 If you will, in my life. Right good morning members, officers and members of the public who are doing the live stream as well. Welcome to this meeting of the South Cambershire District Council Planning Committee. I'm Councillor Peter Fane and I'm chair of the committee. A few housekeeping announcements. Those present in the council chamber just to note that everything on your desk, including your laptop screen, is likely to be broadcast at some time. Being switched on. So if councillors and officers would wait a couple of seconds before speaking, after turning the microphone on, that is, allow the camera to catch up, obviously if the far alarm sounds, then please leave the chamber and make your way down the stairs. Don't use the lift and the safe assembly point is next to the marketing suite halfway along the business park. For those participating in the meeting via the live stream, if you gwrs, ychydig er mwyn oedd ychydig o gwybod eich cwmŷn iawn i'r cyflwystau ar gyfer y cyflwystau digon. Ychydig arwynt o brydoedd y cwmŷn iawn. Mae cydweithio fy cysylltu myfford ac'r cwmŷr yn digwydd yn edrych â chanol i'ch ganwethaf o hynny o hofyd mewn cyfle o gyfrifiadau hefyd. A gallrych, mae nhw'n gallu cyflwystau ar bobl o'r cyflwystau i gwasanaeth am ei clwr. Rydych chi i weithio'n berthysgol yn ei gweld cyfanol asynbiol, ac yn dda i'n ei fath, flynedd arweithio'r hyn, a ddiddions i'r fath, rwy'n fath yw bob gweithio'r fath, asti ddweud wrth y'r hyffordd iawn i chi'n ochrol dweud. Rwy'n rhaid i'n ei wneud, rwy'n rhaid i chi'n bobl yn mewn golygu i chi. Nid ydych chi'n oed yn adreffongi'n gwaith? Roedd efallai'n rhaid i'ch gole.ação hynny yn ôl i ddweud yn eitem, wrth gynnwys cymryd ëvaillí ar eu cyfnod rhwng systei'r syddlen cyd-dyf yn oed yn cwmysgol, ac wrth gwrs, defnydd o tu o'r ffaith yn y cwmysgol yn bobl hyn. Dyna companies i ddweud y cwmysgol yn y cyfnod hyn. Felly, mae Y Ddif ei ddweud yn Cymru yn y cyfnod, i weld wrth gweithio'r gorau, ac rhywodd yn ni'r ffaith yn llun o'n ddweud, rydych chi'n ffordd ac yn ddweud yn ddweud, yw'r neim, felly mae'r prydyn ni wedi'i wneud. As I said earlier, my name is Peter Fain, and I'm one of the members for the Shelford Award, and my vice-chair is Councillor Jeff Harvey. Councillor Jeff Harvey is a member for the Hawking Ward. We have also here Councillor Henry Batchelor. Good morning, Chair. Councillor Henry Batchelor, one of the members for the Linson Ward. Councillor Ariel Khan. Ariel Khan, member of the Heartland and Converting Award. Councillor Dr Martin Khan. Martin Khan, one of the members for Hysnig and Indianton. Councillor Bill Hanley. Good morning, Bill Hanley, one of the members for the Villages of Over and Willingham. Councillor Dr Lisa Redrup. Hi, I'm Dr Lisa Redrup. I'm representing Hearthstone and Converting Award. Welcome to the committee. Councillor Peter Sanford. Good morning, Chair, everyone. Peter Sanford, one of the War Councillors for Caxton and Papworth. Councillor Heather Williams. Good morning, Chair, Heather Williams. I represent Remorgen's Ward. And I think Councillor Dr Richard Williams will be joining us later. So I can therefore I think confirm the meeting is quarried. We have three officers with us in the chamber for the duration of the meeting and I'll introduce ourselves. Now Phil Macintosh is the interim delivery manager. Good morning, Chair, good morning, members. Phil Macintosh, interim delivery manager of the west team of Greater Cambridgeshire Planning Service. Vanessa Blaine. Good morning, Chair, good morning, everyone. I'm Vanessa Blaine, senior planning lawyer and provider to the committee. And Michael Hammond. Good morning, Chair, morning members. Michael Hammond, principal planning officer of Greater Cambridgeshire Planning. Now we will be joined by case officers throughout the course of the meeting and we'll introduce them as we get to those items. We also have our Democratic Services Officer here beside us, Laurence. We'll introduce ourselves. Chair, good morning, everyone. Laurence Tamari-Hulman, Democratic Services Officer for the Planning Committee. And of course our tech support officer, Aaron Clark. If at any time a member leaves the meeting, would they please make that known to me or to the Vice-Chair so that can be recorded? I intend that we should break for about 15 minutes at about 11.45 and if the meeting is still going on at 3.45 and a 45 minute for lunch at about 1.30. Now members should have received the main agenda pack and online plans. We also have two supplementary update reports. One for item five, which is in Stapleford and one for item seven, which is in Meldrith. The date is 2 February. Members should also have received written submissions regarding item six in Barrington, item seven in Meldrith. And if any members haven't seen those, perhaps they would say so now and Democratic Services will provide you with a copy. I would also note that we do not have an enforcement report on our agenda today. The date of January was not available at the time of the publication of this agenda. Now before we move on to the next item, just like to say that I will be withdrawing from the committee for item five, which is the application for the Rotam Care Village in Stapleford and Councillor Harvey will assume the role of chair for that item. We will need to appoint a temporary vice-chair for that item and I would like to ask to propose that Henry, Councillor Henry Bachelord be appointed vice-chair for that item. Do I have a seconder for that please? Thank you, Councillor Harvey. Is that acceptable to all members? Thank you. Right. So item two on our agenda today, this is Apologies for Absence. Lawrence, any Apologies for Absence today please? Thank you chair. We've received two Apologies for Absence, one from Councillor William Jackson Wood and one from Councillor Dr Toomey Hawkins. Councillor Richard Williams has said apologies for the lateness and Councillor Dr Lisa Redder has kindly joined us to substitute today. Thank you. We then move to item three, Declarations of Interest. Do any members have interest to declare in relation to any item of business on this agenda? Of course if an interest subsequently becomes apparent, please would you register at that point. Councillor, having the answer. Thank you, Mr Declaration for Transparency that I was contacted by applicants in relation to agenda item five is that while I would be here today that I wouldn't discuss the application and no discussions have taken place. Right. Any other declarations? I was in exactly the same position as Councillor Williams and I didn't refuse to comment. Discussing before the meeting. Thank you. May I suggest that we are likely to all have similar declaration on that when we take that as red that we will have all given the appropriate response. Any other declarations? I have a slightly different declaration of interest myself in relation to item five. I am the local member, I will indeed be speaking as the local member and I have had extensive contacts with the applicants including engagement with the local school, parents of the local school and therefore have decided on advice it's appropriate that I should step down as chair and withdraw from the committee. I will take no part in that item as mentioned earlier Councillor Harving will take the chair and Councillor Bachelor of the Vice-Chair. Does that deal with declarations of interest I think so? Yes, thank you, that would be helpful just a little item for information on item seven. Oh yes, there is a point at a declaration of interest that we may all have. Thank you for the reminder. Item seven is an application from someone who will be known to many of us until 2020 Councillor. I don't think any of us would necessarily have to declare an interest but if anyone wishes to declare an interest in relation to item seven now might be the appropriate moment. Thank you for that. So we move to item four the minutes of the previous meeting and those are on page five of your pack. Do any members wish to make any amendments or can we take them as a correct I see no hands on that question? No. So can we take it by affirmation that we approve those minutes? Can I sign the name of course? Thank you. Now at this point I think I step aside and hand over the chair to my Vice-Chair to Councillor Jeff Harvie and I shall withdraw from the room to make sure I leave you. Yes. Thank you so I did try to say in relation to item seven it's not just former councillor but I do know her sister and I've not discussed this I wasn't aware until I see the committee this was happening so I will continue to take part just for transparency. Thank you. Well Councillor Henry Bachelor I'd like to step up as Vice-Chair and then we can move on to item five. Item five land between Haibahill Road and Intonway's Stapleford and the presenting officer is Michael Hammond I believe so Michael if you would like to show us your presentation. Thank you chair. I'll just try and run you through some slides I've presented. Just checking that's visible. Okay so the application is a reserve matters application a land between Haibahill Road and Intonway on the edge of Stapleford. It's for a retirement care village there was an outline application that members would have considered towards the end of 2021 and this is the reserve matters effectively relating to that so here is just an aerial photo of the site in arable use just as crops. As you can see the sort of edge of the framework is effectively these dwellings if my cursor is showing down here. The site is also in the green belt which one of the considerations at outline stage as well. So it should be appearing on the screen. This is a photo sort of street view looking from the north east corner hopefully that map in the bottom right corner signifies where it is just showing the site like I said it's just an arable farmland at the moment and then this is looking from the south east corner at the very edge of the development framework. This is looking a bit further to the south west so that is the sort of emergency access that's currently there from Gogma Gogway and then this is just a similar street view from the west side of Intonway looking towards South Park. So just to familiarise members this is the approved outline land use and heights parameter plan. So the retirement village as you can see is in that sort of southern rectangle and then the countryside park is if I use my cursor this sort of northern rectangle here. As you can see there's different colour shading on the retirement village that's permitted at a hill with a ridge height of up to 9 metres in this zone a ridge height of up to 8 metres in this orange zone and then a single story ridge height of up to 7 metres in this yellow zone here. Be surrounded by structural planting as part of the mission and then this greyed out hatching going through line sorry going through here is the Cambridge South East Transport provision for a route through there at the time of the outline appeal. This was the landscape parameter plan again which just explained what I just described but these dark green sections what's called the structural planting to try and help buffer the development from views given this green belt location and then this was the access parameter plan I mean access was approved at one of the matters of the outline stage but there were these pedestrian access points which do still form part of this reserve matters that was reserved the main access comes in off to the retirement village of Haverhill Road here so this is the proposed site layout I have got some better slides where it's less grey and blurry but it follows the outline as it has to so it's the retirement village in this southern rectangle and then the countryside park to the north this table here just sets out the quantum of development so it's 147 apartments and bungalows 18 of them are bungalows the rest are apartments it's 17,780 square metres there was a condition on the outline appeal which limited the amount of floor space too and it complies with that and there's 139 car parking spaces and then in the centre of the site a bloke or pavilion building is where these sort of community uses would be so things like the restaurant, the cafe bar, shop, gym, wellness and swimming pool so if it captures up this is the layout of the retirement village so there are these large apartment blocks sort of on the southern periphery here again where the outline allowed up to that 9 metre height and then it sort of transitions down you've got the pavilion building in the middle and then you've got these slightly smaller apartment blocks forming the edges here and then this courtyard blocks INJ here and then it transitions down to cul-de-sac style character at the end here with bungalows and then links through to the countryside park to the north I'll go through these in more detail in later slides this is the landscape master plan so again just to show the extent of the sort of buffer planting along the edges and then obviously planting within the site there'll be an attenuation based on the south west corner there'll be one here this is D and then this would also act as a basin as well but yes parking predominantly sort of on the streets here and then the bungalows obviously have their own individual parking spaces and then there would be these sort of courtyards which you can see in between the apartment blocks and hopefully when this catches up this is the countryside park layout so it's predominantly grass seed planting similar to the McGog down to the northeast it would have a few features such as benches and the sort of chalk scrape habitat feature for example Traverse corpse in here and then mone paths around the site with as well and this refers to you will have seen there is a quest for a deal of variation to the original section 106 on the outline this green wedgin here is what would be referred to as phase 2 whereby that would come in after sort of 2026 the reason for that is to avoid abortive works to doing the countryside park and then if the seaset scheme were to come forward having to undo that effectively but I don't want to visualise that for you this is yes not important proposed pavilion block so this is the block A so this is where all the community facilities would be so it's pavilion style building flat roof normally render and it's probably very difficult to make out on the slides to realise but this within it there would be a restaurant for example they would take up this L shape in here if you can see what my cursor is doing I might just put it on red to make it easier so this would be the restaurant which would be available to members of the community outside the site as well as those within it there would also be things like for example there's a yoga studio within it here and a sort of swimming pool which wouldn't be open all the time to the public but there may be opportunities in the future for that to be available and then above that there would be a pavilion blocks pump flat sorry and these would predominantly be for the less mobile members of the retirement village given it's in close proximity to those users below on the roof it would be PV panels across the majority of it and so this is block B which you can probably just make out is sort of adjacent to the entrance into the site of the vehicle entrance again a mixture of red brick render tile sort of slate roof and then again difficult to make out on the slides but these are the floor plans so there will be entrances within with lifts and then again at the roof level just be slate roof with some PV panels on there as well they have external sort of terraces as well for each of the departments this is block C so it's one of the larger blocks again these are the floor plans for those for the departments block D similarly block D floor plans block E the red around these windows is just signifying of the obscured glass to avoid sort of inter-overlooking between the blocks and again at the floor plans this is block F and again floor plans and then block H which is very similar block I and J there's too many more to go through and then we move on to the bungalows at the north northern end of the retirement village so there'll be two sort of different types there would be again one rendered and one is all red brick but similar designs with a flat roof relatively connecting to gable ends and those are the floor plans for the bungalow just to show the bin and bike storage for those they'll be stored sort of externally adjacent to each bungalow and then for the rest of the site there'll be these timber bin stores near the parking spaces these are these ffencing and gate details so particularly where it connects to the countryside park showing 1.5 metre gates here for example another one here and then as proposed there'll be a slightly wider gate whereas here so these are just some indicative drawings just to give you an idea about the different buildings and characters on the site so again it's been described as the close the bungalows bit and then there would be the neighbourhood streets there would be these courtyards created and then the central green would be immediately south of the pavilion and then this just to try and hopefully provide a sense of scale across the site and again just showing those different building heights so 9 metres down to 8 and then down to 7 and then just to provide some sketches of how those bungalows would look how the typical neighbourhood street apartment would and the central green apartments as you can see are these ones identified in blue this is the pavilion building and these are the farm's dead type buildings where the courtyards would be and then this is just one of those parking courts there would be a naturalistic walk coming from that entrance off McGog way to the south west round here and then there should be some CGIs coming up the captures up there we go so this is looking within one of those courtyards towards the farm's dead type buildings and the bungalows the pavilion building and then looking south east from the pavilion building across the central green and then just to update members you may have seen a representation that was received on the third of February from the greater Cambridge partnership effectively removing their objection it's provided in full in front of you with the deal of variation proposed they are happy to remove their objection so I just want to make members aware of that if they weren't already thank you chair as it's been summarised I should declare that I'm a member of the greater Cambridge partnership assembly just to summarise so for the very reason set out in the committee report the reserve matters are considered to be a quarter of the parameter plans of the outline planning commission having taken into account the provision to develop the plan MPPF and MPPG guidance the views of statutory consultees and wider stakeholders as well as all other material planning considerations the proposed reserve matters are recommended for approval subject to a deal of variation to section 96 agreements and conditions as outlined in the committee report I'll be happy to go over anything again chair if members would like me to that's my presentation thank you thank you for your presentation Mike Hammond I think we should now move to questions of clarification and there should be only questions of clarification at this stage we'll have time to debate later on so members any any questions of clarification following the presentation Catherine Martin I wonder what provision looking at the countryside park which it is planned to talk Carcarious grassland what provision has been made for management in the long term it's not a straightforward this should have changed arable land to Carcarious grassland thank you would you care to expand on that so in terms of the management the original section 96 agreement wouldn't be affected in this way has the requirement to submit a management plan before it's carried over to the new person who will be looking after it or will likely hear it will be the Magog Trust again as I understand it the process would be that when the grass is fully grown on the Magog Downs they'll actually take those cuttings for example and then put them on the site itself in terms of starting that chalk and grass process but in terms of the management that would largely be down to what's submitted with the section 96 agreement I won't have that information as of yet but hopefully that helps thank you thank you councillor Henry bachelor thank you chair just a quick one just so I get my head around this data variation point so I'm right in thinking the data variation is to essentially appease the GCP in following through with their C-set plans I just want to make sure I've got that point clear would you expand on that for us yes thank you chair it's probably best if I get that slide up again just to make it easier it's not showing yet so in response I wouldn't say it's necessarily to appease the GCP I think to avoid these abortive works where the root if you can follow my cursor I do have a slide or slide I've got an image stored somewhere on my computer I'm trying to find effectively the latest preferred option by the GCP and they haven't obviously submitted to the transport works act or the would be that it would go something broadly like that so if you see where it's kind of kinking into the countryside park and the reason we as officers recommended that is to avoid abortive works ie having to plan the seeds for the countryside park and then dig it up again potentially for the CSEF scheme which is why it's been pushed back this green phase to 2026 so that's the rationale behind it thank you thank you we have a question from Councillor Hanley thank you chair I'm not sure that one of the applications sorry the objections that are in the papers are to do with a number of park car parking spaces and ensuring that there are sufficient such that there's no overspill parking out into the local roads are you happy that there are enough car parking spaces here thank you Councillor can we have a an answer on that one as officers just to give a bit of background we've been dealing with pre-applications on this and there were actually originally there was more car parking spaces for example on the site the issue we were finding was that the scheme was being quite dominated by car parking and so our feeling was that this balance struck it better in design terms notwithstanding that because this isn't a traditional C3 dwelling in terms of planning use class there's not actually a direct minimum car parking standard that you can sort of apply so in terms of what they propose obviously we've consulted with the county council who haven't raised an objection for example in that regard and there's also quite a strong travel plan that's been improved on the outline where there's things like a mini bus service and stuff like that to get to the wider area that car parking would also be managed by Rangeford the operator but our feeling is that the level of car parking is sufficient but obviously in fact you can take a different view on that so I think as officers we were satisfied with the level of car parking proposed given the use proposed as well Thank you I just have a follow-on question from that I talked in the report about specifics of street furniture etc of bin stores etc in relation to car parking have we considered electric vehicle charges is that what we say about that Thank you chair I'll double check but I'm pretty confident on the outline appeal there's a condition on that about electric car charging but I'm happy to check that just bear with me at one moment yes condition number 20 on the outline permission said that no part of the retirement care village hereby approved shall be occupied until it has been fitted with electric vehicle charging points in accordance with the scheme shall be previously submitted to and approved in writing by the local planning authority so I think that's the mechanism we would use to secure it Thank you very much Yeah, Councillor Hanley I just like to get my I'm not sure this is the right time to ask this question but I'd like to make sure that what we're looking at here is not a gated community where you're going to be exclusivity and you know is the countryside park going to be open to everyone or is it just for the exclusive use of residents Thank you, Councillor Hanley Have an answer on that one Thank you chair In short, yes it would be open to everyone it wouldn't be gated or self in that way I'm sure after the applicants now as public speaker they might be able to provide some reassurance on that for you perhaps but it would be open it wouldn't be exclusively for the retirement care village users Any other questions of clarification No, in that case we can move on I think to the public speakers so the sort of format is that each of the speakers will be allowed three minutes to give their presentation and then there will be an opportunity for members of the committee to see clarification and I think Councillor Fane the normal chair committee has underlined on a couple of occasions recently that we should restrict that questioning period to clarifications relating to points that have been presented in the three minutes obviously it wouldn't be fair to allow any of the parties presenting to sort of expand their presentation in response to questioning from members please if you can just confine your questioning to points of clarification arising from the three minute clarification thank you very much so I think the first speaker is Howard Mancabell who will be giving his three minute discourse on behalf of the developer Rangeford Villages, thank you so if I can just get my timer okay three minutes starting from now thank you very much chair and good morning members my name's Howard Mancabell and I'm the CEO of Rangeford Villages the applicants for the scheme before we this morning as you've heard planning permission for the provision of a retirement village and countryside park in the sighting question was granted at the end of 2021 after which we acquired the site Rangeford create thriving communities for residents to enjoy their later years and the knowledge that they have care and support on hand if and when they need it enjoying activities enhancing their physical and mental well-being combating loneliness and boredom in a safe and secure setting is what we do residents in our existing villages tell me regularly how delighted they are with their decision to move in meeting new friends reviving old hobbies or discovering new interests our application seeks approval of the detailed matters of design that were reserved from the planning permission these comprise the scale layout appearance and landscaping of the retirement village and the countryside park we fully appreciate that the online permission was unpopular with some members of the local community in this context and despite the fact that permission exists we have sought to take a responsible approach to engagement with both the local planning authority and the local community in this regard as documented in the committee report we have undertaken significant pre-application discussions with the planning department and we have engaged with local community through a series of public exhibitions youth engagement workshops with Stapleford Primary School as well as meetings with the parish council we have also engaged with the Greater Cambridge partnership concerning relationship between the planning commission and the potential C-set scheme and we are pleased that the GCP have now no objection the detailed design proposed is entirely bespoke and reflects the operational requirements of a retirement village including the core concept of an open and inclusive community the housing units will provide an excellent level of immunity for all occupants far in excess of the council's base level requirements the detailed countryside park proposals have been produced with significant input from the Macog Trust who potentially will take ownership of the land and will deliver and maintain the countryside park in perpetuity for the benefit of the local population as the operator Rangeford will maintain a full management presence from the moment we open and in this regard we will be directly responsible for the services provided the maintenance and upkeep of all buildings and open spaces and we will ensure that these are kept to a particularly high standard for residents and visitors alike something that we take immense pride in we will proactively see to become part of the wider community and as elsewhere will become a valuable asset to Stapleford we are committed to continued engagement with wall councillors and the parish council throughout the delivery of the village I am naturally delighted that the office's report before you provides a comprehensive assessment of the merits of the scheme and assertively concludes that it is acceptable in all regards I hope you will feel able to support the office's recommendation today and of course I'm happy to answer any questions Thank you Thank you very much Apologies for the bleeping from my phone there and thank you for keeping your presentation to the three minutes Members do we have any questions of clarification Councillor Sanford Thank you chair we've heard a lot this morning about cars but I've heard nothing regarding the storage of wheelchairs and mobility scooters and the charging mobility scooters given the age demographic that this returning village is targeted at can you reassure me that their needs have been taken into account particularly those of very limited mobility Thank you Thank you a very good question there are a large number of dedicated buggy charging points placed around the village strategically and for our experience they are well used based on the demographic of our typical residents and they will provide a valuable asset for people to move around the site and further afield Thank you Yes thank you Any other Thank you Thank you through yourself chair and I'm not sure if the applicant has an agenda pack to refer to but I'm looking at pages 20 and 21 which cite the parish council's objections and a lot of this refers to roof styles and I'm just wondering if there is a required need for the part that's been approached or is it a preference because I appreciate there are with age restricted housing sometimes there are needs that mean you have to have higher ceilings etc so that's my first question and the other is on this side that we've shown about the balconies on the sides as opposed to the front and back for those apartments is that a requirement that they need to be on the sides and opposed to the back is there some need identified as to why that needs to be the case let's just look a bit odd Thank you council Williams so yeah two questions there specifics of the roof configuration is that something that you can shed some further light on and also the balconies Thank you chair I'm just going to answer on behalf of Howard Matt Hare on the planning consultant that has dealt with the application from its inception and thank you council Williams for your questions As regards the roof style a key driver of the roof style is the restrictive high parameters that were set at the outline planning commission stage in which you heard the case officer talk through at the beginning of his presentation now those pipe parameters are necessarily low for landscape impact reasons and what that has meant is that we've not been able to deliver single pitch large scale roofs because they would far exceed the height limitations that are in place across the various zones across the site In relation to the balconies your question was is there any reason why some of the balconies are sited on the sides of the buildings as opposed to just the front or the back there's no overt requirement for them to be sited on the sides they've simply been sited in the locations where they've been judged to be able to provide the greatest level of utility or amenity to the occupants within the buildings and as part of that process we've had to have key regard to things like climate and overheating and underheating and those sorts of things making sure that the spaces will be truly usable wherever possible I hope that's of use Yes, thank you very much and Vice Chair has just pointed out to me on page 57 I think there is a requirement in the conditioning to provide further details on the balconies so that's useful extra information Any other Oh yes, Councillor Henry Thank you I'm returning to the subject of car parking I mean we've heard earlier that car parking for residents is deemed to be sufficient but given the nature of the place there's going to be a need for visitor parking you know if you want to visit Grandma and Grandpa so can you just give us a reassurance on what will happen if you do get high numbers of visitors I'm really trying to get to the the objection that came from the local parish council about the possibility of over spilled parking on the roads near to the site Thank you, Councillor Henry Could we have a clarification on that? Absolutely and thank you for the question it is an important one We've landed on 139 spaces our existing villages typically require about 65 to 70% of spaces dedicated for the actual residents so that would roughly be around 95 to 100 resident spaces the remainder which would be able to be given over to visitors and staff members so that's roughly 40 there's no precise number because the usage does vary but typically over time car usage does decline as well with the residents we have the minibus service which people typically use after a period of time and don't use their cars any longer so actually managing the site is something that we do on a semi-flexible basis but if you look at the broad numbers there'd be approximately 40 spaces for visitors and staff as the village matures and that would be easily sufficient to avoid any overspill parking on the local area Thank you for that clarification Vice-chair, do you have any further questions? Okay, well thank you very much for that Alunagfal, I think we will now then move to Councillor Jenny Flynn from Stakeford Parris Council if you'd like to make the chair Oh sorry, yes I do apologise that you are remote so same rules apply if you could speak for three minutes and then there'll be an opportunity for just me to put their questions of clarification, thank you Hello, you know the Parris Council objects to many aspects of the reserve matters application but today I can only focus on three pavilion, parking and conditions of approval We've described the pavilion as akin to a retail supermarket with its full height glazing, box-like design and extensive flat roof It has no design references to any building in Stakeford it'll be highly visible from the gog down, it'll be a contemporary and exposed eyesaw in a rural setting At the very least removing the first law to make way for a more traditional pitched roof is essential We're not alone in finding the pavilion incongruous The design review panel described it as a huge building that requires reconsideration as not of sufficiently high quality design and recommends that an open courtyard or farmstead style would be more appropriate and resolve other problems with sustainability, character and community We're disappointed that Rangeford hasn't listened to us or to the design review panel very carefully at all of the design review panel's recommendations and act upon them Because the council's development plan has no directly applicable parking standards, there's a very real danger that on-site parking for care village staff, residents and visitors will be wholly inadequate The number of available spaces is at odds with Rangeford's own travel plan It doesn't reflect our poor rural travel network or the unsuitability of our services for mobility scooters or indeed the role of car ownership in supporting older people's independence The dispersal of cars to Stapleford's narrow 20 mile an hour residential streets is not an acceptable solution to a lack of on-site car parking Looking at the enormous popularity of Mcogdown and Wandelbrief we're also bewildered that the new countryside park doesn't merit any dedicated parking You cannot assume that it will mainly attract non-motorised users Mcogdown has around 60,000 visitors annually many of whom will be very keen to make use of the new space Where will they park? The downed car park is often full and too far for some people to walk from there to the new countryside park and back again, with the upshot that on-street parking will jeopardise safety and ruin the tranquility of Stapleford's roads If the planning committee is minded to approve the application we ask that first the pavilion is completely redesigned as a series of related buildings or with pitch roofs that a safeguarding condition is applied to ensure that no overspill parking is permitted in residential streets in Stapleford or on Havel Road that active travel routes are adopted as public rights of way to assure permanent public access and that HDV and other construction traffic should only access the site via the A1307 to Havel Road and not through our small residential streets So to summarise If you're going to build something big on Greenbelt land create a new gateway to an established village for short and significant views to and from Mcogdown and create somewhere people can live and be cared for in their last years then what you build needs to be really special and this plan is not good enough. Thank you Thank you Councillor Flynn Thank you for being so accurate on time there Members any points of clarification for Councillor Flynn Councillor Martin Cahn I think the representative from the parish council probably has more knowledge than that I want to know whether she knows exactly what the what the actual soil conditions are in the countryside park area whether it's a boulder clay whether it's clay with fins or whether it's directly on the chalk because it would affect the management afterwards I understand the point about parking for that area also I can answer that question very well because I have a doctorate in sedimentology and various types of bedrock and I live very close to the site myself the countryside park is actually going to be unexposed it's a chalk bedrock with very very thin soil on top it's not actually hugely productive compared to some of the other soils in the area which are sort of great to a farmland the countryside park itself is also underlain by exactly the same chalk but it has a deeper veneer of clomie based soil on top of that sorry clay based soil on top of that You've heard the response given in relation to roofs and the restricted heights does that affect the view about the flat roofing at all or does the parish council believe that something else still could be done there The point we're making is that I completely accept that the flat roof has been designed because of the limits that have been placed on the heights of the development but the reason that the pavilion has a flat roof is that you can therefore optimise a number of residential units that can be built above it If you were to fragment that pavilion or if you were to have a pitch roof on top you would therefore by necessity have to remove a significant number of dwelling units from above the more functional areas of the pavilion at ground floor So this flat roof will be highly visible from McGogdown I'm sure that many of you will know, love and appreciate the value of McGogdown not just to South Cambridgeshire but to Cambridgeshire as a whole and the long views that there are from there So being able to see this substantial expanse of flat roof it really will be a tremendous eyesore It will be the closest large building of its kind to McGogdown in any direction and certainly the only flat roof building in proximity to McGogdown Thank you Any other questions or clarification? Okay, well thank you Vice Chair, in that case can we move now to Councillor Peter Fane who's the obviously has his name before the local member Peter, are you in the room? No, Councillor Fane I'm sure you know the rules if anyone would So three minutes, are you ready? Yes, I'm not taking part in this debate if I were, I would also declare that I am a member of the Megal Trust and of the CPPF which owns Wanderbury as well as a resident of Staplewood The benefits of this scheme were found by the inspector to outweigh the fact that it was otherwise inappropriate development in the green belt and I would suggest that it's very important that the committee in deciding, determining the reserved matters should ensure that this is designed in a way that those benefits can be delivered in practice I will just briefly draw attention to a couple of documents both of which are before you one is the inspector's report at page 61 onwards and the other is the second meeting of the design panel because I think it's important that if possible the plan when approved should meet with the recommendations of the design panel although that is a matter for the developers obviously to decide The inspector said at paragraph 73 page 75 that the benefits of this proposal would clearly outweigh even the disproportionate harms to the green belt and concluded that the proposal would carry comply with national policy and South Gamesha local plan as a result and referred in that to the recreational provision as well I'm not going to go over ground that was dealt with very competently by the parish council both Will Jackson Wood and myself broadly agree with the parish council although we don't we don't object to this we just want to ensure that the benefits are delivered two aspects of that one is the recommendations of firstly the design panel and again you have that before you you look at page 99 of your papers so the second meeting of the design panel and they I refer to their recommendations in relation to the pavilion building itself and I would endorse some of the comments by the parish council on that the design panel recommended that a farm said open courtyard topology would be more appropriate than the current sports pavilion based commercial design approach and I think the developers explained in part why they had not been able to meet that as I understand it I would also draw attention in passing to the fact that the design panel would not very keen on the lack of allotments but my key concern is that the public access benefits which are outlined here are actually delivered the inspector was persuaded that this should be a benefit to the village as well as to the retirement care village that will of course in part be determined by the the C-set proposal should those come forward but I think it's very important that the link between this country park and both the village and also the car park should be secured Thank you councillor Fink I apologise for interruption for my time there I did allow you a few seconds extra because of the explanation of your other interests committee do we have some councillor Heather Williams Thank you chair just because it was getting through on the timer you mentioned about the public access and benefits not elaborating too much on that but if you could is there a particular condition that you're seeking or something tangible that committee could look at that would be a very helpful picture I should briefly answer that public access in relation to both the access to the country park from Magog Trust where at the moment there is the only parking available for it and access from the village in relation to the access to the car park there is a small path beside the busy Haverhill Road and I would suggest that it should be a condition that there should be a proper NMU path beside Haverhill Road connecting this site to the Cal Park at Magog Trust for the reasons that the parish council suggested in relation to the access from the retirement care village and the village itself that is more problematic because that will be a matter which will be determined by the busway should that go through my concern would be that if the busway has no crossing points this time of course that's uncertain then access from the village will be very difficult and access from the retirement care village itself will be limited Heather Williams would you like to come back on that? Thank you that this may be more directed officers who I can see are communicated by us to whether the condition that Councillor Fain has asked for is something that we could incorporate or whether there's any safeguards we can put in place in the event that would happen so probably more an officer follow-up based on what's just been said. Yes, thank you. Officers can we comment on that as a feasible additional condition? Sorry Jack, as a clarification does the condition relate to a footpath along the Haverhill road to have interpreted that correctly? Is that Councillor Williams? Is that what we're in? The footpath that Councillor Fain was referring to I hate just in case I heard Haverhill road but I'm happy to use my supplement question to clarify with Councillor Fain the path but also what we could put in place is there anything we can put in place in the event for access? It's probably more complex but maybe Councillor Fain could respond to officers. Thank you. I mean ultimately in terms of the potential footpath on Haverhill road I mean that isn't something that the county council with highway authority have requested. There was talk earlier I might be happy to share my slideshare perhaps to show this of course rather than trying to explain it on the best slide to probably try and show it. So when the application first came in to the background there was going to be a gate in this approximate locations or the south east corner of the countryside park at that point highways did want them to extend the footways along but upon its relocation here highways no longer requested that so it's also conscious that land that you'd be putting the footpath across would be outside the red line boundary as well so without the highways saying I wouldn't feel confident in saying as an officer it's necessary from highway safety point of view just to answer the other query I mean as shown there's two connections through to the countryside park on the plans my understanding is that when if and when the seaset was to come in as an application and these parts were here they'd need to demonstrate that they could accommodate some kind of path in its alternative or keep the path open whether it's a crossing something to that effect so I think that's something that would be considered under that transport for works application rather than something because obviously at this point it's not certain that it's definitely here so hopefully that helps thank you thank you could we ask Councillor Faint to clarify the footpath because for officers to directly respond to that request I appreciate the answer yes okay I think that would be helpful so Councillor Faint could you just clarify thank you chair I think the case officer has understood this quite well the footpath I was referring to is the existing footpath between the proposed site and the Magel Trust car park it is as was stated on the other side of the road and in separate ownership outside of the the red line boundary so I accept that limitation I think however it is important I should be met at some other stage thank you I'm not sure what you're suggesting there that because there is a footpath on the other side of the road so that's kind of obviously detached from this application but are you suggesting that there should be a condition that affects the footpath on the other side of the road I'm quite understood there Chairman as you just stated actually the footpath is on the other side of the road my point was that the current footpath is very narrow, very close to the road and I am suggesting that needs to be improved but it may not be possible to do so as part of this application for the reasons the case officer stated thank you well I think unless there are any other questions oh okay Councillor Khan I was mentioned that there was felt to be a need for some that visitors to the countryside park would be likely to meet quite a few maybe wanted to come on by car and there's no parking provision provided what's your opinion what's your feeling about the need for parking provision for the other users do you feel that people would be likely to use the footpath along the road from the main cog I feel a bit uncertain that that would be the case that people more likely would be to park on a road near the village do you think that's a likelihood what you feel is needed what's your opinion Chairman I think my views on people's parking plans are probably fairly relevant I think that point has been very completely dealt with by the parish council and the developers and of course the comments from the case officer so I don't propose to add to that thank you Members I think we could move to section in which we debate the application or the reserve matters application so do we have anyone wishing to start off any questions or items of debate Councillor Heather Williams thank you thank you chair if officers could clarify about this gate on this access gate that's been moved from one end to the other end whether there is anything to stop us asking for a gate where it was originally proposed to benefit local residents and their access rather than having it right at the other end of the site or is there a reason to apply ways requested it or something like that thank you Councillor Williams could we have some clarification on that yes chair I'll just again share my screen so when obviously there was the outline planning commission there were shown at outline stage that there was going to be an access from Hinton Way an access from Haverhill Road and then this pedestrian accessibility from Gogma Gogway I it's um originally it was proposed approximate dislocation I haven't got the plan in front of me and it was it was felt that dislocation was better from a highway safety perspective in terms of because obviously got the speed limit change there for example and it was also originally proposed to be a vehicular gate as well to allow maintenance access but that was since removed because you could get a maintenance access from within the retirement village so it was moved it was felt dislocation was better as it relates to the sort of path across the road for example and stuff like that I don't know if moving it would I can't I'm struggling to foresee if moving it would cause any issue if that was but regardless I think in its current location it feels okay in terms of highway safety and the access into the park so that's why it was moved if that makes sense but yeah there's mainly highways requests to get to be moved so I hope it doesn't re-answer it well thank you thank you Councillor Williams you'd like to come back on that thank you chair and I am seeking to try and get my inquiry to a close I assure you so because it's vehicular and speed limits it's been moved or was it just that gate was could there be a pedestrian gate in the original and still have that and perhaps asking for an extra gate because I think what's been raised by Councillor Fein is the sort of access of sending people on foot and a lot way further down the road thank you Councillor Williams for you chair I think our feeling is that you've got two entrances here coming from the retirement village which again you access just off the main road here with that one that's already referred to up here I don't think it would be leading to anywhere that sort of path it would be bits of ad hoc so I think with the three paths connections there I think that's probably sufficient yeah thank you does that answer the question Councillor Williams I think I will base my decision based on the information that's been given to the chair thank you thank you are there any other questions so we've got my Vice-Chair Councillor Bachelor thank you not so much a question I was going to give a view at this stage if that's okay with you chair so for me the the principle of this development has been established through the appeals process and in fact as I think it's been highlighted by the local member the planning inspector said there was substantial evidence to say that the benefit of having the scheme significantly outweighs the harm even included notwithstanding the fact it is within the green belt so I'm not debating that point at all the issues that I'm looking at today revolve around design and highways issues so we've heard from various people referenced the design review panels comments on the scheme and what they would propose would be best for this particular location I see that has been taken on board and we have comments from the urban design officer who comes to the conclusion that what we have in front of us today is acceptable and that there is no objection to the particular design I also note that the urban design officer has recommended a number of conditions around specific specific elements of this application including specific materials and design of certain elements such as balconies, roofs etc which are in the list of recommended conditions in the report so in terms of design I'm satisfied that it's appropriate in terms of highways issues again we've heard some concerns from members of the public and local members we don't have any objections from the highways development management they started out having an objection when they were first consulted on this but their most recent comments saying they now those objections have been overcome and they as a local highways authority have no issues with any of the objections the one question I had before coming to the meeting today was around the GCP potential scheme that obviously we don't have any finalised detail of at the moment but I'm satisfied that the variation of condition which allows the staging of development of the open green space would be sufficient to accommodate any of the GCP schemes and I think we've heard from officers today that any issues with crossing of any C-set route would be an issue for the GCP to handle when they put their application in which obviously would be subsequent to this one so yeah on that on the highways points again I am satisfied so I think for me chair as it currently stands I don't see any material reasons for us to refuse this application and as has been mentioned I think the benefits of this scheme do that way to harm so as it currently stands I'll be voting in favour with the officers recommendation. Thank you Councillor Bantula for summing up so comprehensively giving your view if there are any other members who'd like to Peter Sandford Councillor Peter Sandford Thank you chair I largely echo Councillor Butler's comments a little concerned about the remarks made by the parish councillor around the design of Pavilion I'm wondering if we can at least recommend some more workers being done on the design to come up with a compromise that would satisfy everyone I'm assuming we can't condition it but it would be a strong recommendation also regarding seaset I appreciate it's totally out of our control but if there is a station or a bus stop that serves this retirement village I assume there would be a platform on either side so there would be safe crossing and I appreciate that out of our control but if when GCP comes before us with recommendations we should look at that Thank you Councillor Sandford Yes, Martin Khan I agree that the outline approval has determined the eligibility of this type of development on the site the there was major benefits in terms of the countryside park in terms of as an asset and my main concern my main concern my main concern is that that should be the best advantage to be taken of that because I see that as a potential good resource there are some concerns I have about it to convert arable to short grass is a long term proposition when I was a student I remember going to see Lunnington Heath on downland in Sussex and there they have areas which have been cultivated between 50 and 70 years later there was a very different community on the plant community on the cultivated areas to get downland on the shallow soils and talking hundreds of years so you are trying to hurry that up, you need specialists very much need specialist attention if you are going to get the best benefit I think the description is a bit of a gild in my lily definitely going to be much much better than what you've got now so that's a favour I'm really just concerned that we keep an eye up on the long term management and that it is you get the best result from the what you do there I'm also worried about access and it's again it's something which needs monitoring you have got no car parking there and the question is will people use the Godman car park even if the path is widen I cannot see many people walking along the road to get to there from a Godman car park it's just too unattractive why walk further along the road to get to the site you are going to in the distance people will take their car and drive down and try to park nearby so I think there is a potential risk but it may be that mainly the area serves local people and that then it will be a problem but I think you do need to keep a monitoring in the future because it may be that some provision is needed on site but then there is a problem that might encourage local people to use the cars when they otherwise would walk so I just would comment that monitoring should be made to make sure that there aren't parking problems it could be that parking problems arise in the actual retirement home because people park there and it will be monitored in terms of the design I don't have any of the concerns the building is in the centre it could be a feature I quite like modern buildings I think that's a value judgment but I think it could be quite a nice feature the flat roof will be mainly seen from the top of the it's surrounded by buildings around it so it will be hidden at the lower level it will make mainly seen from the top of the countryside park area which will be seen at a distance and will be a feature in the landscape I don't think that really what determines here is the landscaping of the site and therefore it's very concerning it's very important that we have a good landscape design it's going to be critically important on this site but with that I've seen a problem so generally with those provisos I see no reason to refuse this I should be voting in favour Thank you councillor Cahn councillor Cahn councillor Cahn has kind of just answered my question I think I mean I had three concerns to start with here one was parking which I think we've had some answers I still think there will be visited problems with visited parking but I'm not sure that we can deal with it I wanted to make sure that the place was inclusive and it wasn't to be cut off from the surrounding villages to become exclusive gated and that's been answered so the one that really worries me is the size of the pavilion which the parish councillor eloquently explained I have some sympathy with that but from what councillor Cahn was saying it sounds as though he with your planning experience you think that is going to be mitigated by landscaping so I'm probably now thinking that I would vote in favour that's where I'm feeling at the moment Thank you councillor Heather Williams Thank you chair so I think it's one of those it's gone through appeal and we are where we are I do feel that I do sympathise with the rooftops and the flat roof structure but I think that has been explained because of the outline parameters one thing that did on one of the slides we have shown was the balconies on the outside I felt that created a harshness which would have again been out of keeping you've got these buildings and I don't know if you're able to show the one before and then the next one I'll carry on chair in case we find them but I do find that that becomes almost like an intrusion into that space so I appreciate that we've got conditioning in relation to balconies if that same officers could take on board I think going forward when assessing it because I do think it creates an element of bulk that's equally out keeping whereas if you have them on the front or the back then it doesn't quite intrude so much into those visuals into that space the materials I think in this are going to be really really important and I can see that the conditions are here and I think a lot can be done with different materials to help make things fit in better in their environments the size of it I think the pavilion aside to fit the amount that they have consent for without losing more green space and everything else and losing those communal areas probably is necessary so I am minded to to approve it reluctantly but the balconies as was shown jolted up are really not great for the purpose of design I think it does give it extra extra brutalness actually to the landscape the indicative drawings I have said much more reassuring than the block plans but I am very mindful that they are indicative so we cannot hold the developers to those so I think when the conditioning comes through I don't have some wording they should be as close to the indicative drawings provided and if there is something we can do to strengthen that I would welcome any suggestions from officers Chair, thank you Thank you Councillor Williams for my own comments on this as we know this is a reserve mattress application the principle has already been established I do note that the design review panel had two bites at giving their feedback and I think they after their second meeting still had some reservations or would have liked the developers to go further in areas for example water stress we know this is a big issue in planning locally highlighted grey water recycling it would be good to see a real focus on that and also some concerns over the sustainable drainage scheme whether anything could be done about that and also trying to sort of encourage a greater going beyond the partale of the building regs 2021, sort of moving further towards certainly fabric first and then reaching out towards passive house standards so those would be my I don't think there's probably anything we can do in terms of conditioning there because basically meeting that statutory planning conditions I'm sure but anything more that can be done in terms of sustainability in those aspects I would welcome but I think I would accept that reasonable efforts have been made to respond to objections raised so just Martin Carn you would like to I just wanted to make a comment on your interest regarding balconies I think I've often been commented by I've lived abroad and commented that often we don't put balconies on British buildings I remember very much this discussion visiting a community which is where I was a bachelor of a singer originally came from in Poland going along the street and seeing every house in the summer particularly the elderly residents who were sitting out chatting to everybody and seeing who passed along the street many of these I suspect that it's a conflict between the desire for privacy and the desire for community and I see this as an element of community I've chatted to people I know who have lived in such communities who love the community element of living in this sort of community that's what attracts them I'm not sure that's the thing I would like and in this sense it's having somewhere where people can be seen and create community and talk will be helped by having balconies so I see it actually to my mind it's an asset because I see that the community in this sort of community community element is quite an important element of living there and that's what a lot of the people who live there like that's just an observation thank you do we have any other contributors so in that case can we move to a vote yes okay thank you I think we should have a recorded vote thank you happy to second a recorded vote motion if you're proposing chair okay okay thank you so green button is in favour of approval and red button I think we have an abstain okay well thank you members so yes the result is obviously 18 favour and zero against and no abstentions recommendation is thank you recommendation approved subject planning commission conditions as set out amendments to the condition as drafted to delegated to officers and the completion of the deed of variation respect to the GCP preferred route to be delegated to officers and a corresponding phase delivery of the countryside park I think that concludes this item could I ask council leader today now to oh yes yes we have a tea break scheduled so now would be a good time to take it so if we can say 15 minute break so that would take us to 1150 to resume the committee thank you very much thank you so welcome back to this meeting of the south Cambridge district council planning committee I'm council Peter Fane resuming the chair after item 5 we now move to item 6 in relation to the form of Barrington cement works at Hazlingfield application number 21 a bleak 04087 bleak full on pages 113 onwards of your papers this is a proposal for 113 dwellings on the northern parcel of development of this site that is an increase of 37 dwellings above the approved scheme and the key issues for us to determine are set out on page 113 the principle of development is an issue because of the additional dwellings the noise, the layout and design and the presenting officer again is Michael Hammond so I'll hand over to Michael Hammond to present if you would thank you chair, I'll just share my screen so the application as you stated chairs for the direction of 113 dwellings on the northern parcel of the site known as the form of Barrington cement works Hazlingfield road in Barrington it will be an increase of 37 dwellings above what was originally approved on this part of the site at the outland reserve matter stage so for context the red 9 if I go back to my the red line is the application site in here so this northern parcel and then the blue line is other parts of the site that the applicant also owns so it's the southern parcel and you may recall we discussed the south eastern parcel a few months ago so to the north of Barrington outside the framework that originally approved at a time before the council had a five year housing supply and it's a Barrington site so just a very high level there is quite extensive site history which I've summarised in my committee report but the two kind of key sort of founding permissions was the outline that was approved in 2016 for 220 units across the whole site and then obviously the reserve matters of that so in terms of phasing you'll see later I've got some actual site photos taken last month because they're actually on site now building out phases 1 and 2 currently under construction some of them are actually occupied so this south eastern parcel is what we discussed a few months ago and then this northern parcel will effectively be the last phase realistically of the development so again just to show you the extent of open space across the wider site so you see you've got this large pond in here and large areas of open space around the site which quite far exceed the minimum standards we would seek usually and in that red is just what was removed under that south eastern parcel so this is the proposed site plan I have got some comparisons later with what was originally approved in the site to make it easier so you've got the Semex railway line sort of cutting through the two parcels so it's north of that then the site itself so there will be open space with trees existing there being protected a small area of large detached dwellings at the northern end and then you've got a mix of terraces semi-detached detached throughout the site this central green is a new element originally some open space was down in this south eastern corner but this new design has sort of green which wasn't there previously and again this flat block you'll see in the western edge here was originally nearer to the main entrance but that's been moved away from there so just to show the different types of tenure so in terms of affordable housing it meets the minimum 40% standard and the mix of rented and shared ownership predominantly two beds and one bed with four three beds as well and parking is provided for each dwelling there would also be some visitor parking as well but typically it's two spaces per unit except for the two bed flats would have one per unit and the maze and X which are one bedroom would also just have one per unit so this is the approved layer on the left versus in front of us under this proposed application so you can see for example yes I don't hear this flat block has been moved to the west and then there was a larger area of open space there which has effectively been relocated there but there is still some open space down there but beyond that you obviously see that street arrangements have changed these are more terrace properties rather than the seven detached there obviously the main entrance road is more terrace properties again but then he still complies with the local plan standard just to show you the breakdown of that originally there were 76 proposed so it was a mix of one or two beds three beds and four beds another this proposal there would be more one or two bed and again just to so it's an extra 14 affordable houses that this would provide this revised layout and increase in dwelling numbers and they would be predominantly one or two bedroom homes which the housing team are satisfied with so these are a couple of street scenes this top one is looking at this terrace row and I believe the bottom one is further to the south it might be on the main road so I'll whizz through these but if you want me to go back to any please let me know because obviously there's a fair amount of different house types across the site some of which you might have seen on the other parcels because they're sort of similar design so it's the amboli this is the bakewell which is a free bed a can to breathe a dart end and then you've got the hamster one of the larger four bedroom homes Harrogate Henley the high gate and then this is the example of it's not exactly the same design this example of the high gate that's currently on the site one of the show homes just for reference then we've got Leamington lifestyle Lechworth semi-detached Lalo Oxford lifestyle and again this is another example this is the Oxford share home that's currently on the site sort of southern parcel that is Richmond Shardsbury Stratford lifestyle Tavey Tavey Mid and then there are some that are M4-2 standard so more accessible than ordinary ones and then the Maison X and then this is flat block B and then these are the floor plans to it so they're all two bedroom units and then there are garages across the site so this is what single garage would look like a double garage and they are slightly bigger double garage to accommodate two parking spaces and then these, this is just a photo I took from that southern parcel when I was on site just to show you what the finish article looks like on that part of the site and that's what's standing at the main entrance so that's quite which sort of tour house type so I'll be happy to go back if required chair but ultimately it's considered that additional 37 dwellings to this parcel would not result in the level of development becoming unsustainable and that the level of harm arising is very very limited and that is outweighed by public benefits of additional affordable housing the effect of use of brownfield lands and then financial contributions towards local services and facilities so approval was recommended subject to completion of a section-wise 6 agreement conditions and informatives thank you chair thank you for that, do we have any questions of clarification for the case officer at this stage councillor Peter Sandford thank you chair Michael can you just confirm the single garages are actually wide enough to accommodate a car because we've had previous obligations where they're too narrow thank you yes I think this was part of the discussion on the south eastern parcel from memory and I know it was checked by the Asian who might clarify in their comments but I believe it does fit a I forget the make of cars in this and something but I mean for the purposes of our actual parking standards no I don't think strictly speaking the dimensions match what we would seek but I think in reality they could accommodate some cars but that might be clarified by the applicant may speak thank you thank you for that, I think sometimes the important thing is not whether a car can be accommodated but whether you can get in and out of the car once you've taken it into your garage but councillor Issa Redrock thank you chair I'd just like to ask about the original permission given and the level of sustainability that was looked into at that point just because there's a lot of reference to that in this document for you chair in terms in terms of sustainability was that in relation to the building credentials or is it more about the sort of location in terms of there's sort of multiple facets to sustain, yeah sorry I sort of meant more in terms of the services and facilities available to the people who would be living in the home so like doctors and school places shopping and things like that transport cycle routes thank you for you chair might be helpful if I've got the slides stood up on the screen so there is for example part of the scheme that was approved a new pedestrian footpath cycleway coming out opposite the school in the southern corner just sort of missed off there and in the longer term there would need to be a cycleway connected to the Foxton train station all the way along adjacent to the railway line basically so as well as I think the highways have recommended some there will be a bus stop for example introduced northbound southbound outside the site so from a transport perspective there have been those measures and on the original section 6 agreement there were contributions to local GPs for example and aspects like that and education contributions which I think you might read my report on this and with local community facilities there's improvements to things like the village hall for example playing pitches which are on a sort of pro-rata basis with what was approved back then so it's they're a key contribution so they were considered at the outline stage those and effectively they've sort of been pro-rata in the way it's run most of them but yeah it's on the edge of the village so with those sustainable transport improvements yeah I think it was it was considered I wasn't here at the time but I was I think that's the justification for what was considered to be sustainable Thank you Any other questions? I would ask a question of clarification myself in relation to the parish council comments on page one, two, three of our report whilst it's edited at the top no objection if we look at paragraph six three follows on from what was just said we request section 106 provision in relation to the above matters I set out if this is not made then the application is not acceptable to the parish council which I assume would mean an objection the parish council have chosen not to be with us today but really two questions first is to what extent do we think the parish council's concerns particularly in relation to section 106 community provision have been met and the second is in relation to the additional houses to what extent have those been accommodated by reducing the green space and shows them out there or by increasing density on the existing site Thank you chair, I'll come about to get my notes up because I point about the open space I had prepared I think it's a reduction but I mean whilst I'm doing that in terms of the contributions that the parish council referred to, the vast majority of them have been included those are the things like the community financial improvements for example because there was originally some discussion regarding whether it's acceptable to do that on a pro-rata basis but we with our section 9.6 officer we agreed that it was and so ultimately those have been incorporated and I think are outlined just reading the field report paragraph 6.113 page 135 of the committee report those are included I believe there were some references to transport improvements that were the arch bridge contribution but the county council didn't recommend those so that's why those haven't been included for example but the vast majority in terms of the non highways ones that were mentioned are included but that's to in terms of the open space so the area that would be lost would be 0.35 hectares so there would still be 17.72 hectares across the site which is roughly about 6 times more than the minimum standards would seek so when you look at the entire site it's still got quite substantial amount of open space so that would be my response to that thank you chef thank you but if I understand it correctly in part that the open space that was to be at the south east corner of the site has now been effectively relocated to form part of the open space more in the centre of the of the site you showed us again a plan on that earlier on to come back on that I don't know if that strictly speaking was its intention I wouldn't I don't think it would be fair if I assumed that was why I was doing it that was the plan I was thinking about it's more that the proposal now extends slightly further this way and that it's kind of more providing as far as I'm aware a direct response to the south eastern parcel wasn't something we saw specifically whether the applicant or agent was clever on that they might be able to but yeah thank you thank you for that one more question well I'll put it to you chef I've got two questions around responses we've had from our consultees on this is that better to say for the debate or for now unless it's one of the consultees no I mean we let me clarify we will have public speakers later on we'll have a noise consultant on behalf of CMEX we have somebody speaking on behalf of the developers and some of these points cancer of underval the local member may comment on but we don't have any other consultee speaking so I think it's fair for you to raise these concerns at this point in clarification okay thank you well two questions then urban design team objects to this as you can see in the comments but presumably can I just clarify that it's officers view that the concerns they raise are outweighed by the benefit that the scheme gives and secondly is the landscape officer now objecting or have they had their objection removed so it doesn't actually it's not actually very clear they were initially objecting back in 2021 but I'm not very clear from their comments whether that objection has been overcome enough for them to remove that objection yeah in response to the landscape officer one I think it's just missing the no objection after I wrote it but I definitely recall speaking with landscape extensively about that and they were happy subject to conditions yeah I think there were conditions recommended landscape so I don't think it's an objection and I didn't mean to miss that off sorry but in response to your first question yes acknowledge that urban design have some concerns which I think I've addressed in my report but for example some of them refer to things of the separation distances specified in the SPD but I think if you think SPD but I think if you look across the site as it's already been permitted that they're not being met in every instance for example and that is only guidance so we've taken that into account and are satisfied with it so yeah it's officers we have a different opinion basically thank you thank you Chos quite just to check really there's a point on 10.144 about having a condition to require secure and covered cycle parking I was just wondering if that is covered in the conditions is that 10 hard and soft landscaping schemes I just wasn't sure from the wording for you chair just try to get I believe there was a bin and cycle store condition that might have been combined so I'll just check for those online we're just checking some information in relation to a question that's been asked and we will be back to you shortly I mean we can keep checking the background but also if it's not on there I'll be more than happy to add it I can see in my report that I've intended to add a cycle parking condition so perhaps when it comes to debate I think that could be a motion perhaps to add it on if it's not in there but we'll keep checking in the background thank you so but it might perhaps form a proposal later on any other questions of clarification no right let's move on to our public speakers our first public speaker is Rachel Canham I'd leave a noise consultant appearing on behalf of CMEX as I understand it perhaps in giving you a presentation you would just clarify us to where the CMEX are a formal object to this so oh I'm sorry CMEX are online yes there we are so Rachel Canham welcome and you have three minutes and if you would stand by for any questions after that certainly hopefully you can hear me okay hello my name is Rachel Canham of WBM Acoustic Consultants acting on behalf of CMEX the CMEX Barrington site is a formal quarry that is currently being restored using inert material brought in by train train movements are therefore an essential part of the restoration scheme without the trains there is no material brought to site and no restoration can occur the proposed housing scheme is split by the railway line used to bring in the infill material the planning permission for the CMEX site allows for three trains in and out of the site per day so six movements in total although two trains can occur within the same hour the planning permission also sets noise limits at the proposed housing condition 38 requires train noise at the boundary of any residential property not to exceed 55 decibels over a one hour period this limit was developed in conjunction with CMEX to minimise train noise impacts at the housing the limit also assumes two train movements in a single hour the proposed housing would need to be located at least 50 metres from the railway in order to meet this limit and less mitigation in the form of screening was introduced between the housing and the trains the proposed housing layout shows dwellings closer than 50 metres but without any intervening screening although noise assessments for the housing have been undertaken these have considered train noise from six movements over a 16 hour period rather than two trains over a one hour period this has the effect of diluting the noise affecting the housing by the trains it is acknowledged that the applicant is including screening to the balconies of the flats in the form of perspex barriers the introduction of the screening is welcomed and it is hoped that the implementation of such barriers will be secured by an appropriate condition although this screening will assist with reducing train noise on the balconies to the flats it does not provide any screening to the mitigation to the houses or front gardens that are located nearest the railway as such the objection from CMEX is that the residential scheme still stands not only is there a real risk that the noise levels at the boundaries of these properties will exceed 55 dB over one hour meaning that CMEX will be in breach of their planning conditions but there's a risk that future residents could complain about the elevated noise from the trains and if the complaint is found to be considered a nuisance the train movements could be curtailed as a result as indicated earlier the train movements are essential for the operation of the site as they bring in the inert material used to fill the void as currently proposed the housing scheme conflicts with the requirements of the NPPF and the agent of change principle that is where the operation of an existing business such as CMEX could have a significant adverse impact on new development the applicant or the agent of change should be required to provide suitable mitigation before the development has been completed the objection by CMEX could be addressed by the use of additional mitigation between the houses on the railway such as a substantial fence to provide any acoustic screening thank you for listening and I'm quite happy to respond to any questions thank you very much do we have any questions for clarification on that perhaps I could ask a question myself in relation to the additional mitigation perhaps you could just give us a little bit more detail as to what that might be involved on how that could be accommodated on the proposals that are set out of course I'm not sure if you're aware but the CMEX Barrington site because it's over viewed by Cambridge counter council discussions were ongoing at the time the CMEX application went in because that coincided with the development of the housing scheme although at that stage it was only permitted in outline there were some general discussions that the houses would be located closer than 50 metres but with a provision of a 3 metre barrier between the housing and the railway in order to provide appropriate mitigation and that would be sufficient to control noise levels to traditional two-story dwellings so that is the typical kind of mitigation that would be required a sort of 3 metre tall fence or a wall the specific function form of it isn't really that critical providing it's tall enough and has sufficient mass so something like an acoustic fence or even just a substantial close boarded fence or a wall would be sufficient Thank you very much for that Any other questions perhaps I should say that we move on to our next public speaker if it's Gerald would like to deal with that issue in addition to other issues she may be planning to raise and be happy to provide a little bit of extra time so before we consider whether mitigation might be dealt with by other means through a condition Right Thank you chair I'm just interested to know whether if that mitigation work would in place would it be required on both sides of the track because I suppose you could argue then you're increasing the noise level for the existing foster development on the other side of the track Is that a sensible question Yes entirely sensible and you are correct it would ideally be required on both sides of the railway line Thank you very much for your presentation and for answering our questions Before I pass on to our next speaker give a general apology for having failed to recognise who was in the room and who was virtual My apologies for that I believe our next speaker is Gerald of Parker Parry You know how this works The floor is yours Thank you all for giving me the opportunity to speak today The application before you seeks to increase the scale of development on this northern parcel from the approved scheme of 76 dwellings to 113 dwellings an uplift of 37 units The approved scheme secures all the footpath cycle connections and significant contributions to the improvement of community facilities within Barrington This remains unchanged and will be delivered The parish council will receive in excess of £2.5 million towards refurb or rebuild of the village hall, sports hall, football pitches, tennis courts amongst other elements In respect of noise the relationship between the SEMEX infilling operations and the residential development is an existing one that will occur with the extent permission regardless of this proposal SEMEX advised you that this development will prevent them from infilling the quarry as they'll be unable to comply with the condition on their permission They failed to acknowledge the extent permission where the same situation may arise and moreover ignore the fact that they can install mitigation measures on the railway lands and should the issue arise This relationship was also known to them when they initially obtained the planning permission for the residential development and when they sold the site to Retro Let's put the situation in context SEMEX have permitted six movements to and from the site per day This equates to three trains and only one train can attend the site at any one time due to space No more than two movements are permitted in any one hour In the time I've been involved which is now a while No more than two trains per day have been known to come into the site and never at the weekend or on bank holidays This is not a mainline we're talking about we're not talking about four trains per hour it's a low level operation occurring In addition SEMEX only have a permission to continue infilling for a limited period of time Even if this time period is extended any perceived conflict will only occur until the quarry is restored It's a finite period Overall this is optimising the use of land that was brownfield in accordance with government guidance regardless of whether there's a five year land supply or not In seeking to maximise development on brownfield sites such as this one it facilitates an increase in housing delivery which in turn assists with a reduction in the future housing need within the district and a reduction in the need to allocate greenfield or greenbelt sites in the future On that basis we put to you the officers are reporting the recommendation and we would ask you to support us Just coming back to the point that SEMEX have raised about the fence and wall it's worth noting that the three metre barrier wasn't in the outline consent it wasn't secured as part of any outline consent nor in any sale contract coming over to Redro You've heard, I've just mentioned the extent position in terms of the consent that we have to reserve matters allowed development within that 50 metre boundary without a barrier If a fence or wall is required it would fall outside of the redline of this particular application and into SEMEX land that was always perceived and as such SEMEX themselves are able to actually apply to consent to put in that facility if it became an issue from our perspective it's not Thank you Thank you very much for clearing that up Any questions of clarification for our speaker on that Yes, councillor, these were a drop Yes, I may have been more appropriate for the previous one but it just occurred to me I was wondering how long does it take for each train to pass because I imagine they'll probably be quite long with heavy trains and also you mentioned this is a short term situation so I wonder how long it's expected for these trains to continue to pass through the site I can't give you an exact time because they would stop watching what I can say is that I've actually walked past one of the trains that are coming into the site they travel at exceptionally low speeds it's a steady constant rumble is probably a too stronger word but you can get the sort of train constant noise and it moves past obviously moves past existing properties as well as it comes up from Foxton Station but because of the low speeds it does take minutes I can't give you exactly how many sorry Thank you for that and I think perhaps our case officer can help us on this as well Yeah, if they help us, chair I was looking for a noise report on the counter permission and from what I could see it takes approximately 10 minutes 10 minutes as well Okay Further question for you councillor Peter Sanford Thank you chair, you probably heard my question to the case officer that one car garage is actually usable for cars or are they just storage lockers We did go away and measure it we learnt our lessons not having the answer and it will hold a Nissan cash car so a decent sized family car what we do know is obviously it doesn't comply with the Cambridge County Council standards for internal measurements for garages but they are sufficiently big enough to take a car Thank you, thank you That means that the driver will be able to get out once the car is parked in the garage I don't think we have any further questions for you, thank you very much for your presentation for being so clear Right Our next speaker hopefully waiting online for us is councillor Aiden van der Wair as local member Are you there Aiden? Good morning Can you hear me okay? Hello, good morning, thank you very much Can I launch off? So a bit of context this development is as we've heard currently being built out residents moving in who are contributing to the village the development is going to bring a lot of benefits in terms of the very large amount of open space and the contributions to community facilities and it's also worth noting that we have a very good liaison group that's set up and run by the south camp community team which has helped with the relations with Bedro and the village So I have a couple of main quotes I would like to make one is a point of principle and then one on the 106 is this is the fact that this is the 37 houses are part of a bigger application in policy terms is neither here nor there the original proposal got approved before we had the local plan when we didn't have a 5 year housing land supply that's done, that's decided and as I said being built out we're working very hard to make sure it's a lovely place that's well integrated and I think we will succeed in that if this application of 37 houses was in any other group village if it was in any other location in Barrington it would be resisted so there's not really any difference in this it's 37 houses application of 37 houses in a group village which is not in conformity with policy and I think it should be possible to apply our policies On the 6106 the the parish council I tell you with the parish council's views that we ought to be increasing the 6106 that was agreed the one particular example that they cited is on the the path and sort of a potential improvements to the path to Sheprith and we know that there is a very narrow bridge there it's quite a fast road without a path and that is actually on the route from the village to the catchment secondary school I mean it's disappointing that the council didn't support that but funding for that would be very welcome would bring huge benefits and improve the safety and improve the attractiveness of walking and cycling in the area so ideally across the board a pro-rata increase to the 106 I think it justified and would get the support of the parish council and myself More broadly I think bringing the two issues together the increase in the size of this development starts to approach the point when you would expect community facilities to be one with that limited self rather than within the village and so this sort of incremental increase in size I think undermines the proper planning so if we had these numbers to start with we might have approached them differently which is rather unfortunate but yes so there are two points for the principal and an appeal to on the 106 to increase Thank you, any questions of clarification for councillor van de Vyre I think we have one Henry Bachelor Thank you chair Morning, Aidan So just so I'm absolutely clear then obviously we do have a number of objections throughout our paper to this application because some of the points are against policy albeit the case officers view is that the benefits outweigh the harm is that can I just double check that is your view as local member as well that the benefits this scheme we have in front of us today do outweigh the harm that is identified? Sorry to everyone's clip No I don't think so I mean there are some benefits with the housing and the contributions that's undesirable I think the sort of way I think I've thought about it is if this had been anywhere else in any other circumstances I would be rejecting and that's my position the case officers have made a very good case and presented a case and that's obviously what you have to consider but I think the principle on this point I think is very strong in our policies and we should be following them Councillor van de Vyre I detect a certain amount of confusion in the room so forgive me if I come back on that you said I think that in any other group village this would be resisted however you did indicate that you would support it however in response to councillor bachelor's question you said no the benefits do not outweigh the harm have I misunderstood your position? Yes sorry I didn't think I said I would support it apologise if I hadn't been clear really one no I think that principle is my position on that Thank you Any other questions for councillor van de Vyre or should we leave it then? Let's move on Thank you very much I think we are now in a position to move to the debate unless anyone I will give further opportunity for questions of clarification to the case officer if necessary before we proceed to the debate because I'm keen to keep questions and debate separate Any further questions which the case officer might be able to help us with? No Let's progress to the debate then There are some matters that have been raised that we will no doubt come to later perhaps in relation to conditions but let's focus on the debate on the proposals before us who wants to open up the debate on that I see councillor Henry Batchelor is going to open the debate for us on this Yep didn't have my hand up but I can do chair if you need someone to kick off so yes obviously this is going to be a balanced judgment from committee members I mean where I'm coming from I mean I am I do have concerns obviously we do have a number of objections throughout the paper from some of our consultees the strongest one being from the urban design team albeit I understand the justification for going against that suggestion is that the rest of the site none of the site complies with what the urban design officer is saying Yeah I mean we also have objections from the minerals and waste officer at the county council from CEMEX themselves and we have a relatively ambiguous objection or not from the landscape officer so I mean for me usually I'd be quite I'd say uncomfortable in going against all those objections but I have heard the case officer's justification for you know going against those recommendations and for putting a balanced view to us and obviously having read through the parish council's comments you know over the many iterations of this application and also from hearing from the local member as well I am probably going to at the moment anyway come down on the side of the case officer and I think that the issues that have been raised by consultees come by the benefits that that this application would bring namely section 106 payments et cetera et cetera that have been outlined so as it currently sits chair I will be voting in favour Thank you I see other contributors but just for that I will wear the council have the Williams was not able to join us the whole thing and won't be voting but I wondered whether you have any comments or contribution on the matters before us no chair I still have an urgent matter so I have not been proviced it is probably not appropriate for me to comment I think then we have counsellor Dr Martin Khan Yes I would comment that the principle of development on the site has been determined it is difficult really to see how it is a sustainable site but that is the decision and that is the position we are in the original how proposed what included far larger number of dwellings and smaller number of smaller units and the smaller units are the thing that we tend to be short of and where we have problems so that is a very desirable change that there are far more numbers of smaller bedroom units and that is a great plus point in terms of design the whole site is going to be basically it is a bit of suburbia in the countryside and that is what we have numbered and that is what the permission was given for so we really have to accept it whether we like it or not whether local residents like it or not that is the position that we are in I am not particularly worried about the terraced houses they seem to me that is almost inevitable if we are going to increase the number of smaller units and that is what we in terms of housing need that is the biggest need so generally I can see this as a desirable the movement of the bit of open space to the centre of the site is a definite positive from the development but I am not too worried about the noise we shall see you as it has been commented it could be resolved on the actual railway line if it becomes necessary but I work for a year right next door to a railway line and with much more frequent trains it is noisy but if you are coming there you know there is a railway line and you adapt to it either you like it or you are not we have already accepted the other side of the railway line so I think the arguments I accept the arguments that can be accepted so the big worry I am worried thing that I am concerned about I don't see how it is resolved if we have a larger number of smaller units we are likely to have a younger and more active people and they are likely to use active transport and cycling and the natural route you are cycling from is to go through Hassingfield and Barton in Cambridge and that I cannot see how that road is very safe for cycling but we have accepted there is going to be development there and so I don't I think the inevitable result is that you are going to have a lot of private transport in cars and the provision of electric charging points is therefore an important element which is provided for and that seems to be inevitable you are going to have a lot of new vehicles vehicles using the road and that has been accepted the highways accept it so I don't see that as a reason to refuse it so I think in general I am going to be supporting that application Chancellor Bill Hanley for me the important thing is the number of affordable houses I think that is what swings the argument for me I can see the downsides of some of the objections but I think affordable housing is something we desperately need so that is the way it shifts the balance from my perspective shifts the balance to what towards a voting in favour of 40 months right any further contributions to the debate perhaps I could say a few words myself as others have said the principle of development is accepted on this site as to the density of development and the accommodation of the additional numbers I don't see that has any significant deleterious effects on the green space looking at the objection standing from the urban design officer I think paragraph 6.3 sets that out in the future when the rail track is decommissioned the north and south sides will not have this obstacle from the point of view of achieving a community cohesion it is preferable to have similar arrangement of built in natural forms I am personally not persuading that that is an important consideration for us I think the question is whether the two parts are compatible and I don't see any reason why they shouldn't be in relation to the objection from CMEX and the question of Noeys and other members have referred to this being beside a railway line I don't think in it's comparable with any other situation of being beside a railway line we're talking about 4 to 6 trains a day rumbling past at slow speed over extended period and that being for a limited duration and if mitigation works were to be needed then we have heard and I am satisfied that they would be outside the red line and could be provided by CMEX themselves so as to satisfy the conditions of their own planning consent so I'm not persuaded by that either there is the remaining question that was raised earlier in relation to bicycle storage which the planning officer indicated could be accommodated I wonder whether it might be suitable wording for a condition that could be added on that Yes, ultimately yes that should have been concluded because I had to enter my report so happy for a cycle parking to be dealt with a free condition and that would be a fairly standard condition so we don't need to consider the wording of it now it would be along the lines of prior to occupational development the details of cycle storage shall be submitted to an approved in writing by the local planning authority to that effect really I get the impression that is something that developers could accommodate Councillor Edward you raised that in the first instance so you're happy that we deal with it in that way Max, did you want to comment on the questions before us the broader questions or Yeah, I guess on the broader questions of that scale but thank you for looking into the cycle parking for me I guess my concern is about increasing it by the 37 houses and having potentially 120 more people living in a sustainable site unsustainable in terms of requiring cars that hill is very it's a big hill for our area and people don't like to cycle over it it is a narrow road with a difficult junction when it comes down into hazing field at the other side so there are definitely concerns around there and I think there would be a lot more cars because of having so many more people there so I do have concerns about it that I'm not quite sure about and also concerns about the facilities available so thank you for answering my question earlier about the pro-rata increases of section 106 which was useful for me so I guess my thoughts are is that enough to object or not so that's what I am just thinking about that thank you so we have councillor Henry Bachelor want to come back again and then councillor Peter Sanford thank you just a minor point following on from councillor Martin Cahn was asking around cycling can I just get some clarification maybe from officers or maybe from someone who knows my understanding was that there is due in the pipeline to be a cycle path built between Barrington and Foxton as part of the GCP upgrades then I don't know if officers have details of that but can I just I think that might help in terms of the wider context around cycling I didn't know if someone could confirm or deny it's not my local area so I'm not fully burst with it but I just wanted to double check for each other unfortunately I don't know the answer off the top of my head I'm afraid without looking through I don't know to be honest so councillor Bachelor it sounds though we may not be able to resolve that today are you happy it's not going to affect my decision making but I thought it might just be useful for the wide public councillor Sanford thank you chair I assume we don't need any further discussion about increasing section 106 provision pro rata that seemed to be the main sticking point for the parish council but if all agreed with that I'm happy to support this and I echo councillor Ham this points about serious need for affordable housing in the villages so I'm tending to support this application yes I think that's an important point again I draw attention to paragraph 6 3 on page 123 I think it's reasonable in view of what the case officer said to us earlier to assume and from the fact that the parish council are not with us today to assume that their request for section 106 provision has been met and that they are not objecting on that account I think we're pretty well ready to move to a vote can I ask members to consider very carefully before we vote whether they feel they have been able to be sufficiently involved in this to take a vote I think councillor Williams will not be voting and there may be others in the room who may decide that they should vote on this matter but I leave it to the conscience of individual members on that point so I suggest we now move to a vote on this I'm going to take it off sorry Peter sorry chair I really didn't understand what you were just saying why were you saying that standard procedure I suggest that members need to consider before voting on the matter whether they have been able to be present and attentive for the whole of the debate I'm not going further than that I'm now going to move to a vote if councillor Handie will agree so I'm going to go straight to an electronic vote and if you are just to the recommendation is to approve I think we had a couple of possible conditions I haven't heard anyone arguing the case for refusal so I'm not proposing to outline the possible case of that I think the concerns about the railway line have been dealt with I think the concerns about the cycle storage so if you want to approve having pressed the blue button you'll then press green and if you want to refuse press red no I think we have eight votes we have one two that's everybody I think yes so that is now approved thank you very much we said we'd break for lunch at 1.30 so I think that gives us an opportunity to if necessary that gives us an opportunity to progress to the next one which is the application in relation to Fennylane Farm in Meldrath which is on page 1.8 so we'll take a short break here while we just arrange a crossover of case officers and then we'll resume in a couple of minutes thanks very much to our public speakers and others who have paid attention to this appreciate your attendance so we will just take a short break a couple of minutes before we get to the next item welcome back to this meeting of South Cambridgeshire District Council Planning Committee a positive is taking a short break there to make some local arrangements we now move on to item 7 our agenda application 22 of the 04018 outline in relation to Fennylane Farm Fennylane in Meldrath and this is on page 1.8.9 of your papers welcome to our case officer Katie Christon-Ludie Chris, I beg your pardon Katie Christopher Delides who's now joined us it's an application by Mrs.Philipa and Joanne Hart it's with us because it's been called in by Meldrath Parish Council it's an outline application all matters reserved other than access for the erection of nine self-build dwellings the key issues before us are set out on page 189 the principle of development which includes the question of self-build the character and appearance of the area landscaping, highway safety and parking provision plus the question of flood risk and drainage and the recommendation from officers is to refuse and therefore I'd like to ask our case officer Katie would you present the case to us so there have been two representations so just to provide a verbal update there have been two verbal representations received since the committee report was written and the written update was provided in summary the representations confirm the previous objections which these two neighbours submitted they also state that the issues of the disposal of surface and foul water are considered not to have been resolved through the amendments to the application and concerns are raised regarding increased flood risk to the neighbouring properties on the proposal so I'll start my presentation so the application site is Fenylane Farm, Fenylane and Meldrath the proposal seeks outline application with all matters reserved rather than access for the erection of nine Southfield dwellings the application is reported to planning committee at the request of Meldrath parish council and a written update report was circulated to members last week the application site which is outlined in red on this plan here lies to the north of Fenylane Meldrath and comprises paddock and private allopment land to the west of the site lies number 24 Fenylane here which is a two-storey property and now numerous converted dwellings from agricultural barns which are single storey and two storey and then further agricultural barns to the back of the site to the south lies the neighbouring properties to the south of the site lies the neighbouring properties which form number 20 Phoenix House, number 18 number 14, number 12 there is no number 16 and these are all single storey properties which lie adjacent to the site adjacent to Fenylane opposite the site here you've got the Meldrath Manor school and then here adjacent to the site is open farmland to the north and east of the site we've got some street scene views here which show number 24 Fenylane here you can just about here to back see some of the barns which are rich in this photo are being converted and then the site starts here this one up back here is looking east towards the village of Meldrath and this is the site this head to the front and then you can just see the neighbouring property number at Phoenix House at number 20 so the top site here looking directly at the site and then this is looking down Fenylane looking west as you go out of Meldrath towards Wadden you can see number 24 Fenylane here the site is in here and then the driveway to the neighbouring property so site photographs top photograph here on the left shows the private allotments which on the cursor here you can see forms this part of the site the south west part of the site this photograph shows the paddock land which is a large area of paddock land which lies to the north of the site and then these various photographs show just show the boundary to the site which is quite well screened with various trees and this one is like these two are looking towards this boundary here towards the neighbouring properties the site is outlined in red here and lies outside of the Meldrath Village Development Framework and within the open countryside the Village Development Framework boundary is shown with the black dashed line here so the site lies outside of the framework in the countryside and the Village Framework lies adjacent to it to the south and east the site is predominantly within flood zone 1 low risk with the small part of the site adjacent to the eastern boundary which lies within flood zones 2 and 3, medium risk flood zone is just here where the flood zone 2 and 3 are this illustrative site plan shows the proposal would likely form a cul-de-sac development with one vehicular access accessed off many names so the vehicular access would be here plot this site plan shows that plot 1 would be sighted adjacent to the access with plot 2 sighted further within the site with plots 3 and 4 within the back part of the site forming a cul-de-sac development this is however illustrative and is an illustrative site plan with matters of appearance, landscaping layout and scale being sought at a stage a shown on here each dwelling would have provision for two parking spaces and cycle provision so the proposal is for self-build the self-build and custom housing act 2015 as meant by the housing and planning act 2016 requires local authorities to maintain a self and custom build register this is a register of individuals and associations of individuals who are seeking land in south Cambridge by the self and custom house building the act as amended in 2016 provides a legal definition of self and custom house building the act does not distinguish between self-build and custom housing provides that both are aware in an individual association of individuals or persons working with or for individuals or associations of individuals build a complete houses to be occupied as homes by those individuals so this table here which is taken from the district council's website shows the number of people added to the register for each base period and the permissions granted which authorities have three years from the end of the base period so the table shows that there was a shortfall and the number of permissions granted before compared to the number of people added to the register an update report was circulated to members last week in which the table was updated in which each base is treated individually and therefore any deficits and delivery of permissions granted are not carried forward similarly the number of people on the register is not applied as cumulative year on year total so main considerations part of this application are principle developments character and appearance of the area landscaping highway safety and parking provision and flood and drainage the application is recommended for refusal as a proposal would be outside of village framework in an sustainable location and the result in encroachment of built form into the open countryside with result in harm to the character and appearance whilst the need for self-build dwellings in the district is not in dispute the contribution and the location of the proposal for these self-build dwellings in the area is not considered to outwey the material harm the proposal would have to the character of the rural landscape in village thank you thank you very much any questions of clarification to the case officer yes, I have councillor thank you can I just ask just from my understanding what the significance of the changes in the table where and why those figures about carrying forward were taken off and also I thought I read somewhere that the demand for self-build may be met by developments in north snow and possibly water beach I just want to check if that can be taken into account thank you can you help us with that yeah so in terms of the figures so just clarifying that the we had calculated that added the cumulative impact of the figures there but that was incorrect so they should be considered on a year on year basis and in terms of the need it has been considered on various appeal decisions that the need of the self-build need was addressed by north snow but at the moment that table shows that we haven't met our need in terms of permission granted for self-build thank you for that I'd like to follow that up because the table shows a deficit of 140 self-build and custom units in period four if we discount the possibility of provision in north snow which I think has not been resolved I'm just wondering to what extent we have to consider what our view is not what an inspector as you might be but to what extent an inspector might say for instance that the council's approach on this has not delivered and is not expected to deliver self-build housing in anything like sufficient quantities and that the council's failure to make progress in resolving the issue should be considered in the planning balance it isn't currently considered in the planning balance although you've said it's outweighed by other factors could you just call up the planning balance your planning balance slide again and just so the question really is to what extent do you think that the failure to meet self-build assuming it is a failure should be taken into account in the planning balance even if outweighed by other factors your last slide I think will show you the planning balance there we are Q material considerations three chair obviously the provision of self-build plots does carry material weight and it's for the decision maker to determine what weight is applied to that consideration in determining its application what we're saying here is that we acknowledge there is a demand set out by the number of people we have on our register currently and in the base periods three and four we haven't met that demand and therefore obviously in trying to meet that demand in the future yes as I said it carries a material weight what we're saying here is that the provisions of the local plan and the policy is set out in our spatial strategy and where we advise development should be located that is actually where we're advising that that carries more weight than the self-build provision in this instance for this application and hence the recommendation that's before you to refuse the application thank you for that any other questions of clarification I think that's where we are now councillor Hardie thank you chair I've not really fully understood how this list in some ways a pipeline works because I suppose the fact that a lesser number of permissions are granted compared with the number of people added to the list I mean for example one obvious question is how many applications were there and what proportion of those were granted because just because permissions granted are lower than the number of people added to this might it's not as though these self-build plots are a totally homogenous kind of resource because I presume people who want to build their own house would be quite particular about where they want to build their own house and therefore I wonder if it really is the case that if we offered more plots would that directly lead to an increase in the number of planning commissions granted thank you at the moment we are required to identify what the demand is by having a self-build register and that is the number of individuals or associations we have that are on the self-build list so that is the demand we have and there is a duty for us to meet that demand under the act that Katie referred to obviously the list can be divided into a part 1 and a part 2 so it identifies a more localised need and can introduce localised tests and that is something we haven't done at the moment but there is a way that we can refine that list essentially into a more localised connectivity test where we keep those on part 1 and a register and just general interest as part 2 but at the moment we haven't split that up I have a colleague here on the line if you have some more questions around the self-build register he would be able to answer some questions in regard to managing that list if members felt that was useful we have had a couple of questions on that issue and if your colleague online is able to help us with how and to what extent that should be taken to account in the balance that would be very helpful hello, yeah hopefully I can help and give you some kind of an update on this so it's quite confusing to say to Lisa I think the legislation here there doesn't seem to have been many updates recently since for some time now so we were kind of waiting to see what the ramifications would be for not meeting the targets however there doesn't seem to be any that we can see from government at this point so I was kind of eagerly going to anticipate what that would be kind of knowing that potentially we weren't going to meet those figures as we saw in 3 and 4 so really I don't think I can give you much of a kind of a weight on what that looks like because it doesn't seem to really be much of ramification all that seems to be at the moment is the appeal loss that we're kind of facing and the costs that are associated with that when there is a determination that we haven't met target and I think that's a slightly off position I think because technically we have three years following the end of a base period to meet target which means that in any of those three years say we get an excess in year one we can apply any excess to the next year following all the year after that potentially so if we did have a large site where we had 600 plots that were self-build we can apply that across a three-year period meaning we would satisfy the next three years target that to me would mean we've met target on this issue however once you've gone past that year you've got another year where you need to make target for so in terms of meeting a target it's not really categorised as a year on year kind of activity so to speak but in terms of the targets at the end that we report they very much are year on year so we only look at one base period and have we met the kind of the numbers in that period so it's a slightly convoluted target process and I think that's probably had an impact in the grand scheme of things here with those kind of decisions that have been made for you from cancerers which you all feel may be able to help us with Councillor Heather Williams Thank you chair I just want to clarify what we've just been told so we've not met our targets but we don't know consequences and we're just sort of just seeing what happens because that seems like a bit of an unusual approach for the council to take so clarify I've understood that correctly because I need to pick my jaw up off the table if that's true the other thing is about was mentioned risk of appeals are we aware of any appeals we've gone through because people haven't fulfilled the register of obligations have we done that research do we know and then perhaps some legal advice as to whether or not we should even be taking previous appeals and costs of counselling to consideration because we don't normally three questions there chair thank you And Matt if you would in answering that perhaps you would just expected you probably wrote yourself a paragraph 814 in our papers on page 203 points out the South Cambridge District Council is a right to build vanguard authority with the statutory duty and therefore weight needs to be given to the delivery of self-build dwellings should the council have a shortfall in delivery Yeah so so I'll kind of say that I suppose it's every council will be in this position so there isn't kind of a a general you know what happens if you don't meet this so I think that's been quite unfortunate really with this legislation is that we haven't had that clear guidance so it's not that we're waiting to see because you know that that should have happened arguably back in 2016-2015 when this kind of legislation came out but there kind of wasn't that that guidance so I suppose every council will be in a similar position if they're failing to meet this and you know there are councils out there that will be failing to meet this just like what we have in the last couple of years so I'd say we're not kind of alone in that really it's quite difficult to kind of make a play it seems as though we have a lot more interested our self-build register than in other places that I've seen I'd say one of the other things as well is that other places have been doing to curve numbers is to start charging so they have a fee so every one part one part two register you're paying up to £100 in some places maybe more depending on the service so they've kind of got around those things which which we are in the process of trying to kind of get through and kind of get access to so we can reduce our numbers in terms of legal advice I can't provide any legal advice so my role in this is literally to manage the register and the data kind of side of things so I don't even get into the planning elements of this purely administration purposes and sorry can you repeat your second question Chancellor Williams I think my second question was more direct towards officers did I just hear correctly though that we're looking at charging people in order so that they don't get more people on the register no so it's not in terms of charging on the register there is a there is a purpose around the charging which is cost recovery for the amount of work that we would have to do to deliver this effectively so the guidance originally and from there's a self and custom build association they recommend that councils be actively going out to farm owners, land owners trying to source plots you know using brownfield land all of those kind of things which have repeated cycles of funding for that a council can apply to so it's all of that kind of activity that needs to take place to make this a success which really I don't think has been kind of attributed so this self build kind of item used to sit with housing for the first three years so while that was kind of going through it kind of sat I suppose in maybe the wrong place so we were kind of on the back foot when I joined the council in December 2019 we kind of took over the register ownership and that was happened to be the first year that targets had to be delivered so we found out it wasn't just a register that we needed to take there was a lot more that needed to go into it and I think that kind of the planning service on the back foot unfortunately so we're not trying to reduce as you kind of say in a negative way we're trying to adequately resource for the needs of this which I think is something that we've not really taken into consideration and I would also say to some of those points that someone mentioned before about the kind of amount of people on the register and you know how we could turn those into actual homeowners the register is just a guide of what we should you know of kind of the I suppose the need for that housing it doesn't necessarily mean that we need to provide housing to the registered individuals but we need to look at opportunity looking at the register you know there are quite a few people that are wanting homes in the region of excessive amounts and you would question maybe their date of birth would be a little bit young potentially to own houses to the level that they've had so I would argue that some of the registrations are speculative as opposed to being actual if some councils have put in financial checks but obviously those would be further costs to the council and obviously we don't want to limit this to people but we need to kind of look at that balance between providing the service and trying to meet the target at the same time so what kind of help for that helpful background I don't know whether or indeed our legal advisor wants to comment further on that I was just going to comment on Councillor Heather Williams comments around appeals and we have set out in and in the report of some summaries of appeals that we have had in this so from paragraph 823 to 823 it does discuss various appeals decisions that have come through the authority some of those have been allowed and some of those have been dismissed and that's set out in the report so we have had a mix results and appeal currently but as we said we're not disputing that there is a demand we're trying to refine that demand through the list and we're obviously looking to do that as Matt said to make sure we're capturing what we need to and obviously covering our costs of doing so and obviously as we said with this proposal we have given more weight to the position of where it's located and the context of the village and character and impact on the countryside notwithstanding that we recognise there is a demand for self-build plots in South Temperature Right, I think members we've probably gone as far as we can with clarification of that and other points to proceed to the sorry, Councillor Williams, yes I have three questions one of which was to our legal support Councillor which is to repeat the question for me Given all the information and we heard one of the things that we warned about the potential impact of the council with cost could you just confirm that cost to the council is not something we should take into consideration in our decision making No cost to the council unless that was to issue a specific cost warning and not something for consideration by this committee this is a planning committee on planning merits and Thank you, I feel it's beneficial to clarify that Thank you for that further clarification Right, we have a number of public speakers we've been very patient this morning which we appreciate that and of course we start with Ian Gibbs who is here in person and has an objection Mr Gibbs I think you know the rules here so please the floor is yours Thank you I'm here to represent the views of the neighbours adjacent to the site and highlight the widespread objections to the developments in our village this opposition is clear 42 objections registered against the application on the planning portal but further demonstrated by the larger attendance at the parish council meeting that there's unanimous vote against this proposed recommendation that it was heard by this committee there is real concern first I'd agree with the planning officers' recommendations and thank you for the report we have four concerns we wanted to raise there's real concern in the village that this development if approved being on agricultural land outside the village bounding contrary to the local plan will set a precedent that any agricultural land the outskirts of the village is a possible site for development we won't want developers to see Meldith as an easy target and change the character of our village most homes in Fenylane a single story has been said with large plots fronting onto the road with agricultural land to the rear so the proposal of a cul-de-sac with high density housing behind existing homes would have a negative impact on the landscape we have had significant problems in Meldith if our drainage we had a failure of the pumping station sewage flooding in the recreation ground new-build properties on Whitecroft Road have had drains backing up and foul drainage problems elsewhere as identified by residents and their objections yet the proposal suggests there are no issues with foul drainage and no inquiries have been made as the ability of the system to cope with additional waste finally we're concerned about flood risk 14 Fenylanes in flood zone 3 borders the stream which borders the development the LLFA objected the application initially and the request would drain concerns over spit ownership and maintenance of the stream the revised proposal overcame a number but not all of these points and the objection was removed we've employed a specialist flood risk consultant to assess the proposals and have raised objections on two specific points the new proposal assumes sustainable urban drainage system can adequately store the surface water before discharging it in a controlled manner into the stream no investigations have been undertaken to assess the permeability of the ground there's no viable alternative to this proposal so we maintain it's a key matter that should have been established before this application be approved finally the LLFA stipulate that the heat collapse must be given to maintain the stream this has been improved in the new proposal but there's an error to the rear of my neighbour's property which cannot be accessed as a culvert or a pipe and this has not been identified by the LLFA or the applicants and that is where most blockages occur I am a flood risk specialist and that is where most of our flooding occurs badly maintained streams so we would maintain that it should be refused on these grounds thank you thank you for that presentation do we have any questions of clarification perhaps a brief one myself in relation to your last comment you highlighted one particular culvert I think is that something that is capable of being mitigated by action by the the proposers or is that something which you regard as a long term problem bearing in mind that the lead local flood authority has not currently any objection to this I would say that that is where most blockages occur so given you can't access it then the neighbour is upstream so the problem is if that blocks and you can't get to it so it's a risk to me that it has to be dealt with I'm not saying how that could or should be done but at this point it isn't being mitigated thank you right I see no other questions thank you very much for your time I appreciate your presentation shall we then move on our next speaker I think is David Fletcher of Stratton Parker representing the applicants and I think the applicant is on hand to help answer questions which we appreciate it Mr Fletcher floor is yours the first reason for refusal states that the development will result in encroachment into the open countryside and consists of an unsustainable form of development the application site runs immediately adjacent to the development framework boundary and we strongly disagree with the statement with the officers report which advises members that the site is in an unsustainable location Meldriff offers a range of services as outlined in your officers report to meet many of the day-to-day needs of residents and the site is within walking distance of these facilities Meldriff is also served by train station which is approximately 15 to 20 minute walk to the site with very good access into Cambridge and London for these reasons the site is considered to be highly sustainable and appropriate for this quantum of development the reason for refusal as you debated goes on to say that the fact that the proposal was for self-building dwellings would not be of sufficient benefit to outweigh the conflict with the development plan the planning inspector has disagreed with this statement and overturned a number of delegated refusals for self-build applications which have been issued to the council as outlined on page 203 of the committee report and as discussed earlier there's been a total shortfall of 261 at self-build plots across the district over the last two years alone this is despite South Cams being one of eleven right to build vanguard authorities the most recent appeal decision at Lantysent Peter Street Caxton where the inspector allowed self-build plots gave substantial way to this shortfall this has been also outlined on a number of other national recent appeal decisions the council must be consistent with the planning inspector and give significant weight to the need to self-build plots in the district there has also been examples of delegated approvals in other settlements which arguably are in less sustainable locations to this the officers report made reference to rely on strategic sites however the proposed development in hand today will be a small wind field site and will contribute to the register it would also meet the needs of those who want a self-build plot that is not situated in a large housing estate the second reason for a fusel relates to the harmful impact it would have on the character of the countryside again we disagree with this the proposed development site is not considered to adversely affect the landscape setting of the village as demonstrated on the site plan it is well contained and the development to the north would not be visible from the public realm or from long distance views stated on page 213 of your officers committee report the site layout demonstrates that the site is of a size that can clearly accommodate nine dwellings given that there are no technical objections from council consultees we would urge members to grant planning commission for this proposal today and I've got the applicant Bill at the heart is with me to also answer any questions members may have Thank you for that presentation Members any questions of clarification either from Mr Fletcher or from Philip Ahard No I don't see any questions from members of the committee so thank you very much indeed that's very clear Members we said we'd break at 130 which I think gives us just time to hear from our next speaker Mr Councillor Richard Godin of Melgers Parish Council thank you for your patience and we would welcome your presentation Thank you chair Melgers Parish Council and I'm going to depart from my prepared script just for half a minute to say that our main concern in the villages is this the right place for this sort of scheme not a proposal that's driven by lists whether the district council or other people have met those lists our village has a very strongly felt concern about this scheme and the features it has and the effect it will have on our community and the main issue is that the site is located as we know on a farm outside the village development framework it's on agricultural land it doesn't conform to policy S7 and various other planning policies in respect of the uses that are set out in those policies Meldith residents now council strongly believe that not only is this proposed use out of order but if approved it could establish a precedent for further similar schemes in other parts of the village there's very considerable opposition to this scheme in the village and this hasn't just come from neighbours who obviously will be very directly affected by it it's come across the village and we are a very long linear sort of village so when I hear complaints coming from people that live half a mile from the scheme I'm persuaded that this is a genuinely felt widely felt concern we have a huge attendance in our planning meeting and of course you've seen many submissions from our community about this and therefore urge that the fullest attention should be given to the points raised by our community the next issue rangage with me and my colleagues is one of disturbance to the local community a self-built proposal of nine individual properties seems very likely to lead to protracted building activity in a period of time and the associated extended disruptions of noise of construction traffic and of other nuisances in the village to those in this vicinity and beyond if built these houses will also give rise to increased daily traffic volumes in part of our village that is already challenged by traffic and road safety issues location is also an important issue this is a low density village as has been pointed out in the office's report and the proposed scheme would severely be able to context with that surrounding area so creating a precedent for such schemes in our village which do not conform to accepted planning policies is a matter of considerable concern and there are also concerns which have been made in a previous presentation here about the environmental issues of foul water and drainage questions so we therefore strongly urge that this planning committee should refuse outline planning consent for this proposal on the grounds of planning policy nuisance and location now I am aware that has been pointed out that there have been schemes that have gone to inspection some of them have been approved and some of them have not but I don't think that the decision of this body should be driven by what an inspector may or may not determine I think it should be driven by what sort of scheme is it is it in the right place or the right objectives is it a proper use of this agricultural land thank you chairman thank you very much for your presentation do any members have any questions of clarification on what was said there for councillor Godin I see none that was a very clear presentation thank you very much indeed members I suggest that at this point we do as planned a journey for lunch and we'll come back to the debate on this after lunch I am going to ask the case officer at that point just to show us again because I think he would help us the location plan or the site plan just to clarify some of these points in our mind before we proceed to the debate but with that let's take a break for lunch and what do you reckon 45 minutes I think that's what we said what I said at the beginning I can't remember yeah I did ok so we'll be back here again in a quarter past two right welcome back it's meeting a South Cambridge District Council planning committee we're in the midst of considering a gender item 7 in relation to Fenylane Farm in Meldrith and we've now heard from all of our public speakers which many thanks so we'll start this item which we haven't started before councillor led me to come in so we're now happy to proceed so back to agenda item 7 before we get into the debate I had suggested to officers it might be helpful for us all to have another look at the site plan to consider some of the issues that were raised earlier on in the officer's presentation and subsequent presentations is that easily done so we haven't quite started consideration of item 7 because the Ops case officer is just pulling up some plans and we will now start item 7 of our agenda councillor handi I'd just like a refresher of where the village boundary lies if you wouldn't mind so the red it's the black one with the village boundary line and the red is the site sir that's very helpful and there are a number of other houses potentially affected by this some of which are presumably amongst the 42 objectives I would ask you to identify which houses are rejecting but clearly does have potential impact on neighbouring houses that was helpful does anyone have any particular questions before we move on to the debate right let's move on to the debate then we've heard the presentations we've heard from the objectors too anyone want to start us off here councillor handi that we won't be taking any um we won't be taking into account the things we spoke about this morning with regard to numbers of um self-build properties because I think we've got to take this haven't we as a on its own merits really would you agree if you're asking my viewers chair I'll be happy to give my views in a minute that wouldn't necessarily reflect on for the case officer you know we've just got to look at it on its own merits can I take that as a contribution to the debate rather than a question to any particular individuals or did you want to ask the case officer that that's my opening my opening remarks really you know the fact is that we've just got to look at this as you know a site which is falls outside of the village boundary in start from there so the point you're making is that as per the case officer's original presentation this is not one of the factors in the planning balance ok, fair enough the fact that we're short as a district that's what I mean that's not something that we at this point need to take into account that's my view councillor Martin Carn I want to repeat that to be on this point the site is clearly would not normally be considered suitable for development outside the village framework it's different in character from the adjoining houses it's basically proposing a little a state development a state development and individual houses adjoining I looked at the street view of the street and it's very rural appearance it really is not an urban street but a friendly lane so it's the argument that it is taking development out into the countryside is actually quite a strong one in terms of the context of what's around it the fact that housing was converted from barns adjoining was done under the planning permitted development legislation which would not normally have been permitted if it was just free development in the countryside it's only because it was permitted agreed under permitted development that went ahead so that's not the context in terms of which we should take into account so the only context that might argue against it is the shortage of of self-build we have not been shown that there is a particular shortage of self-build in Meldred we have shown that only over the whole district and therefore I don't see that there's a pressing need in this particular location that has been put forward though there may be a shortage over the whole district and it doesn't really justify us going outside a normal normal ground it's not like an exception site an exception site you normally there is a provision that that might be done outside the normal British boundaries but this is not an exception site it's a self-build site it's a different different criteria and therefore I don't see the justification for it and I'm going to go along with the office's recommendation I think it's a sound assessment what we've got the plan up there can I just check what I said earlier on the buildings to the west side of that red line are those farm buildings or residential so it's a mix of dwellings and also so you've got combination of newly converted dwellings from agriculture and then there's agricultural buildings further back within the site I mean this is the issue we're coming to is to what extent we can take the shortage of self-build provision into account I noticed that this morning Mr Mathal referred to when we agreed to become a vanguard authority for self-build and it's referred at paragraph 814 on page 203 giving us a statutory duty under section 204 of the Self-Build and Custom House Building Act the question then arose should we going out proactively to farmers etc to find suitable sites I don't know whether we are and if we were to do so might this be a site which would be considered it's one of the factors which I admit I don't agree with councillor Hanley and I think councillor can't this is not something that should be weighed in the balance if that is what you are both saying I think this is a factor to be weighed in the balance that we are not just waiting for a department to give us further guidance on this we have chosen to become a vanguard authority I can't quite remember how that position was taken what status that has if any in the local plan through you Chairman at minus to any of the vanguard authority definition of that was that at the time or around the time the act came into place there were authorities that said they would take this forward and set out how they would intend to deliver self-building custom build plots and as a result of that there was ground funding made available to authorities to help kickstart that process and so on that basis I think councillor was awarded some ground funding to do that he then agreed to deliver 100 self-build custom build plots and it was on that basis that councillor was identified as a vanguard authority so it doesn't carry any weight in terms of a local plan policy position but that is how that came about was my understanding so it was a commitment this council entered into in 2015 which doesn't have any weight in planning matter right so I think councillor Heather Williams Thank you chair and I just think we ought to distinguish as well between the council and the planning authority when we make these discussions so for example the vanguard so it was 2015 so I've come to shoot council and they received £50,000 to bring forward at least 100 plots so that I believe is at a rate with the council as opposed to the planning authority and I just think for the purpose of debate we should be really clear about where we're looking on this from the planning authority side of things obviously it's a bit like if we don't have the land supply you do have to take into consideration of where you're at at that time so I think it's wrong to say we don't consider it and then we need to look at the site itself and whether that would help resolve that issues or whether it contributes to that issue so I think given the scale of how far behind we are the nine dwellings wouldn't be a significant amount to warrant the balance tip tilting the other way for example and so but I do think it's important we recognise it as a consideration for us today I do find it quite conflicting because if you look at you've got the line we look at the black shadowed line obviously it's slightly behind but you have then got the buildings on the other side I think there are merits to it but equally there is substantial public dissatisfaction we can see if the amount of objections and I'm trying to sort of see if it was an exception site that potentially would have a different outcome to what offices are recommending and as well even with exception sites we always look for the parish councils to be on board with it and okay with it rather than us enforcing on it so I do think it would help meet a need but not sufficient a need to tilt the balance the other way and the officers have recommended refusal so given it's outside the village framework I feel that I need to be consistent with how I've previously voted on that and I think consistency is something that we all have to remind for thought of as a planning authority and you know if it goes through appeal and then the inspector then would make a decision probably probably better at balance than we on the whole self-build issue that's where I'm minded at the moment but happy to listen to others I have councillor Peter Stamford first but I think councillor Dr Martin Carnwall should come back on this point about the comparison between this and an exception site is that right? Not particularly I just wanted to say that I did I was taking the demand for self-build housing as a material consideration it wasn't that I was ignoring I just felt that compared with the other arguments it wasn't strong enough to put it in favour another point which I wanted to make was that you were losing allotments private allotments but there were allotments and allotments are something which we generally try and protect and so that's other it's not really being brought up but I think it is affected to take into account councillor Stamford councillor Stamford here Thank you chair I'm looking at paragraph 820 of the application which makes reference to a site in Caxton where nine self-built dwellings were built on appeal after it was agreed by the inspector I'm well familiar with that site I'm also familiar with the the parish council's opinion when I first attended a parish council in Caxton last summer they made it clear in no uncertain terms they felt they'd been let down by the planning system and the views of the local residents and being ignored with that as a precedent I have to look at the four and a half pages of objections from the residents and the eloquent presentations by Mr Gibson, councillor Godin I can't think as we have a duty to our residents we can not do anything other than go with the recommendations of the offices regardless of whether it goes to appeal down the road Thank you any other views on that Just to be clear other members have said things that I really do agree with and I'm a similar mind that I'm willing to go with your application councillor Arby William the officers might help me with that but the sort of materiality of the self-filled numbers and the table and the possible needs there I mean presumably if this were fully compliant with the local plan it wouldn't be coming forward as a self-filled because it could be offered up as either a standard development or a self-filled Does that therefore mean that whenever these self-filled applications come they're almost always going to be non-compliant with the local plan or are there examples where for some I can't imagine you would want to maybe because it's too smaller plot for it to be interested I suppose that could be one example couldn't it but I'm just wondering what are the examples of self-filled that are fully compliant how that comes about Are you able to help us? Do we have cases of self-filled that have been fully compliant with the local plan? Three chair obviously I'm thinking of examples and I think it might be possibly one of the applicants brought to our attention which are in Cotlwnum and Cotlwnum's had a neighbourhood plan approved since the local plan was adopted so the neighbourhood plan carries full weight and it has got an extended framework boundary around Cotlwnum and there is a site within that extended framework boundary that has been put forward for a self-built scheme and we have accepted the principle of that because it is an extended framework even outside the current local plan boundary framework the neighbourhood plan framework has extended that area That's on a rural exception site is it or not? No, it's on a scheme for self-filled plots So that's one example I immediately think of I mean the question that a number of councillors have raised I think we're coming to a common view here but the question is there are two cases before it's 820 and 821 where nine self-built dwellings were allowed on appeal where the provision of self-built built plots was given a significant material weight in the planning balance by the inspector Can we assume this case is rather different from those two both in the district? What's a different site and there's obviously each site as the planning site goes is treated on its merits so we don't want to fall into the trap here of comparing sites too closely but in terms of the principle of those they were well that was outside the framework so in that regard it's got some similarities with this proposal but as I said the inspector has come to the view in that judgement that he gave material weight to the shortfall in self-built plots and he said that outweighed the conflict with the local plan now as I've said at the start of this proposal that is not the position we've taken on this scheme we've given the self-built shortfall that has been identified in the last two base period material weight and considered that in the balance with what the local plan policy say about development outside the framework in the countryside and we're saying that that balance now falls in the local plan policy say and that's not to say that in other schemes that we wouldn't come to a different view but in this instance indeed the case officers report is quite clear at 8.24 whilst the need for self-built dwellings in the district is not in dispute it is considered that there are material differences between the appeal schemes and the application site so anyone else want to contribute a view on this before we come to a conclusion Chancellor Richard Williams do you have anything to say on this? I'm not able to vote on this one chair oh well you can still have a view I will wait to see what other members think probably that's our thing I think we have waited right, I hope you there any others want to contribute a view councillor Rhys redraw thank you chair I think I'm leaning towards agreeing with the officers I guess one point that perhaps hasn't been raised more in favour of it is that it does seem a more sustainable site than some villages just because it has more facilities a train station but I'm still not sure if that's enough to outweigh the impacts that's where I'm at at the moment thank you is anyone coming to a contrary view because that's what I've heard from all members is leaning towards accepting the officer's recommendation because of the appeals that I refer to I'm going to rather than taking this by affirmation I'm going to suggest that we do take a recorded vote on this so if you are thank you if you're in favour of the officer's recommendation to refuse then you press green if you want to come to a contrary view and approve this then you press red have all those who are able to vote done so we've lost councillor Henry bachelor sounds careless but so we're two, three, four five, six, seven, eight yes we've all voted haven't we yeah so that is approved with two abstentions that is sorry I must get this right the officer's recommendation is agreed to refuse this with two abstentions I'm very sorry if I gave anyone a shock there but we've now established what I really meant okay with that let's move on to the next item on our agenda which is 77 church lame curtain item 8 number 22 oblique 04826 full application demolition of a detached garage section of single sorry side extension rear extension and loft extension page 217 of your agenda and this is before us because the applicant works at Southcams District Council now the officer's recommendation is to approve I know the applicant was prepared to go on this one and I think I've lost my list ah yes we have our applicant online hello and we have Charlotte Spencer online so who's wanting to speak on this yeah I've just got Charlotte please go ahead brief presentation just confirm you can see my presentation and hear me okay okay um as you just mentioned by chair then it's an application for the demolition of a detached garage construction of a single story side extension and rear extension as well as a loft extension with a rear facing dormer um it's being brought to committee as the applicant is a member of staff um just as a brief update the description was amended to include the side extension a re-consultation ended on the 1st of February and no comments have since been received on that re-consultation um in terms of the location the application relates to a semi-detached bungalow located to the east of church lane there are no relevant constraints on the site it just demonstrates the existing and proposed block plan um they are proposing to just rearrange the parking area at the front slightly so these are the proposed floor plans so the extension to the side would project by 1.55 meters and it would project to the rear by 11.4 meters maximum this part here which I'll have a width for 5.1 with a smaller 1.9 meter deep extension adjacent to the shared boundary here the first floor would be converted to habitable use with a dormer at the rear this just shows the proposed elevations the extension would be characterised by a hiped roof with a maximum height of 4.3 meters so these are just some photographs submitted by the applicant and it's demonstrating mostly the extensions that have happened to the neighbouring property the attached neighbouring property this is just showing the extension to the side of the neighbour the dormer window inside the neighbour again the dormer outside and this is the viewpoint of the rear extension so this side here is the application property so the material considerations in this case the design layout and scale and residential amenity officers recommend approval subject to conditions as laid out within the report thank you chair didn't know that's what I think Mr Amaral Alyssa wanted to speakers applicant on this as well are you there good afternoon members can you hear me? hi good afternoon members just briefly my name is Amaral Alyssa I'm one of the councillor of the design office and the applicant for this application I mean as charles mentioned the proposal is to enlarge our recently purchased house to offer our family more usable space for living the house would be extended to accommodate three bedrooms and one multifunctional room which can function as an office when needed the proposal would make much more functional kitchen while providing place for our family to be together while carrying out jobs in the kitchen dining or just being together I mean before submitting my application I discussed the proposal with the two neighbours at the 75 and 79 church lane that would be mostly affected by the extension and initially we had two different proposal and the two of them agreed on one of these options which they require some amendments we could manage to make all the amendments they've requested provided them with a final copy of the latest version of the proposal and they've discussed with their family and they get back to us that they are happy with the proposal I mean that's our thing charles discovered all the points about the proposal but I'm happy to take any question should you have about the proposal Thank you very much for that Any questions Mr Alyssa, no that was very clear Thank you for your presentation Thank you So let's come to the debate This application is before us because it is submitted by an officer of the council We don't have objections from 75 or 79 I don't think we have any objections do we? No we have no objections to this one Anyone want to start off the debate on this? Councillor Handie This seems very straightforward proposal I can't see any reason to go against the officer's recommendations Anyone take a different view? Well I think then and again because this is an officer of the council I'm again going to take a I think we can move to a vote but I'm going to do it electronically So if you agree to the officer's recommendation to approve press green if you take a different view then we refuse this press red and we have eight in the room and voting one two three So this application is approved Thank you So the next item is appeals against planning decisions and enforcement and you have this before you are on page 223-240 I don't know whether we actually have anyone able to take questions or comments on this or when you do say yourself Phil is happy to take any questions or comments. Do we have any questions or comments? It seems fairly straightforward One question perhaps I could ask is Appendix 1, page 226 We have in the decision column that is the third column from the right Split In relation to duckend Can you just put a bit more colour on that? Certainly chair It was an item that was brought to the committee at the back end of last year It was a householder application for works that had already been carried out to the property and the development just to refresh members' memories was a demolition of the existing garage and store direction of single story side extension and rear dorma and three front dormas The inspector in determining this appeal has issued a split decision which means he's partly approved and partly dismissed the proposal Just to clarify what those elements were elements that were dismissed raised the southern side extension and front and rear dormas that had been constructed by the appeals allowed in terms of the single story north end side extension rear extensions and porch extension So that was the context of that decision and essentially in issuing that decision the inspector felt that the rear dorma in particular was overscaled excessive bulk in terms of its relationship with the existing dwelling and the extension that had also been built to the side of the property of which the rear dorma extended across as well but he because of that linked arrangement with the southern side extension and work to the roof he couldn't he couldn't allow the side elements and the front dormas because they were all interlinked to the part of that same development so he's had to dismiss those parts in their entirety although the main concern was of relation to the rear dorma Thank you that explains that Any other questions or comments on the various appendices before us? I think I answered this one but where we've got appeals appeals pending for many months in some cases I'm thinking about one which was an appeal against an enforcement notice Do we have any indication as to whether the planning inspector might respond because it seems to take an order at the moment of time? Through you Chad No, in short we don't that they're obviously in a list with the inspectors that are assigned and they get them obviously as quickly as they can but I do accept that it seems that enforcement appeals are taking a significant amount of time to actually get to them and I can only assure you that there's a back level there's a lack of qualified inspectors that are able to determine them Thank you for that Just to note two other things firstly that we have one on page 232 appeal against non-determination within 8 weeks and of course on page 23229 I'm sure other members will have noticed that appeal against the former hotel Phoenix redevelopment who is taking place in this building today so I think that brings us to the end of our agenda and our next meeting is on Wednesday the 8th of March and with that I draw this