contributes towards eroding the spatial gap between the college buildings and Gertin Village, and this would result in some harm to the green belt. The development of plot A would also be visible from glimpses of Huntington Road, as shown in those LVIA photographs just now. Whilst screened, they would result in a degree of encroachment into the countryside. However, overall the landscape officers of council were satisfied that the LVIA undertaken was appropriate and sufficient and officers conclude that the overall visual and spatial harm to the green belt would be moderate. So, the imprincipal harm to the green belt by reason of inappropriateness carries substantial weight in the overall planning balance. There is no precise definition of what constitutes a VSE in policy terms and the weight attributed by each consideration is a matter of judgment for the decision maker. A VSE does not need to be special, aware or uncommon. However, the applicant has put forward the following considerations to which they consider constitutes the very special circumstances. The first of this being the uniqueness of the applicant. As just mentioned, getting college is the only university of Cambridge College within the administrative boundaries of South Cambridge District Council. The site was deliberately located here upon its foundation and has been here for over 100 years before the area around the site was designated green belt. To meet the college's growth needs over the next 30 years is a requirement to expand. It's important to consider here as well that the college has gradually developed through a piecemeal design-led approach since the time of the college's inception. You want to read more about that in the design access statement. However, the site has developed over time to meet its own growth and needs associated with modern teaching methods with significant extensions being completed in 1900, 1931 and 1962, 2003 and 2013. Officers consider that, as there are no other colleges located within the green belt, this circumstance is unique to Cambridge. Officers consider that the site characteristics, together with its history and identity of the applicant is a material consideration in favour of supporting their BSc argument. With regards to lack of suitable alternative sites, the applicants have put forth that it would be impractical for the college to seek an alternative site. The buildings are purpose-built for the college and they are its heritage and identity. Therefore, seeking alternative site to cater for the extent of growth is unviable and unrealistic. Officers would note that presently, there are a number of students that are currently housed off-site. These students have to make a daily commute to the site for teaching, social activities, eating, dining facilities and sports facilities. As many of the student accommodations off-site do not have any teaching or social spaces available. Part of the master plan's aspirations is to bring the students back on to the campus accommodation for their teaching and social activities. Apologies! Whilst there is no specific with regards to the Cambridge University growth being vital to the national economy, I think that's somewhat undisputed. We don't have a specific local plan policy for Cambridge University, but the Cambridge local plan has extensive planning policies which seek to support growth and support the college to get the university to be consistently a world-class institution. Therefore, the growth of Gertin College is a material consideration. Officers consider that the role that the college plays is prominent and that this should be afforded substantial weight in the overall consideration of the very special circumstances. With regards to the collegiate community, I think that one of the distinctive characteristics of Cambridge University is its collegiate nature. Gertin College is currently somewhat diluted as it's not able to provide for all of its students on-site. As with most of the Cambridge Colleges, Gertin offers students the opportunity to live in college and there is an expectation from prospective students that this is a case when considering their choice of college and their college experience when choosing to study in Cambridge. The approval of the master plan would allow for students to directly benefit from practical and direct access to all facilities and services, but also the college provides on-site health and wellbeing and there's also a thriving community on the site, which is due to the fact that it is so far detached from many of the other colleges. Overall, officers consider that the collegiate community is a very special circumstances which should be awarded substantial weight in the overall consideration of the very special circumstances. Improvements to sustainability that the applicant is proposing all buildings to be fully electric, with no uses of renewable energy. There's a whole suite of sustainability measures that are improved and I think that in the balance we would afford that moderate weight in favour of very special circumstances. As mentioned at the beginning there would be some improvements to the heritage assets through the returning of some of the student accommodation to fellow sets and the original building layouts. Although it's not a formal part of this application so we would probably afford that slightly less weight and probably minimal weight but it should funding become available as part of if the application is approved then this could be a benefit to the scheme overall. Finally, the enhancement of public spaces. The site is already currently publicly accessible 364 days of the year. People can enjoy the site for dog walking. You can also use the sports facilities outside of term time or hire them at agreement outside of term time. However, in the overall planning balance I would afford this minimal weight in the overall balance. In response to the planning application I think key representations was that no objections were raised from getting parish council or historic England so I think historic England are satisfied that there would be no demonstrable harm or to the designated heritage assets. Other key consultees have not objected either. The Victorian society have also not raised an objection and one objection was received by Councillor Bygott to the original planning application as it was submitted back in 2022. Six objections were received as part of from third party representations. These are mostly from residents located living close to Gertin Road. The key objections or objections were received as part of the original planning application and related almost entirely to the proposed access at Gertin Corner. As a result of these objections the applicant did amend the scheme to remove that proposed access from Gertin Corner and also to retain those protected trees which would have been lost as a result of that new access point. Further consultation to further objections were received and the concerns primarily relate to the northern access proposal with concerns that it would increase noise like pollution privacy impacts and safety impacts to local residents. They also raised that they felt that expansion of the college was unnecessary and that servicing access should only be via Grange Road. So to sum up balance officers consider that very special services do exist to support the college and its expansion of the master plan and that the substantial weight should be given to the uniqueness of the application, the lack of realistic alternative sites, the vital national economic role of Cambridge University to meet the future university's growth needs to continue to contribute to meet objectives of the university's world class institution and to create that community collegiate community experience. In addition to that other benefits the wouldn't result in harm to the heritage assets the scheme would also secure biodiversity net gain up to 20% across the site as well as landscape improvements and improvements to sustainability and there's also a planning obligation towards hunting and road UP capacity improvements and the substantial weight should be given to the imprincipal harm to the Greenbelt. So just briefly this is an illustrative master plan that could look once fully developed this is the auditorium and plot B would sort of circle this area here with plot A on this direction and in summary the last consent is material consideration as local and national Greenbelt planning policies have not changed significantly since 2016 despite a local plan being adopted in 2018 but this is not a legal fallback position for the applicant. Overall officers consider the level of harm to the Greenbelt openness has been assessed as moderate and that officers consider very special circumstances do exist which outweigh the imprincipal harm to the Greenbelt and the officer recommendation is to approve the development subject to the completion of section 1, 6 agreement conditions and formatives and confirmation that the Secretary of State will not call in the application. Thank you very much. We now come to Councillor Bradley. Sorry Chair, I've pre-empted you. Can we I'd like to ask some questions for the application? I'm going to say we come to questions of the presenter. Do we have other questions? I have a number if you are there with me but also I just wanted to declare that I was part of the committee that approved the outline planning application on 13 January 2016. I'm trusting from Vanessa that I was so long ago that I can't remember which way I voted but it was approved by that committee. Can I just take advice on that? Yes this is a new application before you consider it on the merits of this application. Thank you. Okay so I have some questions of clarification if I may several if you'll bear with me. The first one is for those of us who are not lucky enough to have been to Cambridge University can you just explain whether the return to fellow sets means that they're currently individual ensuite rooms which I think it means that they're returning to a system where there are two rooms that are serviced by one bathroom between them. In other words a reduction in space or does this represent an increase in space requirement? It would be an increase in space it would take two current bedrooms and it would return it back to a single bedroom and a study room for one fellow. So that's their proposals are increasing the space requirement for students. For fellows yes. And also there would be the creation of fellow offices as well which would be as a result of further bedroom loss on site. Just to remind you that this is an outline application not the details. Yes I just wanted to understand what the terminology meant because it has an implication for us here. The second question which relates to that is if we currently here at Outline approve this quantum the maximum of 14,700 square metres that is relying on an illustrative master plan which assumes the building design proposed in the illustrative master plan and so what I wanted to ask was if we give approval for this current quantum are we thereby effectively requiring them to build in the format because for example I appreciate this is outline but for example there are three blocks on plot A and if we were to approve this quantum is it necessary to put them in that format rather than in another format which was mentioned on the site visit more of the linear design which the other buildings are proposed in or would it not be possible to accommodate the same amount of students in accommodation if subsequently at reserve matters a suggestion was made they didn't want those blocks Thank you three chair so the quantum that we are being asked to consider is a maximum amount of floor space that is the maximum amount that could potentially be delivered in the future the indicative layout is purely indicative there is no in fact actually English heritage of clearly stated in their design in their response to the planning application that they would be resistant to those three individual blocks on plot A for example would prefer to have a long linear type of development all of those matters are to be reserved for the detail reserve matters stage but as I said this is the maximum quantum of floor space that would be provided if it turned out that it was not feasible or supported to return the fellows to return the internal combination back to fellow sets then the buildings would be designed for the reconciliation of bringing students back onto site plus the net uplift for their master plan growth plan Three chair if I may come back on that I just didn't want us to be in the position where if we approve this up to a maximum space we know this from outlines that we are then thereby necessitating a rather dense form of development on the site which at reserve matters people might have other views about but it sounds can we be reassured that if it was wished for at reserve matters stage that those three blocks might be redistributed as linear perhaps if that's what people wanted at the time Yes that's the case we would expect the applicant to come in for pre-application discussions prior to the submission of any reserve matters in consultation with historic England to ensure that the detailed design of the buildings are appropriate Okay Thank you very much chair Councillor Williams Thank you very much Hi again It's not strange Okay thank you chair I've just got three issues hopefully they're fairly quick to deal with Just on the 2015-16 application I presume that was an application by the college I think it was mentioned earlier by the university so thank you that's good Just a clarification I think you've kind of almost dealt with this but just to clarify the last planning application is not a fallback from our perspective because it can't be implemented anymore but it is a material consideration That's correct okay thank you and then just finally in terms of the I appreciate this as an application but do we have any figures for the total percentage increase of the footprint that's that's envisaged here because I know we've got the details about the square kilometres but just in terms of the whole site how much of an increase of the footprint would that be? For you chair I'll just take you back to the parameter plans because at the moment it is purely indicative so I couldn't answer that question decisively however it's not very clear apologies it's very small however there was a development plot the blue line was the development plot the area designated web potentially buildings could go is the orange box and only up to 40% of that footprint could be built upon with the remainder to be left as open spaces and cloister courtyard type and this is sort of how it would look in terms of the building envelope potentially this is how the potentially a building could sit within that development envelope probably not sure if that answers your question but um Can I just go yeah thank you I appreciate that it's more than I was just thinking from that map I'm not sure it's quite a doubling of the footprint but it looks like it could be close but I appreciate it's outline so there's not much we can do so thank you for that Yeah it's not a small amount of development Thank you Councillor Sandford Thank you Thank you chair and thank you Elizabeth for your presentation Could you flip back to I think it was the third slide which showed the context of the site within the wider green belt I'm sort of struggling to understand where this fits versus the main green belt It might just be a little bit easier if I show you this on the planning policy map this all this green area is green belt as you can see the whole site and its entirety falls within it I think this plot up here actually is no longer green belt it's part of the niab site and the site this grey area was previously green belt is now part of the north west Cambridge site So in terms of on here these are open fields but the entire site would be considered to be green belt Thank you so the entire site is already part of the green belt they're just developing within that site Okay thank you Councillor Harvie Yes, thank you chair I've got two sewage arrangements I understand this is an outline permission but on page 45 I think the officers inform us that we've had a pre-planning report so this is section 7.123 and it goes over the page to page 46 and it says this is this development will be in the catchment of the Utterns Drow Water Recycling Centre which currently does not have the capacity to treat the flows from the development site however they do acknowledge that it is their responsibility to accept the foul water from the development and take the necessary steps to ensure that this is achieved So my concern there was that that seems to be at this stage very loose wording because to ensure that this is achieved but on what timescale because I would have thought in a current dire situation both nationally and locally we must have some assurance that the capacity is in existence before any occupation is allowed so I wonder did Angliaw Water give any timescale assurances in their pre-planning report Chair 3, I'll answer that question because I've had an opportunity to go back and have a look at the original Angliaw water response there is an emission in the recommendation in terms of a condition requiring a foul water scheme, Angliaw water recommended one which looks at the phasing of development and provision of foul water drainage works relating to each phase so my advice would be that we seek to find when it comes to the recommendation and additional condition to tackle that particular concern May I just come back on that? I think in general that kind of condition is referred to as a Grampian condition is that right? What are the legal ramifications around that? In general terms a Grampian condition will control and works that are outside of the applicant's land ownership this would not be a Grampian condition as such because actually there is an obligation for Angliaw water to make the necessary improvements this condition is around the sufficiency of the connection to the network to ensure that the network can take the additional capacity coming from the development Can I further come back? My understanding was that the point of a Grampian condition was to tie down the sequencing in other words the capacity has to be there before the extra effluent starts to flow if you like. So share my advice would be because there is a duty through the Water Industry Act for Angliaw water to make sufficient capacity of sight that a Grampian condition would not be the appropriate mechanism in this place it is simply a condition, I can read the condition that Angliaw water have recommended if that helps they have recommended a condition that says prior to the construction above Damproof course a scheme for onsite power water drainage works including connection point and discharge rate shall be submitted to and approved in writing by the local planning authority prior to the occupation of any phase the power water drainage works to that phase must have been carried out in complete accordance with the approved scheme the reason for that is to prevent total amenity problems arising from flooding that is not a Grampian condition that is a condition that applies specifically to works within the applicants control onsite, those improvements offsite are Angliaw water's responsibility to undertake. Thank you so effectively there could be no guarantee that the sewage treatment work is upgraded to cope with the extra capacity for there is a legal obligation placed in Angliaw water through the water industry to make sure that there is sufficient capacity Thank you I think a clarification in Germany this is a matter therefore which is covered by other legislation which is therefore not necessarily a planning issue Councillor Hanley Thank you chair I hope I haven't missed something we received on the table this morning an email from the NHS property services requesting that full NHS contribution is paid so I might have missed it but have you covered that and is it is that what we are planning to do Thank you chair this request was made part of their consultation received back in March it is certainly something we are considering and that's what it is set out in planning obligation section of my committee report we are currently in negotiations the applicant accepts that a contribution will be required but we are just negotiating the exact specifics of the heads of terms in terms of the financial value and the number of students it pertains to there is a discrepancy Can I just come back quickly local residents will be very alarmed if the NHS concerns are not fully addressed and I think we need to be very aware of that I'd like to be assured actually before we say yes that the NHS resources are properly met Thank you for your comment I think the understanding is that this will be a matter for discussion in the final determination of the section 106 So can we now move to the next bit Councillor Fadlow Thank you on that point I agree with Councillor Handley and I was going to ask that partly why I asked that question about fellow sets because it wasn't clear to me whether that meant a reduction in the number of students on site because this is outlying it's actually not entirely clear what is actually being planned the numbers, the quantum, the footprint by necessity it's outlying but I would like to be sure that if in fact the number of students see on the second page of David Park's letter he says the planning application is resulting in a net uplift on this specific site of 400 units which require mitigation to be provided at the local GP surgery now if that uplift of 400 units is indeed correct then we need to be sure that we're going to be able to require the developer to make a contribution that's going to mitigate that impact on the healthcare provision in this area so I'd like to be sure that we have clarification on that at some point thank you have you any comments on that so I have discussed this as part of the committee report as set out in the overarching intentions as a master plan is to bring a number of the existing students onto the site and this includes about 150 students that are currently being accommodated as well as Caught in Eddington and there's a table in the committee report paragraph 3.2 which sets out so this is an area of discrepancy between the applicant and the NHS as to how much additional growth there is going to be so in lieu of returning the rooms to fellow sets that would result in a net short reduction on site of existing by 70 rooms the demolition of 53 to 55 Gertan road would also be a net loss of 8 rooms on site returning rooms to fellow officers would also result in a net loss of 10 rooms that currently exist on site so that in total just for the onsite rooms being returned to fellow sets and demolished would result in an onsite net loss so I think from the university's perspective they don't consider there to be a full 400 net increase of additional rooms on site because some would be lost they also of the position that their existing college students that are being housed off site form part of their existing student numbers so 290 of the proposed 405 bedrooms are existing students on site and the college has an obligation to ensure that all students are registered with a local health practice so this is why there's still an element of discrepancy around the numbers with the NHS but the bit-rested assurances I'm trying to give you is that we recognise that a contribution will be made it's just about finding which meets the still one, two, two tests and would be reasonable in appropriate scale and kind to the impact of the proposed development on the local GP services Toby, have you had any comment? Yeah thank you, it's quite a complicated picture I think probably rather than an exchange of correspondence between the applicants and the NHS we probably need to convene at the meeting because the other aspects that we need to consider is whether and at what point capacity at Eddington might come online and whether students arising from this development would be eligible to access that facility as well but I mean you can be sure the health facility at Eddington so there are a number of factors that we need to consider as officers obviously these letters come in and very late in the day and that's why we're asking the delegating authority to settle the matter post committee You would also consider other facilities because the Huntington Road surgery is rather a long way away from there may well be other facilities even in Gertan I don't know what the position is in Gertan so I assume you'll be considering that as well That will be one of the factors that we'll be looking at chair yes Okay Now we come on to the other public speakers Thank you very much for the comments We have one speaker speaking for the objectors Can I call on Dr Jake Grimmett to speak Do you know the procedure you're given three minutes to all the other speakers public speakers are given three minutes to present your point so it's worthwhile trying to summarise carefully on material matters Thanks very much indeed I'll listen to you So I'm Jake Grimmett My family and I live on 56 Gertan Road and it is directly across the road from the small pedestrian entrance that leaves through the woods to Gertan College Our single objection is that this pedestrian entrance is being turned into a new service vehicle entrance It's intended use and I think I write here when I quote the application is for vehicles delivering to the grounds building maintenance yard and the kitchens This was shown on drawing 11 as the northern entrance The new entrance is clearly designed for large potentially articulated vehicles having a 6m wide carriageway and 6m wide exit radius Our rejections are due to the following We feel the entrance will increase the noise levels in our house Vehicles accelerating out of the entrance will produce noise as will lorries breaking to turn into the entrance The entrance will increase the pollution in our house Vehicles will stand idling at the junction and due to the poor visibility on the service vehicle and due to the poor visibility on this quite narrow cabin road we'll need to accelerate hard to join the 30m per hour traffic flow and I'll do this directly in front of our house Vehicles waiting at the new junction will shine their headlights directly into the three bedrooms sitting room and dining room at the front of our house disrupting our evenings and early mornings The entrance will also obey the privacy of our house as drivers and passengers waiting at the new junction will looking ahead to see straight into our house Gerddon Road is already difficult to cross during the rush hour This new entrance will be almost opposite Thornton Road which is the right one This will decrease safety further which I find worrying as a parent with a three year old child At the very least we will need to spend a lot longer waiting by the side of the road to cross This is all made worse by the traffic the entrance is intended for The application is clear that this will include deliveries to the kitchens laundry collections and other traffic such as ground maintenance, presumably tractors etc Much of this will be early in the morning increasing disruption We personally have no objection to college expanding but if they need a new access road could they not use the Grange Road exit that is located on the other side of the college This existing vehicle entrance leads on to Hunterton Road and would not impact a residential area It should give a much easier access to Central Cambridge, Day 14 and the M11 Thank you for your time Thank you very much Have you any questions from councillors to the... Thank you very much indeed Now we come to the agent for the developer James Anderson with John Gant Apparently it's online Thank you chair This is James Anderson speaking I'm the bursar of Gertan College I hope you can all hear me I'll be very brief and then John will respond particularly with regard to the northern site access Just two major points from me Clearly what we bring before you is virtually identical to the approval to the master plan which was previously approved Covid was the sole reason that we are bringing this back We had got a project team in place and starting work just before the pandemic struck and as a result of Covid we were unable to do the level of in-person meetings and discussions required for an enterprise of this scale and moreover we were also uncertain as to the financial impact of Covid on the college and so it would have been imprudent for us internally to proceed at that time so that is why we are coming back now with a plan which is very substantially unchanged We are already moving on consultations internally as to the specifics and we are hopeful of getting to an architects competition later this year so there is work in progress and we are very excited about getting this forward should we be granted permission to do so The last point from me is that sustainability is at the heart of this project and our wider thinking about our site We are aware of the unique nature of Gertan's site relative to other Cambridge colleges and in relation to the village where we try to be good neighbours to those around us the desire to be passive house stand has been mentioned we are very focused on biodiversity in our grounds and we want to build something which is beautiful which harmonises with the existing waterhouse buildings and which will stand the test of time and that is very much our intention and I want to reassure the council of that John, I will hand over to you OK, thank you very much I would like to respond to the issues raised by Dr Grimit concerning the new access on to Gertan Road and hopefully this all provides some reassurance the access intended to focus service vehicles to point closest to the kitchens and maintenance facilities thus the Gertan Road the Grains Road access wouldn't really work for us in that respect it wouldn't add any vehicle movements to Gertan Road we were actually diverting traffic from one access point the Mayor's Run car park access to the new proposed access the delivery vehicles using that access point will be a variety of transit size, panel vans small trucks, the largest vehicle being the bin lorry there's certainly no articulated lorries and we only have one tractor which isn't road registered so that won't be using the access we anticipate in terms of quantum of vehicle movements possibly five to ten visits to the kitchen per day from suppliers and contractors maintenance two to three deliveries a day plus whatever maintenance contractors we have on site possibly a maximum of 20 vehicles can you please finish shortly because it's Yes, I will do Deliverish a generic team eight o'clock in the morning and early afternoon in terms of why the access is offset and opposite the correspondence property this is based on good practice in terms of not having the junctions opposite each other and is agreed by highways during the initial consultations it's six metres wide to safely facilitate vehicles accessing and exiting the junction at the same time to avoid idling on the road and in terms of the sort of noise and visual disruption we don't consider that the amount of traffic using that junction will have any noise impact above the traffic already on the road and with regard to the light disruption most of it will be during the working hours Thank you very much indeed Have any questions from councillor councillor Wilson Thank you chair I just wanted to ask whether you envisage deliveries just during weekdays or weekends as well The deliveries are primarily during working hours when the kitchens and the maintenance departments are operational and unlikely to be anything at weekends councillor Harvey Yes, thank you chair So returning to the capacity to take extra sewage at the Arsynstrove water treatment plant we've heard I don't know whether the bursa is down but we're able to listen in earlier to the officers commentary on that Effectively there is an obligation on Angliaw water to make the required investment to the water treatment plant but I mean the situation we have locally and nationally really evidence is that that in the past has not always been the case and that's really the explanation for unlicensed overflows into the rivers which I'm sure the college would not want to be associated with perhaps you could confirm that but I mean would the college take upon itself an undertaking not to occupy those rooms until that sewage treatment plant has been upgraded to take the extra capacity Look, firstly to reassure the council that it is absolutely not our intention to take any steps which will further risk sewage overflow incidents it's hard to answer without further consultation with Angliaw water safe to say that we would expect to be working closely with them throughout the planning of the phasing of our development we would want to be equally reassured that the capacity was in place to deal with the dirty water and sewage generated by whatever we built so I mean I can reassure you that we take that obligation very seriously as residents of Gertan and if I might add by the way also reassurance that we would absolutely not wish to short change the NHS to any degree in terms of the additional capacity I heard that discussion it's simply a matter of ensuring there is clear agreement as to what that capacity is taken on a net basis okay any other questions thank you very much I'd like to just note now that councillor has arrived to introduce yourself good morning chair my doctor's had a bit of an accident so I've had to be at the school I represent the modern school I now propose to call upon the local local member councillor Stobard following that I will plan to have a short break a comfort break and then we'll come back for the debate councillor Stobard chair thank you could you confirm just how long I've got it will be three minutes councillor okay let me do my best so chair members of the committee and officers thank you for the presentation so far they're all quite relevant I'd just like to start by saying that the local members so that's councillor Garvin myself both support the application and we have a few reservations and comments to make which are corroborating some of the things that have been said so first of all this is a kind of once in a generation opportunity to improve if you will or make a Cambridge College fitter to its purpose so it's exciting and it's also good to hear from the college that this will be an exemplar development so from the point of view of energy and I hope also for water consumption it will demonstrate some of the best techniques and architectural standards I'd like to ask that those interactions of urban design and anything that can improve the or deliver an excellent architectural outcome would be most welcome now I'm just going to comment briefly on the the notion of community which in fact is fundamental to why the college is coming back together again so both Wolfson Court historically and Swell's Court presently have not worked so well for Gertan and Gertan has had that sense of community it's somewhat remote from the from the town and until quite recently students were travelling to town almost in convoy from the point of view of safety and to get colleagues and friends to their nine o'clock lectures in the middle of winter that kind of thing so community is important and that explains this coming together and I think that's a vital kind of dynamic which this development would continue to support just very briefly on the surgery yes the surgery is under pressure even go to residents find that the surgery access is difficult and so I would like the committee to explore that in more detail but noting that both Darwin Green and Edicton health centres are still without tenants so the issue is getting tenants for the health centres the population proposed new population here is going to be quite young and fit and so I won't impose some of the pressures that are seen elsewhere now I would like to dwell on something that's a particular concern in the first speaker highlighted it which is Gertin Road now what we're doing is introducing a new junction on to Gertin Road and we've got to remember and I as a member can comment on this that in fact although the 2016 proposal kind of is more or less being re-implemented the circumstances have changed so Edicton is coming on stream Darwin Green is creating a pull and so we could for example say well Gertin Road is going to be carrying a lot more if you will active training more if you will active travel traffic so what is the best route to get from Darwin Green 2 and 3 to West Cambridge where it's going to be going down Gertin Road and Gertin Road is actually being made more attractive by recently announced County Council Development in Improved Crossing just at the end of Gertin Road before the Huntington Road junction which will tend to drive up the demand for that route so we're putting in place two T-junctions and I would ask that the committee considers those T-junctions from the point of view of safety one is almost adjacent to Thornton Road and I would agree with the first speaker that that creates a somewhat toxic mix Thornton Road is a rat run onto Huntington Road from the north and so combine that with the traffic to the University Primary School from this part of Gertin and we begin to have quite a dangerous situation Can I ask you to I'm just going to wrap up with two comments chair forgive me so what we would like to see as local members I think the parish council would be in support is a cycle path and for those two junctions to be well designed according to LTN 120 point to note is this is likely to be 20 mile an hour limit the parish council has applied my very final point I'd like to be I'd like to think that Gertin students both undergraduate postgraduate be involved in the consultation about what constitutes this environment and in due course we'll be very interested to know how that consultation process goes so thank you everyone so I exceeded my time thank you for your indulgence okay have we got any questions for councillor Stobard no sorry I was just pointing out that since he was speaking for two local members I really wanted to hear what he had to say even if it took for five minutes I thought that was fair Williams I might give councillor Stobard the chance to go over some other points again I was just wondering if councillor Stobard if you could just clarify for me your comments about Gertin road so are you giving us to attach a condition to this application or not so yes the mechanism is probably not completely clear but we could see an end result which is I would say given that likely increase in active travel intensity is one day a cycle path cycle way if you will on that southern side of Gertin road it would take us all the way up to the roundabout for Welbrook Way and that would require at this stage for those junctions to be engineered appropriately so that they could take that cycle path and certainly at the junctions those special provisions listed in LTN 120 that would in a sense pause the drivers at the junction to look out for cyclists the visibility is not great either of the two locations and so that break be it a raised table or be it a graded kind of giveaway approach listed in the standard of those would be excellent but I would just ask the committee to be thinking about another interaction with county highways on the safety and particularly given that proximity with Thornton road and then the parish council's long term wish to have a cycle way all the way along from Gertin corner up to the Welbrook way roundabout is that clear James Bradden did you still wish to make point sorry I was just trying to find out whether we could allow Councillor Stobart a little more time but the way to answer that is to ask him a question so that's what I'm going to do and I just wanted to understand is it your view Councillor Stobart sorry from your understanding it seems to me there are no questions that I can see in the papers to the quantum of development at Gertin college there is one reference to the overbearing nature of the buildings on the properties on the other side of Gertin road but I just wondered if you had any if you had any understanding locally about whether people are concerned about that so Councillor Bradden the answer is yes there is concern and residents along Gertin road have expressed those concerns now more generally I think and just touching on this topic of the green belt yes I appreciate the issues around that but the idea that the Gertin college site would still be a buffer between the village and Eddington so it will still fulfil that kind of fundamental role of green belt now to your specific point Councillor Bradden yes it is an issue but I think the office pointed out in that series of photographs that the vegetation are at all trees and so I think as a committee you should reflect on do the tall trees actually cover those properties and would there be any change as a result of the buildings would there be more shadows that the trees themselves wouldn't create so I think it's quite a subtle point even for residents of Gertin road the greater issue is the interactions that will take place at those junctions in traffic terms but I think in view and in the feeling not so great but be sure that the trees will actually shroud the buildings appropriately on further writing if I may can I just ask there is an indication that the public members of the public are entitled to walk around the site or walk around the site I mean I just wondered do you have a feeling perhaps whether that's well used yes it is well used and the facilities are excellent you know the park is clearly marked the path is clearly marked and I was visiting a little while back in March Sunday afternoon a lot of people out they come and use the car park and they can go and walk around and just enjoy the environment Rambler's Association understanding their feedback were very enthusiastic and supportive thank you very much thank you very much indeed okay councillor Bippith do you still have another question so back on to the access and rat running etc you said the Thornton road is used as a rat run and I just wanted to kind of ascertain from you a bit more detail because you were trying to describe it in your your little speech to us erm do you think the new proposed access arrangements is an issue like currently you're talking about improvements that were hopefully on their way and also promoting other forms of transport outside of the car but do you think it's an issue in the current situation and do you also think that the rat running on Thornton road is an issue with the impact on this proposal you could say describe the background as being an increasing amount of active travel using Gertan road and on that kind of south western side of the road on the left hand side of the road going into the village a lot of people using the road cyclists using the road 30 miles an hour it's quite a tricky transition and that flow of active travel will increase the developments will just make it happen and the fact that West Cambridge is at one end and there are big communities developing Darwin Green, Orchard Park was already there but that will this lies right on the root even the access to Darwin Green too is through Welbrooke Way which I've just mentioned earlier and that would become a desire line I think for people going from Darwin Green towards Eddington and West Cambridge so it's if you will a kind of slow and steady growth now the rat running through the Thorntons is a long running issue there will be a 20 mile an hour limit we hope imposed on the whole Thornton area that might have a little effect but I think it's the complexity of the junction so it's somewhat high speed traffic turning into Thornton Road just opposite the proposed new junction so that suggests that that will be a complicated junction simply from motorised traffic and let's say between the hours of 8 and 9.30 it could be particularly complex but that could be a time of an accident particularly on a winter's morning so I think we have a current situation which the junction would exacerbate and a long running drift upwards in the number of active travel users who would be involved in passing through those junctions Thank you that's really clear now, thanks Thank you Any more questions? Okay now I will Oh sorry Sorry, Councillor Wilson Thank you chair I think you mentioned that in relation to the health centre that the population of the college is younger and fitter than the general population Now in my own ward I remember the patient participation group and we've been actually told that post Covid there's been greater demand on the practice from the younger people who may not normally have been asking for appointments since Covid then more people more worried about their health and also with a younger population it may not be physical but there may be other with people sort of being away from home for the first time so is it is there any evidence that the students at Gertan make less demand on the Huntington Road surgery than perhaps a more general population You may not be able to answer that but it's something to think about Councillor Wilson Thank you for the comment You're absolutely right and you're more knowledgeable I think post Covid and also with an acknowledged increase in mental illness in young people that would suggest that in fact we've possibly got a different kind of an issue there will be the sports injuries the influenza outbreaks and so on but actually is there the capacity there in our local system to deal with mental health issues as well as the as it were the day to day stuff so you raise an important point and I think we hope the committee to look more deeply at the statistics around GP practice usage and perhaps there's some examples of south Cambridge perhaps of the interaction of some of the other colleges with their local surgeries to get some idea of usage Thank you very much indeed I think that's all the questions I'm now proposed to have a 10 minute break so if we come back say at 11, 50, 52 so that it will start again thank you very much but who would like to speak first of all Sorry, come on Right, I feel broadly speaking that as we're told in the excellent officer report that the college was established long before the green belt was a twinkle in somebody's eye and so I feel that the argument that the officer has given us with regard to the green belt I think there whilst I'm anxious about the loss of that lovely green space it is entirely within the bounds of the college grounds and so I think on that balance the greater benefits that will will be experienced by the students of Gertin College as a community are really important in this because Gertin as we know is separated from the rest of Cambridge City and the student body there and so they need to be able to provide a really good college location and all the facilities on site and they need to be able to provide a really nurturing environment for the students in that locality and they're very fortunate to have a beautiful grounds which to my reading and to my understanding of what's being proposed certainly the wooded area they're really doing their very best to reduce the impact of this this long term master plan on the wooded area of the site I have to say I have some reservations about the not so much about I think it's sad that that lovely piece of grass that when we went on the site visit was very much being used by the students for volleyball and just sitting out in the sunshine but actually playing sports which is you tend to think of it as at the front of the college but it's actually at the back between the college and Gertin Road that was very much being used by the students to be so available to them once these accommodation blocks are built but I was pleased to see in the development for that that the appearance of those blocks appeared in at least one of the diagrams to mimic the pitched roof with gosh I can't think what you call them triangular bits that come out with windows not dormers the fenestration was broadly similar to what is present in the college buildings but I was slightly concerned by the blocks on the plot A and that's why I asked the question if we were going to give approval for this would that by definition require that accommodation to be provided in those blocks because there wouldn't be enough space to deliver them as linear blocks like the rest of the college but I appreciate that's a matter for later on but I just don't want us to approve an up to 14,700 square metres without some cognizance of whether that is going to force a future application to build at high density in order to accommodate that on site however I'm sort of letting that rest in my mind for a bit and I would have appreciated which as a question councillor Williams asked councillor Richard Williams asked which was what would this represent in terms of the current built footprint relative to the proposed new built footprint are we talking about if we say the current footprint is 100% are we talking about a development that will end up being twice as much as what's there now or will it be half as much again I suspect it's more like twice as much if not more so I would kind of quite like that element to be covered perhaps the other things I was concerned about was the health provision but I'm fairly satisfied with that to the planning officer to and I'll use these words advisedly, thrash out with the Camerature and Peterborough Integrated Care Service and also on the site visit we looked at the proposed the site, sorry the location of the proposed new northern access opposite Thornton Road and I can understand the residents concerns about that but I actually don't think that is a reason to I suspect the impact I suspect there will be a lot of impact when it's being built but I suspect that once that new entrances built it will not be as intrusive as the residents fear it might be and I don't think that is a reason to refuse this planning application so I haven't made my mind up yet and I'll hear what everybody else has to say but that's my view for the time being OK, thank you Councillor Mr Williams you're going to have comments on that Chair, we can probably come back on the existing and proposed floor space I'm just looking through the application documents see if I can find that information I'll let you know when it's been You also had a comment to make I meant to ask you beforehand about the high base element Yeah, I mean there were some general comments that we wanted to make regarding the suggested improvements to the kind of Gertrwm Road council member those improvements have been considered by the county council as part of their consultation responses The county council's advice was that there was it was not necessary to make any improvements to Gertrwm Road primarily because the main design line strong design line for students at the college is a long Huntington road where there is already very good cycle infrastructure provision together with the fact that the application is taking students that are external to the site of Eddington and bringing them on to sites that the applicants are actually internalising a lot of the trips that they may otherwise have made so that the county council in their modelling advice and expert advice to us have considered these points not considered that actually any improvements are necessary in terms of Gertrwm Road Thanks Councillor Richard Williams Thank you very much chair I just wanted to make a few points by way of general debate just to pick up on what I mentioned earlier the scale of the development does potentially well it does concern me it's not the applicants fault but I think this is a part of the problem of outlying applications in the green belt green belt is very sensitive obviously we have the balance that we have to undertake but without actually knowing specifically what's being proposed I think that makes that balance all the more difficult when we're weighing up significant harm versus other things so that's not the applicants fault and obviously it's not something that would sway me in this but I think it is a concern here but as I say the scale of development I think is an issue I am obviously very concerned about what the NHS has said and I think we've already dealt with that but I think certainly I and I think other committee members as well have a very strong steer that that is resolved in a way that the NHS providers are happy with because I would be very reluctant to give permission if it did have a negative impact on NHS services and I think what is said in the letter by Mr Park is actually quite convincing so I think those points do need to be addressed Gertin Road I think we just heard from the officer I was going to mention that but I think we just heard from the officer on that I am also concerned about Uton's Drove I know there's an obligation on Anglia Water to deal with what they get but you know this is adding further development on to somewhere you know Uton's Drove is what deals with North Stowe it deals with a lot of the the development that's going on so I think that is something that certainly needs to be addressed obviously the previous permission is as I mentioned before a material on a very relevant consideration so again I'll be interested to hear what other members say as things stand I think I would lean towards approval but I'll be interested in what other members say Thank you I won't say much because actually it's just been covered really but I'm leaning towards approval because I think on balance this is a good application and I know the green belt is a very important aspect to take into this but there would be I think just this is also about quality of life isn't it when you're in planning or trying to make things better for the people in that area and also for those students I do think that would reduce the number of potential car journeys for the students that own a car which sounds strange but something to do by making sure that they live and they work basically on site in the collegiate way which is Cambridge University isn't it one of its selling points and I just I've taken on board at the points about the NHS so yes very strong steer please and also the problem that sometimes there is the money but you can't get the doctors which is not something we can really deal with unfortunately and yeah the traffic issues the the safety the access that I do think that has been covered so I am very much leaning towards approval Councillor Handley thank you chair someone who worked on Huntington Road for over 30 years I was wondering why Gertran Road wasn't more cycle friendly than it is I mean even now it's anyway that's just a by the way you know we've got it you know the city of cycles always has been and it's going to just get you know active travel is just going to increase I hope the county council listen I think we've already had quite a bit actually through the following with speaker questions yeah NHS we just got to bear in mind that there will be backfill you know if people move from Eddington to this new campus people will come in who will need NHS care so we mustn't forget that but I do take the point that there is an Eddington clinic that could come along as that has improved so yeah just like everyone else you know I hope that the NHS discussions between NHS and the applicant are fruitful and you know we get a good deal and that's reassuring to the people of Gertran on the service access I understand why residents will be concerned I'm willing to accept the reassurance that you know movements will be reasonable and reasonable times so my feeling is that I'm happy to I will be, I am, unless I hear something devastating in the next five minutes I will be happy to accept the officer recommendations Councillor Sanford Thank you chair I was wondering why we went down a rabbit hole with regard to highways but I think Toby Williams has put my mind at rest that as this application is a self-contained site and most of the customers will be on the site it's not particularly relevant I do recognise the local residents concern about the use of the proposed new access I'm just wondering if we could condition that the access is only used between say nine and four outside rush hours to minimise the charges of accidents defer to officers on that other one is plus one regarding the NHS as Councillor Rippeth said we can provide all the money in the world to create new buildings but if there aren't the doctors nurses to staff the facility it could be a blocker but at this point I'm minded to approve the application Councillor Harvey Thank you chair I also sort of tend towards approving because I think it's a very big site having been on the site visit so I think it can accommodate the proposed development and I I do accept that in order to have a fulfilling collegiate life we really need to have particularly for this college we really need to have all the students on the same site that would be the idea and I know that doesn't apply always but the nearer you can get to that I think so I'm tended to approve I'm still concerned about this sewage issue and the reason for that is it hasn't often happened in the past that we've had a consultation response from Anglin Water where they've said so explicitly that there isn't the capacity to take the sewage outflow and I wouldn't want to be part of continuing the situation which is obviously the one that has prevailed in the past where water companies are very vague they don't put the resources into actually monitoring or evaluating what their flow to full treatment capacities are and that's part of a sort of institutional sweep it under the carpet don't bother to invest so I think having this until the officer advice on if a Grampian condition isn't possible and then having this into what the Bursa said and that college intention to work with Anglin Water to ensure that capacity is available before there's any occupation I wonder is it possible for us to have at least some kind of advisory in here which embodies the intention to work very closely with Anglin Water to achieve that end because otherwise I think we're just kind of almost complicit in perpetuating a a failed system in which Anglin Water are obliged to waive these things through but the other side of that coin should be that they are building ahead of need which they plainly have not been we're not saying that's particularly to Anglin Water but the industry as a whole has not been investing ahead of need and I would like to see something written down here that expresses that kind of commitment and intention to work with Anglin Water to make sure that that is put in place I mean I just looked at our planning website there's no I can't see any planning commissions for the upgrade of that treatment plant and that's quite a major undertaking in its own right I would have thought so I know this is only a an outline permission and it has a lifetime of six years but you know as soon as that results in earth being dug I would think you know already the same thing has to be happening at the treatment plant otherwise it won't be online in time to cope with the new effluent from this development so can we have something written down to sort of express that commitment or I'm not commitment maybe but intention can you camera can you give us that I have to think that the perfectly reasonable to place in formative form the forgive me what the reason I was going to say is surely we are entitled to just request a condition for a design for foul water because the current condition 12 is only to do with surface water can we not just require a condition for a design for foul water treatment can you advise on that the question I don't think we could include a requirement to provide for foul water treatment on site could we really because there is an obligation to accept chair if I can just help in this space so I advised during the early debate that as part of the recommendation that officers would be pending an additional foul water condition as part of the recommendation I read out the condition that angry water recommended and that controls the links in terms of the foul water links to the network on site it wouldn't be reasonable to append a condition to control off site works because the applicant is not in control of those works and angry water have the legal responsibility to ensure that there is sufficient capacity but of course there is also if members are willing I see no issue at all with an informative regarding the angry water advice more generally around capacity encouraging a commitment to work with angry water by their applicants Are we saying yes there will be a condition for foul water added to the conditions but in addition there will be an informative asking for working together towards what some reassurance that works will be done on this road to make sure there is capacity Chair that is exactly what I have just said Thank you very much Okay, Councillor Wilson Thank you Chair I have come after a long line of people who have made similar comments to what I was going to make on the green belt I wasn't able to attend the site visit but I do know the site very well and it is very green and verdant and I trust that those larger, more mature trees are all going to be retained to keep that greenery I have two concerns, one is about the health care provision and we have had assurances that these will take place discussions at the point of the reserved matter source section 106 and I hope that does answer the concerns of the integrated care board My other concern is the points raised by the residents about the new access road and I am very conscious that if we, there are some things that if we don't include them at the outline permission stage we have then lost the opportunity to do it at the reserved matter stage and I too would ask that there is condition on the times of early morning and evening delivery times for deliveries to the kitchens or wherever so that some of the fears of the resident can be laid Mr Williams is that a feasible a feasible condition? Yes chair indeed I see no reason why an additional condition could not be placed on the outline permission to control delivery hours I would ask that the precise hours themselves are left for officers to negotiate to ensure that they are reasonable Councillor Handley Thank you, I think we've all spoken now I think we've all got similar reservations but I think we've had a good thrash unless someone's got something completely fresh to say I would propose that we move to a vote Do we any? Councillor Brennan I wouldn't support a restriction on delivery hours because I think if you think about it it's catering and it's laundry and these are classically done early in the morning and usually early in the day it wouldn't be late in the evening and I don't think it would be reasonable to restrict that so others may wish for that but I wouldn't I'd like to second Councillor Handley's motion but if I may speak briefly to it before I do so I'm conscious of the fact that there was a previous application which was still in place at the time this application was submitted I think Councillor Brennan was the only one of us who was involved in the approval of that I note that some of the tree removal that was proposed at that stage has now been rescinded there will be no tree removal and of course those trees have grown since it's a very well protected, very green site and it's quite clear from what Mr Anderson said that the trustees the board are very well aware of that and very determined to protect the green nature of that site it is of course just in outline some of the matters we've discussed have been rather more appropriate for the I would suggest for the stages that will follow I haven't heard anyone speak other than in broad support of this some concerns about conditions which I think have been taken on board by officers and I would suggest in terms that can be handled I agree with what Councillor Brennan said about being careful not to restrict the hours of operation too much for service functions I think that would be unreasonable I think the key question which maybe we haven't sufficiently addressed is that this is inappropriate development in the green belt and the question is have those very special circumstances which are outlined very clearly by the case officer do they outweigh the potential harm and without going into the detail I'm satisfied in the light of the discussion we've had, the briefings we've received that they do I think the other matters transport the access hours the detailed negotiations with the NHS on section 106 all of those can be dealt with at a later stage as I say I've heard nobody oppose this in principle but I'm very pleased that we've been taken on board by the comments of the local member and I notice that the parish council and the local members were in support of this I do note that the previous local member had objected but I think Councillor Bygott's objections have been dealt with in the briefings that we've had they've been taken on board so in the light of that I'm very keen that we proceed to a vote we normally look at reasons for refusal but I think I don't think there's needs in the situation so can we proceed to a vote sorry chair can we have a second and we need a seconder to show you have we formally I note how to move to a vote I haven't heard the proposed vote or the seconded I seconded councillor councillor Henry councillor Henry asked to vote he didn't say how he was going to vote there was no proposal yes I propose we go I propose we go to a vote and the vote should be that we accept the officers recommendations that is the motion that I was seconding can we do this by affirmation can we can I get some clarity on exactly what we're voting on here because it sounds like we are amending conditions and informatives there are conditions that we've required for addition so one of them was relating to the negotiation between the officers and the Cymru on Peterborough integrated health service with regard to health care provision that was delegated to the officers the second was Toby Williams confirmed that there would be an additional condition of foul water and we've also agreed that there will be an additional informative excuse me councillor ordinarily I know to do this as the lead officer so I'm prepared to do that so the recommendation is set out on page 54 of the officer report that is to approve the application those of the planning conditions are set out below with minor amendments to the conditions as drafted subject to the satisfactory completion of the section 106 agreement which includes the heads of terms are set out with minor amendments to those heads are set out delegated to officers the precise content of the contribution towards the NHS to be delegated to officers subject to the Secretary of State confirming the application did not be called in for his consideration the amendment of condition 2 which is set out on the update report which includes the replacement of 80 years with 9 years an additional foul water condition an additional hours of use of the new access condition from Gerton road so if I may it seems like we still have some uncertainty around the hours condition doesn't seem to me like the committee is in full agreement no I think yes I'll complete chair I mean you may want to take a separate vote on that condition and then an informative regarding the Anglian water advice underneath the applicants to work with Anglian water thank you chair can I yeah thank you cancel a bit please I wondered if that were covered by Toby Williams he did say that you would decide it would be delegated that you decide what reasonable hours are so I'm assuming you could decide that was the saying unless obviously the committee really decides they want to vote on that can I have some indication whether in the officer report there is an indication given by the case officer of when the hours in which deliveries would likely be received I think and I can't remember where I saw it but probably if I'm searching on I remember thinking that the hours that were proposed seemed reasonable to me and I think it was eight until four or something like that but if not I wouldn't suggest any amendment to that the current situation suggested was that it would be delegated is there any member here who wouldn't disagree with that or abstain or abstain or abstain on the base of that I would abstain a time limit on the condition this is a vote on the condition yes on the condition the council Toby can we just find in the papers whether the times that councillor Bradman was referring to before we made this decision I think we need to determine whether whether we have a condition restricting the defining hours or whether we delegate it to the officers there seems to be some uncertainty about this so I would like some advice from members on that we need a proposal I think we're going to have a vote on it councillor William Wilson I'm happy for this to be delegated to officers as long as there is something that is reasonable that meets the concerns of the resident who spoke councillor William I would be happy to second that proposal that we delegate to we have a condition delegating this to officers okay if you're pressing green you're voting that the matter will be delegated to officers if you're voting otherwise if you're voting against you're voting that it will be defined in condition okay so the matter is delegated to officers now can we have an outstanding approval to put the matter to the vote can we have a vote on the approval now to if you're voting green you're approving the recommendation which is that the the matter be approved with the conditions of that line by the officers and if you're voting against you're voting to refuse the application now we're not we've got nine okay the application is approved by nine votes to a one inch inch now we move on to the next application which is item 6 24 West Creek Converton can can the can the officer Charlie Spencer please speak on this application welcome I'll just share my screen can you just confirm you can hear me okay and can you can see my screen yes we can see thank you so this is an application at 24 West Street in Converton for replacement of an existing outbuilding with a three bay single story garage with mono pitched low profile roof it's in front of committee as the applicant is the member of staff and it was deferred from the main committee to allow time for a member site visit just to clarify the update which was also added to an amendment sheet and that is the rewording of reason for refusal number two to remove reference to number sorry number 18 West Street so the refusal reason only refers to the detrimental impact on number 14 West Street so the application relates to a two-story detached dwelling house located to the north of West Street it's set back from the road by over 17 meters of hard standing and soft landscaping the application site lies within the Converton development framework and conservation area and it is adjacent to grade two listed buildings at numbers 14 and 18 West Street so the proposals involve the demolition of an existing outbuilding and the erection of a three bay single story garage the proposed garage will be located to the front of the dwelling approximately 1.5 metres from the boundaries with numbers 14 and 18 West Street and approximately 3.2 metres from the front boundary the site plan does show a new gate to the front however this does not form part of the application as it's considered to be permitted development so the proposed plans here the garage would have a width of 10 metres and a depth of 6 metres be characterised by a mono pitched roof with a maximum of 3 metres at the front and the height of the garage at the back would be 2.5 metres just to clarify the site history so in 2021 the planning committee granted a certificate of lawfulness for concrete base for the siting of a caravan a 2 metre high gates and boundary fence an installation of gravel parking area members are advised that this certificate of lawful development only confirms that a concrete base can be constructed and not the caravan itself the siting of a caravan on the land is not operational development and therefore does not require planning permission elevations as shown here were only submitted to demonstrate that it did fall under the definition of a caravan as a caravan is movable this is materially different to the erection of a building and as such the placing of a caravan on the land is not considered to provide a credible fallback position which carries material weight when assessing the proposal for a building so the material considerations are the design layer and scale the impact on heritage assets and residential amenity the parish have objected and two neighbourhood representations in objection have been received officers would also like to highlight that the example of a similar garage at number 17 West Street used by the applicant in the previous committee does not have planning permission and this is now with our compliance team officers recommend fusel as per the refusal reasons laid out within the report subject to the amendments as per the amendment sheets and as mentioned within this presentation thank you chair thank you now have we any questions so thank you miss Spencer I wanted to understand my understanding is that the a window in 18 West Street that would be obscured is being excluded because it's a downstairs toilet and so it doesn't you wouldn't normally expect that to have an outlook anyway but it still accepts light from the outside world and I just wanted to question whether that's so for my from my point of view I just wanted to understand where the loss of light to that window even though it's not an outlook in one would weigh in the balance as it's a bathroom and so we do not consider it to be a habitable room very little weight can be given to the impact on light to that window so to clarify we don't put any weight on the loss of light to a non habitable room no Councillor Hanley I was on the site visit and it did strike me that with only 1.5 meters between someone's window and the wall did so have you got a question for the oh I'm sorry no I beg your pardon I'm ahead of myself any further questions now the next speaker is the objective Dr Becker I would remind you that we have 3 minutes we're trying to keep to the 3 minutes for each speaker and I'll ask you to if you reach 3 minutes I will ask you to wrap up very rapidly please okay well thank you for your consideration thank you for your time I tried to keep it brief I'll stick to 3 points some general comments our objection and thirdly maybe a path we could move forward that's okay for everyone so first term general comment as you've seen there was a previous no there was a previous application where even larger outbuilding was proposed that received some concerns and that application was withdrawn and we first want to acknowledge and thank our neighbors for with this new application making adjustments and proposing a smaller outbuilding which is certainly better than the original proposal secondly we also want to acknowledge and I think that we've been contacted prior to this application being submitted again so our neighbors were with us and we had a chance to discuss it and in particular it allowed us to voice our unfortunately continued reason for objection at that point and that is the primarily the loss of light in this downstairs room however I do want to respectfully reject the claim made in the previous meeting that we had some more installed the desk in response to this application I don't know maybe this was a confusion it's not the case at the time of the application the room was used as a bedroom for our youngest daughter it presently is used as an occasional bedroom for us and guests generally I would say that the room has served and will continue to serve varying purposes depending on our family's needs which brings me to our main concern we are not concerned so much about the particular outlook for those members who will have been there on Monday you will have seen that there is a big caravan and a car outside already which doesn't make for a particularly appealing outlook but while not appealing it does allow for a good amount of light to flood into the room particularly in the afternoon and with a proposed placement of the garage right in front of the window we fear that we will permanently lose any natural light in that room and therefore we feel that this would have a generally detrimental impact on the character of our house and the usage options for this room in particular thirdly this is our only point of objection and we don't want to disagree with the application in principle so while we do ask the members to reject the application as it stands we feel that there is actually a fairly small change that could be made to it that would from our perspective at least be agreeable and that would be to move the proposed building slightly inwards slightly further away from the road and swapping its location with where currently we have an oil tank so I don't want to speak from my neighbour obviously but we brought this up and it seemed like this would at least be something worth entertaining so I'd be grateful if you could consider that option so that's all from my end thank you Have any questions from councillors for Dr Becker councillor Vipers Sorry if I've missed this but the bedroom you referred to so how far away is that because I understand that obviously the downstairs toilet is one and a half metres and we can't put much weight on that but you said about the spare bedroom Apologies if I've missed it I think I think you're lucky we're talking about the bedroom number 14 isn't it bedroom number 18 is the one which has been redrawed which is the toilet this is the separate room Can you clarify that please Dr Becker My comments are made under the assumption that the distance of one and a half metres applies generally in particular to our downstairs window so under that assumption we fear that we will basically lose all natural light in this downstairs room Thank you Have we any other questions Thank you Dr Becker Now I would ask the applicant Mr Fung to present for 10 minutes Thank you The objections to this having changed I've had to water my presentation somewhat It appears now that the development is acceptable in the conservation area Certainly the conservation officer has said the design of the building is acceptable as has the parish council So it boils down to the fact that it's in front of this ground floor window of number 14 and I think those that are visited originally in my submission I asserted that it was a hallway with a staircase and hopefully you've seen that there was some talk of it being a study and certainly when my wife went round and visited the neighbours with our plans in February there was no desk in this hallway The gentleman before me now asserts that it's used as an occasional bedroom I would submit that it's not a habitable room and then it shouldn't be given weight The position of the proposal is sufficient to allow Dr Becker to carry out maintenance to his house when necessary and the outlook for him he mentions light the planning officer uses the term outlook but the outlook from the window is totally within the control of number 24 at the moment it's used to store a caravan and some hardcore dustbins etc so it's not great the garage fits in it's not going to be seen from the public view the road because of the screening I can't really say a great deal more really it boils down to whether this is a habitable room or not and I would assert that the size of it is such that certainly in modern planning it wouldn't fit in with being a bedroom with the size Thank you, have we any questions? I have a question The two reasons actually presented by the officer to consider refusal they included once was the sense of enclosure but the second one was the fact that while the garage is acceptable it doesn't represent an improvement in the conservation area and normally development is only an improvement in the conservation area do you consider this provides an improvement? I do it replaces an existing decrepit wooden outbuilding and the caravan which is fairly old Councillor Harvey Yes, thank you chair I wonder if I could ask the applicant you mentioned screening did you mean the existing headroom there? Yes, there is a 3.2 metre high U hedge at the front of the plot which screens the garden from the street view When if it would be helpful I have got a couple of photographs that I can show you on the street view Yes, well it would be necessary because I was there on the site visit but I suppose because it did come up when we looked at this briefly last month with it a couple of weeks ago but it did seem to me that whilst you could imagine that that did provide screening if you looked on a kind of elevation view if you like from the street that there's quite a big entrance to the site anyway, so there's no additional screening apart from the head is what I was really asking for No, there is there will be gains which are shown on the proposal Thank you Thank you I think there were some issues that we perhaps could get further advice from the planning officer regarding habitable room This is a the building that we are concerned about which the room take is is a very old building and so I was wondering whether we could get some clarification upon the planning view regarding habitable room, sorry Hi, so on my original report it was referred to as a study as that was what was on previous plans for number 14 and although unfortunately I couldn't make their site visit on Monday I understand from Rebecca Smith that there is a bed in there and it is used as a bedroom we would consider a bedroom to be a habitable room and so it should be given to that Thank you Thank you Now moving into the debate Councillor Brandon This is a question of clarification to an officer if I may So I just wanted to ask Miss Spencer somebody mentioned that there was an update which said that the heritage aspect and the conservation aspect reservations had been withdrawn and yet my concern was does the conservation officer or the heritage officer still feel the proximity of this building to a grade 2 listed building is that still considered to be problematic in terms of its heritage asset and the second thing was this is not for the officer but I will say it now because we've just been mentioning it what I noted was that all the rooms in number 14 West Street are small it is an old house and I have in my own aunt's house seen a room like that being used as a bedroom so I think it's not unreasonable that the family use the room in the way that's most convenient for them at the time and they have children but if we could have clarification on the heritage and conservation aspects please that concern still lies that issue has not been withdrawn just to clarify the conservation officer has no issue with the design of the garage in terms of being in the conservation area the issue lies with its positioning directly in front of the listed building which in turn has a detrimental impact on the conservation area I hope that makes sense I hope that makes sense can I return to that ask the question whether you the requirement to improve the conservation area rather than detrimental is still a relevant issue or whether just being acceptable is sufficient in terms of visual in terms of impact can I come back to you my observation was that the design of the building was deemed to be reasonable but the proximity of that building to the existing heritage asset still remained a problem sorry are we is this a comment is this a comment or is this a question mine was still a question coming back because it was raised in the various points initially there was a comment that conservation area development had to improve the situation not just be acceptable in design terms is that still an issue that you consider relevant and material consideration yeah we still consider that refusal reason to stand okay for debate have we got who wishes to open the debate we are into the debate we do like to do you want to comment yes I'm sorry sorry I jumped the gun it struck me that there was a there was going to be a wall only 1.5 metre away from a room whether it's a habitable room or not my inclination is to think that it is up to the owner of the house whether it's a habitable room or not and it was demonstrated when we visited that you know there was a mattress there made up bed which you know it may not be used it may only be used occasionally but it's a habitable room in my view so we have to put I think that the officer is correct in my opinion to put weight on that the sense of enclosure you know I could imagine what it was going to be like looking out of that window with a wall just 1.5 metres away extending between two or three two and three metres in my opinion it's unacceptable development that's my view have you got any other concerns thank you chair the thank you I feel that the the current as the objector has said the occupant of number 14 and I'm sorry I've forgotten his name but we met him yesterday the room that's in question is being used and I quite agree with Councillor Handley that they use a room and with a family it's not unreasonable to use a small room for a small child or indeed an older child so my feeling is that is a habitable room it would be awful to have a wall 1.5 metres away and as he pointed out the current usage allows light through between the items they allow light to the room it's between a caravan and another item present that room is benefiting from light which would be blocked if this will build I also am concerned which is why I asked about the heritage issue because I think it's one of the things we are concerned about is not only the outlook to a historic building but the outlook from a historic building and it comes within the cartilage it's outside the cartilage but it's the setting of the grade 2 listed buildings and I think it would be unfortunate if this was allowed so I have to say I'm minded to refuse on those grounds the impact on the heritage asset of loss of light to the habitable room and the proximity of 1.5 metres No, councillor Wilson Thank you The neighbourhood's objecting suggested that the impact on the room in his house could be mitigated by moving the proposed construction a short way away but would that I need to ask the planning officer would that mitigate also the impact on the heritage asset or would that still stand? Mrs Spencer, answer Hi, it would be difficult to confirm at this stage how far it would be moved away from the window cos it's also the list of buildings is number 14 and number 18 and that would have to be it would have to go to conservation to get their input on that Sorry chair, if I may Members please keep in mind you are considering the application before you today and no other amendments to it I was going to ask the point that to try to clarify that one couldn't include within the application any movement or change and I think that's clear so okay, and re-emphasise that considering what is in front of us. Any other comments? Councillor Fane Thank you chair The recommendation is to refuse on two grounds as set out on page 75 The first, as you have yourself mentioned chair relates to the effect on the conservation area and the planning officers made clear that that objection still stands the second relates to the proposed garage by reason of its scale and proximity to the neighbouring properties would have a detrimental impact on the outlook of the ground floor window number 14, we have established that is currently a habitable room and is used as an occasional bedroom it is quite clear to me and I think Councillor Hanley made this point from our visit what you have there is a window unfortunately the dimensions are not marked on the plans submitted but a height of just under 1.8m 1.5m away from that window there would be a wall of a garage again the height is not mentioned but is slightly below 3m in height it is quite clear to me that the objection at paragraph 2 is sustained and therefore we should refuse this application as recommended Does anybody have any other additional matters that they would consider if you were to refuse so we can stick into this history of issues or other additional issues that you feel I don't see that I thought that was the case Okay Have we got any Have we got Sorry I'll second Councillor Ffain's proposal to refuse That's fine, okay I think it better if we have an electronic vote Can I just Sorry chair, can I just remind you that we need to make it clear what we're voting for here that we are voting if we vote to approve If you're voting in favour you're voting to refuse the application and I've been confused on this before If you're voting against you're voting to approve it so it's the previous opposite way round from the previous one So, okay Sorry, thank you The application is therefore refused It's now one o'clock and I think we will break for half an hour for lunch and we'll be back here at 1.30 Thanks very much You're welcome Thanks very much Welcome back We're now going to consider application 2205 065 from Sorry, no, I can't We're now going to consider application 2205 065 for Ellsworth Avenue at the Avenue Business Park So it's creation of a mixfuse hub with additional parking Plan presenting officers Tom Gray Could you read us through the application please Can you confirm everyone from hearing, okay So the application is the creation of a mixfuse hub and additional parking The current units are there's nine office units on the site and it's for the change of use of those office units In terms of updates there was an amendment sheet this afternoon and I refer members to that for slight changes to the report in addition to some more representations with third parties So the application is here Avenue Business Park, I'll show you a google image This is the Avenue Business Park which is currently office units In terms of the site constraints the application is within the conservation area so noted by this pink line There's some tree protection or the statutory protection the trees along the access and the development framework is located nearby to the north and to the east of the application site so noted by this black the dash line So the current use is class EG so office use it also has permission to change the use within that class EG to research and development and industrial processes However it doesn't have it needs planning consent to change to retail uses So the proposal is to change the use of these units to a mix used food hub so it includes retail a sale of food and drink in the form of a cafe industrial processes in terms of the food goods that are on site and non institutional education in terms of cookery classes and other classes that the occupiers are proposing to provide The proposal comprises a number of different businesses including a butcher's baker's pasta maker and so on The proposal also aims to source goods initially from the local area as much as possible whilst in the long term because we've produced from surrounding farmland The applicant is quite substantial agriculture holding adjacent to the site and the intention is to source goods from the pasture land to the east of the site as well as the arable land to the west and on that site it was members were shown where that would be So the proposed units would as I say comprise nine units two two of the units that are not part of the proposal one and unit five would remain as office use the other units are subject to this application So as you can see from this plan the proposal is to change these uses to be specified and so south additional parking is proposed to be provided So in terms of the parking arrangement there is a number quite an example area of hard standing within the site already So that would provide 20 spaces of parking for both employees and visitors and an additional 24 parking spaces proposed to the south of units nine and eight to provide additional parking for customers So in terms of the parking provision the transport assessment does compare that provision to other similar land uses such as the Gogongog farm and also the Benziad which is in these camps So in terms of the provision for parking is and taking into account the floor space of this proposal is and consider it the appropriate number of spaces It also complies with TI3 in terms of the retail in terms of the indicative provision for retail users So the parking would be permeable it would be made up of a grass creek grid system and to minimise the visual impact on the surroundings as opposed to barn heading and trees along the western boundary So when people approach from the west south west of the site on Broccoli Road the visual impact is minimised In terms of the other improvements that are proposed so highways have requested a footpath to be extended along Broccoli Road into the village This would provide a better sustainable access for residents to the food park because at the moment it is just a grass verge So here is the application site on that snowy January morning So on the left hand side this is the area that I am looking from the parking area proposed parking area towards units 8 and 9 and then on the east the right hand side again looking towards the other units in the site and you can see in the distance the area of hard standing So in terms of the planning balance in terms of it is a carefully balanced application there will inevitably be an increase in car movements as a result of more people travelling to the site So it is estimated that there will be whilst there will be a reduction of movements at peak times compared to the office use there would be an increase in daily traffic movements There is no objection from the local highways authority on this and also there is on the Ellsworth village shop which is located in the village It has looked at the retail in Paris has looked at what they sell and it is mostly convenience items rather than at artisan craft goods So it is considered as not a direct competition between the two facilities as the proposal is for more artisan goods and therefore the viability of this village shop would not be significantly impacted In terms of the approval it is considered that it would create some jobs that it would through the retail educational community uses in the site and it is proposed as part of the cafe and the delicatessen that is proposed they would be selling goods supplied from the butchers from the bakers and so on and also provide cooking classes baking classes and things like that It would be a reuse baking buildings in the countryside it would source locally as possible in the long term from the surrounding farmland of the south to support small businesses and finally there would be an increase in biodiversity within the site and landscaping So the officer recommendation is to approve subject to conditions Thank you Do we have questions for the presenting officer Councillor Stamford Thank you chair and thank you Tom for your presentation For the benefit of local residents the initial submission of this application included a re-entry to the site Can you confirm that the version we have in front of us today does not include a re-entry to the site or entries will be from broccoli road Thank you Councillor Yes I can confirm that all site access would be from broccoli road and not elsewhere The original plan was to provide an additional access from road plain to the north of the application site that was removed in consultation with the local highways authority and the footpath officer who had concerns about the visibility as well as the character of that impact on the character of that footpath so that has been removed from the proposal so all access will be gained from broccoli road itself Councillor Bradman Thank you chair I have two questions at the moment one is to do with the status or not of policy E23 of the adopted local plan which is refers to retailing in the countryside because which I have with me which refers to the fact that or it refers to the principle that planning permission for the sale of goods in the countryside will not be granted except for there's A and then there's B exceptionally the sale of convenience goods ancillary to other uses where proposals either individually or cumulatively do not have a significant adverse effect impact on the viability of surrounding village shops or the vitality of rural centres or other village centres and I just wanted to understand that's been mentioned by an objector and elsewhere in our planning application it implies that we can't take that into account I did see it somewhere where it says it's not material I just thought hang on which is it it's here at 931 on page 96 it says the applicant is advised to provide the community shop however this is outside the realms of planning considerations and whilst if this is agreed as the case it would be unreasonable and unenforceable to require this secured by a condition so I just wanted to understand what weight does that carry please thanks councillor so E23 does apply it is material to the planning assessment that paragraph refers to the intention of the applicant to sell a wholesale to the village shop which can't be conditions it's a private matter a civil matter between the applicant and the village shop so in terms of that paragraph that you're referring to can't do anything in terms of conditioning that this is outside the realms relates to the proposal of proposing to sell wholesale to the community shop but it does not cover 930 which is the retail impact on the community shop that still stands as under S23 E23 E23 still applies in terms of that A it would comply with it would comply with one A of that because it was referred to majority goods produced in the locality and in a longer term obviously in a longer term the intention of the applicant is to produce goods on the farm itself so do we have a clarification about one of the things that I wasn't clear was whether we'd had any clarification of the retail impact on the community shop so a retail impact assessment has been carried out I have visited the community shop it does sell a lot of convenience items there is a small degree of overlap in terms of baked goods and if there are meats and things that are sold I know what's sold at the community shop but I just wanted to understand sorry to interrupt you but I just wanted to understand does E23 still apply with regard to the impact on the sales from the community shop Yes at E23s Are there any other questions on the Councillor William Thank you chair I just wanted to pick up on the same point just for a little bit of additional clarity so paragraph 987 says artisan type retail is supported in accordance with policy E23 I'm not entirely clear in my head what the officer's argument is as to why artisan retail is supported by E23 so some clarification on that would be helpful so in this case the applicant has provided a statement from the occupiers saying where they producing their goods from and so they are would be producing getting their goods from the locality as much as possible so that's why it's considered that it could pool within artisan goods, craft goods rather than convenience goods So could I just come back on the bit so just for clarity genuinely as for clarity E23a says where the majority of goods are produced on the farm or in the locality so we're relying on that in the locality That's correct, thank you Cazdor, how are you doing? I just wanted to ask for clarification on the number of parking spaces available under this application the total number of parking space Sure, thank you Thank you Cazdor In terms of the number of spaces there's 20 spaces that have been existing hard standing on the site and additionally 24 that are proposed to the south of the units they're proposed so that's great Thank you Cazdor Llyfradol, yn fydde Thank you, sorry, thank you for letting me come back I did have a couple of other questions I wanted to understand if there is a relationship between the application site and the other side of the five bar gate in the middle of the site it's to the northwest of the red line boundary of this I just wanted to understand what's the is it a completely separate thing will it be shut off from that area or do the people in that northwesterly part of the site do they access it through a different location I didn't quite understand the relationship between the two and in particular I wanted to understand how totally we understood there's a grassed area there which is used for school parking and will that use continue Thank you So there is office use there is office accommodation to the north the access the only access to those is from broccoli road so people will still travel from that to access to that office use so there wouldn't be any changes of the access for those units and to the north Commissioner How many cars use the avenue the road so we've got referred to the fact that there are 20 parking spaces on site and they're opposed to be a further 24 How many parking spaces in other words vehicle movements are there in addition from the office space to the north that's a separate application site to the north although it's within the same applicant's ownership there is separate hard standing parking base for that office for that accommodation So the only additional parking would be the 24 Head Williams Councillor Heather Williams Thank you chair I myself it's still on the E23 area when you said the locality is the farm or the locality how obviously some evidence been provided about where things will be sourced from what is the radius that is allowed here committed here So the applicants provided some estimates of about 30 mile radius at the minute in terms of goods being provided a space difficulty is not all goods be able to come from the locality but as much as possible will come from the locality as I said in the longer term intention is to source goods from agricultural holding obviously at the moment because there's no planning consent that's been granted they haven't undertaken that process yet Okay any further questions I think Heather Williams I've finished Councillor Williams Continue So on E23 based on what you said and actually the purpose of the artisans I could have it never to be not everything is going to be able to on 1B it does refer to sorry 1A it refers to the majority of goods are produced meaning that 50% plus 1 or are we looking for higher than that Yeah there's no definition in terms of what constitutes majority percentage is a judgement at the end of the day and have got condition 5 to cover that in terms of the what the type of goods that are sold in terms of what the occupiers are selling bakery is selling sourdough baked goods and the intention is to source it from the farm but at the moment they have to source it elsewhere so there's no definition of what constitutes that majority in this instance is a judgement What do we think the percentage is based on information that's been given The information provided so far indicates that it isn't there is it's difficult to say the goods that the occupiers are selling there's no numbers no percentages given by the applicant in terms of the numbers given from where these goods are being sourced from however things like eggs and things like that things that can be grown locally I try to source it as locally as possible but there's no numbers provided as part of the application Thank you Any further questions? I have a question The point was raised about the number of parking and the number of people using the office accommodation they would have to pass through the site In the consultation would the safety element of the fact that you're having a passage of vehicles through the site being taken into account by highways or is this an additional thing considered by the planners? To be honest, I'm not sure if the highways have considered it would be an internal situation for the applicant to make I would have said the peak times of the office use between 8 and 9 in the morning and between 4 and 5 in the evening there wouldn't be direct conflict there because there'd be different times of the day whereas the retail element would be spread throughout the day Now we've come to 2 o'clock we've been going for 4 hours we need to vote to continue so can somebody I suppose we continue Have a seconder? Can we do it by affirmation? Great, thank you Have we any further questions? Thank you very much We now move on to the objective Richard French and James Howell You'll have between you 3 minutes to present your presentation try and keep it as strictly as possible to the 3 minutes so remember that when you're making your presentation Thank you very much indeed Ladies and gentlemen of the committee it will be wrong in law to approve this application because it contravenes the local plan This site has been in the hands of the same farming family for generations originally it was a farm yard times have changed the family still farm the adjacent land but in a different way in 1994 they applied to develop the farm yard into a rural business centre on Monday to Friday approval was granted subject to conditions to preserve the rural character of the location so noise was curtailed there was to be no machinery operated on a Sunday or a bank holiday and the vehicle access to the site from Smith Street was forbidden notwithstanding the fact that the rest of the site has planned permission for office use the proposed intensity of the units in question would not be small scale in the context of the size of Ellsworth would necessitate car parking area which will have an adverse visual impact on the rural character of the site and the area in general and would generate additional private car zones which would be contrary to a keynote policy of the adopted local plan concerning sustainability and the objectives aimed at reducing reliance upon the private car and encouraging alternative means of travel that these are not my words they are the words of this council's planning director David Hussle when refusing permission to develop this site further in two prior applications you can safely apply the same reasoning today times may have changed but the location of the site has not it is still outside the development framework it's in an exposed and prominent position and Ellsworth is still a small village the applicant would have you believe that the benefits outweigh the harms now we submit that creating a net two jobs over the prior use is inadequate there must be no doubt that this retail hub is intended to be a magnet for visitors from outside the village and it follows that private car usage will increase as the planning officer in his report has said it is inevitable and the harm will be amplified by running the hub at weekends and bank holidays the applicant was reluctant to admit the intensity of use in November when it filed the application it stated that the trips to the site would actually fall then on May 19 of this year it conceded that they did expect private car trips to increase highways has not provided any reasoning for ignoring this latest information no doubt they were hurried because of the pending committee hearing but given highways earlier inexcusable comments that it did not have the resources to properly examine the application and were I quote duty bound to accept it without further scrutiny its input is a doubt for the value and challenge for the law so in closing it is my submission that it would not be legally sound for our planning permission and any grant of permission on the basis proposed would be liable to judicial review thank you so you already used your three minutes so element that the other presenter wants to make you could just outline in a sentence or two remember Mr Chairman I am the treasurer of the village shop since it opened in 2011 the Ellsworth community shop has received financial support from 200 members of the community your own council the parish council and charitable foundations it's not for profit organisation run by volunteers selling those goods that villagers have asked us to stock if this application is approved our committee is concerned that it will affect the viability of the shop depriving the village of convenience items on their doorstep ironically this will generate even more traffic movements as residents will be forced to go further afield to get their paper or their milk should the park food park be failed as a commercial venture and closed it might already be too late for the community shop leaving the village with no local amenity at all and with little prospect of or appetite for resurrecting this vital and designated community asset thank you very much do we have some questions for me okay Richard William thank you very much for the clarity for the first speaker you mentioned the proposal in your view was in clear breach of local plan policies I didn't catch if you specified which policies you were thinking of it would just be very helpful if you could specify those policies absolutely so specifically well there's a long list but let me focus on the big ones policy S2 specifically S2F S3 S7 and S10 and as other councillors have already picked up E23 if I might just add the planning officer in its report any fair reading of the report does not adequately address how this application can be accommodated within those policies sites S7 that doesn't deal with S7 S7 covers inappropriate development in the countryside this site is in the countryside thank you councillor Anna Brandon thank you chair thank you gentlemen for your presentations I just wanted to ask when you were drawing up your plans for the community shop did you do an account of how many residents there are in the village so I just wanted to know if you knew the number of residents of the village and how many volunteers are engaged with the work at the community shop the village has got about 240 houses about 700 residents or thereabouts we have a road that runs throughout a four week period we've got about 40 or 50 people some of those who do more hours than others but some just do one or two hours a week we do employ to people who live in the village to manage and do the running to bookers and things like that councillor Helen Willing thank you chair I'm obviously out of eye shot of the vice chair and is that your discretion chair is it the shop and the way the community shop is set up is there anything that prohibits getting supplies from other places as an outlet are they restricted in any way about what they can sell in the community shop the community shop is not restricted in any way from what we buy or where we get it from okay now the next thank you very much can I now call on the applicant Anthony Davidson with Peter Newton as a resident to present the their case thank you this proposal is for an on the farm marketplace of traditional food shops and to use surrounding land to grow food this will be a place where local people the school, farmers and food businesses come together to trade and communicate and in the process build a sustainable healthy inclusive community around food we will provide local villages that have lost their food shops with the traditional butcher baker as well as other interactive events and food businesses to engage local people and provide food knowledge the vast majority of residents want the food park to go ahead as soon as possible some have helped plant an asparagus bed as well as signed up to help grow fruit and veg I have also been teaching food and farming at the school since last year and making videos to help other schools to follow the schools have supplied the food park and the food park will supply the school with food we already have three whole sale food businesses on site and four more are ready to open we really want to help the community shop increase their range and between the food park and the community shop get people to switch away from morrisons to us not when I say us I mean the community shop as well we want the food park concept to be shared all over the UK to increase farming comes diversity, solar regeneration food security, knowledge, health and well-being my great grandfather bought the farm a century ago when farms grew food powered by horses and people this proposal takes us back to growing healthy food for local people using a mixture of people power machinery and technology surely this approach to food and farming is better than intensive GM production of commodities from healthy processed foods my wife and I have lived in Ellsworth for about ten years we welcome the development of a mixed food hub on the existing site because it embraces 21st century environmental imperatives so many of us including my wife and I struggle to adopt research and I cited in the paper I sent to the chair indicates that eating local food preserves small scale farmland farm forest fuel consumption mitigates air pollution reduces greenhouse gas emissions gas emissions preserves genetic diversity environmental health locally grown food would help sustain farmland in our community when farmers can profit from food production they are less likely to sell land why else would we vote for the green party Ellsworth community shop has nurtured for many years by generous local support in tandem with such provision the village shop may be able to better resolve the tensions that exist between customers wanting to support it but being forced to use distant supermarkets for fresh and freshly made goods a well run community cafe where we could meet friends and chat over coffee is a perfect addition as you've heard Anthony shares his skills and hodd cultured interests with children in our local school we were astonished when we moved to the village to discover that the village green and the village hall didn't belong to the parish or anybody else they actually belonged to Anthony and his family has given the village free and unhindred use of those facilities for many many years well before we arrived this kind of historical generosity suggests to us that Anthony is interested in running an effective farm business not wanting to exploit us or the community in which we live our children and grandchildren will thank Cambridge County Council for improving this application thank you Emma do we have any questions for okay thank you Richard Williams thank you it's a question for the first Mr Davidson I think you have heard the debate earlier about quality E23 particularly this question of whether a majority of the produce sold will be sourced locally would you be able to provide us with information about the amount of produce that is likely to be sourced locally and what is meant by locally okay well in the long term we want to produce everything in the land around the park and also from local farmers we want to put up a polytunnel and grow oranges, apples and avocados unfortunately they take quite a long time to mature so until we've got them we might have to sell other produce but the idea is to produce as much as we can in the local area and encourage people to actually want that produce that comes from the farm an example of the food at the moment the bread from the bakery is baked on site but the flour comes from Shifton Mill in Somerset we'd love to be able to grow that back of wheat on the farm and have it milled locally and produce it use it in the bakery it's the same with some of the meat we want to until you've got a customer and a butcher there it's not worth a farmer growing a lot of bringing a lot of animals in to produce meat but once you've got the butcher and the customers it's worth bringing the animals in rearing them on the farm and building a local supply chain council of fame thank you chair clearly the outcome of this is not going to be determined by some local referendum but you made reference to the vast majority of residents want to see this go ahead Mr Howell who spoke before you also referenced the numbers of residents I just wonder what makes you say the vast majority of residents this is based on contacts watch survey or I back in last july august I knocked on every single door in the village and gave them a leaflet and tried to chat with as many as possible and not one person was against it the feedback I get back from Peter here and from the head of the school headmistress of the school is that most people wanted to go ahead Councillor Heather Williams thank you chair and through yourself it's more on the locality you said about milling wheat from Somerset obviously there are mills a lot closer by there are abattoirs closer by in I can think of one at least in Southcams so currently you're sort of going further afield than you need to for these things is that something that through conditioning you would stop using your current supplier or do you see this as a phased approach the other thing for yourself chair the applicant mentioned about currently the wholesale use and I'm just wondering why why the need to go to retail obviously because you could have continued the wholesale but used the shop as a retail outlet for the goods which probably would keep everybody happy the first point that flower from Somerset the baker also uses the the windmill priors mill at Swaffham Pryor so I think he buys half his flower there but sometimes he can't get exactly what he needs from that particular miller and ideally what we'd like to do is find the exact varieties of wheat that produce the best flower on the farm but we need a mill to actually do that but we are working in partnership with a farmer on the other side of a Caxton Jibbit who wants to to do that sorry can you just remind me of the other question it was about different types of mills because there's other ones at Swaffham Pryor a lot closer than Somerset and I'm aware of a slaughterhouse into our furniture where exactly would the meat be coming in from and also about why you would need for retail as opposed to continuing wholesale and then using potential current facilities for retail purposes well the the baker that we've got there and the bakery and the biscotti maker and we've got a chocolatier who wants to come in and they all need to be able to sell retail to make enough money to make it viable the same with a cafe they all want to supply the cafe and the cafe is a draw and it makes it a lot more viable as a whole concept we grow onions up in Norfolk or we used to as a farmer and we used to sell to the trade and the maximum we could get was a hundred pounds a ton and we'd see our onions on the Tesco shelf three days later for eight hundred pounds a ton so if you can actually retail your products as a farmer you can actually make it more viable and when you can retail you can also grow a wider range of products and that's why we're trying to thank you councillor Sandford thank you chair and thank you Mr Davison for your presentation apologise I'm talking the wrong way round to you in the office's report there are vague mentions of special events up to twelve times a year could you explain what sort of events are proposed how many attendees traffic management plans and such like please yes we've already been asked to do a film showing about regenerative agriculture in soil so that's exactly the kind of thing that would be great because it would bring in people who are interested in what we're doing but it would also be good for them so those are the kind of events we're talking about perhaps some guest chefs occasionally we had a lady from Cambridge who does a cookery school and she has a cookery club I think once a week and she's interested in coming in and using the cafe to run her cookery clubs in the evening councillor Braddan thank you chair and through you I've got several questions if I may am I right in thinking that the cakeery is currently selling online I think she is yes and can we be sure that if you had such a special event you would of course apply for a 10 and advice from south councillor to the district council licensing authority if you were to get approval for this in order that you can make you can take there is advice available but the main thrust of my question is there is another element of E23 which has been slightly overlooked which is B and this is the fact that planning permission for the sale of goods in the countryside will not be granted except for and B says exceptionally where the sale of convenience goods etc do not have a significant adverse impact on the viability of surrounding village shops and so I just wanted to ask how can you be sure that you will not have an adverse impact on the viability of the community shop thank you I'm glad you asked me we've been talking to the village shop and parish council six months about this and I'm very keen that we improve the range of product in the village shop so one thing we want to do is say to the village the community shop, come and have a look and anything you want that we sell you can have at wholesale prices and you can then mark up because I think a lot of the village if they can get a wide range of product from the community shop they'll probably go there instead they can still sell product but we can supply the community shop and they can then have a wider range and actually meet more customers needs one more if I may sorry just one more thank you obviously you have an asparagus bed at present but are you planning to develop that field where the asparagus is into a major vegetable production area I know you mentioned polytunnels but is that what you're planning to do so what you saw when you came out was a row of fruit trees that I planted about three months ago and those are old heritage varieties of apples and green gauges that the area used to be famous for so if we get planning permission I want to plant rows of those trees all the way up the field so we've got a row of fruit trees every 15 metres and then between the 15 metres be growing food so one might be a polytunnel one might be another raised asparagus so all kinds of local products in there so you're own little bit of agroforestry exactly and regenerative as well so we want to follow regenerative types of agriculture and in time we want people to come and see what we're doing so that this can be done all over the country Are there any more questions? Thank you very much indeed Thank you Now I call upon the representative of the parish council council of Peter dear and look forward to hearing from you Remind you we have you have three minutes to present your case First of all do you have the consent of the parish council to speak for them? Yes I do yes we have a meeting of parish councillors and that was agreed upon I do this short straw to become the representative to stand up today and I'll try and be as brief as I can because you've had the four documents of the parish council submitted by way of responses and comments on the application so I won't rehearse any of that I do just want to say a word about proposal for this food hub or food park whatever one wants to call it then just make brief reference to the application itself and finally speak about mitigating potentially adverse impacts on the village should you be minded to actually grant planning permission or consent for this change of use so the proposal itself as you can imagine some residents like the idea of this facility being in Ellsworth some as you've heard are actually against it probably the largest number of all are somewhere in the middle they find the proposal somewhat attractive although it's highly unlikely anybody's going to do their weekly shop player but there's evidence in the public meeting that the parish council called in September they have concerns about the potential impacts on the village again I won't speak in detail to those but they include such things as traffic volumes and pollution it's common ground I think with the applicant that the food park will only be viable if it can draw in customers from outside the village and in practical terms the only way to actually access the food park is by car with the attendant carbon footprint that's going to leave behind it will also of course potentially affect the tranquility of the village as well there are questions about the pedestrian access for those living in Ellsworth we've heard about getting access through Broccoli Road fact of the matter is though they would not use Broccoli Road to access the food park they will go up Smith Street and cross over and come in by the office buildings similarly the people from the school carers taking children etc to have to go across there now there is no footpath on Smith Street for about 50 yards to get into the food park so that's something that needs to be thought about there's the noise and light pollution for neighbouring properties that will be an issue perhaps particularly if these events that have been talked about take place in the evenings as may be the intention and depending on the numbers of people there we don't really have any hard data from the applicant about any of this as the application itself I mean the parish council has found this very difficult to look at I mean the documentation frankly has been poor and even when provided there's a lot of information that is simply not being made available to us Can you please wrap it up in those two minutes Well I would try and be very quick then The transport statement for example makes no assessment of this second entry from Roeg Lane that's simply been dropped we've heard why but we were also promised that if that was in the wrong place clearly it was it could be further up off of Roeg Lane on land owned by the family that seems to have gone out of the window without explanation You've heard about the development policies non-compliance I won't talk about that anymore but rather than to just draw attention to this idea that somehow the village shop is going to be provided with fresh produce at wholesale prices on sale or return that does not sound a sensible business proposition for anybody in these units on the food part Thank you very much Can I just talk about mitigation because this is of major importance to the village Perhaps I can be dealt with in questions Have we Any questions? Councillor Williams Do yourself chair if this is to go ahead what mitigation the parish council wants to do Thank you for that question We've drawn attention to the traffic the pollution, the volumes and I think that with regard to the recent information about the events that may be put on 12 events a year they're presumably going to be at certain times they're going to be largely we suspect at weekends for example Now there's provision talking of car parking provision you're talking about provision for the units there's little provision at all for how many cars might be coming in for a special event I mean if we get into triple figures where is the parking going to be it can't be off road it should be and I would suggest this could be a condition possibly that you might try and make to ensure that the applicants provide over spill parking if it's necessary I mean that's one condition we'd like to see I think we'd also like to see the idea of the second entrance exit and revisited because it was suggested by the parish council in order to cut down on the amount of traffic perhaps to enter the village if traffic from the north and the west can come down Roebus Lane then you don't have to come into the village at all to get to Broccoli Road if you're coming anywhere from the north of Ellsworth at all you've got to either come down Boxworth Road or Smith Street and then down Broccoli Road to get to Broccoli Road and you're going through the village thank you any other questions thank you very much indeed now we've come to the local members there's two local members so instead of a local member we have councillor Peter McDonald there's a lead cabinet member who's going to talk to us he's attending virtually so councillor McDonald chair thank you very much and I'm calling in from overseas so I appreciate the help from Lawrence and Aaron to get me connected Peter can you wait just a second councillor Heather Williams chair is it is it your discretion to allow cabinet members to address committee because normally we have local members or how is this happening this was discussed in the briefing and it's at my discretion hello chair is it okay if I continue so Peter councillor McDonald can you go ahead just to lay the fears from Heather councillor Williams I won't be talking about any planning matters talk because obviously that's not for me to discuss with you and not a member of the committee I just wanted to briefly give you some context from the economic development unit where our office Tracy has given independent advice to the committee overall the business support unit in southcams do support this application because we believe that in a sense the farm is returning to its roots farms in Cambridge are historically would be producing livestock would be producing cereals and other things the government has said to farmers such as Anthony that they must diversify post Brexit because of course the farm incomes are falling and historically they've been able to diversify through the office provision on the farm but again from an economic development unit those that market is limited currently and so we feel that the farmer is taking the logical step to go to the next level of diversification which is to launch this the food hub in the village so we do see opportunity for artisan foods in this location and that means relatively high priced goods and therefore I and nobody else I think in the committee wants to see any impact on the community shop and given the offering from the bakery from the butcher from the chocolatier these will all be very high end produce that we believe I believe it will probably not interfere I don't want to do anything that would interfere with the safe running of the community shop and then the final thing just to put it in context so we do have two very successful models in South Cams one at Gog Macog and another one at Arrington Farms in terms of employment I think Gog Macog now employs three or four professional butchers and we would see something like this developing if you were minded to approve at Ellsworth and therefore those two previous models that we have would then have a third example in South Cams which we think would be successful so I hope that answers both your questions and also Heather's question I don't want to interfere with any planning issues just from an economic development point of view thank you very much If the purpose of cabinet member is not to influence planning committee why is he speaking at planning committee Councillor MacDonald Thanks, as I say I don't want to influence you from a planning point of view this is purely from an economic development point of view and I obviously haven't communicated anything other than the independent advice that's come from officers in the business support unit I hope I'm asking on the right the lines here Do you have any knowledge Councillor MacDonald of what kind of preceded the Gog Macog farm shop like was there a community shop within a small distance which no longer is there or what's the history of that and how did that come about I mean we might be comparing apples and pears Yeah I think good question As far as I know there wasn't a community shop in that area when Gog Macog was launched I'm not sure about Arrington farms so there wouldn't be that potential conflict of course we as a council are providing a lot of support through the Hope CIC project in Camborn and a lot of other villages for those type of community shops and lower price food for those on lower incomes Okay thank you no follow up Councillor Brandon Yes my question is if I may is it possible to ask a question back to the case officer again I just wanted some clarification is that okay Chair Thank you I just wanted to understand at paragraph 1.7 it says we're talking about the additional daily traffic compared to the existing office use sorry it says the additional daily traffic movements are considered to be minimal compared to the existing office use but as I understand it prior to the proposal to use it for a food hub all of those offices were let and talented and the only reason that there's less in there now is because those tendencies were not renewed to an end so I just wanted to understand do we know how many businesses were gainfully employed in these offices before their tendencies came to an end The applicant has provided an estimate of 18 employees within their units and in the office units but do you mean currently? No prior to that okay thank you very much Councillor Thank you Chair this is really a request for some legal advice because I'm very uneasy about what's just happened there's no criticism whatsoever of Councillor MacDonald I'm sure has spoken to the committee in good faith but to my mind the submission very much amounts to this application is in accordance with the political priorities of this council and I am very concerned that that there's a submission that's just been made to us and it's addressing planning committee so of course it's going to feed into a planning decision and as Councillor Heather Williams has said there's no point in addressing planning committee if it's not to feed into a planning decision so I am very concerned about representations by the cabinet basically telling us that they politically support the particular application that's just happened so I would like some legal advice as to whether we can really proceed with this application Yes we will ask Vanessa to give us a legal advice on that Okay so first of all I want to say that the economic department of the council is not a consultee on this and any comments made have not been taken into account by the Government officer my understanding was that Councillor McDonald came to represent the comments made by the economic unit and not as a political statement Chair's discretion was to allow him to speak on that basis this is not a political decision and should not be treated in such a way now I can't go further than that because I can't get behind Councillor McDonald but it was certainly addressed at Chair's briefing that Councillor McDonald would come following the email that has been provided to all members with regards to the economics of this application as opposed to a political statement no planning application should ever for the purposes of the public be considered on political merits they are considered on the application and the papers before you only so you are to dismiss anything else from your mind and consider only the application Councillor Eileen Wilson I just want to know if any modelling has been done to gauge what the foot forward need to be based on perhaps the Gogma Gog farm shop that would make this provision viable and how much it would depend on people coming from outside rather than people from the village because if it depends quite heavily on people from the village then I have concerns about the community shop in the village Thank you Councillor so in terms of the foot forward there's been no numbers provided as part of this scheme in terms of what would make it viable for the applicant the comparison with Gogma Gog there is quite a big difference Gogma Gog is obviously not adjacent to a village it's a larger floor space but the transport statement did compare what the parking provision and what the traffic movements would be likely based on that data of development so the parking proposed in a traffic movement estimate traffic movements then based on that previous consenter scheme Councillor Heather Williams So just so I understand why we've just had the comments that we've had so the economic department is not a consultee in the process they have formed a judgement and rather than having an officer who is politically neutral we have a member responsible for that department giving a judgement we have a politician chair giving us the judgement from that department and they're not even to be consulted and this never happens so what on earth are we to think other than political interference I think I would like a minute to discuss with the legal officer your comments I've been working on the advice that I've had in the briefing and I want to discuss this before I respond to you sorry Peter Macdonald disappeared I'm going to set the background Members of the committee have received a communication for the economic development department and as I understand it Peter Macdonald has been transmitting that information to their view so I would like Councillor Macdonald to explain the background to this and after that we will move on to the general debate Thanks chair just to summarise everything communicated to the committee from the economic development unit is where it comes from and it's not coming from me I actually had no sight of what the officers said before they communicated when members had questions and they confirmed the background the background really around a development overall in south camps is where there's an opportunity for rural diversification and to support local businesses that want to diversify because of the factors that we've said around in a post Brexit situation then generally we're quite supportive of that and that's really the context I hope that helps Thank you I would comment that the economic justification for this project has been discussed with the planning element but the advice of the officers which has been communicated to independent officers I don't think we will leave it at that and then move on to the debate with any other issues you wish to raise in the debate unless somebody has a point specifically related to Yeah, I have but I did ask to speak Sorry I am quite cross Actually councillor Heather Williams did ask my question Aside from the other thing that I was quite angry about was it was introduced as councillor McDonald who will be speaking instead of the local members and actually in the planning committee I want to hear the local members point of view and they should be allowed to give a point of view without they're not predetermined they're predisposed and I don't want to see this happen again and surely everything should be in a neutral way and it could be in the papers but they're not actually a consultee and that's for us to decide based on the planning application in its locality as we're told over and over again we look at what's in front of us not other things unless they are really, really relevant and I think this is a really sad in an appropriate instance In terms of the local member we have the local member on the committee and I was proposing to ask him to present in the beginning of the debate but I think now will be the point for him to make comments Not that local member but make comments I just follow on from councillor Rippith's comments The papers say that I believe with word councillor Macdonald supports his application that's in total contrast to what we've just been told that he's presenting information provided by the independent officer Can I make a suggestion to get us over this rather tricky point if I may? Can we just view the information that we have in our report as what is written Can we review the information that councillor Peter Macdonald gave us as perhaps maybe unwise but just deal with it as factual information not as any view and shall we move on? councillor Rippith I was going to ask a briefly to councillor what was councillor Rippith's proposal to defer we'd defer because what's happened I see and councillor had all the images supporting the proposal to defer what to second it and speak to the deferment as to my reasons why Do you want Do you wish to speak now or at the end of the debate? Okay Thank you chair I'm sending the reasons for deferment my reasons are that if you were to now change it to local member we only have one present in the meantime I've checked for the other local member who was not informed of this when we look at the emails that were included and being referred to as a reason why we have a response if you actually look at those emails they are politically motivated what have been shared with us and then officers asked to be brought in councillor Peter Macdonald said he wasn't I heard correctly and yet he is clearly communicating through the chain that we have so I've sat on this committee for five years never have I seen and this is a relatively small application to some we have seen this fills irregular it undermines the process and if we are to determine today without a full explanation and all of this information being in the public domain we would be bringing I believe the planning authority into disrepute sorry councillor Williams thank you chair I will be brief but I share the concerns that councillor Huckworth and councillor Williams have both made this is hardly irregular I support the motion to defer I think what is actually written in the report is in itself quite concerning that councillor Macdonald is identified as the lead member and it says he supports the application I think the only fair thing to do and actually I think it's essential to put the decision of this council beyond challenge is to defer this and hear it again without contributions from cabinet members otherwise I think if we determine it today I think we are leaving the door wide open to a challenge first of you councillor Sanford thank you chair I also support the motion to defer the application is actually called in by the other local ward member councillor Mark Howell and I think it will also be appropriate to hear from Mark I would oppose any proposal to defer I don't think it's necessary because the reason that this came before us is that there had been an assessment by the economic development unit of this application we thought it was important that all members of this committee should see that assessment that was the reason it was circulated to all members I see no purpose in a deferment nor do I see that the discussion of the economic assessment of this and councillor Macdonald was very careful to confine himself to that not to make a political declaration is relevant information to this committee in taking a decision on this application which is before us today so for those reasons I would urge the committee not to defer but to proceed to a debate on the merits, the planning merits of this proposal now before us have we any other comments thank you I think we need to take a vote can we have an electronic vote now sorry could we take some legal advice councillor no, sorry I don't see there's any issue we've had a proposal, we've had a second we have to take a vote can we take a vote if you're voting in favour you're voting to defer you're voting against you're voting not to defer and to consider the matter now and we'll continue to debate the vote is coming in but we are just having a tech issue with the display on the screen we will get the results up in a second okay so sit on so this application has been deferred and we'll hear it again thank you very much indeed okay I think it's time for a break now before it's an hour this is all I've got to say we've now been an hour and a half since our last since lunch so I propose for a 10 minute comfort break 10 minutes okay I welcome you back to the planning committee we're now looking at item number 8 on the agenda application in Water Beach for a 95 Van Lord Road called in by a local member this reserve matters for approval for an outline consent 20.0.30.70 and the presenting office is Alice Young is Alice here hello thank you over to you thank you let me just share my screen bear with me a moment can I just confirm that you can see my screen sorry yes we can see brilliant thank you so the application is at 95 Van Lord Road Water Beach and it is for all reserve matters for five dwellings after the outline consent was granted permission so just a quick update I realised that I referenced a condition which I didn't in the report which I didn't put in the list of conditions after the report so there's just an additional condition covering hard and soft landscaping it's a standard condition and it's on screen now the application site is located on the northern side of Van Lord Road just outside the development framework boundary of Water Beach but is surrounded by residential development to the northeast and west of the site areas outside the development framework boundary are residential properties on star drive to the north but I don't feel close to the east and Van Lord Road and Mawson Road to the west the reserve matters application seeks approval for all reserve matters for the outline consent of five dwellings these reserve matters comprise appearance, landscaping layout and scale only matters that fall under these categories could be considered and assessed as part of the reserve matters application the proposed dwellings would be accessed via Van Lord Road as approved under the outline consent with the front three dwellings sighted over 17 metres from Van Lord Road behind a landscape frontage and the last two dwellings located to the north of the site all dwellings would have two car parking spaces and there would be two visitor spaces situated to the west of Plot 2 adjacent to the communal bin collection point so this is the elevation for Plot 1 these are the floor plans these are the elevations for Plot 2 and 3 and the floor plans Plot 5 which is to the rear of the site these are the floor plans so a key characteristic of the area as members would have noted on the site visit is a green landscape frontage to Van Lord Road the proposed building line is set back from Van Lord Road maintaining this spacious character and a verdant frontage the proposal adopts a similar scale massing and design and materials to the surrounding dwellings therefore the proposal responds to the domestically scaled simply designed well landscaped context or being of an appropriate density and utilising the existing landscape features to soften the appearance of the built form and maintain the site's suburban character for these reasons officers consider that the proposal would respond to the suburban context and create a high quality development with an attractive appearance this is demonstrated by this proposed street scene there have been concerns raised regarding an overshadowing or overbearing impact to barnfield close properties so officers requested further detail in the form of a section to demonstrate how the proposal would sit within the context of surrounding neighbours the proposed dwellings are cited between 16.5 and 18 metres away from habitable windows at 5 barnfield close this is demonstrated by the section on screen given the separation distance alongside the modest scale and hit roof design of plot 5 specifically in the case of barnfield close using BRE daylight and sunlight guidance officers do not consider that the proposal would significantly overshadow the habitable rooms of these properties for the same reasons officers also consider that the separation distance mitigates the sense of overbearing to these windows the proposal would respond to the suburban context create a high quality development of the appearance and a good standard of amenity for future occupiers while preserving the amenity of surrounding occupiers therefore officers recommendation is one of approval subject to conditions alongside the additional condition which I mentioned earlier thank you thank you happy any questions for the questions so yeah I just wondered thank you miss young I just wondered through you chair if we could just have a little bit of explanation of the response from water beach level internal drainage board I understand it to mean that they normally prefer their normal limit for greenfield discharge rate to their drain is limited to 1.01 sorry 1.0 litres per second which for a site of this size of the hectareage would be 1.1 but actually the applicant is not able to demonstrate that they can go down lower than what is it more than that 1.27 and I just wanted to check whether the understanding is that it is generally acceptable to pay for the over charge to the internal drainage board system it would appear to be because they are saying let's set up a bylaw to arrange that but I just wondered is that usual for that to be done because the discharge from the site is to be limited to 1.0 sorry 1.0 litres per second a rate of 1.01 litres per second is above the greenfield rate but below the existing brownfield rate so thank you councillor Bradnham drainage information is going to be secured by condition 18 of the outline consent which has already been given that condition hasn't been discharged yet and those details will be secured by that condition so it's not a matter necessarily for consideration today thank you thank you so in terms of overlooking what we look at when assessing overlooking is whether it's introducing windows which would create a harmful impact in this instance officers considered that given that either both the neighbour and the proposed occupiers would have mutual overlooking over certain areas of rear gardens that because it was a mutual impact that it was considered acceptable in that instance as well obviously to note which was taken into consideration was the distance between the properties and the distance between those windows is quite is over 10 metres if not over 15 metres and I can give you the specific measurement if members desire but for those reasons officers did not consider that that overlooking impact would be harmful I still find if I was the person who suddenly had a house next door to me that was going to be overlooking are we expecting these neighbours to actually sort out amongst themselves how they deal with this overlooking do they both get close and top lines I just find it unreasonable that we accept that overlooking is acceptable that that's the point I want to make is it a matter of all for questions and we can discuss this in debate I think is there any other questions Councillor Brandon Thank you chair I just wanted to check with Miss Young there's a comment about in amongst the hard and soft landscaping where it's mentioned where it is now entrance here we are it's at 9.19 on page 123 and it says the hard landscaping plan details hard close boarded ffencing along the central access road but none of the other developments along Bannel Road have that kind of close boarded ffencing and I can see you've recommended softening the appearance and stepping that ffencing back behind a grass verge but that's still nothing like any other properties along Bannel Road they're all broadly open at the front so I wondered whether you had also discussed with the applicant whether they might just do away with that ffencing and maybe if necessary have like post and rail or something which is more in keeping with the other developments along Bannel Road rather than post boarded ffencing so in terms of boundary treatment obviously that will be secured via the condition we would obviously look at the character of the area and kind of have a considered approach to what was put forward to us obviously we went out on site and it was clear through my previous site visits that a close boarded ffence on those boundaries is quite harsh hence what I wrote in the report in terms of the recommendation or the suggestion of softening those further than what I wrote in the report I'm happy for that to be noted and take that into consideration when discharging that condition when it comes in or if members wanted to alter that condition to specifically talk about softening those particular boundary treatments I'm happy for that condition to be amended I do carry on I don't mean to interrupt so yeah I'm happy for that to be amended obviously it will be taken into consideration the character and the character around the surrounding estates is very green and open and so we want to soften those boundary treatments so far as possible sorry to be clear and for the avoidance of confusion I'm not talking about the boundary on the outside of the plot I'm talking about the hard the close hard close boarded ffencing along the central access road it's that entrance to the site that elsewhere along Bannol Road is much more open so I'm glad to hear that you'd be happy to consider an amendment to that thank you very much thank you I was in the report referencing the close boarded ffencing set behind the first three dwellings to the curtsillages of those gardens that's what I mean by boundary ffencing apologies if that was miscommunicated so to be clear I'm talking about the entrance it's the entrance off Bannol Road because that is also indicated as having or maybe I misunderstood the diagram because of the narrative but if what I'm saying is that at the entrance there's a very square edged verge but I'm just hoping that there's not there's a double white line around it and I just hope that we wouldn't be expecting to see close boarded ffencing on the inside of those verges which form the edges of the entrance drive can you clarify whether that thank you for clarifying which ffence is you meant I'm looking at the hard landscaping plan that they have submitted which is not on approved document because obviously we want further information on that and they are not proposing closed boarded ffences at the entrance of the site, the vehicular entrance and we wouldn't seek for that either I'm glad to hear that, thank you Councillor Richard Williams Thank you very much chair I'm not sure if the officer is able to put the site plan back up but my question was just about again but we obviously Councillor Wilson has talked about overlooking and the report does discuss that I just wanted to ask you a question about overlooking within the site so would there be overlooking within the site between the new properties Let me just get up the site because I think it would be beneficial I was thinking there are two at the back surely you can see the back gardens of those at the front they're looking right into the money So you're talking about plots 1, 2 and 3 overlooking the front elevation of 4 and 5 Is that what you mean? Or the other way around 4 and 5 would make into the gardens of 1, 2 and 3 Of course So this relationship is quite common in estates and the separation distance is significant enough for officers to be satisfied that numbers 1, 2 and 3 their rear gardens and rear habitable rooms would not be significantly overlooked and their privacy a degree of privacy will be maintained Okay, thank you Councillor Handley Thank you chair One of the third party comments is that Water Beach GP surgery is already over capacity Now I know that it says that it was considered an outline stage but the minor increase in population would be insignificant I just wondered if we've received any comment from the local GP surgery because I know how hot this topic is with residents even 5 more houses is something that they would be concerned about Thank you In terms of GP pressure on GP services obviously the outline gave planning permission outline planning permission which gives the principle of 5 dwellings So the principle of 5 dwellings has been accepted in this location and so the reserve matters is just looking at the layout landscaping appearance of the proposal so that matter was considered an outline stage and it was considered that as you mentioned that the increase is small and so would not pose a significant impact on local GP services Thanks I mean it was in the report so I thought it was fair game but I do take the point that that was decided at outline I've got one big point myself In terms of the highway I presume is not going to be adopted perhaps to confirm whether that's the case In this case does it mean that all the internal boundary fences could be 2 metres high without planning permission whatever is written in the consent can you clarify the position on that Thank you So yes the internal roads within the site etched red are not adopted by the local highway authority they will be managed by a maintenance company and that was handled under outline In terms of the potential of having 2 metre fences adjacent obviously we've got to look at what is being proposed today we are looking to secure hard and soft landscaping which would include boundary treatments by condition and for a lot of the site we wouldn't seek to have 2 metre ffencing around it particularly at the entrance My particular concern was about privacy elements and whether future occupants if necessary could increase the height of the fence because that has been raised about privacy so what would be the position following granting permission So as part of the hard and soft landscaping condition we would consider privacy so we would look at both the impact on character but also ensuring that residents amenity was preserved or a high quality was maintained so we would consider that as part of the condition in terms of what potentially could happen in the future I don't think that's necessarily what we should be talking about today but obviously they would benefit from permitted development rights so they would be able to erect a fence in the future Thank you Sorry, okay Sorry, have you any further questions? No, okay fine Can we now move on to the first speaker Object Mr Skidmore He's online I should remind you that you have three minutes to make your presentation so try and keep to the main points of your presentation so you get it within time I did submit some slides which Lawrence was going to display whilst I spoke so could those be brought up please? Yes, just bear with me one second please Ian I'm pulling those up now They should be on screen Okay So starting The proposals plot 5 is particularly problematic for neighbours at numbers 4 and 5 barnfield close It has the largest footprint will be built within 2 metres of a boundary directly in front of the sole living room and master bedroom windows of these two neighbours This design choice is incredibly overbearing as seen here from my living room window at 5 barnfield The effect will be even worse for my neighbours You can see it will dominate the view from most of the room Clearly this choice of layout maximises rather than minimises its intrusive effect on neighbours homes Slide 2 please That's 3 Moving on to loss of light The data is clear This design choice will significantly reduce the amount of daylight and direct sunlight in these habitable rooms The effect is measurable and undeniable These figures show a top-down view of my living room indicating the amount of daylight received at each point Comparison of the two figures shows that adding plot 5 drastically reduces natural light with a large proportion of the room receiving none at all Policy HQ 1 states that proposals must protect surrounding users from development that is overlooking, overbearing or results in a loss of daylight I've demonstrated here that the scale and positioning of plot 5 clearly breaches this policy Next slide please Moving on to biodiversity The ecology verification report significantly underrepresents the fawner on the land Multiple neighbours have seen deer and foxes using this land yet this information has not been captured and the consequences are not considered As a direct neighbour I can provide hundreds of videos showing multiple hedgehogs including juveniles coming from the direction of 95 Banel Road nightly throughout Spring Summer and Autumn Yet the report describes hedgehogs as occasional individuals and misleads with a reference to a 29 team search revealing just 5 records within Water Beach the nearest 100m distance So what do these provable report oversights tell the committee about the validity of, for example, the bat survey data that they provided Please also remember that hedgehogs are protected by law under a material consideration for LPAs Finally, moving on to flood risk The scale of the development increases the impermeable area of the plot by over four fold significantly increasing runoff into the Banel Road drainage ditch Neighbours can attest that this ditch which is often clogged with weeds and debris is already at capacity during heavy rain Brilliant flooding the proposal requires an underground rain storage unit ongoing maintenance by a paid company and perpetual maintenance by all the residents The report states that maintenance will be required at regular intervals after any heavy precipitation and after every major storm event How will this be enforced? What evidence of the committee seen that all residents will adhere to these requirements now and in say 20 years time The maintenance programme requires regular glyphosate treatment yet a permit from the environment agency is needed for glyphosate use near waterways As members will know policies state that surface water drainage systems must be sustainable Thank you very much We have exceeded the three minutes One more sentence This scale of over development which proffers to provide housing for up to 29 residents will harm neighbourhood amenity and biodiversity and increase flood risk Thank you Thank you very much Thank you Mr Skidmore Thank you Mr Skidmore for your presentation The slides that you showed us of the light that you expect to get into your you currently get and you would expect to get into your living room Did you have an indication of the time of year or the time of day that those slides demonstrated There is a difference between daylight and sunlight daylight is the amount of sky that can be seen which is constant and that is what those graphs represent I also have sunlight lost figures as well so if I had 10 minutes you would get more graphs there is obviously losses of sunlight as well because as you can see from the pictures on the first slide the sun sets in that direction and it shows direct sunlight as well and that varies on time of year Any other questions? Thank you very much Thank you very much indeed Mr Skidmore Thank you Can I ask the agent Mr Jones for his presentation Just to remind you you have three minutes to make your presentation please try and keep to the three minutes if you exceed too much I will carry on so try and keep your points brief and direct to planning matters Thank you chair My name is Debbie Jones on behalf of Artisan Artisan is a local campershow based house builder they concentrate on small distinctive developments of family homes with an emphasis on design and quality The current proposal is true to this ethos with a high quality design that reflects the character of the area and respects neighbouring residential amenity The case officer has prepared a comprehensive report to committee and would therefore simply like to highlight a few points Artisan has worked closely with their architect and landscape architect to ensure that the design of the proposals reflects the character of the surrounding area The design pays particular attention to ensuring the proposed dwellings are of a similar scale massing design and materials to surrounding properties The design has been an important consideration in the design of the scheme Proposed dwellings exceed the internal space and garden space standards for new dwellings are set out at policy H1 H12 and the district design guide Careful consideration has been given to the design director to ensure that the design is consistent with the design to ensure that the design is consistent with the design to ensure that the design is Careful consideration has been given to the relationship between existing and proposed dwellings with all separation distances exceeding the council's design standards In addition, hit routes have been added to plots 4 and 5 to reduce any perceived impacts on amenity Boundary trees and hedgerows are retained and enhanced and section drawings have been submitted to demonstrate that the development would not breach BRE daylight and sunlight guidance On that point, I would like to respond to Mr Skidmore. He's presented some supposed data and artist impressions and there's no indication of Mr Skidmore's qualifications in that regard or that any what that data is based on your officers report clearly shows that there those dwellings are 17 meters away from the front of Mr Skidmore's house that's in excess of 12 meter requirement set by the council's design standards and the hit roof further reduces that so that actually the daylight and sunlight guidance from BRE the 25 degree line sales well above the roof it's not impinged at all Sustainability hasn't been an important consideration in the design of the proposed dwellings. The dwellings have been designed to ensure greater than 50% reduction on current partel building regulations. They will meet water standards, EV charging points and accessible cycle stores will be provided and ecological enhancements are proposed that are supported by the council's design officer. The development would respond to the local context creating a high quality development with an attractive appearance and a good standard of amenity for future occupiers while reserving the amenity of surrounding residential properties it accords with all required policies and design standards and we therefore request that is approved by the council in terms of any other my time or I'm afraid of your time I will leave it there ok any questions for Mr Jones let's see him ok now call on the local member councillor Bear Park and also we have councillor Rhyford for local member within in the audience here first of all can councillor Bear Park thank you very much chair the way the developments come can you hear me ok can you hear me ok sorry something's wrong with your microphone we can't hear you councillor your microphone is currently up by your head your microphone is up by your head you need to just put your microphone down by your mouth on your headset councillor Bear Park the microphone is currently pointing up rather than towards your mouth so if you just look on the left hand side you're perfect can you hear me now fine we can hear you just to remind you we've got three minutes ok thank you very much the way the developments come forward on Bannel Road is a somewhat harmful effect on the slow in a slow and subtle way on the locality although in isolation these small sites in this part of Water Beach may meet planning rules as a whole they are a long way from achieving the goals of this council for example provision of affordable housing is less than it should be there is no proper consideration of the impact of increasing traffic in the area and the developments do not make appropriate contribution to services and infrastructure through a coordinated section 106 arrangement the individuals developments don't link up with each other such that there is a lack of permeability for walking between the different sites these piecemeal developments put significant strain on local facilities and infrastructure one example is the nearby overwhelm doctor surgery another is that the flood risk north of Bannel Road is gradually being increased as each site is considered for flood risk in isolation when it should clearly be the aggregate risk highways authority also considers each application in isolation the rear entrance to Water Beach school very close by used to be the quiet way into the school but it is no longer relatively traffic free Water Beach neighbourhood plan policy WAT4 is a policy about creating and maintaining safe access routes to Water Beach school it's becoming increasingly difficult to see how that policy can ever be met with drip drip increase in traffic due to piecemeal development I appreciate this committee has a duty to assess each application development in isolation but I'm keen to stress that this approach is harmful to Water Beach as a whole and this area in particular there are three other points that I wanted to make and the first is in terms of the scheme for flood management on the site which seems extremely convoluted I like to ask whether there is evidence that such convoluted schemes with reliance on maintenance by individual householders management companies and payments to internal drainage boards has been shown to work I was also shocked to read on page 8 of appendix 9 of the drainage statement that one of the maintenance measures proposed was to reduce weed growth by spraying glyphosate on the permeable surfaces the second is that the car parking provision is excessive given the public an active travel infrastructure in the area including Water Beach railway station 30 minute frequency PR5 bus new A10 cycle path and forthcoming greenway my final point is that the cycle stores for units 1, 2 and 3 are far too small and inaccessible a provision for 2 or 3 bikes seems to have about the same area as one solar panel I know these probably may not be built but it would be good to see them meet the local plan policy requirements on the plans at least so I appreciate the committee has to consider this in isolation but I'd like it to consider the scale of the development and the impact on the local infrastructure and facilities and residential amenity thank you very much okay now have any questions councillor do you wish to make any comments for your comments I thought that I asked are there any questions to councillor bear park yes please I'm sorry I was a bit slow to respond councillor bear park you mentioned about glyphosate being sprayed in the ditches to keep them weed free can you just clarify why that concerns you because I'm concerned about pollution of waterways and the impact on the eventual impact that might have on the waterways on the wildlife in those waterways and I believe there's a recommendation that glyphosate shouldn't be sprayed at a certain proximity to waterways is there some guidance about that there may be I have heard that there is guidance I'm not familiar with the guidance myself thank you any other questions councillor we've used the three minutes but have you any particular issues you wish to nothing I'm sure we'll let you speak also for three minutes the character of banyld road has changed as the planning inspector has stated the area is now suburban in nature the plot in 95 banyld road is a small site a small plot should deliver something less imposing and more in keeping with both the south and north sides of banyld road as the agenda papers helpfully direct us we are considering layout scale landscaping and appearance of the site design plot number five at the back of the site and northeast corner is substantial in size being one of a pair of large full bedroom dwellings it will sit at two storeys high and overlook some neighbouring properties on barnfields place albeit at an oblique angle in our adopted local plan we have a policy stating that for two storeys residential properties a minimum distance of 25 metres should be provided between rail or side building faces containing habitable rooms the distance are about 15-16 metres although at oblique angles between plots four and five neighbouring to the west and the plot five to the east the papers also state that between plots two and three and number four barnfield close at first floor level from the bedrooms that again they would be overlooked the fact that it is mutual and vice versa does not in my view make this right I implore the developers and their architects to come back with a reduced scale design of the size of the dwellings on all five plots lowering height to one half storey buildings with dormal windows to the front at first floor level and with skylights at the rear this would remove the problem of overlooking from between the bedrooms a slightly reduced footprint on plots four and five could create more garden space and at the back of the site could reduce the risk of flooding such a development would feel more in keeping with the smaller size and more intimate scale of this site while the street scene would fit better with a blend of properties on the south side of Bannog Road the layout at the back of the site could also be improved by two semi-detached dwellings placed more centrally which would increase distance from the existing neighbouring properties and reduce face on issues at the front of the site the agenda papers refer to the plan as fitting in its suburban context and often marries that with the word verdant the front of the site with houses set back is in keeping with other homes on Bannog Road but I struggle to see how verdant it is with so much hard standing at the front with cars prioritised therefore I request that the planning committee rejects this particular reserved matters application I have suggested ways in which a new differing design on a slightly smaller scale could remedy or at least alleviate some of the valid objections to this current application a make for better design improving residential immunity for both current neighbouring residents and future residents on the site Thank you, any further comments? Sorry, any further questions? Thank you very much Now you come to the debate have anybody any of the councillors wish to make enter into the debate on this request to speak Councillor Wilson I will make my point again at the time I am not happy about the overlooking which seems to be acceptable but which as an individual I would not find acceptable and the slides provided by the neighbour of the impact on the light coming into his living room actually just confirms my reluctance to accept that as acceptable Councillor Hanley Thank you I agree with Councillor Wilson it seems a rather crowded site now I do have sympathy with the neighbours who are going to suffer loss of light etc but having said all that I have looked really hard and I think a lot of the problems stem from the acceptance of the outline planning permission we are now at a stage where we are looking at the detail and I can't see anything here which we would hang a rejection on if you prove me wrong prove me wrong but I can't see it if we were talking about an outline planning permission I would have been speaking much more loudly against it I am sorry but please correct me if I am wrong Councillor Brandon Sorry could I pause to take some legal advice because I noticed if you remember I said I was on the planning committee for the application at Gertan in 2016 it just so happens that on that same committee actually no sorry this is April 2021 I was on the committee when the outline was considered at which I won't point out others but I actually voted to refuse this at outline and I just wanted to check with our legal advisor through your chair whether I should not vote or should not so we discussed this earlier so this has come back as the reserved you can participate because this is a fresh application before you and I think if we took the view that every member who sat on an outline precluded themselves from the reserved would never be quarrelled so yes you can providing you come with an open mind and you look at it as its own application thank you very much chair so given that sorry did you have other people who wish to speak yes but you can continue right I mindful that the officer report indicates that there are no grounds for objection but I am concerned about the density of the proposed development on the site I know it's overall quantum is not as much as other places in the village of Water Beach and it's not up to our maximum allowed but I think if the problem is the shape of the site previously had one bungalow currently has one house and and because of the quantum of development that is proposed it does present problems to its the existing neighbours I appreciate the advice we've received from the planning officer where we're on the site visit and also here today that it doesn't fall within the rounds of that which needs to have a shade assessment but I am mindful of the effect of that side on elevation of the house on the out looking aspect and indeed the officer points out that sorry, forgive me yes the impact of 5 and 6 barnfield close at paragraphs 9.57 the officer says for these reasons alongside the retained hedging sorry for these reasons officers consider that the development would not create an oppressive outlook from 5 or 6 barnfield roads, ground floor, living room it's acknowledged that the development will alter the existing outlook nonetheless officers do not consider it will do so to a harmful degree and indeed in this consideration I think back to my own mother's kitchen which looked out on the gable end of a house which was actually probably closer and it wasn't welcome at all having replaced an earlier bungalow did not obscure the view at all and I know views are not things that we have entitlements to at all I just feel it is in some ways using the wording of an earlier application that we looked on today it feels unnabily and I think some of the suggestions that have come through from one of the other local members are worth considering I haven't decided which way I'm going to vote yet but I find it difficult when as Councillor Handley has pointed out the outline has allowed so much which as you've heard members I voted to refuse but now we've got this one in front of us as a reserve matters it's a separate issue but I still have significant reservations about it stop there Councillor I apologise because I think this was covered earlier on with the conditioning around the permeability but I'm a bit puzzled because the original outline application included matters of appearance, landscaping layout and scale how we would have known at that stage what the runoff rate would be but aside from that I'm rather uncomfortable with the idea that assuming that hasn't already been agreed in the outline but the point of specifying a runoff rate is not so much can the waterways cope with it? It's really because in our local plan surely we're trying to encourage infiltration so this idea that you've sort of paid the internal drainage board to take the waterway that you should have infiltrated seems like sort of buying your way out of an environmental obligation but is that a sensible question to ask at this stage? We're debating now unless you wish to ask from the officer concerned Councillor Fay. Thank you chair as a number of colleagues have pointed out we are considering reserved matters here the question of the overall density of the site we recommend 30 dwellings packed this is equivalent to 18 dwellings packed and when you look at the details I think I'm not going to go into the question of drainage because the idea be have accepted whatever the terms that is acceptable but when you look at the details I would refer to paragraph 9.55 on page 129 which deals with the distance between the plots just briefly to read from this the side elevation of proposed plot 4 would be located approximately 15 meters away from plots 14, 15 and further from the other plots given this separation distance officers do not consider that the proposal would significantly overshadow the rear habitable rooms and similarly it is concluded that the proposed development would maintain acceptable daylight and sunlight in the rooms in the properties concerned I think we have to accept that I can't remember when this was brought forward for outline consent but it doesn't matter the question now is what is proposed here acceptable given the fact that the principle of development has been established and in my view in light of the recommendations and what we've heard today yes it is and we should accept the officer's recommendations and vote to approve this Any further comments? Councillor Richard Thank you chair I'll be brief I think like other members I struggle with this one obviously the principle of development has been established so we can't re-litigate that issue the overlooking does concern me I think the difficulty that we have with these things is that they are very subject to judgement as to what's acceptable and what's an unacceptable impact on a neighbour and I think there is legitimate room for disagreement of that but it is by its very nature a big subjective judgement in many ways so I'm not happy particularly with the application I think it does have a detrimental impact on the neighbours in terms of overlooking but of course we do have to bear in mind the outline so in my heart I'm leaning towards refusal on the ground of impact on the neighbours Okay any Councillor Bradman I was just thinking about the point that Councillor Wilson made about the mutual overlooking and it occurs to me that if you were to build a new row of houses which are in a terrace or indeed if there was an existing row of houses that were in a terrace let's say they all overlook each other's gardens this is not unusual it's not it's not an outrageous situation to set up because we do it all the time but I guess the problem exists here because it's overlooking something that was pre-existing and is that the I just wondered what the and presumably that is why the officer has recommended that this is an acceptable design and I just wondered if we could have some guidance on that please Can we have some guidance Sorry Thank you So in terms of overlooking in planning of housing estates Councillor Branlam is right there is somewhat of a degree of overlooking no matter how you organise the dwellings but it's ensuring that that is an acceptable kind of mutual overlooking impact in terms of this application we concluded that because a lot of the relationships were either mostly back to side so the rear plots let me just get up a a location plan to show you a site plan bear with me a second because these plots here plots 4 and 5 looked where adjacent to the side gable of this northern neighbour here and these properties to the west and east looked on to the side properties of number 4 and 5 that relationship is considered because of the relative angle but also the relative separation distance to be acceptable in terms of the surrounding context there are properties with back to back distances of 20 metres back to side relationships of 10 metres so just to put this into context plots 1 to 3 are approximately 20 metres from 4 to 5 and then as I don't want to re-hatch the surrounding separation distances but we all know that that is over 15 metres so I just wanted to highlight that and clarify that with members I hope that's clarified things, thank you if I can come back to you sorry the my concern related to the distance between the front windows of plots 4 and 5 and the back gardens of 1, 2 and 3 and because normally if you were in 2 and 3 the back to back distance would be with a similar garden beyond yours the depth of your garden another garden and then the back of a similar property like 2 and 3 at the other side but in this case you've got the front of plots 4 and 5 facing into the gardens of 1, 2 and 3 so it just feels a bit closer however I appreciate what you're saying is that the total distance between a window because actually what you've got it's not the overlooking of the living space it's the overlooking of the garden it's the front windows of plots 4 and 5 overlooking the gardens of 2 and 3 and 1 that's the problem and that is only what I don't know 10 it's a car's width and a bit isn't it so it's about 6 or 7 metres into the garden and I just wondered whether that's you know that's closer than the it's the overlooking view of somebody's private amenity space could the officer guide us on that thank you can you provide some guidance on that is there any guidance about the distance that you should presumably this only refers to the upstairs windows because the downstairs windows are protected by through the defence of the garden yes thank you for clarifying as I've said it's a matter of judgment in terms of overlooking but I've explained where we our justification for recommending approval in this instance there is a 20 metre gap between the front and the rear of those properties this kind of relationship where there is some degree of overlooking to the rear of gardens is common in development such as this this isn't uncommon it's very difficult to design a housing development where there is no overlooking of anywhere across the development and we've used our planning judgment to recommend to you that this relationship is considered acceptable because it is mutual because obviously people in the rear garden can look into you know the front elevation of plots 4 and 5 and vice versa sorry if I could just add to what Alice is saying making a broader view of the development either side or looked at the context and the character of the area as a whole and as Alice has said that there are some of the properties immediately adjacent where the development is adjacent where the side to back distances are 10 metres or where the back to back across two gardens is 20 metres so when we're looking at the distance between the back of the front properties and the front of the back properties that distance itself is 20 metres so that impact is probably a better relationship than one that is 20 metres across two back gardens so actually the distance in terms of overlooking is actually probably better in that instance so looking at the context of the immediate character of the area we're saying it's actually similar I just like sorry can I add as well it's designed this way to so far as possible minimise the impact on surrounding neighbours as well so it's very much looking at obviously the feasibility of where you put windows where you put built form because the neighbours are 15 metres from either side you wouldn't want to reorientate those dwellings to have a to have the backs fronts of surrounding dwellings so it's all about looking at the surrounding context as well as what's in the site as Rebecca has said thank you any further questions or comments I'll comment now generally I feel that diagonal as was commented earlier on in any modern development diagonal overlooking of gardens is the norm rather than exception I think we could expect to be able to omit that the only real overlooking which seems to me of any concern is this of the rear gardens but as is commented I don't see how you could if you organise it differently you're going to cause problems for the adjoining areas as it is at present the distance across to the east for instance is equivalent to if there was another house on the other side of the road it doesn't seem to me an unreasonable distance and it's a blank wall so there's no matter of of intrusion to looking at windows on the same similar points applied to the west as well I cannot see in the light of advice any real reason tagged up to refuse this and I don't think the impact is sufficient and I will be I think we are in debate yes we are in debate because of questions asked we versed into it's a long session back to the beginning I was going to normally make my comment to the end but I made my comment now on I wish I just think that we're I think we're scratching around for reasons to reject this and I don't think there are any I think honestly my proposal would be that we should move to a vote and that we should no my proposal is that we should move to a vote and we should accept the officers recommendation that's my proposal do we have a seconder the plan that I've copied off the website printed off the website is at odds with the one that's in our pack it shows two parking spaces the one I have which was printed off the website shows two parking spaces to the left of the entrance the one that we are being shown in the pack has two parking spaces parallel to Bannel Road at the left of the entrance and I just wanted to clarify which of those is the correct version can we can we have a reply we're voting on of course of course so there has been several site plans submitted to this application so there are several on file the one for consideration is the one in the plans pack that is revision B it shows two car parking spaces south of plot 1 and four car parking spaces south of plot 2 3 sorry forgive me these two have the same I can't see very easily but this one which is what I took off the website has two parking spaces at right angles to Bannel Road and it appears to be site plan as proposed 117603 and the one that's in our plans pack has two parking spaces parallel right angles to the front door of plot 1 parallel to Bannel Road but it also and I can't really read that because it's too small it also appears to be 117603 so I'm just wanting to ask which version number is the one that's this has been a long long session is it going to make a difference I mean you can sort this out come on it's a long session we need to wrap this up I just want to ask the case officer which one is under consideration are we looking at this one so can I just come in there just to clarify so when plans are revised they have revision numbers on we are looking at revision B of plan 117603 does that make sense? yes I can see it now thank you okay have we got a seconder now the motion I think we need an electronic vote the motion is that we go to the vote and then we take another motion on the thing or we are voting to approve right if I can just clarify so the officer recommendation is to approve subject to the condition set out in the report with the addition of the condition that Alice put on the slide at the start of her presentation right so can we remove to a vote to approve a mess first of all can we have affirmation that we wish to move to a vote yes okay fine the motion and now we have it the motion should be that we approve the proposal of the officers to recommendation can we have an electronic vote now please now chair hopefully this will be one quicker application item agenda item 9 the certificate of lawfulness the sorry this is the 9 station at Oakington could we have Miss Younger present the application for us please thank you chair I'm just mindful of time so I'll keep this short I mean it's not our as complex application it's for a certificate of lawfulness under section 192 for the construction of a home office in the rear garden with additional hard paving at 9 station road so this is the location plan we are on the eastern side of station road in Oakington this is the existing on the left hand side and the post on the right hand side so you'll see that there is a home office located 2 meters from the boundary so this is the floor plan of the post home office these are the elevations 2.5 meters to the eaves and 3.5 meters to the ridge so this is a section showing the ground differences the ground of slope slightly but the eaves height is taken from the highest ground level so that is 2.5 meters to the eaves so officer recommendation is one of approval because the proposal should comply with section 2.1 class E and F of the Town and Country Planning General Permitted Development Order thank you sorry you should note that the Councillor Ripper first left the meeting Councillor Williams have you a question to ask? no it's going to be one of those days obviously I attended after the declaration of interest I have to declare an interest in this application as one of the the applicant is a member of the group that I lead at which point my advice is I'm not allowed to vote on at this one so I'll stop it a successful day for me today we all have a declaration of interest in that we know and are close to Councillor Bagot who is the applicant in this case absolutely, can I speak on this chair? yes this is an application for a certificate of law for miss it's a matter of fact not a judgement and the so happens is within the development framework it's outside of the conservation area and officers have reviewed the site history and the proposal and concluded that the proposal is compliant with the section stated that is it is permitted development and therefore that the planning committee should grant the certificate of law for miss I would propose that we take officer's advice and do so I would comment that we could only comment against it if we can argue against it on the planning the planning law sorry yes, Councillor I just wanted to thank you chair I just wanted to clarify my understanding of the officer report at 7.2 on page 139 which gives us the class E sort of qualification and then over the page of 141 it's class F and I just wanted to check if there's missing wording there which I think it normally says class E development would not be permitted unless the permission to use this as a dwelling house has been granted only by virtue of I mean it's, is that correct there's a line of advice I think which might be helpful when we're reading this because it's it normally says something like it wouldn't be permitted unless the total area of ground covered by the buildings etc would it, if it would exceed 50% but we're saying no that's not applicable because a proposal wouldn't exceed that can you just clarify what maybe Rebecca Smith might want to help or the officer I just wanted to clarify is this the what's sorry just a second I'm just scrolling through the PD legislation to find the exact wording you're correct there is unfortunately a word, a line missing which says development is not permitted by class E if and then the same on class F development is development is not permitted by class F if yeah thank you very much however however Councillor Wilson I was merely trying to second Councillor Fane's proposal hey we have a proposal, we have a second can we can we go to the vote did everybody agree, okay do you want to take it by affirmation do you want to take it by affirmation do you want to take it by affirmation I think it's important to have an electronic vote just to clarify yes just to clarify the recommendation is to grant the certificate in that the proposed development complies with the committed development legislation sorry now we come back to the compliance report is the brave up it's me unfortunately Chris has had to go to another meeting so he's given me a brief synopsis as it outlined in the report Neil Langley senior planning compliance officer has left the council and that post is currently being recruited in that position and another officer will hopefully join as soon as well that recruitment has already taken place there are various updated figures for case numbers in the report on cases received and closed and quarterly totals on the last two years also as well as enforcement notices served and one of the appendices there's another enforcement notice following the withdrawal of the previous one because it couldn't be relied upon to achieve the requirements of the notice due to inaccurate wording so a new notice was subsequently issued thank you any comments questions noted okay we note the report now appeals are there any have you come to appeals sorry anybody's got any questions appeals sorry cancer badm thank you so appendix 3 this is local enquiry and informal hearing date scheduled on page 153 the land to the north of the old coal yard Chesterton Fenrodd Milton do we have any idea of when that is likely to happen or are we waiting for suitably equipped inspectors to do that okay it's noted now we need to exclude the present public do I have a motion a proposal to exclude the present public Councillor Hanley and seconder Councillor Wilson can you let us know when we've gone offline Chairman if you're allowing me to clarify the reasons for it so we are excluding present public for item 13 in accordance with section 100a for the local government act 1972 on the grounds that if present there will be disclosure to them of exempt information as defined in paragraph 7 of part 1 of schedule 12a of the act and also for those watching the live stream the next meeting of this committee will be held 4 July thank you Chairman