 Hello. Good morning, any members of the public who are viewing the live stream. Welcome to this meeting of South's Cambridgeshire District Council's planning committee. My name is Councillor Martin Khan and I'm chair of the committee. We would also like to welcome planning apprentices from South's Bank who are watching the proceedings in the public gallery. May I ask those who are joining us remotely to ensure that the camera and microphone remain off unless they are addressing the committee. If anyone has any questions on how the proceedings of this meeting work, please ask now and the Democractic Services will advise. Committee members present in the chamber, I will now invite each of you to 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 Councillor Martin Khan and I'm a member for Histan and Inbington Ward. My vice-chair is Councillor Peter Fane. Good morning, Members. Peter Fane, Shelford. Councillor Ariel Khan. Councillor Ariel Khan, a member of Horstyn and Cumberton Ward. Councillor Bill Hanley. Good morning, everybody. Bill Hanley. I'm the member for the villages of Over and Willingham. Councillor Jeff Harvey. Yes, thank you, Chair. Good morning. I'm Jeff Harvey. I'm the Councillor for Borsham Ward. Councillor Tumri Hawkins. Doctor Tumri Hawkins. Good morning, everyone. Tumri Hawkins, Member for Caledicot Ward. Councillor Judith Rippert. Good morning. Councillor Judith Rippert, one of the Members for Milton and Water Beach Board. Councillor Peter Sandford. Good morning, everyone. Peter Sandford, one of the Members for Caxton and Papworth Ward. Councillor Heather Williams. Morning, Chair. Morning, all Heather Williams, and I represent the Mordins Ward. Councillor Dr Richard Williams. Thank you very much, Chair. Richard Williams, I represent the Whittlesford Ward. Councillor Eileen Wilson. Good morning. Eileen Wilson, Councillor for Cottenham Ward. I can confirm that the meeting is quarraged. We have some officers with us in the chamber for the duration of the meeting. Rebecca Smith, area development manager. Morning, Chair. Richard Pitt, Principal Planning Lawyer. Lovenslam Mary Holman, Democratic Services Officer. Is Lovens here or is he online? We have our technical support for the Democratic Services being provided by Aaron Clark. Morning. Thank you, Chair. We are also joined by various case officers throughout the meeting. If at any time a member leaves the meeting, would they please make that fact known so that it can be recorded in the minutes? We should take breaks from this meeting as and when they are needed and are appropriate. Members should have received the main agenda pack dated 5 September and the plans pack online supplement dated 6 September. I would also like to note that a site visit was conducted on Tuesday 12 September for Item 6, Caxton. Item 2 on our agenda today is Apologies for absence. Lovens, are there any Apologies for absence today, please? We can't hear you, Lovens. Can we sort out the problem? Sorry, is this on my end or in the chamber? We can hear you now, Lovens. Thank you. Excellent. Thank you very much, Chair. Now Apologies for absence today. Declaration of Interest. Members, now we come to item 3, Declaration of Interest. I personally have a declaration of interest for item number 5. I will be leaving the meeting because I asked for this application to be referred to committee. The chair will be taken by Chancellor Peter Fein, proposing that we... Chancellor Peter Fein stands for the Act of Advice Chair, but that's up for you to decide. I'm sorry. Councillor Bill. I will be drawing for that item. Okay. Councillor Bill Hanley, who has... Councillor... Councillor Heather Williams. Thank you, Chair. I just need to declare an interest in relation to agenda item 8. One of the applicants is a customer of my husband, but I've had no contactings, no pecuni interests, so it's a noting item. Councillor Eileen Walton. Thank you, Chair. I was on the original committee for agenda item 5, but I come to the matter at first. I'll just say ditto to that one, Chair. Okay. Councillor Peter Sandberg. Thank you, Chair. With respect to item 6, the land east of Irmins Street in Caxton, I am one of the local members that had discussions about the planning process with the parish council chair. However, I have not yet formed an opinion on the merits of the application and will be coming to today's discussion with an open mind. Okay. Councillor Peter Fein. I also have an interest in agenda item 5 in that I was on that committee back in 2018, but I come to the matter at first. Councillor Ariel Cullin. Father is speaking as a local member on item 5, but we have not spoken about it. Okay. Minutes of the previous meeting. Item 4 on agenda is the minutes of the previous meeting, and we have minutes of the meeting held on 9th of August. Do any members wish to make any amendments to these minutes? Councillor Heather Williams. Just simply, Chair, that I wasn't present, so I'll abstain from any vote. Can I take approval of these minutes by affirmation? Oh, sorry. Councillor Judith Griffiths. Again, Ditto, I wasn't here at that meeting to abstain. Okay. Can I take approval of these minutes by affirmation? Sorry. I would also, I wasn't at the meeting, so I will abstain. Okay. Item 5. I was also not at the meeting, so I'll abstain. Thank you. Item 5. As explained, I'm withdrawing from this application, and will present to my comments as local member. Councillor Peter Fainwell, Vice-Chair, will now take the chair, while I will leave the room. Okay. Peter, before we start, can we do the... Rebecca wants to do an update on the national planning framework. I think that's the point to do it, then I'll pass it over to you. Thank you, Chair. Just to let you know that the planning officers' reports on the agenda all contain references to the previous iteration of the MPPF, the National Planning Policy Framework. It was updated last week on the 5th. The update reflects the ministerial statements in regards to the changes on planning policy for onshore wind turbines. We've reviewed the changes that were made in the update to the MPPF and we're confident that none of the changes impact or affect the reports and how we would consider the applications on committee today. So, I just wanted to provide an update. So, as agreed members, I will take the chair. We will need to approve a temporary Vice-Chair for this item, and I would propose, I think it's agreed that Councillor... Oh, seconded, right. Councillor Bill Henry will take over. Seconded, proposed, agreed. Thank you. Right. So, we come to the next item, which is item number five, I think. Yes, item number five. Land to the west of Neil Drive, or West Neil Drive, rather, in Orchard Park. This is a section 73 application that is to vary a condition, condition number two in an application S4191, blig 19, a blig FL, which we approved previously. This involves the removal of the underground car parking, associated structures, reduction in the length and depth of the new blocks with internal alterations, alterations to the apartment mix, reduction in the amount of internal communal space, alterations to the cycle storage, an increase in the number of electric vehicle charging points, alterations to the above ground car parking, including an increase in the number of car club spaces with external landscape alterations. As mentioned earlier, this was called in by Councillor Khan and also by the Orchard Park Community Council. The key issues are related to transport and parking, viability and affordable housing, and designer landscape. And the presenting officer is Michael Hammond. The recommendation is to approve subject to conditions and de-variation. So, I'll call on Michael Hammond to present the application. Thank you, Chair. I'll just share my screen. Cyws up there, yep. So, as you mentioned, Chair, the application is a section 73 application to vary condition number two of the 2019 commission, which got permission for 80 studio, one and two bedroom apartments on land to the west of Neil Drive, Orchard Park. And I'll talk through the changes from the previous application to this one in turn. So, the site is located sort of the northern end of Orchard Park, adjacent to the A14, just to the north. To the east, bear with me, I will use a pointer. To the east is a plot of land that currently has a planning application on it for a hotel and a park hotel. That hasn't been determined yet, and that's pending consideration. To the west is the travel lodge building. And immediately to the south there are some residential properties. So, at a more zoomed-out scale, I've got Piston Lippington, it's catching up with me now, yep. To the northwest, to the south is the city of Cambridge. See the border with South Cambridgeshire effectively runs along King Hedges Road here. To the east is Cambridge Science Park. And Piston Road runs down here, which has a cycle link into the city centre. So, obviously there's been an Orchard Park design guide, SPD, that was adopted in 2011, which sets out the different parcels of lands to be developed in Orchard Park. This plot in here is part of Compo, which is in here. The majority of the other plots have been developed, or in the process of being developed now. So, this is the street view image looking to the west. So, up here on the right is the A14 barrier for context. Looking across the site towards the travel lodge. And then this is looking from the southwest. So, as you went through, Chair, the proposed changes between the previously approved plans and what would be these plans are the removal of underground car parking elements, which would result in reduction in 21 spaces. The ground surface level would be reconfigured to accommodate some of that parking that would be lost in the basement, and not all of it. The length and depth of the new blocks would be amended in terms of their scale in massing, particularly block A, the westernmost block, would be pulled back to the north. The apartment mix would be amended. It had to be reduced to a number of two beds, so that predominantly would be now studios. The internal arrangements would be changed, likely to accommodate cycle parking internally. And that cycle store to the north, which I'll go through, has been reduced in size as a result of that. More EV charging spaces are proposed. Again, above ground car parking arrangement has been amended, and two car club spaces are proposed off-site on the plans that we'd be seeking for those to be secured. On-site for reception line six agreement, that's out in the report, and then just general external landscape alterations as a result of those changes. So, I've done a comparison. So on the left is the approved block plan, on the right is the proposed. I believe this works. Yep. So I pointed out the key changes. As mentioned, that cycle parking store, previously it's where these red dots are in here, was a much larger structure. It's now proposed to be a smaller structure. And then the footprint and massing changes. So the main change is this block A reduction over here, which then allows for car parking to be extended into this area. As mentioned yet, that landscape area has been amended, whereas previously it's all landscape. There's a path that still is retained as part of this, running between Neil Drive and Chybden Way. But yet that arrangement will be changed. And again, that cycle park is reduced. It catches up on this one. So this was where the basement car park entrance was going to be, so there'd be a lift that went down to the basement. That's now been removed. Again, cycle parking moved internally within the building. This landscaping area you'll see has changed as a result of that footprint being reduced and trying to accommodate more car parking at surface level. There isn't much in terms of obvious comparisons. The main one is that it's been reduced by six metres block A. So previously it was around 39 metres and now it's around 33 metres. And this upper floor element of block B has been increased slightly. You can see there. It previously didn't extend as far out. So that's six metres gap. Effectively, it's been increased between the site and the residential dwellings leading to the south. So previously it was around 10.8 metres and now it's 16.8. So as mentioned, there was a basement plan. There obviously isn't a comparison one now because they're not proposing one. But again, there was underground car parking before. These comparisons of the floor plans, again, that basement car park has been removed. And you'll see that the footprint of the building has been altered slightly. For example, now it's more straight edges whereas previous deals can't leave it. But generally the footprint and massing is very similar. And again, that cycle parking has come internally now. There are too many changes to point out at the upper floor levels. Again, it's mainly straightening off of edges, for example here. The link between the two blocks at second floor and above is still maintained as part of this. And similarly at third floor level. At the upper floor, there was that element of massing that point that earlier has been increased slightly on block B here. So that's the main change on this elevation. This floor plan, sorry. So in terms of time balance, the principal development has been improved under the extent permission. There's an improved sustainability performance of the development by way of the removal of the basement car park and the reduction in the amount of embodied carbon as a result of that. There's a reduction in physical massing footprint which we feel enhances the appearance of the building itself. And the amended design does not harm neighbour amenity. In terms of potential harm, there, as you will note, landscape and urban design have pointed out some potential harm in terms of the landscaping arrangement particularly in that southwest corner that was pointed out earlier. And then there's third party comments and comments made by the council regarding the reduction in the amount of car parking and the potential impact. This has an on-street parking pressure. However, the transport assessment team and the county council have been consulted based on similar permission at Topper Street in Orchard Park comfortable with that. The provision of two car cub spaces would help to offset this. So therefore the officer recommendation is approval, subject to conditions and a deed of variation to the original section 106 agreements. Thank you, chair. Thank you for that presentation. Now we do have an opportunity to ask any questions of clarification for officer here and I would stress that if you have questions of clarification it would be better to ask them now than to seek to ask them of our speakers later. I think we have councilor Heather Williams first. Thank you, chair. I just want to clarify around cycle because obviously it looks smaller because it's becoming inside more. There's no reflection on volume in relation to the cycle storage. Because it looks like a massive reduction. That's one of my inquiries. For you, chair. Can I ask for clarification? When you say volume, is that the external store or the internal store capacity? Yes, there is a slight reduction. I think it's mentioned in my committee report. I think it's two spaces. Technically it's lower than what was approved. However, it's pertinent to note that the mix of dwellings now previously has two beds whereas now we've got more studios. The actual demand on those spaces is compensated for in that respect. There is a capacity reduction, yes, but the mix has changed. Yes, I'm sorry. Thank you, chair. Could you clarify obviously there's a lot more studios this time? Looking at the site history, obviously there was an application for student rooms that was refused. Are you confident that if this was to be approved there are sufficient conditions to ensure that it just doesn't become student accommodation? For you, chair. There wouldn't be a condition that, for example, restricts it to not be used by students, but if it was to, there would be a change of views to turn it into student accommodation. But I'd imagine as part of that they'd need to provide, for example, communal facilities or things like that. So effectively they'd need to reapplyce plan permission if they want to change it into student accommodation. That would be the mechanism with use to secure it rather than a condition because there's different use class. Thank you, chair, for indulging me. So just to make sure that I'm clear of mind. So it can't officially be student accommodation without planning commission, but they would be free to rent it out to students if they so wish. Is that what I've heard? Yes. Okay, I think that is clear. Now, forgive me, I may have got the order wrong here, but I'm going to call councillor Dr Tumi Hawkins next. Thank you very much, chair. Thanks for the presentation. The parking was a main issue when this was first considered. We have an application in front of us that's planning to reduce that number significantly. I actually visited the site yesterday evening to see what parking is like. There were some cars already parked in front of the building just before you get to the site. So it seems to me that the assessment that's been done by the county team, I haven't seen any evidence that providing two plop car spaces will replace losing 21 parking spaces, especially when car ownership in Orchard Park is higher than the other areas closer to it in Cambridge. So it seems to me that how can we accept the assessment that reducing by so many parking spaces will not cause more problems further down the line? I mean that is a valid material consideration that you would need to consider. All I can stress is that we consulted the county council that I guess the key material change between perhaps when you last considered this and this one is that topper street application that's referred to. That was where the two car cub spaces came in to offset that demand. I don't have the stats immediately to hand to say exactly what the difference is between the two in terms of what a car cub space would do. I could look for that in the background whilst perhaps speakers are talking, but yeah, like I said, we're led ultimately by the county council transport assessment team in that regard. Thank you if I may chair. I appreciate that. It would have been good if it had given us that evidence. There isn't any evidence. The practicalities that are happening at the park now means that it's potentially going to be an issue we're going to have to come back with. I mean they've asked for section 106 to make changes to avoid parking on this bit. But what about the actual parking when people need to park? Anyway, thank you. I think this is clearly going to be a matter for debate. It's a matter that the public speakers may also wish to address. Mr Hammond has kindly offered to have a look at the background data and perhaps after we've heard from the public speakers it might just give us a little bit more detail as to how the county assessment team came to that view. I think it's important that in that we consider that if there are 26 car parking places plus the the two extra spaces for the car park, how those spaces might be allocated and if there are additional cars, if more the occupiers have cars where those might be parked, perhaps we could come back to that later. Now, I have other questioners. I think councillor Dr Richard Williams was next. Thank you very much chair. I've got, I think, three points. The first is it will be helpful if you could say a little bit about the section 73 issue which is referenced in the report and is referenced by the parish council specifically the fact that this is coming forward as a section 73 application as an amendment when there are some fairly quite significant changes to the application. So I think I would welcome just a bit of clarification that we're confident that this is okay as a section 73 application. On the parking picking up a point that councillor Hawking's made actually it will be useful I think for me to get a bit more clarification for the officer. Maybe that will come later about exactly what the county team has said because the report of paragraph 930 on page 29 notes that the county team says that the provision of the car pool or the car club rather could reduce demand but actually if you read paragraph 614 it concludes with the county team saying that the car club industry is still fairly new to Cambridge and so there is not enough local evidence to support the assumption that two club spaces would reduce 24 so actually it seems that there is no evidence for that and the county team is actually saying they don't know so I think a bit of clarification on presiding what's meant by 930 would be helpful and then one final point just on housing mix obviously we got policy H9 which has talked about a page 37 of the report I mean this quite clearly doesn't comply with policy H9 but that conclusion isn't really drawn I know but it's quite way off policy H9 so I think just a bit of clarification on why you think there's no conflict there if that's the case and then finally finally paragraph 9.95 this is on the bill to rent housing it talks about it says 9.95 says the proposal for bill to rent housing would provide a different type of accommodation that is not currently highly available in the district I'd be interested in the evidence for that Thank you before we ask Mr Hammond to reply to that can I just remind members just seeking questions of clarification some of these points he may be able to help us with some of them are for us to debate later on when we reach that section but Mr Hammond Thank you chair so I'll try and take them in turn so in terms of a section 73 I mean I'll refer to paragraph 9.4 of the committee report on this page 25 of the committee pack so it says playing practice guidance suffises that statutory definitions of a minor material amendment which is section 73 acation but it's likely to include in the amendment where it's scale and or nature results development that is not substantially different from the one that has been approved and then it refers to case law essentially the description of development as originally approved was quite generic it was 80 apartments and they're still proposing 80 apartments so I think that's might would be what I'd like to go to for that is that it's not changing the description of development that was originally approved your next point was about car club spaces paragraph 9.7 sorry sorry councillor can you remind me of the paragraph number you reference yeah it was 9.30 and then I was referring back to 6.14 where the county team said that there was no evidence action to support the assumption that two car club spaces would reduce demand by 24 spaces yeah thank you it might be a case of similar to my point to councillor Hawkins earlier me perhaps investigating that in the background perhaps while speakers are talking to see if they've got the evidence because like I said this is what the county council have said to us in their response so that's where that originated from in terms of the policy H9 mix whilst yes there are a lot of studios as a proportion in this one we have consulted the housing team who don't have an objection to the mix proposed and I know the policy does make exceptions for this whilst I appreciate perhaps it is quite heavily weighted to the studio side like I said the housing team are okay with it so we're led by their expert opinion on that I'm sure if they had an objection about that mix they would have pointed that out to us so that would be my response to that but yeah I think it would be a case of me looking in the background to try and get more into this transport matter that's okay thank you that would be very helpful thank you councillor Eileen Wilson thank you Jeff I have a question about the compressed cycle parking outside how has it become compressed is it a different type of stand or I've also got another question just for clarification so is that the external storage it's become compressed because they've essentially moved a significant amount of that cycle storage internally within the main building of block B that's the reason the actual store has got compressed yes my second question was about the parking is there any disabled parking are there any disabled parking spaces and would this affect the overall availability of parking for people who don't use disabled parking spaces free future yes there are disabled car parking space I'm just trying to get the cyclan up because it might help me to share my screen again so there are four sorry there were four so there's two disabled car parking spaces outside block A here which hopefully my mouse is hovering over so the 26 that were in the site include two disabled spaces so there's 24 other spaces that make sense thank you could you keep that up because councillor Ripeth I think councillor Bill Handley wanted to ask a related question thank you can you tell us how many EV charging points are proposed I believe it's 10 it's in the committee report it might be some of the amendments I'm sure it's 10 I'll come back if it's different right lastly I think second but lastly questions councillor Judith Ripeth and then I'll come back to councillor Timothy Hawkins after that I'm terrified by the other questions thank you councillor Dr Timothy Hawkins clearly yours hasn't thank you chair for letting me come back just back to cycling will the stands be suitable for cargo bikes it's better if we have to get the more plans up because that will probably be the best invocator so looking at the plan my initial reaction is no they won't but I mean I might be able to clarify as well if they're speaking but based on this layout it's predominantly jeffield stands so unless there was some way I mean it could be dealt with by way of condition potentially if if we want to rearrange the cycle parking layout internally to allow for it there appears to be room there to do it but as it stands no there's not right I think that concludes our questions of clarification I'll now move on to the public speakers it's about to welcome Paul Harnie Paul Harnie associates if you'd like to come to the stand Mr Harnie thank you for joining us you probably know the procedure you'll need to press the red button you'll then have three minutes I appreciate that there have been a lot of questions of clarification asked that you may wish to address and if when you've finished you want some more time to address those questions I'm sure we can accommodate that but for the moment you have three minutes the floor is yours thank you this application seeks amendments to the approved scheme for 80 built or rent apartments at Neil Drive the main changes are the removal of underground car parking and alterations to the above ground parking layout the provision of an additional car club space an increased number of EV charging points a reduction in the length of the flat locks having considered these changes in the context of the council's adopted planning policies and guidance officers recommend planning commission is granted no objections are raised to the removal of the underground car park or the reduction in the number of parking spaces by the transport team or the highways development management team the provision of 26 spaces proposed is exactly the same dwelling to parking ratio recently permitted by the district council in respect of a similar built or rent proposal at Toppers Street also within Orchard Park and just 250 metres east of the site we note that the community council did not object to will speak against that application the parking ratio is also based on evidence of parking demand at other built or rent schemes within the Cambridge area and nationally for example a recent development on Huntingham Road of 68 one bedroom apartments at a similar distance to the city centre has only nine residents who own or have use of the car the underground car park is therefore not required and it's a removal alongside other changes will deliver important sustainability advantages as noted in the officers report which is structured would involve much less embedded carbon and so overall a greatly reduced carbon footprint and energy use will be significantly reduced over the lifetime of the buildings the additional car club space will encourage more car sharing reducing the need for occupants to own their own car the increased EV charging points will encourage occupants who do own their cars to feel able to switch to electric vehicles it is recognised that there will be a small reduction in the amount of soft landscaping for clarity this is just 33 square metres down from 558 to 525 square metres this is only 6% overall however the quality of the landscaping will be enhanced with more surface level planting and the hard planting containers originally proposed above the underground car park structure are no longer required a set out in the officers report the proposals retain the green strips of the site entrance with tree planting to create a green burden feel provide a landscape green wedge to the south west corner include tree buffer planting to the southern boundary and provide good quality planting around the apartments to create a soft setting to the built form we therefore hope that the committee will support the officers recommendation and resolve to grant planning commission to enable these changes thank you and I would appreciate being able to answer any questions that you have particularly those raised about car parking standards to build to rent and also about the question on student accommodation thank you Mr Harney just before we do that I know that councillor Heather Williams has an additional question if members want to put the same questions of clarification they put earlier on I'm sure Mr Harney will have taken note of them and we could perhaps be brief on that councillor Heather Williams thank you chair I asked my question of the officer and I've had the officer's response so that's not my question it's something different through your self-chair the applicant has made reference to lots of different applications and referred to the orchard park community council and their responses could I just ensure and seek clarification that the applicant understands that each application is decided on its own merits and that the orchard park community council as are we are able to make a decision on each application and therefore if he would like to contribute anything in relation to the objections that have been raised by officers of this council in other matters I would welcome it but I think that should be understood chair I just want to make sure it is thank you councillor Williams I suspect that may be regarded as a rhetorical question to which the answer yes would probably suffice but I don't want to anticipate how Mr Heiney might want to respond to that yes the reason I raised the case it was only an application quite recently on top of Street which is this round the corner from our site in the orchard park where there's actually the same parking matters raised by the applicant at that time and there's actually the same conclusion reached by the highway authority that's determined why our application has come forward in this way we've to some extent been led by that application and by that approval about the calculation of car parking so I think it's reasonable for me to raise that because it would seem a little unreasonable to have almost no identical situation almost next door to us being approved on similar evidence whereas it should be resused on the same evidence thank you and let me just stress that we will be hearing shortly from Victoria McNeill who's the Clark to the Orchard Park Community Association who can no doubt make any points for herself now members had the opportunity to ask questions for clarification earlier on a number of which Mr Hammond is going to come back to about later after the public speakers do any members want any questions of clarification specifically to Mr Harnie councillor Dr Tewby Hawkins wants to ask you one and then Mr Harnie I will give you a moment to deal with some of the questions that were asked earlier that you may not have had the chance to address yet councillor Dr Tewby Hawkins thank you very much chair two things first is on the cycle parking are you planning on making any availability availability for cargo bikes because there's a lot more of those being used in Cambridge these days I repeat the question councillor Hawkins sorry I didn't hear the question are you making cycle parking available for cargo bikes the spaces we have is the same as the previous application in terms of the type and quantity but we can introduce cargo bikes parking as the planning officer said there is room for that so I'd be happy for that to be conditioned that some element of cargo parking bikes are there but we look particularly at the demographic of the residents there when we're considering that but we're happy to provide them if required thank you we would of course be considering whether to approve the application as submitted but it's helpful to know that there is some flexibility there it's unusual for me to ask you to address questions that were addressed to others but I do it merely to save time to avoid members having to repeat questions and if you would keep your answers as brief as you can and related directly to the questions that were put earlier on that would be helpful yes I just have to really I think the officer dealt with the rest the site already has an expand consent for student accommodation for 138 student rooms that is an expand consent so I thought it would be good to point it out I think also it's a regard in parking a built to rent has been an awful a lot of studies on built to rent and the demographic, the age group of people to live in that accommodation and car ownership and it's quite an important factor I mean we've developed one recently in Cambridge and about our 68 apartments we provided 30 spaces but there are only nine residents for a fully occupied block of flats who actually have cars and that is quite typical of the built to rent demographic and I thought they ought to be able to point that out as well so far we've over provided for car parking on the sites that we have developed in the past thank you that's very helpful and thank you for your presentation so next I'm going to call on we have with us Victoria McNeill Clark to the Orchard Park community council nice Victoria McNeill welcome thank you chair I think you know the rules you will have three minutes can I just ask you before then whether you have the specific consent of the community association to represent them on these matters yes I do chair councillor Chan the chair of the organisation would have been here he has been caught up on another meeting so he has asked me to represent the community council understood thank you very much for that you have three minutes thank you those members who were on the planning committee when the original application was submitted five years ago will recall that adequacy of parking was a huge issue for residents parking problems have got worse at Orchard Park since then with the increase in HMOs and the increase seemingly in car ownership the community council recognises the need to reduce car ownership but a shortage of dedicated parking spaces in Orchard Park has already led to residents parking all over the place there is an existing safety problem for children walking to school for cyclists for wheelchair mobility scooter users and other walkers generally by removing a substantial amount of the parking provision 21 spaces in what is already a problem area of parking due to the density of housing and car ownership and in this regard it is a little different from Topper Street and the arrangements at the far end of Topper Street which Mr Harnie referred to as being almost identical and they're not but the density, particular density here of housing and car ownership safety is compromised parents won't want their children walking or cycling in Orchard Park if it's clogged with on street parking and I think this would surely run counter to the council's aims to get more people walking and cycling and would therefore militate against one of the things that the officer said was in favour of approval which was the claimed improvement in sustainability I think this would have a counterproductive effect the community council does not believe this to be a minor material amendment if the developer wishes to pursue this change we believe it should at least be the subject for a new fully consulted upon application it is substantially different from the original application Planning policy guidance states an amendment would be considered a minor material amendment if it's scale and nature results in a development which is not substantially different from that that has been approved and I submit that this is substantially different from what has been approved thank you very much thank you very much as before if members have questions of clarification which have not been dealt with earlier then there is an opportunity now to ask Mrs McNeill now Mrs McNeill the point you raise about whether this is appropriate for a 73 application as we call it or whether this should be a new application inevitably the committee will take advice from our officers on that and I would ask either Mr Hammond or possibly Mr Pitt to comment further on that before we progress yes thank you chair it might have actually covered this but it was quite a recent case in the High Court Armstrong where the test was just bear with me sorry to spring this one on you crucial point we need to address so the High Court stated that the wording in the PPG caused a bit of confusion because it refers to minor material amendment and there was nothing in section 73 of the acts where there is a conflict between the planning guidance and the legislation that limits applications to minor material amendments and there was this chap Armstrong appealed against the decision of local authority to turn down his application where there was just for one dwelling he amended various plans he wasn't building any more than one dwelling and the High Court basically said quashed the decision of the inspector to refuse the appeal because he didn't change the operative part of the planning permission so basically the fundamental principle of the permission was the saying he wasn't building 20 houses or something like that I mean to an extent it's in the eye of the decision maker as to what each person would deem to be minor and obviously there's something that Michael's decided is minor but that's caused a conflict with the objectives so we are that case law to an extent has clarified that actually it's quite broad what could qualify as a minor material amendment. Thank you for that so just to sum up you are satisfied that it is correct to consider this as a section 73 application to an existing it could not be considered reasonable to refuse it on the basis of it was predicated on a section 73 it would be unreasonable and liable to challenge if the council did that and sorry I was just going to clarify that actually a section 73 application is fully consulted on the same as a full funding application so there is no difference in the level of consultation in terms of statutory neighbour or any other consultees That's very helpful, thank you This is Mwiel, thank you very much for your presentation Thank you I think the local member councillor Dr Martin Kahn is going to speak to us I think he's just about to join us again councillor Kahn I think we can assume you know how this committee works so the floor is yours for the usual three minutes would be preferred as the local member Okay it's been accepted on the basis of the original approval that this site can accept out to 80 units of privately rented housing this due to viability concerns would not include any affordable housing originally it was accepted on this site due to the nature of the tenure there would need to be 47 parking spaces in the implementation of a car club scheme when I checked on the minutes of the original application to confirm this on the basis of this present application which is assumes that each car club scheme space would displace 12 car parking spaces there would be 46 places plus 12 this equates to 58 car parking spaces for 80 units the car clubs scheme with a minimum of 1 car this section 73 application proposes that this be reduced to 24 parking spaces plus 2 car club spaces on which basis there would be 48 car parking spaces a reduction of 10 spaces these views of parking and affordable housing in Orchard Park were major issues in the Neal Drive and L2 applications I confirm from my own experience that the problems of parking in the evenings are really significant in Orchard Park especially so on those parts of the quarter to the west where the development is higher it appears to be lower to the east of the quarter where a large development at Marmlaid Lane of co-housing consisting of residents committed to a variant environment where lifestyle has a large car share scheme and sufficient onsite parking thus reducing pressure on top of the street in front of a L2 scheme which also rejoins Marmlaid Lane considering the planning balance there was a major difference between the two schemes the Neal Drive application had no provision for affordable housing the L2 scheme promoted by Cambridge Investment Partnership in which the City Council has an interest included 40% of social housing therefore social housing I emphasised not which is cheaper which is lower events than affordable housing therefore the issues involved here are basically that the Neal Drive and L2 schemes cannot be considered equivalent firstly the L2 scheme includes 40% social mainly one bedroom units these will include those who are in housing need and will include people with limited resources including many older single persons and including those not working who are less likely to possess or have need for a car and for whom most trips will be to the city centre for services they need a link that is well served by public transport these are likely to be a different clientele to those preventing the studio units at Neal Drive and the remaining market one bedroom studio units at L2 were expected to be young workers up to the 30 age group for many of whom a car will be necessary to get to work at places not directly served by public transport the pressure on on-street parking the Neal Drive area is also likely to be higher due to the higher density of development and the lack of a highly sustainably minded community next door meanwhile it is proposed to be due to the effect of on-site parking there taking into account the lack of affordable housing at Neal Drive and the damage to the landscaping the revised Neal Drive proposal which is not in the least certain of the Neal Drive proposal when the pulling balance of both the reduction and poor world landscaping is considered would have been improved by a committee in its revised form and thus the revision cannot be considered a minor change I would therefore suggest that in the context of what I have presented the L2 application cannot be considered a precedent for the Neal Drive application and recommend that the committee refuses this Section 73 application and requires any such amendment to be subject to a full application with the parking or landscaping implications are fully considered afresh in the context of that application alone Thank you Thank you Dr Khan I don't think you'll be appropriate to ask any questions I think councillor Dr Khan made his views very clear and Dr Khan will now leave us again for a while before resuming his seat in another role when we've concluded our debate and come to a decision on this application Now before I open this debate we did ask Mr Hammond a number of questions and I know he's been ddebling around for the answers because I think committee members were reluctant to rely totally on assurances from the county team without a little bit more detail and I think before we address other questions let's hear from Mr Hammond on the ones we put to him earlier Thank you Jeff I'll share my screen because it might be helpful to have this up for your viewing as well so there's two elements that I'll try and explain one is how they've arrived at what they, the county think is a parking demand Oh sorry make it bigger There we go That's not a cheap thing, bigger isn't it Oh it's in this one, yeah There we go So there's two elements There's the car parking demand and how they've arrived at what they think is a demand and then how is this car club how will the car come space office at 12 regular car parking spaces So it's largely derived in terms of what they consider to be the parking demand from the 2011 census data So there's effectively three areas that have been up from consideration called superset layers in the census data So the site obviously is most closely related to 006H in terms of its physical geography it's within that There's also 001 which is the established residential area many of the king hedges in the south east and then there's this 002 area towards the castle area into the city of cambridge itself So I'll show you this table which basically explains it easier than that So in the I guess what you call the orchard park area it says the average number of cars per flat is approximately 0.94 Now this was based for the top of street application which was the 75 dwellings so it would be slightly higher than that for 80 units as we've got in front of us But you'll see that there's that area there's 001 which is the established king hedges area which has a lower parking demand of around 50 and then 002 which is getting into the water water city centre effectively a more sustainable location is becoming The county council are of the view that this 001 number which is what the sorry this little thing comes up which is what within this application has been proposed so they're saying that 0.63 average number of cars per flat for 80 units that would equate to 50 parking spaces They consider the argument put forth by the Asian applicant through the transport consultant is that since that 2011 census the site has become a lot more sustainable if you would when that census data was taken in terms of you've got things like the histon road cycling route coming in for example and they feel less car dependent and that the county council are satisfied that using something akin to this i.e. showing 50 spaces is appropriate in this instance because the fact is quite later than the 2011 census I appreciate that's quite a fatty answer to give but that's what the county council have seen and that's what the county council have they have no objection to that methodology I can't speak for anything else about how the county council arrived at that but they have no objection to this methodology and if I could just clarify the car club spaces first before perhaps the evidence behind that is this 2007-18 England Wales car club survey produced by COLO UK that's what was being presented before and again the county council considered that to be reasonable that one car club space takes off 12 regular spaces as this evidence that has supported that I again the county council have assessed that I haven't gone into this in great detail but that's how they arrived at those decisions so that's all I can inform you chair but hopefully that helps in some way but I appreciate you might have more questions after this Thank you for that Now members I am keen to move on to the debate rather than take further questions as long as we're satisfied that Mr Hammons was I think he has done everything he can to answer the questions we put to him earlier on however as members know I'm easily persuaded Councillor Dr Richard Williams Thank you chair, thank you for indulging me I do have one question I'll keep it to one I'll make my other point in debate just on that why don't they rely on the census 2021 there is detailed census data from 2021 for Orchard Park which shows quite clearly that car ownership is higher in Orchard Park still in 2021 than in other areas so my question is really we can't rely on 2011 data it's out of date there's more up to date data available to us which tells us something different Mr Hammons I think we would all understand if you can't answer for them in that matter we appreciate you're doing your best to deal with a survey done by others just while you're looking into that point of information from councillor Dr Tubi Hawkins Thank you chair considering how important this matter is regarding the parking why isn't the county council officers here or at least available online to answer our questions especially when they're using data that's like 12 years old Yes I think that is in part a question for me and I have to say this straight out I can't answer it but I think this is a section 73 application not a full application and so typically county officers would not be online I assume there aren't any listening in to us councillor Dr Heather Williams I appreciate the doctorate but it hasn't been earned to the chair I'm not a doctor Do you have a degree? My apologies nearly a mechanical I'll take the upgrade if it'll help So Sorry that's put me off what I was going to say now In light of what councillor Dr Tubi Hawkins has said and councillor Dr Richard Williams I'm the only one out on this sentence Would it be I would feel a lot more comfortable given what we're hearing given the age if we could get someone from county to give us some advice Now I know they're not with us at the moment but we are in a hybrid world and I do hope some of them are working Could I potentially suggest we have 10 minutes for a comfort break of which that gives officers a chance to make a call and see if Mr Finney or somebody could come online to help us with this I feel if we don't do that then we're not going to feel comfortable that we've at least tried Thank you chair and I'm sure everyone would appreciate a comfort break Thank you and we don't take that as any criticism and very much appreciate your attempt to answer on behalf of somebody else I suggest we take a comfort break anyway and we will let you know when we come back whether it was possible to accommodate that request So let us take a break to 11.15 and meet again then to debate this matter Thank you Thank you, welcome back within our resume meeting we are of course on item 5 Now before we had that short break we had a request from Councillor Heather Williams that we see some from the highways officers involved in drawing up the assessment we've been looking at might be available I'm going to pass you over to Rebecca Smith if I may on this point Thank you chair We've been trying to get hold of the county highways but unfortunately there's no one available to take our call however I have also been trying to get hold of the 2021 census data to show the same thing and I cannot find the data that's been published as yet down to that level Michael's still trying at the same time I will ask Dr Richard Williams for a brief comment on that but I don't want to take further questions I think Mr Hammond has made a very good attempt to answer all of the questions that we put him originally so I'm keen to move on to the debate Dr Richard Williams did you want to make a comment on that or are you happy to put your comments in the debate Can email the link if it's useful I don't want to be circulating additional documents or additional reading at this stage so councillor Dr Richard Williams if you would just include any information that you've derived from that additional information in your contribution to the debate I would be most grateful Okay members I think unless officers have anything to add we are now ready to proceed to the debate Can I invite speakers on this I think the first I have is councillor Judith Rithford Thank you chair I just wanted to bring what I consider a bit of local knowledge I mean I obviously do not represent the ward itself but I live quite close to it in Milton and I can really confirm that parking in the evening is especially difficult and I think some of this is Orchard Park is quite a densely populated area so if you take the way it's built in contrast to maybe some places that have been referenced like Huntington Road the homes if they're not flat so often townhouses and that means that there is actual less public road space in between the dwellings carports etc so parking is a real difficulty so I don't think you can just look at it in such a broad brush approach of this is further out of the centre so therefore it will mean something else so I think it's quite specific to that area and I therefore think that loss of the underground car park and halving of numbers spaces or almost halving is going to be detrimental and changes this considerably and at this stage aside from the landscaping being kind of reduced and more outstanding at this stage I really don't feel I can support this Thank you councillor Heather Williams Thank you chair I will be listening to the figures that are quoted later when hopefully councillor Dr Richard Williams gives his views in debate I think the parking is something I appreciate it was a big part of the debate a consideration for most of us but we are looking at this afresh in my mind looking just as it is now and the changes that have happened subsequently it isn't a minor reduction of using a few spaces it's quite a considerable cut in the parking provision the cycle store as well I know both the way it's being reconfigured I know it's only the loss of two spaces but it's still another loss I appreciate we have more studios and one bedroom a studio is in there than was before and it's more one bedroom I still personally don't see that because it's a studio rather than a one bedroom that doesn't mean that you'll have two people and couples sharing them I think that's still a valid thing to happen I don't think we can assume that it's one person per room probably have to go on something like 1.5 I think we can assume there aren't children in those situations but you don't know but with that in mind I do have a lot of sympathy I have to say with the fact that this is substantial changes to the original proposal but I do take the advice of the legal advice we've had that that's not something that's appropriate for us to look at I'd also really like to draw members attention not only to the objections that have been made by the community council but on page 20 and page 21 there have been objections by our officers by the urban design team and landscape officers over time and there's been some revisions and I'd like to say that for me having we had a site visit when we first went out so we're familiar with the site some of us and it is a I would say it's a bit of an awkward site and actually a lot of the original concerns were about how the street scene would look and I do welcome the fact that we've got an extended gap between the other property giving it a balance that is something that is welcome but to take up the front for car parking I think does have an alteration to that where they're going to do it and it is a loss and I don't think that the changes enhance the area as a whole with the way they're doing so parking a big issue obviously I'm not happy with the reduction and I'm definitely not supportive on that ground but I think even with all the other changes as well overall this is just not a positive thing for the for the local area for how it's going to look either for its provision and I'm minded at this point to refuse chair Thank you. Now I'm going to take next councillor Dr Tumi Hawking I beg a pardon councillor Peter Sanford first and then I'll come back let me just say that if the it is helpful to have local knowledge particularly of parking conditions if there are any other members who may have that sort of local knowledge then that would be their comments would be welcome but councillor Peter Sanford next Thank you chair My proceeding discussion has focused around car ownership and ratios and cast of flats but bear in mind these are being offered as buy to rent flats which could be rented in the short term by almost anyone for example building contractors a team shows up with four transit bans that's going basically to the mostly available parking space and as the community council said there's little or no overspill on the streets so I'm really uncomfortable approving this application with so few spaces 24 for 80 apartments there's no ripple room at all for large vehicles so I'm tending to not approve this application here Thank you councillor dr Tooby Hawkins Thank you very much can we have on screen the planning balance page please effectively my view is this I mean we've got the amended design does not harm neighbourhood I will switch that over to the refusal section if we look at it in terms of the landscape the degree of harm in my view is significant because it takes off the shrubs trees whatever it was that was supposed to be there and replace it with hard standing which means the amenity of the neighbours is affected too yes there is a an increase in the separation between the existing and the proposed but that does not in my view compensate for the removal of the landscape structure or the landscape proposal that was there before it is reducing the number of car parking spaces in my view is not a minor amendment it is not small and I will say this the applicants are actually playing in the planning system because this is a huge change especially knowing just how difficult parking is in the area and as I said I went there yesterday evening after 9 on my way back from somewhere else because I thought I want to see what it is like at night and yes it was crowded somewhere already parking on the streets even the building at the very one before this proposal there was parking in front of it on the corner so there is an issue and by reducing the parking space proposed for this it can really make it worse in my view so there is more harm that is caused by the proposal than I am willing to accept thank you chair I'm about to call Dr Richard Williams if you would agree if we call councillor Ariel Cahn first and then come to you thank you to say that I agree with councillor Dr Tuggy Hockins that I don't believe that there will be the entire underground car park and such a significant reduction in my view of parking space to be considered a minor amendment and that also builds councillor Peter Samford that was 24 parking spaces for 18 apartments really absurdly small number even if there are studios because like he said there is no wiggle room at all for all this but especially in order to park which has some very serious parking parking issues and has had parking issues for quite a while councillor Dr Richard Williams thank you chair I'll just start with this point about the 2021 census I mean it is available freely online Orchard Park is divided up into a number of parcels where it gives you census data of the ownership of cars so the specific part of Orchard Park we're talking about here the census 2021 reports 76.1% of households have one or more cars I'm sorry Dr Williams could you just go through this a little more slowly because I think you've given us some sorry chair just allow for old brains no no no no my fault so I'm looking at census 2021 it divides Orchard Park up into a number of small parcels where you get data the specific parcel of Orchard Park we're talking about census 2021 records car ownership of 76.1% of households within this part Orchard Park at least one car one or more cars or vans according to what I'm looking at every single parcel of Orchard Park is divided up into about five or six data bundles every single one records car ownership of 76% or higher ranges between 76% and 86% if you look to the south you immediately see car ownership is much lower in the areas adjacent car ownership in those areas ranges between 59% and 63% so it's at least 10% fewer households in the areas to the south own cars as compared to Orchard Park it's colour coded this map it's quite obviously you can see it there is higher car ownership there so I rely on that on the basis of or rather in relation to what's stated by the county transport team in paragraph 6.11 where they suggest car ownership in Orchard Park was higher in 2011 it would be lower today and they draw an allergy with areas to the south my reading is that that's clearly not the case and the census 2021 shows quite clearly that car ownership in Orchard Park in 2021 was still higher than in areas to the south very clearly and therefore the calculations they make which seem to assume car ownership in Orchard Park is now in line with areas to the south is not correct so it's a shame they haven't used the most recent data and it's a shame the committee doesn't have the full benefit of that otherwise I will be brief here I share the concerns of other members I don't think there's adequate parking provision here I think you can't in a sense have it both ways you can't both say this is not student accommodation but there'll be nobody wanting cars either I'm afraid I can't one or the other so I'm not satisfied I also would lay some weight on points made earlier about the harm to the landscaping from this proposal the increase in car parking spaces so I'm minded to refuse Jeff hopefully that was clear I'm going to call Councillor Eileen Wilson I would say that a number of members have said that they are minded to refuse so we will need to give careful thought as to what basis if the committee were to come to that decision we might want to do so Councillor Eileen Wilson Thank you Jeff having listened to the other members in the debate and having listened to Dr Richard Wilson's feedback from the censors that I too am inclined to refuse this application because I know that we've been told that there's already a high incidence in Orchard Park of HMOs and it's difficult to draw a correlation perhaps with the likely demographic of the built to rent apartments but it does seem like the car ownership even with those in HMOs who might be more transient or people renting that the incidence of car ownership is high so I'm not confident with the figures that we've been given about potential car ownership is suitability of only having 24 apartments basis Thank you for that I think members we're nearly ready to move to a vote before we do that I'd just like to comment on one or two points myself I think it's very important we recognise the advice we've had from officers that this is appropriate for a section 73 application and indeed I think we need to be careful not to suggest that developers are playing the planning system if they use the system that is put before them as the case here I ask for the planning balance slide to be retained there because I think if we look at the potential reasons for a fusel officers say a minor degree of harm and that was indeed backed up by the points made by the developer that this affects 6% of the landscaped area and that is rather offset by more of it being in the ground rather than over the underground car park that was originally planned so I think that's a fact we need to take into account personally I would be persuaded that that is only a minor degree of harm we've all come back to the reduction in the quantum of car parking right now this is I think a difficult one for us because we're all keen to encourage less reliance on cars and we see in that area that as was pointed out since 2011 there has been a substantial change in the options for those wanting to travel around without relying on their own cars and of course the provision of car club spaces which is for the moment a slightly uncertain factor as to how many people would take them up is a contribution here now we had some comments from those with the local experience of the existing parking situation in that area and although we weren't able to hear from county officers we did hear a very thorough analysis of the submission made by county officers, by our own officers looking including at the stats I accept the councillor Richard Williams may raise some more recent statistics that might have been taken into account and I think maybe haven't been my own view for what it's worth is that what we need to do is to encourage people if they have cars to leave them at home and that may depend on them having somewhere to leave them but I think we also need to consider to what extent this block goes ahead would attract people who are not expecting to be able to have cars on site I'm concerned that the question of how those spaces may be allocated was not addressed because as councillor Peter Sanford raised there may be some here who bring in vehicles and one can foresee some arguments as to who gets the spaces and some concerns as expressed by the community council as to where any cars that are surplus to the spaces may be placed but for what it's worth I believe that the best possible assessment has been made of the likely demand the developer also presented some evidence based on local experience and we should listen to experience of other sites in the area even if we insist there are differences so I think in considering the planning balance here I would suggest we are reduced to this one factor and that if members are inclined not to support this application then it will clearly be on the second factor on the right hand side of the planning balance you can see before you I'm not going to say which way I'm inclined to vote but I now propose that we do move to a vote and determine this matter can I have a seconder I do not intend to spend time discussing our reasons I think that planning officers have sufficient information from the debate to see that our reasons come down to the item as listed on the planning balance already I think it's not good practice to spend too much time debating possible reasons because it implies we've made up our minds and I want members to make up their minds for themselves so if Councillor Williams will forgive I don't intend to spend further time on this unless officers ask me to are officers satisfied that yeah okay so I think we know that if we do vote against we understand what the reasons might be so I'm now going to move having had a seconder for my motion I'm now going to move to a vote which we'll do on the usual electronic basis as we'll know you'll press the blue button in front of you and then if you want to vote in favour of the application to accept the officer recommendation of approval then you press the the green button and if you want to refuse the application you press the red button thank you well members as we can see that application for section 73 the very condition 2 in relation to the approved scheme at west of Neil Drive is refused by a majority of 6 to 3 the existing consent stands and it will be for the developer to decide on the next steps we'll now move on to item 6 Land east of Irmin Street Caxton but before we do that I'll ask our chair the chair not in calm to return and take over from me thank you members do you want a short break or we will just take a short break while the proper chairman takes over so we'll meet again at 1145 welcome back I'll resume the chair members item 5 is the item item 6 is Land east of Irmin Street Caxton it's an outline application with all matters reserved except for access to the erection of up to 9 self-gold dwellings and answer the reworks called in by the parish council as a departure application there are a number of key issues outlined in the report at C-Page 51 it will be presented by Charlotte Peter and the recommendation is to approve subject to conditions in section 106 so could you please present thank you very much indeed sorry Charlotte sorry about that we just had some technical difficulties there I'm just going to share my screen okay so thank you chair for letting me present to begin with so this application is an outline application at land east of Irmin Street in Caxton it is for 9 dwellings and all matters 9 self-gold dwellings and all matters reserved apart from access there are no particular updates and amendments other than what Rebecca had already shared about the MPPF being updated and just to reiterate that that doesn't change the assessment in this case so just to show the scheme on the left hand side of the screen is the site location plan for the application this shows the application site in red and land within the ownership of the applicant in blue I have inserted a green star on the image to show where the BNG would be provided so it's outside of the application site but within land within the ownership of the applicant and because of this it will need to be secured by a legal agreement and this is outlined within the officer report on the right hand side is a plan to show a little bit of wider context so the site is the sort of red outlined area with the blue star on top of it Camborn is to the right hand side with the orange star and Camborn West is marked by the yellow star the purple lines show the public footpaths that are in close proximity to the site so of particular interest for this application is the one that runs from the Cactixton village along the back boundary of the site and up towards Camborn also oh sorry that's my mistake there we go sorry about that council Hawkins there you go that's a bit clearer now so this public footpath is the one I was just referring to here and you can see these purple lines leading around which show the public footpaths and just to reiterate this is Camborn over here and Camborn West the new development up here and there's a green line I've added here and this is to show the new cycle way that's been installed from Camborn West down to the entrance of the development site as part of this development those members who came on the site for it yesterday will have seen that this has been installed so this slide shows the access plan for the application so just as a reminder it's an outline with all matters reserved apart from access so the access is being agreed as part of this application it's being so you can see the red line comes up to here as part of the application the local highways authority requested that the entrance onto mine streets should be upgraded and this has been agreed by the applicant and will be done as part of the application and this is agreed again by legal agreement as it's outside the red line of the site so slide 5 shows the indicative plans that were submitted with the application these are indicative only because the application is outline so the sort of layout of the site appearance of dwellings scale and landscaping will all come forward at a later date but this is just to give an idea of how something could look on the site I've now got some photographs of the site so on the left hand side this is a google maps image looking from Ermine Street down towards the site you can see the blue horse box just at the rear there that's the site sort of where the houses would be located is just behind there in the image on the right hand side I've moved further down sort of to the front of the red line boundary of the site and you can see the horse box is a bit closer now so this is the access route and then behind the ffencing is where the sort of development begins on the left hand side I've just moved closer so I'm stood next to the horse box in this picture looking in to the field you can see on the boundaries that these are already sort of well treeed boundaries and you can just about see that the site slopes down towards the rear so the public footpath runs just behind the hedging at the back of the site there in the right hand image I've turned around to look sort of away from that element of the development site and towards the rear of the houses that are in the immediate context so here is the back of the house houses that are front onto Irvine Street I'm just going to flip back because I forgot to mention that you can see the sort of red path here and this is the cycle way so extend from Camborn West all the way up to the entrance of the site there okay so just to cover some key aspects of the application so the self-build aspect of this application is a key material consideration for members so it's set out in the officer report that South Cambridge District Council is a right to build Vanguard authority with a statutory duty to give suitable development permission to ensure enough plots of land are permitted to meet the demand for self and custom build housing in the authorities area the table on the slide and it's also included in the officer report shows that to comply with these requirements 497 self and custom build permissions should have been granted by the 30th of October 2022 however only 236 permissions were granted and therefore there is a current shortfall between the demand and supply of 261 dwellings just to reiterate again that there has been a number of appeal restrictions relating to self-builds in the district and in all of these the inspector describes the shortfall as significant in the local authority and officers would agree that the current situation does represent a significant shortfall this is just a highlight to members the landscape and visual appraisal that was done and submitted as part of the application so again the purple lines show there's public footpaths in the surrounding area the blue rings are sort of the distances from the site and in the landscape and visual appraisal all the viewpoints which are shown you can just about see the blue dots dotted around these viewpoints have been selected and the visibility of the site is shown from these officers do consider that this assessment is sufficient to make an assessment on the application and would like to remind members that when reviewing this document the landscape officer in the surgery described the visual impact as negligible from these views so finally just moving on to the planning balance now officers consider that the application should be supported due to the contribution towards the significant self-build need in the district it is considered that it's well located in terms of sustainable connections and screening from surrounding built form and the vegetation on the other boundaries it's acknowledged that the proposal would conflict with the settlement policies and result in a minor level of visual harm however it is considered that this is outweighed by the benefit of providing self-build in an appropriate location so just to summarise the officer recommendation is to move the application subject to conditions and a section 106 agreement thank you thank you very much have we any questions of clarification councillor hat sanford thank you chair and thank you Charlotte for your report I've got two questions could you flip back to the map which shows the cycle path yes the green line seems to stop before the new camborn west round about is that just an error always there not a continuous cycle path through to camborn so apologies that's so the cycle path extends up mine street and then goes across the land to camborn west I didn't include that on the map this is just a line I've inserted on the image but yes it does extend all the way up to the new development okay thank you could you flip down to the images of the site entrance please that one did I hear you say this is actually a google image on the left hand side okay because when we visited yesterday my impression was that tree and the hedge on the other side have grown a lot more and the visibility coming out onto Irmond street is somewhat restricted which is a point I'll come back to a little bit later so that's not a up to date image thank you council um Wilson thank you chair okay yeah I just to a point of clarification about the section 106 normally when you have a development and the developer builds a number of houses they must recoup the cost from the sale of those individual houses and I just wanted to tell section 106 work simulation to self build is the money the cost of section 106 payments then cascaded down to the people the individual people who will be self building those houses or is it the how is that cost recouped by the person paying section 106 so it's just I did try to find it in the paperwork but I couldn't so there is a section 106 agreement with financial contributions as part of the application although it hasn't been finalised at this stage this is tied to the applicant when it sort of is agreed as the legal agreement so that's how it's carried forward so it's with the current developer rather than the individuals council Hawkins thank you chair just to say thank you to I'm shallot for dweud y cyfnod yesterday in the pouring rain paragraph 8.80 just to clarify are we talking about 10% by diversity net game or 1% one sorry I haven't found the paragraph but it's just over 100% by diversity net game councillor Handley thank you chair could I ask the boundary of this area does it fall perhaps I'll put it a different way the trees and the hedging around the side are they the stems of those or the trunks of those be on the boundary the reason I'm asking the question is that they're actually quite substantial and they may protrude quite a long way into the area that's subject to this planning application and I'd hate to see them hacked back or lost that's my question so I'm just going to flick back in fact that plan is probably the easiest one to see it on so those trees I think you've referred to here and here aren't within the application site so those are the ones at the entrance of the site the other boundaries with the sort of vegetation that's established is included in the application site and there is a condition to require the retention of those as part of the application yeah I think thank you it's clear on that that those old the old hedge line those trees are pretty much quite a way away aren't they from the development so yeah thank you that's been sure of me thank you any more questions councillor of two will you thank you chair it's a short, slightly technical question paragraph 820 and it was referred to on the slides as well it refers to south chemistry district counciller as a vanguard authority and then this statutory authority that seems quite important to me and I think some weight seems to be attached to that in the context of a self build so can I just get some clarification on what that vanguard authority means does that mean we're under enhanced obligation because from memory I think we've talked about this before it dates from 2014 my memory certainly correctly but some clarification on the relevance of that precise point will be helpful I think the explanation of what the vanguard is is set out in 8.20 it means we have to give suitable development permission in respect to enough service plots of land so we've signed up to be recognised as a district council that does have a requirement to provide self build and custom build plots sorry if I could just come back so to just clarify are we saying that that duty in the section 2A specifically applies to south Cambridge doesn't apply to all planning authorities we've opted in to something that's correct so we are a vanguard authority as in we've opted in to be one that provides self build plots where possible and that's why we've suggested that the weight is given to that on the planning balance thank you that's helpful yeah council Harvey can you put your last speaker on yes start again a bit of clarification on density that's 8.33 and 8.34 because I didn't really understand the reasoning between those two paragraphs the 40 dwellings per hectare in rural centres and minor rural centres group villages to achieve 30 dwellings per hectare and then in 8.34 it says the equivalent density is 15 per hectare so therefore the proposed density of wards with policy HA have I sort of misunderstood that the way that's working but that seems to be less than the 30 DPH yeah okay so thank you for picking that up so this is making reference to I think the way the policies worded and haven't got it in front of me is sort of about the maximum number of houses that can be achieved within a site so not going above a density that would sort of adversely impact the character of the area and things like that so 15 being under those limitations would therefore be acceptable thank you okay thank you very much I think my house time to move on um is the agent Mr Ansel present you do like to come forward um should remind you that you have three minutes to make a presentation and we'll listen to what you've got to say thank you very much indeed thank you chair good afternoon members this statement is made on behalf of the applicant Caxton LVA LLP who's fully committed to developing the site as a self-builder as set out previously a mechanism will be in place to ensure that it's brought forward as a self-builder as is commonly established in other self-build proposals in recent years there's been a number an increase in the number of people on the register in South Cambridge for a self-build plot and that's quite clearly highlighted in the officers report demonstrating a shortfall of 261 plots within the district this shortfall is further evidenced in recent appeal decision for proposals on land at St Peter Street and that's located further south in Caxton itself the appeal was redetermined on 1 August within the initial decision the inspector noted that there was a serious and substantial shortfall in the provision of self-build and custom-build houses within the district and in the redetermination the inspector agreed with the previous noting that the need to increase the supply of self-build opportunities should carry great weight in the self-build plots within the site would therefore make an overall contribution to the identified demand and as previous inspectors have done should be good and great weight in the determination of the application we'd like to thank the parish council and other consultee comments that have come in and we've worked with the case officer and those consultees to ensure there's no technical objections to the application and just to briefly summarise the highway officer is satisfied for the development is safe and that is in respect to visibility displays as well we don't have any objections from the lead local flood authority in respect to the flood risk assessment and the drainage strategy that we've proposed the ecology the ecology officer has no objection we are achieving a net gain in biodiversity that's through the planting of wildflower meadows and the management of the woodland to the north of the site and we consider the scheme comfortably within the existing built fabric of Caxton with negligible visual impact and the landscape officer also raises no objections on this point in considering the overall planning balance and again referencing the recent appeal decision in St Peter Street the planning inspector found that substantial weight to the benefits of self-build housing outweighed the conflict with relevant plan policies dealing with the location of new houses and that the appeal decision should succeed in the same appeal is stated that it is common ground that the village is not wholly lacking as the sustainability credentials with the recent upgrades to the footway and cycleways to Camborn the application site itself is located closer to Camborn and so it should be considered more sustainable in its location being at the northern end of Caxton means that it's well positioned in regard to the upgraded shared footpath and cycleway running from Camborn west along Hermione Street up to the entrance of the site overall the accessibility to public transport and for bus stops which is approximately 100 metres from the entrance of the site as well as pedestrian and cycle links means it's well considered to benefit from the good level of sustainability connections to the surrounding services and facilities this allows the opportunity for the users to meet their needs in a sustainable manner again there is an identified and significant unmet need for self-built plots within the district the council will have to grant further self-built developments in order to meet its legal duty to provide sufficient service plots Sorry, can you wind up please because it's... Not right, just two paragraphs left Central Government placed a great commitment to support the self-building custom house building sector and when compared to volume house building self-build homes are generally built to a higher standard of design, use more modern methods of construction and tend to be more in it a bit. A future plot design will need to comply with a design statement and illustrative house types which have been designed to ensure the plots will be sympathetic to each other and the existing village overall we feel the proposals before you are well designed line a sustainable location and would meet a significant identified need for self-built plots and respectfully request the planning committee to approve the application in line with the officers recommendation Thank you Thank you very much indeed Have we any questions for the developer please Councillor Hawthorne Thank you chair and through you thanks for your presentation I know to keep on we get hitting with the shortage shall we say which actually led to my or leads to my question which is if this was granted how do we know you're not going to turn this into a market housing how do you propose to actually implement it as self-build Say that would be tied up in their section 1 is agreement which would ensure that the development comes forward as self-build and usually the developer would apply for the first phase reserve matters which would be the access and wider landscaping up to the plots themselves and then the individual plots would be marketed for people to purchase and the individual purchases would come forward with an application for the design of the house to get that approved and then construct that separately Thank you very much indeed Have you a comment from the officer for a moment Thank you so I just wanted to clarify what I said earlier about density because I phrased it slightly incorrectly so in terms of density which was referred to in paragraphs 833 and 834 it's not those figures aren't the maximum but the wording is that these will be the average that is achieved but this can be varied depending on the character of the locality the scale of the development and other local circumstances so it would be making a judgement on the density of the development in line with the local character Thank you Thank you We now move on to the parish council council along with Kelly from the chair of the parish council online Are you present? It appears to be there but we are trying to connect Councillor Kelly Can you turn your microphone on and join? We'll wait for a couple of minutes to see if we can make contact Sorry Can you hear me now? Alone, can you hear me? Yes, we can hear you Please, we do You have three minutes, can you? Yes, I'll This is a councillor from parish council Can you confirm first of all that you are you have the permission of the parish council to speak for you? Yes, I'm actually the chair of the parish council but yes I have Okay, you have three minutes Can you please present your case? Okay, thank you Mr Chairman Right The parish council unanimously objected to this development The prime reasons where it follows One, the development is outside the village envelope and on Greenbelt land. Two, the sloping side has drainage problems with heavy rainfall Three, the side entrance has vehicle and pedestrian safety issues and four, service provision are remote and limited Number one, the development is outside the village envelope Frequent references made to the self-built quotas having a shortfall This shortfall, in my opinion has wrongly encouraged planning to permit restrictive developments outside the village envelope on Greenbelt land without due consideration References made to self-built development in the previous development in St Peter Street What it fails to mention is that this side was a brownfield site a former pigory This development enhanced the village by its removal The proposed development does not add any substance to the village The self-built quotas should not override all other considerations as in this case The developers have included a provision in this application for additional self-built housing Even further outside the village boundary has done their sight map They are either arrogant or already have provisional approval The countryside is supposed to protect villages from gradual encroachment and guard against incremental growth in understandable locations clearly not in this case To the sloping site has drainage problems with heavy rainfall The resident of Number 14 Buckholt Road Has already ported to the that the field holds water and floods the footpath as recognised in the early rejected planning application Yet this is dismissed without due consideration Three, the site entrance has vehicle and pedestrian safety issues The existing residential access road is not included in development plan application The road is not suitable for it for residential properties It does not have a pavement on the north side for pedestrians or pushchair access without the need to cross private land or walk on the main road The south side pavement will be the same once the road is extended The width of the existing road is very restricted for commercial stroke emergency vehicles to pass either side The existing road is not part of the planning application How can the application be considered for approval without a proposed solution Four, service provision are remote and limited All access to camborn amenities were required driving as there is no existing cycle footpath route The 60 mile per hour main road to camborn has no footpaths The interconnecting bridle path to camborn becomes a mud bath when it rains and is virtually impassible If at a later date a suitable footpath is installed, the walking distance will be several miles and the car will likely to be used This does not promote sustainability travel as claimed in the application document The poor claims no need to travel by car This is nonsense The existing residential bus service in Caxton was due to be cancelled last year It is now on life support Camborn Can you please can you please wind up Yes I will Thank you Doctor surges do not accept patients from camborn patients They have to go to born if they have capacity which is several miles away Restel, resident on number 14 Brockhill, Brockhill Road is an NHS health visiting team worker and commented that her family all are registered at the born surgeries for the reasons explained She claimed spare capacity of camborn medical centre was of no relevance to Caxton Why was this comment in the report Can you finish that please Just the last sentence Many residents have contacted parish council with their concerns and requested that the development refuse and the unanimous vote of the council. Thank you Mr Chair Thank you Have we got any questions for the parish council please Councillor Hawkins Thank you chair and through you Thank you for your presentation I note you mentioned that there's no sufficient cycle access but we have in front of us and we did see yesterday images and as you saw yesterday a cycle path that's just been created to join up with camborn so is that something you acknowledge now exists and will satisfy that objection that you have You're quite correct there is a new cycle path but if you examine it further that you would see that it comes it's not currently in use that section you looked at is in use but it does not actually go into camborn going and I don't know what's going to happen further down I actually went up myself yesterday and had a look and it comes to a dead stop I can't comment if it's suitable if it's not actually there I don't know when that development is going to be finished but the cycle path is in Caxton but it's not all the way into camborn Do you have anything on that? Yeah so I can clarify that so the cycle route is connected to camborn west which is the new settlement rather than camborn at the moment so it leads up to the entrance of camborn west there are further links planned as part of the camborn west development to connect that then to camborn as well but just to clarify that it's camborn west is connected to at the moment Thank you Councillor Thank you for that clarification but at least there is cycle access to a part of camborn that's the point the second point I know that twice you mentioned that the site is on green belt it's not green belt is it it's green field because there's no green belt in that area Well excuse me for my my lack of knowledge of that to me it's a green field and I regard that as green belt but if it's not then you're correct Technical term Thank you Councillor My question is partially partially been answered because I was sort of two on the sort of green belt but also brown field got mentioned as well so just wondering if you could if you established the green belt what you meant by the brown field that wasn't particularly clear and I do appreciate officers might need to give us technical clarification on that as well is that a question only to answer because I can if you wish Should I come back on that one or? Chair if you want to let the parish council representative my question is to explain what he meant by brown field and then we'll have an officer let us know the technical status of it Exactly Okay well the reason I mentioned in the first place was that in the document you referred to the St Peter Street site as a reference to support this application but what wasn't mentioned was that there was there's quite a history behind that site and there was a piggery there and the locals were very keen to get rid of it because for obvious reasons and that site was then designated by the council as a brown field site which I understand I wasn't directly involved with it I understand allowed the development which was a positive development as far as the locals of Caxton were concerned but it wasn't of the same calibre as the application has been considered today Can we have some clarity on that? Yeah so the site that's being referred to and has been referred to in the officer report where there was an appeal allowed for self-filled housing is to the southern end of the village and prior to development it did have agricultural buildings on it so that's where it could be described as brownfield because there was built form on the site already that is clearly a difference from the current application but what I will say is when the inspector considered that application they suggested there was no visual harm because of the existing built form and but there was some heritage harm in this application we are suggesting there is a minor level of visual harm because of the change to the land so just to make you aware of the differences there Thank you The point about green belt was raised I think you perhaps could clarify so everybody's clear to the difference what is meant by green belt what's meant by outside the development framework No problem so this site is not in green belt which is a designated area of protected open land this is we would describe it as green field in that it is sort of a grassed area with development not on it currently but it doesn't have that specific designation of green belt land Okay Okay, councillor Fein No, my question has been dealt with Thank you chair Any other questions? Thanks Oh sorry, councillor Hawkins Thank you chair, I will talk to someone else that might raise it There was mention of flooding but it wasn't clear where that was the impact on this particular site Please Can you clarify that? Well this comment came from the residents of number 14 Rockfort Road one of the residents that actually wrote in to make comment on this application and they border where the developments are proposed and if you look on the drawing or the map that is showing the houses in position it will be to the south east side where there is a bridal path and the lady Joanne she commented that that frequently floods because the slope goes in that direction and the water then collects around that area she told me that on the previous application that was put in I haven't checked this personally but when they proposed 30 houses there was some amendment made to put a pond or something around that area to be a collection point for the water but she says that whether like we have now or if we had a week ago it was fine but as soon as we get some rain it all collects there this is known, it's actually partly covered in the report but it's not covered in any detail but to say that there isn't a drainage problem there which I'm not suggesting has been said but it has to be dealt with if this proposal goes ahead but it does impinge the footpath for use of it Thank you for that clarification maybe we can look at that in the debate or Thank you Do we have any comments up? I think this is something that would normally be dealt with with a detailed station rather than Can you clarify? Sorry, so can you just clarify where the surface water issues were or what they were referring to so I just missed that part Well look at that the development picture showing all the houses in position it's the referred directly to the development side it's to the south east side where there's a bridal path alongside it and that's where all the water collects the slope actually slopes in that direction it slopes from west to east I think I'll just share my screen just so we can clarify that's okay Yeah, okay Is it worth me sort of bringing that up for clarity? So I'll just bring up this plan here So the application has been assessed by the drainage officer following a flood risk assessment which was updated during the course of the application the sort of details of that will come forward later but the sort of infiltration rates and the surface water issues were resolved and agreed and as part of that you can just about see sorry I haven't got the pointer on so let me know if that's not clear but I used to say drainage feature was included at the end there because of the awareness around the site sloping to the end there and the potential issues regarding water on that Yes, I'm just highlighting what the locals have pointed out to me and they said there's quite a lot of water that collects the water when it rains heavy so if that's being addressed then I have no knowledge of that If we have no more questions thank you very much Councillor Kelly we now move on to the debate who would like to speak in the debate Councillor Hanley I wonder if I could ask to give a reassurance Is it possible that nine self-build plots could be bought by the same person It's a serious question the whole reason this is a self-build site to me the only reason you would allow this is because it's self-build because it's outside of the village framework It's a slightly mischievous question but it's also a genuine one Is there anything to stop that from happening So, by definition the cell which is included in the officer report self-build has to be built for the person that would live in it so they a person wouldn't I think they wouldn't be able to sort of build nine houses and live in all of them I don't know if you can comment What we can do is we can find possibly something within a legal agreement that would sort of tie that arrangement down but Richard's just asked for a few minutes to find that if you'd like to see that example In the meantime, Councillor Williams, head the Williams Thank you chair I do understand the reasoning for the question but I'll just sway away from that and I will take it face value the self-build that we've got on here while that's being dealt with I think the site visit though very, very soggy was appreciated and it did help We've had on visibility to the sort of coming into the site obviously from the main road I did feel that if actually it was cut back to where it should be because it was on the path then the visibility would be better so let's hope County pull their finger out and deal with that situation but mindful as well of what outline is and my understanding is like access and things like those which I understand residents raising would be something that would come at a later date and be reserved and going nods I don't know on the access bit the access is a reserved matter but it's included with the outline so access is the only detail that's coming forward at this stage I'm talking about the bit down the bottom on to Irvine Street so the access that connects to Irvine Street that will be secured as part of the legal agreement of this application right, yeah the bit down the bottom the access to the footpath oh my apologies so the layout of the site will come at a later stage as part of the we've put a condition on to control that thank you so I wasn't being clear because the footpath access had got raised so I was referring to that and saying that for my entrance to the site with the upgrades I refer to that first point that seems acceptable and were it to be a development of market housing nine would our views be different probably yes but we have to look at what's in front of us we do have a shortage of self-build and if I take it in its purest form with people genuinely self-building I think it's a positive thing I think it's nice to have individuality in design and that's what very much who you think back to some of our historical buildings that we held very dearly they have well done each to specific needs you think of fact cottages and the like they're all very different and I love that part of our character in self-cams is that we do have a lot of individual properties and I do think the self-build properties give an opportunity to keep that going so long as obviously the rules are abided by the design and layout as we've heard is for later on down the line I think because they are self-build and because we have a shortage and when we look at overall the rear of the even on the indicative plans but I appreciate but even if we went to the maximum point of the red line it's still not going beyond where the houses in the locality are it does provide an element of symmetry the fact that there could be more houses sort of packed in and there isn't I see as an advantage many of us have sat at this committee and see actually normally we've got developers pushing us to just get one or two more in because of the land value here would it be nice to keep it as a green field absolutely lovely lovely but from a planning basis and on an outline application if we know that there is the flooding condition attached and I think the officers are happy that that's secure enough and we know that we've protected the access down the bottom for people to be able to go through and we don't have any issues with the access coming in as it's going to be upgraded I don't see much I'll be listening I don't see many reasons of which committee could refuse so as it currently stands so I am listening I'll be minded to approve following officer recommendation Councillor Sanford Thank you chair a couple of points from me firstly to pick up on Councillor Councillor Heather Williams comments I note in section 8.116 the access will only be upgraded prior to occupation of the development I strongly feel it needs to be upgraded before any work is done on the site I can just imagine the first articulated lorry turns up with a JCB on the back or a load of bricks they're either going to get caught up on the overgrown tree or the hedge or they're going to try reversing out onto urban streets possibly blocking the main road through the village for minutes on end so that to me needs to be brought forward the other point I was rather amused by the applicant's agent referring to the bus stop on urban streets as evidence of sustainable transport in Caxton as Councillor Kelly was alluding to the bus service in Caxton consists of two in the morning and two in the evening which are aligned to take students to and from competent village college there is no bus service in the middle of the day there's no bus service on weekends so car use will definitely increase other than that I'll probably abstain because I don't like the the way the access is proposed at the moment if that was moving forward to any other project I'd be more inclined to vote for it there are comments now from the legal position and then perhaps afterwards we could comment upon the access thank you chair I'll try and speak over the building noise so I've got an example of a unilateral undertaking for a self build that is going through at the moment so there is a protected occupation period that is placed upon that land and a disposal of the plot shall only be completed to a person registered with the council and recorded on the register maintain pursu into section 1 of the 2015 act as amended by the housing and planning act during the protected occupation period a dwelling shall be occupied by the party who directly acquires the plot from the owner and then from the date of first occupation of that dwelling until the expiration of the protected occupation period that's three years a dwelling shall be used as the principal residence of the party who completes the purchase of that plot so I think that protects against the council's scenario where there are ten owners but I think James I've asked if he's available but councillors are happy with that I'm happy with that thank you I'm sorry to put you on the spot you've passed the test thank you regarding the access and the time which the access these people so just to clarify the triggers in the in the table that form part of the section 106 that's not been finalised so if members did want that altered we absolutely can do that we could always take it away and then consult chair and vice chair on those matters but I think it's usually done this way because the construction vehicle if the access was put in first then the construction vehicles could end up damaging the access and then having to be sort of redone so it's practically it seems to work that way quite well but if that people want that to be altered we can sort of discuss that that's the time for having your comments yes I would like to hear more before we sign off on this it's it may be a different site entrance it is narrow it is restrictive visibility and I can see all sorts of issues so yes if you'd like to take that away and come back to us that's fine thank you councillor via in my point was following on about the access and I think councillor Sam is probably right that you need to have really adequate access for those large vehicles coming in to build on the site but also the state in which is left at the end because you don't want to have a broken up road or one which is not going to last very long will it will they be no condition to make sure that is to adopt standards even if the road is not going to be adopted what quality can we stipulate so in terms of the access so the access onto Irvine Street is the part that's included with this application the internal site layout and the standard of the roads will become as part of the reserve matters application but however in terms of the trigger if committee agree and we change their heads of terms as such we can change the trigger for the upgrade of the access to prior to commencement of development and then including that head of term that it should be maintained as such thereafter and so it's maintained at that standard rather than installed at that standard and driven all over and left in a state as such so we can require it to be maintained at that standard as well as part of the head of term so far enough to me so you haven't got a small section which is battered and bruised when you've got the rest which is in much better state thank you is the general agreement on this for the point thank you sorry yeah sorry Councillor Fein thank you I intend to be relatively positive about this so if members here are constant while I'm speaking I'll show you it isn't me I just wanted to look at the planning balance as set out by the planning officer in terms of possible grounds for refusal, two material considerations the first is the potential minor level of visual harm having looked at the site with others on the visit yesterday I feel it is very well shielded by trees including I think it's from house number 172 where there will be a buffer retained from the existing house nearest to the site I think the question of self-build is very important we have met only 50% of the commitment which we as a vanguard authority entered into and we need to take very seriously the need to provide sites for self-build and I think we should mostly be satisfied by the assurances we have that is real these will not be all bought up by one developer or anything like that so looking at this site I think it is a very sustainable site in many ways we talked about the cycle lane I'm satisfied with the access arrangements which are included as part of this in relation to biodiversity net gain the field to the north as I understand it is to be put into a wildflower meadow we may say well this is only 1% BNG I'm totally relaxed about the percentage what matters is that a significantly larger field is to be committed to wildflower meadow I think it will be a period of 30 years and I would just mention in passing from the point of view of the parish council that this is a field which would otherwise there was a proposal that it might have been included in the development of 30 houses that's not relevant here but I just think that the protection of that field is likely to be a value to the village and I think the density is low but I think that is appropriate for self-build I think the accessibility is pretty good so I think that this is we have a commitment to deliver self-build and that this despite being outside the village framework is a sustainable location which is appropriate for the proposal and that we should therefore approve it as recommended OK, have we any further comments? OK, and I think now is the time to go to a vote Tell me If you're voting for you'll present on the green button if you're voting against you should be refused you should be if you're voting for the recommendation you vote the green button which is to approve if you're voting to refuse you vote press the red button We have all the men Yes That's nine votes in favour with two abstentions chair Approve The application has approved Thank you very much Now we come to the compliance report Chris Brable Available Good afternoon chair There's not a huge amount of changes on the compliance report this month however We will work with a new officer George Meinhan to the team who has replaced Neil Langley and we are working towards sorting out some of the things that Neil Langley was tasked with some of the more complicated cases Sorry Can you hold the second Can we have you here? Can we go to the screen? Can we go? OK, fine Sorry, can you start again? I'm sorry about that Of course I can chair, not a problem So there's not a huge amount of changes on the compliance report this month but we do have a new compliance officer started with us George Meinhan who is Neil Langley's replacement and George has already picked up on the work that Neil left off with some of his the more important task that we've got going on with some of the more complicated cases he's been with us now started last week and he's kind of taken the ball and run with it really which is really positive news for us moving forwards other than that I don't really have much of an update for you Any questions from members? That's a friend We no longer list the compliance issues but I think there is a meeting on Monday in relation to a compliance issue in Redhill Close and I am happy to take that up with officers outside this meeting but I do think it's important that we are assured as a committee that compliance issues that have been raised previously are being dealt with In answer to that I would say yes I've obviously included on the report to contact myself with any queries that we've got about compliance issues or specific cases what I'm trying to be mindful of with the report is reading information in the public forum or having discussions that we perhaps shouldn't be having and we should be having at a level on an individual basis that's kind of like the reasons behind not putting out a full report of cases where we're taking various steps but rather just keeping the committee updated where we've taken action with the action screen where we list the new enforcement notices that we've issued or where we've taken steps towards prosecutions that sort of thing which we will continue to now Appeals Could you update us on appeals please Well in terms of an update there's the list that's usually provided on the agenda of decisions that we've received and those we're awaiting decisions on if members have got any questions on any particular appeal if you can come to me and then I can give or email me and then I can get any detailed information but just for note going forward I think we are looking or are working on improving the look of this report and maybe giving some more information so I would be in touch to see the kind of information that you'd like to see and hopefully present something that's a bit more useful and contains some more information for members going forward Can you give us some indication on which appeals are being dealt with I don't know how much the delay is The delay unfortunately is with PINs and the planning inspectorate have got significant delays I couldn't give you an exact time frame unfortunately but yet we're experiencing delays from the planning inspectorate Thank you, are there any questions Thank you very much Now we have finished the business for today the next meeting will be on Wednesday the 11th of October and thank you all for attending Thank you chair