 Thank you very much. Good morning everybody and welcome to this meeting of South Cambridge District Council's planning committee. My name is Councillor Henry Bachelour and I'm the chair of the committee. We have quite a full agenda today, so I'll do my best to get us through it as best as possible. But we do have a few housekeeping, bits of housekeeping to go through before we start, so please do bear with us and we'll start the meeting proper as soon as we can. So I would like to remind all those who are present in the Chamber that everything on your desk, including your laptop screen, is likely to be broadcast at some point. The camera follows the microphone after it's switched on, so councillors and officers are requested to wait a few seconds before speaking to allow the camera to catch up with the microphone. If the fire alarm sounds at any point, please do leave the Chamber and make your way down the stairs. Do not use the elevator. The safe assembly point is next to the marketing suite halfway along the business arc. Please, with those who are participating via the livestream, indicate that you wish to speak via the chat column. Please do not use the chat column for any other purpose other than requesting to speak. Please make sure your device is fully charged and that you switch your microphone and camera off unless you're invited to do so otherwise. Please ensure you are switched off or silenced any other devices you have so that they do not interrupt proceedings and obviously that goes for members in the Chamber as well. When you are invited to address the meeting, please make sure your microphone is switched on. When you're finished addressing the meeting, please turn your microphone off. Speak slowly, clearly and do not talk over or interrupt anyone else. Members, if we need to vote on any items today, we're going to be using the electronic microphone keypads in front of us and it's worth noting only those who are present in the Chamber are able to vote. Committee members, I'm now going to do a roll call so everyone that is watching the livestream knows who we are and that we're here. So, after I read your name out, if you'd just like to switch on your mic and then give a quick introduction of yourselves. So, as mentioned previously, I'm Councillor Henry Batchelor, one of the members for Linton, and I'm the Chair of the Committee. I'll ask the Vice-Chair, Councillor Peter Fane to introduce. Good morning, Peter Fane, Shelford Ward. Good morning, Councillor Sue Ellingson. Good morning, Councillor for Swabsea. Councillor Bill Handley. Good morning, Bill Handley, Councillor for the villages of Over and Willingham. Councillor Jeff Harvey. Yes, thanks. Jeff Harvey, I'm Councillor for Bullshamward. Councillor Dr Timmy Hawkins. Good morning, everyone. Timmy Hawkins, Councillor for Caudiwcourt Ward. Councillor Peter Sanford. Good morning, everyone. Peter Sanford, Lord Councillor for Caxton and Pappworth. Councillor Richard Stobart. Good morning, everyone. I'm Councillor Richard Stobart, one of the members for Gerton, and includes also Dry Drayton and Medd. Last but not least, Councillor Dr Richard Williams. Thank you, Chair, Richard Williams, a member for the Wittlesford Ward. We're also joined by some officers in the Chamber. To my left, we have Mr Stephen Kelly, who is the Director for Planning. Good morning, everyone. Vanessa Blane, our Senior Planning Lawyer. Good morning, everyone. Michael Sexton, who is the Area Development Manager. Good morning, everyone. We'll also be joined by some case officers who are independent of each application. But also joining us online, we have Lawrence Demari Homan, who will be clarking the meeting today. Good morning, everyone. Thank you very much. So those are the introductions done. Members, just to make you aware, if you do need to leave the meeting at any point, please do indicate that to myself or the Vice-Chair so that that can be recorded in the minutes. We will be breaking regularly, dependent on where we are on the agenda, but if any member needs a break prior to that, please do again indicate to myself or the Vice-Chair and then we'll do our best to accommodate. Members, you should have the main agenda pack dated 2 August and the online plans pack supplement also dated 2 August. Members should have also received a written submission regarding item 10, number two, duck and Gertan. Does any member not have any of those documents to hand? No? Okay. With that then, we'll move on to agenda item number two on our agendas, which is Apologies for Absent. Over to you. Chair, so we have Apologies from councillors Ariel and Dr Martin Khan, as well as councillor William Jackson Wood and councillor Heather Williams with councillors Richard Stobar and Sue Ellington kindly stepping in at substitutes. Thank you very much. So we move on to agenda item three, which is declarations of interest. Do any members have any interest relating to any items on the agenda today to declare councillor Richard Williams? Thank you, Chair. There are two. So items six and seven, I'm the ward member for Treflow and I've been sort of involved in the procedural side of trying to move that application forward and I spoke to some residents about it but obviously I will come to the matter afresh today. Item eight also, I am the chairman of an organisation which is a tenant of the neighbouring property where this application, or the land that this application relates to and as the possibility of spillover into the neighbouring property is an issue, I'm going to sit that one out so I won't take part in item eight. Okay, thank you very much. councillor Ellington, then Harvey. Thank you. I am a trustee of care network who is a neighbour to the property under number eight in St Ants Road, Hardwick and I don't feel I have any pecuniary interest but I do wish to establish a passing interest. So a non-pecuniary interest and you're planning on debating and voting on that item? I'm planning on stopping. Good, okay. Thank you. councillor Harvey, please. Yes, in relation to item nine, I'm the local member and requested this item to be called in and I'll be stepping aside from the committee for that item in order to make a case supporting the applicant. Thank you councillor Stobart. Yeah, concerning item ten, I have been approached and I have expressed an opinion. I've taken legal advice and the legal advice is that I should step back from both the debate and the vote but I would like as local member to express a view. Yeah, that's fine as your right as local member. councillor Fane. In relation to item six and seven, I had some correspondence with the agent three years ago about this which I passed on to the local member. I used to work part-time for the agent's firm but that's over ten years ago and I have no pecuniary interest in the matter. Thank you and two for myself as well that also relate to item six and seven. So I have a pecuniary interest as my employer has an ongoing business relationship with the applicant. So I'll need to step aside for those two items and councillor Fane will be taking the chair for items six and seven. Members, any further, any further interests members need to declare? I don't see any but if anyone becomes aware of any as the meeting progresses please do indicate. Members, we're on to agenda item four now which is the minutes of the meeting we held on the 29th of June. Any members that were present to that meeting, do you have any omissions or comments or if you see any errors in those minutes? Nope, so in the absence of that I will sign those as a correct record of the meeting. With that members we move to the substantive items on the agenda which begins with agenda item five. This is on page eleven of our, oh sorry, I've missed a set of minutes, apologies members. Councillor Fane has just drawn my attention to page seven which are the minutes of the planning meeting on the 13th of July. Same question, any members that were present have any comments or see any errors with these? Nope, so in the absence of that I'll sign those as a correct record. Okay, now we're on to agenda item five. Page eleven of our agendas members. The application is at the former Barrington Cement Works, Haislingfield Road in Barrington. The proposal in front of us is for the erection of 36 dwellings which is a replan of the eastern parcel of the development site and includes an increase of three dwellings from the approved scheme which is already in place. The applicant is Red Row, the presenting officer is Michael Hammond the reason that the application is before us today is because it's a departure application. So I see Michael Hammond is with us online, good morning Michael. Morning, can you all hear and see me okay? Yep, we can see and hear you fine. So I'll pass over to you Michael to give us any updates to the report we have in front of us if there are any and then to introduce it for members please. Thank you chair. I'll just share my presentation. Can you confirm that you can see the presentation okay? Yes we can. Yep, so the application is for the erection of 36 dwellings. So at former Barrington Cement Works, Haislingfield Road in Barrington it relates to a previous permission, 2018 reserve matters and it's effectively a replan of part of that site for an increase of three dwellings. In terms of updates, I will go through them later in my slide but there is a drawing correction in condition number two, the refuse strategy missed a bin on one of the sites plots. So that has been updated, it's a minor amendment so I request, I'll go to that later request that. And also the recommendation again which will happen for my slides, we're posing to remove the elements relating to the section 73 permission and waiting for that. We've since taken legal advice and we don't actually need to wait for that in order to potentially grant permission if you're minded to approve. So I'll go through the slides and they'll be at the end as well those points. So site location plans, so the red line here is effectively the south eastern parcel to which the application relates. The wider site, I'll put the pointer on sorry, it's clear up. The wider sites which is marked in blue sort of extends round in this triangle here but that doesn't form part of this application. So it's housingfield road as it turns to Chapel Hill here. This is the train line running into the landfill, Semex site up here. And to the south is the actual village of Barrington. The site's outside the development framework which is why this is a departure application. So in terms of site history, there's quite extensive site history but of most relevance are these two. So the 2014 outline application that came in for 220 dwellings which was approved in 2016. And then there was a follow up preserve matters which was allowed at appeal following non-determination in 2019. The image on the right is an iterative master plan so it's not the actual final plans but I just thought it shows a site in context. So just to hopefully try and explain further about why this is separate this bit here. So at the moment work has commenced on site. I believe phase one is well underway and phase two may have commenced as well. The application relates to this corner over here. And you may note from the history there is a pending application for the northern parcel for that auto to be reconfigured. However that's at a much earlier stage and it's recently gone out to re-consultation so that doesn't form part of this application or have any bearing on this part of the site. So these are views from the main road outside the site so you can see the construction entrance on your right there. The poser will be coming in roughly in this location so it's well screened by trees along Hasingfield Road. Michael sorry to interrupt your screen had frozen but it's moved on. Please carry on. And this is a view from further south. So from further south you can again see where the site will be coming in again. Quite well treated what's there already. So on the left is the approved layouts relating to this parcel and on the right is the proposed layout. Ignore the yellow and green highlighting of the buildings. This was the only plan that I could get at this sort of context scale. So I'll just show you the next slide which explains it more easily in terms of what the actual changes are. So the main changes are previously approved. There were two free story apartment blocks. One here and then one right at the southern edge of the site. These are proposed to be removed and replaced with more traditional two story housing. And the other element is this area of informal open space including a footpath. That is to be removed and effectively the development footprint to extend over that to facilitate more two story houses and some maze nets. But overall it's an increase of three dwellings compared to what was approved. Just to compare the dwelling mix. So previously approved on this part of the site. There were 33 dwellings, 32 of which were one or two bedroom homes, many of which were flats. Under the proposal there's more of a mix. So it's 17 while two bedrooms, 14 free bedroom homes and five, four bedroom or more homes. To make a total of 36. And affordable housing wise, two of the three additional dwellings would be affordable. So it'd be a total of 13 affordable dwellings on this part of the site. And they are located in this courtyard area here. There is a cluster and also at the northern end of this part of the site, which sort of relates to the other affordable housing just outside the site, not part of this application. They would be shared ownership, those two. So in terms of parking, all the houses on the edge have on-plot parking. Typically two bedrooms and we'll have two spaces. There are only the maze and nets have one space each. And there is a courtyard here with one visitor space, but the rest are all designated parking. So just to show it in context with the originally approved parameter plan. The red here is the area of approximately the area of open space to be removed. But as you can see there is quite a substantial amount of other open space on the site, which quantitatively equates to approximately 18 hectares in total. So the loss of this informal open space is still well in excess of the standards in the local plan in terms of what we'll be looking for. So I'll just run you through some of the house types. So there are all predominantly two stories, different house types, but many have been approved on the wider site, so they sort of blend in with the other ones that are there. But yeah, this for example is a four-bedroom dwelling. These are three-bedroom dwellings. And in the bottom right corner here, so I should make clear before, I've tried to roughly show where they are on the site. These are two-bedroom dwellings located down here. These are three-bedroom ones. Again, more four-bedroom ones, more spread out across this part of the site. Three-bedroom ones here and on this southern tip here. And four-bedroom ones along the main street as it comes in. And the maze and nets are located adjacent to the courtyard. So there's one building if you would. So two maze and nets there. And again on this edge here. And then these are the two-bedroom terrace properties, which also form the affordable housing proposed as well. So this is a street scene just showing the different house types along this section here and this section here just showing the variety in housing types. I've included an example of this is the larger apartment block that's proposed to be removed. So they were three-storey apartment blocks. Like what I just pointed out earlier, located on two parts of the site, they're proposed to be removed just to give you an idea of what was approved there. So as I mentioned at the start, one of the updates was that the refuse strategy was missing the location of the bin storage location for plot number 46. So the plan has just been updated to add that yellow circle in the garden there. So it's a very minor amendment, but it would be replacing the relevant drawing in condition number two. So in summary, the extent permission on the site is a material consideration, and it has already been determined that development of 33 dwellings as part of the wider development of 220 dwellings would represent sustainable form of development. The proposed additional three dwellings to bring this parcel up of the site up to 36 dwellings would not in the view of officers result in the level of development becoming unsustainable. The level of harm arising from the proposal is considered to be very limited and is outweighed by public benefits, including the affordable housing, the replacement of three-storey apartment blocks with two-storey houses and masonettes, financial contributions towards local services and facilities, approval was recommended subject to completion of a section Y6 agreement conditions, including updates to condition number two informatives. Just to reiterate, paragraph 10.201, we no longer need to wait for the section 73 application to also have a resolution at committee. That's all. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Michael. That was very thorough and helpful. Members, we do have some public speakers on this, but before we move to them, I will offer any committee members an opportunity to ask any questions of clarification of the officer in case anything wasn't clear in that presentation. Councillor Williams. Thank you, Chair. Just a quick one that jumps out at me. The officer mentioned clustering of the affordable homes. I didn't notice, maybe I missed it, a conflict with policy identified, but would the clarification whether that would be compatible with the local plan if I thought we had a rule against clustering? Michael, can you answer that? I can. Yes, I'm just trying to find the right paragraph in my report, which I think deals with it. Sorry, bear with me. I think paragraph 10.59 to 10.61 covers that, but ultimately there is a policy relating to clustering, but I think it's a maximum of 15 units, and this doesn't exceed that. So the strategic housing team are satisfied with the level of clustering proposed. Thank you. Members, any further points of clarity for the officer before we move to our public speakers? No? Sorry, Councillor Stobart launching himself in there. Thank you, Chair. Just very briefly, the motivation of the developer to make this change, is it based on a perception of business, of demographic? Just very briefly, I think, to satisfy my curiosity, why has the developer changed the shape of the development and the way you just described? We are actually about to hear from an agent of the developer, so maybe that might be a more pertinent question for them, as opposed to our planning officer, who just judges it on what to put in front of them. I think we are now about to hear from them. Do we have Liz Fitzgerald? If you'd like to take a seat in front of the mic, if you press the large silver button on the right, that switches the mic on and off, and it's currently on. I'll let you know you have three minutes whenever you're ready to give your comments to the committee. At the end of which, if you can stay seated in case there's any questions of clarification for you, and I think you might know you've got at least one. So please, three minutes whenever you're ready. Thank you, Chair. Good morning, everybody. I don't intend to say too much, but thank you for letting me speak this morning. The officers report is a detailed report, and obviously you've heard a detailed presentation this morning from Michael Hammond. There are recommendations we obviously endorse. We've worked alongside the officers to ensure that this development is as robust as is possible, and hopefully that's reflected in that report. The application itself presents an opportunity to remove some of the flattered development elements from the scheme and make more efficient use of land and increasing the dwelling numbers by three. It is noted that all statutory consultees have raised no objections following a series of amendments to the scheme, including the Parish Council. The comments from the Urban Design Officer are addressed within the officers report, and the scheme has been designed very carefully to ensure that we integrate with the wider scheme that's coming forward on Barrington itself. This obviously ensures that not only are we increasing the contributions and allow elements that we're providing to Barrington Village itself, but we're also looking at ensuring that all of the benefits that come forward as part of the Barrington scheme, the footpath links, the connections through to Foxton Station, et cetera, are also still delivered as a consequence of this. I hope that you are able to support us here today, and obviously I'm more than happy to answer any questions that you may have. Thank you. Only use half your time, which I thank you for. Councillor Stobart, I think you wanted to ask a question of the applicant. Thank you for your presentation. So it was really just to reiterate what is the prime motivation for making this change, because the original design looked okay. The new one is a little more crowded, and the green space in front of the development has gone. So what motivated this change? There's two factors. Firstly, the open space area that's shown has to be dug up anyway. There are sewage tanks, septic tanks underneath it. So there's a lot of work that goes into that. I also understand it. Obviously I'm not involved in the nuances of red row, but I understand that there's a sales aspect and there's been a greater demand for the house types that are proposed over the flooded development. Thank you. Members, do you have any further questions of clarification for the applicant's agent? Thank you. Liz, can you just clarify what I think on the officer's report? There is just one parking space for every dwelling in the replan. Not quite now. Most properties have got at least two. It's only the two masonettes have got one each, and there are two bed masonettes within the centre of the site, and they are also adjacent to the visitor's spaces as well. Okay, thank you. Councillor Ennington. I just wonder whether you've done any work on the housing need in terms of one or two bedroom accommodation, because it seems to me that the flats would house more single accommodation, whereas the masonettes will hold two or more. And I just wonder whether that was a motivating factor or just commercial. To a certain extent, I think the way we lay out figures for one and two beds is slightly misleading. There was no one beds proposed on the extent planning permission. They were all two bed flats. So we've actually not really shifted the mix in the sense of moving away from one beds. What we've done is rebalance the mix in accordance with the housing mix set out within the local plan. Thank you. And Councillor Hawkins, please. Thank you, Chair. For reference, page 36, paragraph 10.76. The garages, it seems, do not form part of the parking strategy and are intended for storage only. How come I thought garages were for cars? Is this your design strategy? The issue isn't that the garages aren't suitable for cars. They just don't meet the size standards that are required internally when internally measured. So we don't include them within the calculation for car parking. We ensure that there's sufficient car parking outside. And that's a lot to do with the fact that most of them are integrated garages into the building as opposed to standalone garages. And it's about making sure that we're not trying to count garages as parking spaces when, actually, they don't quite meet that standard. I'm sorry, what is a garage for? A garage is for parking a car. So why aren't you building garages to the right size so that you can put a car in and get out of the car? All I can say is that what we're doing is it doesn't prevent people from using the garages as car parking spaces. Yes, it does, because they can't get in and get out. They can drive in, but they can't get out of the car. Because they can't look on the door. They are of the sufficient service. Any further questions for the applicant? No? OK. Well, thank you very much for taking the time to come in and speak to us this morning. With that, members, we'll move on to our final public speaker on this item, who is the local member. I believe he's joining us online. Councillor Aidan van de Waier. Aidan, good morning. Hello, good morning. Thank you very much. Can you hear me OK? Yes, we can hear and see you perfectly. You're familiar with the system. Three minutes to give us your views, and then there may be some questions at the end, so please whenever you're ready. Thank you very much. I also support this application. I think there are reasonable changes that have been made in terms of the design of the whole scheme, but obviously the increase in affordable housing and the mix is better. There is this loss of open space, which has been addressed. Michael mentioned that this development does have a very large informal open space very close to it. Obviously it's on the other side from these houses, but the distances are quite small, and I think that's quite reasonable as well. Obviously this is a replay on the existing development. It's quite a significant change, but the huge quantity of information that we, and especially the Parish Council, have to deal with on a change like this is almost as much as the original application. The officer's presentation was excellent on this. Thank you very much, Michael. It would have been useful to have that excellent summary right at the start. The other particular point I wanted to make is about the section 106 contributions as it's set out in the report. There will be increases in most of the areas where there are contributions already from the development of the whole, the original application, the original permission, and broadly these are sort of prorated according to the extra three houses, and I think that's a very good approach for this development. And I think I would like to invite you to support that sort of principle of prioritaring up the S106 contributions for the increase in size. Obviously there's a bit of variation in something that's clearly unnecessary, but a lot of these things, even three houses will cause extra demand on the facilities of the village and their entirely appropriate to increase the section 106 in that way, in a prorated proportionate way. But thank you very much, and thank you in particular to Michael for the excellent presentation. Thank you councillor. Members, do you have any questions of clarification for the local member? No, I don't see any. Aiden, that was very clear. Thank you very much for your comments and taking the time to speak to us this morning. Members, that concludes the public speaking element of the process, so we are now in the debate section. This is where members have the opportunity to ask any further questions of the planning officer or equally start formulating a view on the application. So I will throw it open to the committee. Councillor Hawkins will be kicking us off. Just a question of clarification if I may please. Page 14, 1.15. I'm not sure I understand why we're hearing this now if we can't as it says because we're trying to grant the planning permission it will not be determined until another application comes through. Why are we doing that? Please. I think that was one of the alterations the planning officer was asking to make at the beginning but I think Mr Kelly was asking to come in on that hopefully to clarify. Yes, you're quite right. Councillor Hawkins, obviously reviewing the recommendation and you heard Michael Hammond outline a change to it. You're obliged to deal with this application on its merits. You shouldn't be predetermining the outcome of any other application associated with it. Because it's a full planning permission and Michael rightly highlighted that the other application was an outline with the reserve matters they're separate planning commissions and you do not need to create the outcome of resolution of the outline until you determine this application. There is an issue that clearly the approved plans of the outline show a different form of development on this site but until such time as the planning commission, this planning commission where it to be implemented is begun there is no breach of planning and the history and the report makes clear that there are proposals to adjust those reserve matters that are currently before the planning authority and will be determined in due course so we're actually intending to simplify it precisely for the reasons you've identified. Thank you very much. Members who'd like to chip in next. Councillor Hawkins, back to you. Thank you. I mean understand why it's come forward to us because it's outside the village framework but of course this is a revision of an existing as we call it, extended planning permission I note that the parish council does not object and the local member has spoken in favour of it and I can understand why I mean I for one excuse me kind of I guess happy to see that a three story what looks more like a four story building or buildings have been taken out as many villages do not want or like or does it fix to have that many story buildings in the villages so that is a positive and although there is some objection about the fact that it's going from once it's 30 to 36 or 33 to 36 with an additional three properties is an advantage even more so because two of those three are affordable housing so that's in my view another positive for one negative which a question was not having garages that are big enough to put cars in why the heck are we granting planning permission to build garages that do not actually take cars it just seems sorry irrational to me but I guess a storage it's useful I personally don't see that there's any material reason not to grant this so I'll be putting in favour of it thank you thank you councillor our next speaker is councillor Williams thank you chair I suppose I have a similar sort of view to councillor Hawkins one thing I would flag up though I think we should be all aware of is yes the number of houses are only going up by three on this side but if we look at the housing mix change that is quite significant on page 32 it was on the officer's slide but it's paragraph 10.47 we talk a lot about the ability of people to get on a housing ladder we are actually dropping if I read these figures correctly from 13% 172 bedroom homes it seems down to 4 and 3% so underneath the surface of what looks like a small change there is actually a significant change because this is moving to a development of higher of larger and therefore more expensive housing I would imagine the markup the commercial consequence of that I would imagine is quite significant but it does mean what we are actually doing is providing significantly fewer starter homes on the open market so that concerns me and I don't really like it I don't like the loss of green space I take the point about the removing the block of flats I suppose that is a positive but I don't really like this but I might struggle to find a reason to oppose it I think the points have been taken councillor Sanford then Ellington please thank you chair to councillor Hawkins earlier point I suggest the developer renames these garages as storage lockers to avoid all doubts that they can accommodate cars notwithstanding this is reassurance is earlier I have my doubts whether there is adequate parking on this site three and four bedroom houses tend to generate three and four cars there will be creative parking I suspect okay thank you for that councillor Ellington please thank you I find the whole layout very very tight and it does seem to me yes that there is a shortage of car parking and a shortage of places where visitors can park and also where they can turn round if they have found their way down a rabbit hole but again I can't think for good reason to oppose what I would like just a mild clarification on I'm sure everybody else knows but I've forgotten the affordable housing is this just housing which is at a lower cost or will it be housing association rented accommodation Michael I don't know if you're online and you can answer that I think I'm still here yep yep so it might be helpful if I share my screen again sorry my computer is being a bit slow so yes four of the masernets will be what's called affordable rent so that's typically 80% of the market value is the usual way it's done and shared ownership is a bit bit different that I believe is where you buy a share of the property and then your mortgage is low as I understand it but ultimately there are housing associations on the site who have taken over part let's have a look see if I can get the larger for example on these parcels outside the site you can see for example the some affordable housing here I know there's been discussions with a housing association and they have got a commitment to provide sort of a portion of that and I think there'll be a similar sort of discussion on this part of the site as well but also being able to agree for section 106 but yeah there are housing associations who have purchased some of the properties yeah Can I just clarify then that means there are no one and two bedroom first time buyer houses Not necessarily because the shared ownership part I believe would facilitate that so those ones that are up here I think under the shared ownership sort of umbrella if you would that would fall under the first time buyer part I think that is inadequate on a site such as this Members who have had some comments and people have put forward some concerns they have albeit no one has indicated a reason for refusal but if anyone is minded to refuse this and vote against then it would be good to hear the reasons why that would be but Councillor Stobart will come to you as you had your hand raised My comments don't fall into that category chair so I don't believe so anyway so just looking at the sustainability design so that's paragraphs 1096 through 10101 and I'll come back to electric vehicle provision in a moment but there is when you consider a change like this issues of how do you heat buildings what's there overheating performance and so on so simply going from some apartment blocks which arguably are more energy efficient because you can provide centralised heating and cooling to a number of individual dwellings that are more efficient more distributed in a sense harder to manage thermally so there is that to be considered I think it's not a reason that we would reject this proposal but it is a consideration which really I don't think has been outlined sufficiently well so there are implications on sustainability of just changing the structure of the housing the housing type so distribution of solar PV becomes probably a little more difficult when we're going for the structure that's being proposed as opposed to what previously the ability to plant trees that would shade again that I think is probably diminished by the choice of the new structure on PV provision which is under car parking so 10138 10140 on page 44 it seems very soft the statements made here about provision of vehicle charging and so passive provision and when you think about passive provision for electric vehicle charging what exactly does it mean does it mean that the distribution board in the associated housing has enough capacity for a charger and we talk about putting ducts in but it's not really the ducts, the ducts help but actually the cost is around mounting the EV charger point putting the extra provision into the distribution board so I'd say this feels a little soft and that's something if it's within the scope of the plan process to be firmer in the direction that's given or condition could be applied to make sure that the risks around EV provision are more firmly stated good points, we're going to hand over to Mr Kelly hopefully have a response for us I think we acknowledge that the current development plan policies don't really allow us to insist upon some of this infrastructure it is interesting talking to the house builders in general though that particularly these are family homes that there is actually it's a sales requirement almost now that they embody certainly around Cambridgeshire, certainly the house builders that we've spoken to almost every client is asking and I can't comment for red rose but certainly the conversations of the house builders they are installing fast charge facilities as a matter of course because simply that's what the competition is doing so an example I think we understand and you'll see the sustainability officer as broadly drawn a conclusion that the arrangements are acceptable but the increasing emphasis around the heating and energy costs of homes which are due to escalate rapidly I suspect will overtake our own policy ambitions in terms of consumer behaviour shortly so although we can't insist upon it I wouldn't be surprised by the time these homes are constructed if they get consent that you'll find they have almost have to have this type of infrastructure at first occupation I hope they offer some reassurance councillor that's very helpful thank you Mr Kelly thank you very much members does anyone wish to put forward I mean I've heard lots of comments as I said concerns have been voiced albeit none would warrant a refusal in members opinion from what I've heard does anyone wish to put forward a contrary view to that is anyone debating voting against this and wishes to put their reasons forward for that I don't see any can I take it then that we're ready to make a decision on this members is anyone not ready to make a decision no okay well members as we haven't had any opposing views could we take it by affirmation that we do approve this the recommendation is on page 55 and that is to approve as per the paper councillor Williams before we move on I wouldn't oppose affirmation chair but I'd like to abstain when we record it okay thank you so members we have the recommendation on page 55 which is to approve and we've also had the amendments which essentially deletes the element regarding or worded the planning committee's future resolution regarding application and then the number so is everyone all clear on that the officer did outline it in their introduction good okay well with that members with the one abstention so far is everyone content to approve this application agreed agreed so that is unanimous with the one abstention from councillor Williams so that application is approved thank you very much everyone members we're now on to the next agenda item which has mentioned at the start I have a pecuniary interest in so we'll have to withdraw for item six and the following item item seven so I will have to leave the room unfortunately but I'll leave you in the hands of councillor Fein the vice chair and I'll be watching so no one's return so thank you very much and I'll see you shortly so I'll take over as chair for these next two items I'm going to suggest that I ask councillor Jeff Harvey to stand in as vice chair if you would is that agreed by the Gribble tool even to councillor Jeff Harvey who has had known this before yes thank you thank you councillor Harvey let's move on to item six then this is reference S 3975 18 FL in relation to in relation to Rectory Farm Middle Street Thrip Llo we're looking at pages 73 onwards I would just emphasise that we're looking at the planning consent in item six we will then under item seven be considering a listed building application just item six we're considering at this stage the case officer in this case is Karen Pelcockins who I think I saw online Karen would you like to just give us your update and a brief introduction on this on the assumption that we've all read the papers thank you chair I have no verbal updates so I will share my presentation with you can you hear me okay we can excellent so starting with the full application this is an application for part demolition of existing barns extensions alterations and conversion of three barns to dwellings erection of four new dwellings and widening of an existing access so the site is located in Middle Street Thrip Llo to the west of Middle Street which is outlined in red here basically on the site you have just looking at the constraints you have a grade two listed ties barn which was listed in 2017 which runs from the eastern frontage of the site onto Middle Street into the site area the site is wholly within the conservation area part of the site is within the development framework so the dash black line here is the line of the development framework so to the eastern side it's within the development framework and to the western side it's outside the development framework and it's what we call white land so it's not green belt but it is countryside the green belt wraps around the western side of the site so you have residential properties to the north east and south of the site around this area it's within flood zone one there is a small there's a pond on the site just here so there is a small area of surface water risk and there's a public footpath which is this purple line which runs along the top of the site to the north so just going on to show you an aerial photograph of the site which shows the ties barn just here and the sort of existing buildings on the site some photographs so I'll go on to them so this is photographs showing the site from middle street so you can see here to the left hand side is the listed ties barn with an existing wall along the frontage and then you have the entrance to the site there's a tree, a scots pine tree in the garden of the neighbour you can just see there's a little building sort of white render building clay plantiles which will be retained as part of the development this goes on to internal views of the site from the courtyard so this is the existing ties barn which is listed not in a particularly good state of repair but that will be obviously upgraded as a crucial part of this application so this is an internal view of the ties barn and then just going on to show the sites of a bit more in context so this is the entrance the ties barn is to the left as you're coming and this will be where plots 1 and 2 are so where the white building is this will form part of plot 3 and there will be a new two story building behind that which will be in the position of this building here and then beyond that I'll show you the site plan in a moment there will be plot 5 then these existing buildings here will be removed so all of the buildings around here will be demolished and plot 6 and 7 will be on this side of the site so plot 4 so this is an existing building that will be removed where plot 3 is plot 4 is an existing building which is beyond this gate across the field to the west this will be retained and converted so again just some photographs of the buildings at the back of the site and this is the area beyond the buildings still within the site area but the green belt boundary is slightly further here and then you've got a zoomed view from the public foot path so you can see sort of outlines of the buildings so this is plot 4 plot 6 sorry plot 5 would be here plot 7 etc so just to give you an idea of the demolition plan the buildings which would be retained would be the ties barn here the extensions to the ties barn can I just ask is it possible to change the pointer so that we can see more clearly I don't know if you've got access to a laser pointer oh sorry I thought I'd done that so apologies so sorry the ties barn here will be retained so these two extensions will be demolished this building here will be retained and form part of plot 3 and this building down here will be retained and form part plot 4 so just going on to the proposed site plan so sorry the orientation has changed so plots 1 and 2 are down here so the existing extension with demolished that will be replaced by a cart lodge to serve plot 1 which is here the extension to plot 2 will be demolished and replaced with a very similar extension which is an L shape obviously plot 4 will be retained this building to plot 3 will be retained and this will be plot 3 plot 5 is new plot 6 is new plot 70 is new so just moving on specifically to the ties barn which is plots 1 and 2 so the works that are proposed to the ties barn so it requires a real statement of the original roof which will increase the height of the building it will require strengthening of the timbers to obviously ensure it can be converted to three floors etc it will be subdivided to create two dwellings plot 1 is this side which will be a three bedroom dwelling and plot 4 plot 2 is a four bedroom dwelling so there will be some internal works to enclose some of the bays within the barns at ground floor level so just for example plot 1 this is at ground floor there will be two bedrooms here which will be enclosed and the remainder will be open plan and again at plot 2 here these will be enclosed and this will be open plan just going on to the first floor there will be certain gallery areas at first floor so there will be a bedroom but then obviously voids at first floor level to retain the open plan feeling of the barns and just going on to the elevations of plots 1 and 2 so trying to retain the original materials which is render and start staying tin for boarding but with a new roof which will be clay plain tiles so there's obviously new openings and glazing within existing openings to provide the accommodation so I have got details of all of the other plots if you would like me to go through them so just for example so that's the car lodged plot 1 so very low key simple traditional building so this is plot 3 just for example so this will be the existing building that will be retained and this is the elevation of that building so again quite simple design but trying to sort of replicate the character of the agricultural barns on the site I'll just go on now to show you some sections of the site I have got details of all of the different plots and etc so sections of the site so this is from the access road so you're looking at so middle street is just to the left hand side here this is plots 1 and 2 which comes over here plot 3 and plot 5 site section of plot 4 so this is from the rear boundaries of the neighbouring properties at 22 22 and 24 middle street so this is the view that they would see so there's an access across the field and then this is plot 4 which is retained and this is a new extension to plot 4 this is plots 3 and 7 so through this from the rear of the site so this is looking back on the ties barns just behind to the right hand side here this is existing dwelling this is plots 7 and plots 3 so this is the view the view sort of from within the site and then plots 5 and 6 which is from the again within the site looking to the rear of the site towards the green belt so plots 5 and 6 and then we've just got plots 6 and 7 which is to the north side and this gives you an idea of the perspective plan as the access middle street so the landscaping plan shows that three trees will be removed within the centre of the site which is within the garden of plots 3 there will be some works to raise the crown of the pine adjacent to the access and there's some works here to remove part of this tree so it wouldn't overshadow plot 4 so the key considerations for the full application are the principle of development the housing density and mix character and appearance of the area heritage assets trees and landscaping bio-diversity highway safety flood risk and aimer amenity, thank you thank you Karen any questions of clarification of the stage from members is Councillor Williams thank you chair Karen a few minutes ago you showed us a perspective of the view from plot 4 of plot 4 can you give us an idea of the distance from the proposed dwelling that that drawing is drawn from if you see what I mean because having stood in the back guns of 24 and 24A it's nothing like that to my mind that perspective is standing on the other side of middle streets as if the houses weren't there looking at plot 24 right I think the distances are set out in the report I need to find the exact the neighbour amenity section so bear with me a second I mean someone's quite close but obviously the building is existing at the moment it wasn't so much the distance that I'm asking about it it's that drawing because to my mind that drawing was drawn as if the houses in 24 and 24A were not in fact there it's not a reasonable representation of what you actually see if you're standing in the back garden of those houses because it would be a pier closer much closer yes so yes I was going to say it doesn't specifically say where that perspective is taken from but yeah it would be closer but that's the view that you would get from those rear houses thank you a question from me if I may Karen in relation to the comments on the conservation officer and from listed building here we have Historic England am I right in thinking that this is pretty well opposite to the grade 2 listed manor house it says yes and yet we have no comments from Historic England I don't know whether you're able to clarify paragraph 612 page 84 um cppf say that several statements in heritage statement are not correct are you able to clarify that for us sorry what paragraph was that of the report paragraph 612 on page 84 can I read me yeah I think that relates to the road names etc so I think that was addressed in the report but just for assurance the there is no concern expressed about the implications for the grade 2 listed grade 2 star listed manor house no concerns have been raised that's correct and then second if I may the comments of the parish council um who are not I think a florist today uh they objected on this but then here we are parish council on page 78 objects to the application but it seems what they were really saying was that it wasn't possible to scrutinise it uh on page 79 and they went on to say parish council is pleased to see the listed building will be converted ensuring it's survival hearing from the parish council today but they do say that um by a majority they're opposed to it for seven houses principally because some of the houses are outside the village envelope have we had any further clarification on the parish council's position we haven't I'm afraid no I think the parish council has changed recently so we've not heard anything further from them thank you for that right um sorry further questions two further questions yes Councillor Hawkins first thank you chair two things can you just clarify please Karen how many of the properties proposed outside the village envelope so there are four new dwellings outside so four new dwellings outside the development framework one converted dwelling outside the framework okay thanks for that the second thing is paragraph 8.144 where it talks about plots 12 and 4 not being subject to space standards yes because they are converted buildings surely space standards means space standards so we can live in a place properly space so the obviously the policy policy H12 in relation to space standards doesn't refer to converted buildings because obviously they're existing buildings and they may not be able to be extended etc but yeah unfortunately that's something in policy that is not yeah thanks right Councillor Ellington thank you I'm not sure whether you've just answered that as I was thinking of my question as that came past and that's paragraph 8.27 on page 89 where it says that the new dwellings in the countryside would be materially greater than the height of the existing agricultural buildings and would it be intrusive have we any diagrams or pictures that we can look at to see how much we think that might actually affect the visual output bear with me can I go back to my presentation okay can you see that we can see your presentation I don't know if you're able to show us the elevations concerned yes so I it's probably easy visually rather than the elevations to be honest so just for example so I'm waiting for my okay so these are the so these are the buildings which are on where plot 5 would be which is one of the new dwellings and these are the buildings so they're clearly obviously single story whereas plots 5 and 6 and 7 so plot 5 just for example would be two stories so you would have probably an extra 3 metres in height maybe so I have got the heights so the heights of plot 5 better with me a second is nearly 8 metres whereas the height of the existing buildings is probably 4 metres maximum so you're looking at 3-4 metres increase in height there does that help quite intrusive I would say and who would that affect have those neighbours been given the opportunity to comment so in terms of yes so the neighbours have all been notified this is the property that property I just showed you is property 5 which is here which will have an increase in height also this would have an increase in height which is next door to number 22 who has been notified and I've had conversations with plot 4 will not be increased in height so and these will be increased in height but certainly all the names have been notified notification is different from getting acceptance I haven't seen any comments from them Karen I think the director would like to comment on that unless you'd go in first of course it's just to make the point and the report tries to be clear part of the the entire premise which the proposal is based and I think the chairs referred to the parish council's comments around the settlement boundary this is quite a complex case the report sets out because the prime objective sitting behind the recommendation is to secure the long term sustainable feature for the grade 2 listed asset and there is recognition in that purpose that there is additional impacts associated with these new dwellings particularly the dwellings beyond your normal policy of building within settlement boundaries in villages and the report goes into some depth about the viability and the financial modelling that's been done to in many respects draw offices to the conclusion that that balance and the objective of safeguarding that precarius heritage asset that you've seen the photographs of justifies some of those consequential effects on both the views from into the village from the countryside or from the open area beyond but also some of the changes and indeed some of the effects of those changes on the setting of the building itself because it domesticates that setting from its kind of rural form so I think we would acknowledge that there is a greater impact in terms of visibility of the site and the buildings on it from the countryside but the overarching benefit associated with safeguarding that listed asset justifies that harm and clearly that you see in the report a number of representations from the local people who are wrestling with that dynamic as I think people have recognised the benefits of securing the asset but as Councillor Williams has highlighted that there are also impacts on existing properties that will be an appreciable change for them as well Ellington I hope that clarifies your point I would stress that we may come back to this as a matter of debate later on and Councillor Sanford I think you had a question of clarification no any other questions of clarification no well in that case I think we can invite the applicant to talk to us I believe we have Rob Hopwood from Bedwell's some suggestion you might be going to share your time with the applicant some of the large or will you cover this yourself you'll cover it fine I think you know the system looks like you've sorted out the microphone when you're ready as you know three minutes and then if you would hang on for any questions after that that would be helpful Thank you chair, just before I speak can I just make a couple of introductions because given this is quite a complex proposal I've got the benefit of some of the colleagues on the project team I'd just like to introduce should the members have any questions after so first of all on my right in the room we have the applicant the MD of Lara Holmes Simon, some of all large who's going to say a few words on the vision for the redevelopment and what benefits will be derived via the build and secondly right introduced Richard Coombs also in the room a partner of Carter Jonas who has undertaken the viability appraisal required by the council and Bedwell's head of heritage Chris Surfleet who is hopefully going to be on the screen who has advised on the impact of the development proposal on the heritage assets including the listed barn and the conservation area so as planning agent myself I'll just start from now on so members may have noted that this application was submitted in 2018 and this was after nearly three years of pre-application discussions through the spring and summer of 2017 we embarked on detailed officer meetings and with two public presentations for local residents and the parish council with many follow up meetings with local residents in their homes thereafter in seeking to make a number of amendments to meet with their requirements a meeting was also held with local residents regarding improvements to local drainage which was mentioned by locals in addition the isle barn which was unlisted but at the start of this process was then added to the statutory list in November 2017 requiring further adjustments to render the conversion acceptable to the now listed building eventually through many meetings we reached agreement of the no harm impact of the scheme having reached that important level agreement on design the applicant then invested in the costly financial viability work to support the case for enabling development revised plans were submitted in July 2019 officers eventually confirmed that the revised plans would result in the optimum viable use for the site being the minimum development required to address the conversion deficit and justifying the works to ensure the future of the listed barn having established the application proposals represented enabling development it should also be noted that this application meets many of the policies within the local plan in terms of design, amenity and sustainability and repairing and refurbishing the barn for the long term. Triplo is a group village where normally up to eight dwellings would tend to be supported in terms of scale the officers report states that the landscaping proposed would soften the impact of the development on the countryside and surrounding greenbelt the highway authority also raises no objection to the application so I'll pass over to Simon to do the final leg, thank you and if you would just introduce yourself again and then I'll give you a couple of minutes but we are very in this moment, sorry yes, I'm sorry is that working? Good morning I'm Simon, some of the large I'm the MD of Lyra Homes business, thank you for the opportunity to address the committee this morning as we've all worked incredibly hard to present this important scheme to you today after many years and much problems through Covid it has been very difficult for everyone involved but I'm pleased to have got where we are Lyra Homes has been developing quality homes with bespoke designs around Cambridge for the last 15 years and I'm very proud of our good reputation this site at Rectory Farm is clearly a sensitive one in a central location within Tripoli which has required the skills of our talented and award-winning architects Noel David and the whole team including everyone else here today to design the sensitive conversion of the listed tyth barn and the careful development of the old farm yard this will enable the extensive work required to restore and preserve this important grade 2 listed tyth barn that dates back to the 14th century the supporting enabling development is all within the areas previously developed by assorted barn buildings many of which were much larger than the ones that are actually there today and this will restore the sense of place and also remain subordinate to the tyth barn standing proud back to its original height for this new roof and a key part of the village for the future this proposal will preserve this important building for future generations to enjoy for the reasons stated above them Rob said earlier as recommended by the case officer we hereby respectfully request that the application be approved thank you if you would just hang on there we may have some questions which could be directed to you or indeed to colleagues um councillors yes councillor Hawkins thank you chair um thank you too so Mr Hopwood and some of the large for your presentations I think the question I have release to do with the viability assessment um I was looking through the reports um that were submitted but I couldn't actually match the numbers in that with the number that's on page 82 the very last paragraph we talked about ah reassessment of the scheme and generated a negative area will be of just about one million your figures don't seem too much with this or this your figures I'm confused that you clarify that point for us I can yes viability assessments quite some history to this and the assessment was put forward and then checked by the council's own consultants BMP Parable um we felt that some of those points that they raised were incorrect and the assessment of the case was not exactly correct so we were then in various debates and discussions with the council and it was decided that independent quantities of air should check it again so we employed a company to do the numbers again and to submit those to both parties through the council that was then checked and this is the number they came up with so there are other numbers around previous to this one but this is the final result which is what I can't remember their name Roe consultants came up with the quantities of air anyway there were independent quantities of air who did the assessment any other questions from councillors I think it's fair to say that can you come to councillor Williams whether you wanted to ask a question or to reserve your comments as speakers local member question please councillor Williams I was wondering if you could just say a little bit to us about plot 4 we didn't see a picture of plot 4 but it's a sort of open barn for the other members how much of that existing structure is likely to be maintained I know you're moving it back from the boundary but it's in quite a bad state of repair that one yes thank you for the question we're hoping to preserve the important timbers but structurally it needs a lot of work so until we've actually taken it apart and checked all of the timbers it's actually difficult to tell how many of those are salvageable but we obviously the aim is to salvage as many as possible but we have reduced the length of the barn to take it away from one of the neighbour's boundaries as well thank you for that I think councillor Hawkins is considering whether to ask another question so she might as well anyway I might as well yes I mean I again looking at the figures that you've come up with obviously things have changed in that time and the fact that you're proposing to build so many new properties to pay for the refurbishment of the time found seems to me that with the level of cost increases now that the building industry is going through there could be a bit of a discrepancy here by the time you get if you get planning permission by the time you get that to go forward thank you for the question yes I mean during the process the figures have changed considerably over the last seven or eight years and that's part of the cycle of the property industry house prices have gone up they peak and they can go down we're seeing the same construction costs at the moment which are actually going through the roof I don't think that's going to last forever by the time the cycle comes round again who knows it is a risk we take as a developer and we are confident that this scheme can work that we will be constructing this ourselves and that we will see it through to the bitter end I'm very proud of all the jobs we do quality is very important our reputation is important and this is a very very delicate site that we want to get right it's very difficult to predict exactly where the figures will end up we can only go on today's figures in development that's all we can do we work on our costs today and what our sales values are today and these figures here are the latest figures we've got to go on which are maybe six months old I hope that answers your question it kind of does but I think my concern is that you know what I don't want to say is that I will get to a certain stage and it's like oh we need to build more just to be able to colour the costs to put this thing back up and it's you know it's good if I can answer that we would like to get on with this project as soon as possible I think that if we don't start building something soon barns likely to fall over it's in such a poor state that we could be in a very very bad way in the next 12 months it's important that we get on and start the restoration work and preserving the barn as soon as possible it needs to be supported internally with a whole new steel structure to support the timbers it's quite a complicated build Thank you for those comments perhaps I can just say that you refer to seeing this through to the bitter end I'm not sure that we'd be bitter as the director said earlier on the primary issue we're talking about here is the conservation of the building by providing a viable future use and while some of us may be a little surprised that the applicants the repairs and refurbishment of the grade 2 tithe barn can only be facilitated that is only viable through the development of 5 new residential units that is not contested I agree between the council and your consultants so not a matter for this committee today Thank you very much to you and to Mr Hopeford for your evidence to us today Right councillors I think councillor Williams do you want to speak as a local member can you just explain your position on this whether you're planning to take part in the debate as well I am planning to take part in the debate but if I could speak as a local member if I can given the parish council is not here without prejudice to my own opinion I will try and talk about some of the local concerns that have been raised Thank you that would be acceptable so that they are articulated Yes I should say that answers have already been made clear this application has been under consideration for quite some time in fact it was discussed in the parish council before I was elected so in that sense I wasn't actually party to the discussions at all it's been around five years it's been a long process I think has already been made clear I will say a few things I have been contacted by a few residents raising some concerns about the timing of when this application has come forward not that I think that's anyone's fault I have explained the process but there are a number of residents of neighbouring properties who are on holiday and have been not able to speak and I think otherwise would have spoken so I think members of the committee probably shouldn't infer anything from the fact that there aren't a local residents commenting because the notice has been quite short obviously in the middle of the summer there is a lot to commend this scheme I think everyone agrees that the barn is in desperate need of something being done to it but the danger of falling down and I think the principle of this development is a good one in terms of making use of a heritage asset that as I say if nothing is done to it probably will fall down in the not too distant future so the principle of the scheme I think has a lot to commend it's supported there are local concerns particularly around block 4 which is quite near to the back gardens of a number of properties I couldn't actually find the distance in the report so if I've missed it it might be helpful later if Karen could clarify what the distance is between the edge of number 24 Middle Street and block 4 that would be quite helpful so there are particular concerns about amenity of neighbours relating to the development of that block now the developers to their credit moved the barn back I think 3 metres from the boundary or they've moved it a few metres back I think to try and address those concerns but those concerns remain other local concerns that have been raised relate to Middle Street and potential increase in traffic on Middle Street and the fact that there is no pavement on Middle Street it is a road without any pedestrian paving along its whole length so there is some local concern around the impact of putting more dwellings there and of course going back to the previous point I made the necessity really of having a car in this location it's essential to have a car if you're living in this area so I think hopefully that gives a summary of some of the local concerns I would say for my own part I'll come back and talk in debate but this is a difficult one as a local member there are lots of positives to this scheme there are concerns about the impact on amenity and neighbours as well thank you Councillor Williams you referred to people who were not able to be here would you say that we have a paragraph 7.1 page 85 a summary of the 25 representations received I think the question of the distance of plot 4 is an additional one does that broadly represent the concerns it's a very clear summary in the officers report of the concerns that have been made as I say I think in other circumstances some localisers may have appeared but they weren't able to right we're now entering into the debate I should say if anyone has any questions for the local member on that as I did myself let's then go into the debate and of course there is an opportunity to ask for further clarification on the officers I wonder whether it would be helpful if we just clarified that point that Councillor Williams has just raised about the distance of plot 4 I wasn't quite sure of distance from what but sorry Jay, yes, it's the distance of plot 4 to number 24 Middle Street I couldn't find that distance actually in the report on the section on amenity but if you're there is something that can easily be illustrated perhaps by the site plan yes I can find that out can you give me a couple of minutes and I'll come back to you on that let's come back to that point give Karen time to find it and move on to the debate I think Councillor Hawkins you want to come in thank you Jay I've just had a look at the plans I mean plot 4 is a single story and the wall that faces number 24 is where the chimney is so it doesn't have any windows just a point of clarification Karen have you managed to find a plan that would help us on that point now we'll give Karen a bit more time on that other points for debate from other councillors anyone else want to join the debate here well actually come back to you in a minute and just first I think is Councillor Williams has said this he's got your microphone working it is on it's a tricky one for him as a local member I mean in an ideal world I guess the barn would be saved by some sort of heritage charity and open to the public and all of those things but that's not going to happen that's pie in the sky so we're faced with a you either go along with this and save it or it falls down that seems to me the way it is and for that reason at the moment at least I'm inclined to approve Councillor Hawkins yeah thank you chair certainly my feeling is the same as councillor Hanley has expressed it's that this type man needs something new internet and this proposal to me seems like a good way forward I appreciate the fact that the parish council opposed to it because for the houses for the new houses outside the framework however the balance of that is that this needs to be done to save this historic building and so I think we said before you have this all fours and negatives but in my view there is a balance here and I think for that reason I am inclined to support this application in that we save a type man and I know what it's like to have to find funds to save something like that right councillor Harvey you want to speak yourself yes I may really perhaps comparing with councillor Hawkins and other members it seems to me that if the primary objective is to save the historic type barn from the pictures we've seen it doesn't seem to me that the other buildings around that heritage asset are particularly wouldn't particularly enhance that asset where it left in isolation and perhaps restored so therefore I think there is a sort of logic to developing the whole site and I'd be in favour of this thank you for that councillor Williams you said you might want to take part in the debate as well this would be a good moment if you feel inclined I'm not actually sure chair I'm going to add anything to what I said before it is a really difficult case there is the principle of development outside the village framework which is obviously also a concern but it's weighing up different factors right councillor Samford thank you chair can or someone else please confirm one of the comments in Paris 7.3 is the farm is disused therefore there will be no okay Mr Kelly is nodding so there is no loss of agriculture assets in doing this work okay thank you councillor Ellington I'm very reluctant in this debate because experience has shown in my own village that having weighed the balance there's a disaster that is around the corner but I think I have to consider this debate in its own setting and its own location and therefore I feel that it should be agreed yes councillor Stobart thank you so a little bit off this track of discussion so I concur with the opinions expressed about the development at the whole I'm wondering in a special development like this there's always the opportunity for an innovation and sometimes the innovation might be because of the nature of the development so it might be for example deployment of materials it might be nurturing of craft skills it might be in decline elsewhere and I was wondering perhaps I could address the officer what stands out as the innovative aspect of this project over the other one of course with such a again not with standing discussion about proximity to boundaries and so on but the potential for things that we often need space for like hesitate to use it but ground source heat pumps would go well on the site like this because it is very open and there is the opportunity to excavate and so on so where's the innovation because it's good to learn by doing and it's not a necessary thing but it would be interesting to hear what those aspects might be yes I think many of us may feel some sympathy for concerns as to what might be included but of course I would emphasise that we can only consider what has been done before us I don't know whether Karen you've been able to find a plan that might help us on councillor Williams earlier point yes I have bear with me yep I was going to say unfortunately the system went down but um so bear with me so this can you see my screen an aerial photograph so this is number 24 middle straight and to the boundary where could you convert the pointer into the laser pointer again if that's possible I don't know if I can on the screen to be honest yep so the distance between the edge of plot 4 to the boundary is approximately 16 metres but I understand there might be another building in there somewhere but then plot 4 is about I think it was 1.2 metres off the boundary so it's about 17 metres councillor Williams does that deal with your yes thank you the point I was really afterwards whether it was more than 15 metres away for obvious reasons I think that resolves that point then so I don't see any other speakers I want to say a few words myself and then before we come to a decision I know the director wants to comment on this I haven't heard anyone say anything that would suggest that we have reasons to turn this down so I'm not posing to spend any time discussing what those reasons might have been for my own point of view I think the key question is how the tithe barn can be repaired that is obviously a key priority for us we are assured and it is not a matter of contest between the applicants and the council but it is necessary to develop these other houses in order to secure that those will have the effect of tidying up what is referred to in the comments of the disused farm and unattractive and indeed I think having seen the designs my own view is that those are sensitively designed to fit in with the framework and to create the feeling of a farm yard to retain the feeling of a farm yard so I'm coming clearly to the view that we should now approve and ensure that this matter which has been ongoing for a very long time can now be progressed and hopefully that barn can be saved but before we come to a formal view on that I think it is right to say something to us. Thank you chair yes and taking on board your comments I was just reviewing the final recommendation and it's clear to me obviously you're giving to the protection and restoration of the Tide Barn that's indeed the position that officers have recommended to you but it's not clear to me that there's a condition requiring that as part of the permission so for completeness I would suggest that we need to recommend an additional condition for your consideration relating to a requirement for a scheme for phased delivery of the restoration of the Tide Barn recognising that actually on a site of this scale the development may well take place in parallel certain elements, groundworks and so on they will take place in parallel but I'd be recommending to you an additional condition number 30 that prior to the placement of the development details of a scheme for that phased implementation of the works to the listed Tide Barn should be submitted that allows the applicant to plan the scheme effectively and then that the development shall be carried out owning accordance with that approved scheme of restoration which makes sure that the sentiments that you've expressed that are reflected in the recommendation of officers and the heritage enabling argument is properly delivered by the permission so with that additional condition to the recommendation yes I have been reminded, submitted and approved in writing I was paraphrasing so sorry about that but with delegation to me to finalise the precise wording of that I think the recommendation should be supplemented with that additional obligation. Are we happy to accept the director's recommendation on that subject to authorization for the exact wording to be drawn up by himself I think we are, that's right I think then we now come to the recommendation I just want to draw attention to the fact that we are looking at the recommendation on page 105 and not the recommendation on page 87 paragraph 812 so the recommendation on paragraph page 105 that we approve this subject to the planning conditions that are set out that includes the additional condition just set out with minor amendments to the conditions as drafted delegated to officers I haven't heard anyone speak against that can we agree to that by affirmation agreed right, we have agreed that is approved thank you now I'm proposing that we go straight on and deal with the related issue of the listed building consent before we take a break is everyone happy that we we do let's make a short break then so we'll meet again at 1155 thank you yes we can now resume and we now move on to the related question item 7 which is listed building consent in relation to rectory farm and the barns Karen I don't know if you have anything further to say to us on this hi there probably not really it's the parallel application to the full application that we've just discussed so the works obviously comprised of demolition of some of the buildings and alterations to the buildings to be retained thank you for that I should have said that we're on page 117 onwards do any councillers have any questions for question for you chair having already discussed this in some detail is there is there a mechanism for us to actually go through this quite quickly that's my question yes I think the mechanism is for the chairman to get on with it but I do want those who have come to speak to us about it to have an opportunity to just have their say before we get on to this quite quickly so perhaps I can come back to you as quickly as I can counciller Hanlon you can put a proposal for that effect so I think that deals with questions of clarification I'd now like to give the applicants a further opportunity to present on this I think perhaps Mr Hopwood do you want Mr Surfleet to comment on this or do you not feel the need to add to what you said thank you Mr Hopwood so any questions from councillers on this yes counciller Hanlon I just want you know absolute assurance that the the barn is going to take a priority and will be you know will be renovated in good time as a priority that's the only thing I would ask well that is I think a question seeking an assurance to the applicants Mr Hopwood I don't know who you want to deal with that assurance that's in Somerville large would you mind just coming back to the chair again thank you did you want counciller Hanlon to repeat the question thank you for the question I can give you our assurance of course that we've prioritised the barn it's in our interest to get that work started as soon as possible the longer we leave it the more it deteriorates and the more expensive it's going to be to repair and restore it so it's absolutely in our interest to tackle it as soon as possible and the priority is to make sure that the barn stays up is supported and weather tight as soon as possible thank you for that assurance thank you I'm content of that thank you before we get into what may possibly be quite a brief debate did counciller Williams did you want to comment as local member on this? I'm pleased about the extra condition we've added in in the previous application there's obviously no need to repeat that condition here so no I wouldn't have any further comments right counciller Hanlon I think you may have maybe had a proposal to put to us I will be very happy to second your proposal we now proceed to a vote I suppose we thank you counciller Hanlon for putting it so clearly right unless I don't think I'm cutting out anyone who might have wanted to speak can we take this by affirmation the I was going to just remind you of the recommendation but it doesn't sound as though I need to but let's say that the recommendation on well we have agreed to the listed building on rectry farm so I hope that the applicants are clear about what we have just decided I'm sure that the officers will clarify the failure of my part to make the recommendation is set out on page 127 and is simply to approve subject to the conditions listed in the report so we have agreed by affirmation to approve 127 you say to approve this application for listed building consent now I'm going to hand back to councillor bachelor who is in the next room and then we will progress to item 8 so thank you and thank you very much to those who have taken the time to come and talk to us this morning thank you thank you very much to councillors Feinon Harvey for stepping in there so we're up to item number 8 members which is page 133 of our agendas this is an application at the lander 147 St Neats Road in Hardwick the application is for the direction of 9 self-contained residential flats and associated infrastructure and works the applicant is access the state's limited and the reason it's coming to us today is because it was referred to the committee by officers as well as Hardwick parish council the presenting officer is Nick Westlake I think he's joining us online so Nick if you could give us any updates if there are any to the report in front of us and then if you could present the report to members please thank you chair I'll just get the screen up and share my slides with you as introduced the application is for 9 self-contained residential flats this includes 3 studios 1 one bed and 2 sorry 5 2 bed flats together with associated infrastructure and access works just bear with me my slides doesn't seem to be operating you can see the first slide is that correct everybody we can yes yeah some reason my screen is frozen just bear with me sorry about that everybody I'll restart the programme ok so the reason for the call in as alluded to by the chair was both by myself and by parish council Hardwick parish council the parish council had concerns with the 3 story element of the design suggesting that it was not in keeping with the nearby buildings and it should be a maximum of 2 stories with an apex roof the second concern was the access on to Cambridge road is too close for the busies and neots road Cambridge road junction and finally they had concerns about the building line of the footprint of the development being too close to Cambridge road these comments were agreed with by our councillor Chamberlain who was the ward councillor at that moment in time in terms of report updates paragraph 3.2 that should read the overall footprint of the building is 280 square metres and this equates to a total of 573 square metres of internal residential floor space so the overall footprint would be the external footprint of the building not the overall floor area 10.35 there has been additional plans submitted by the applicant demonstrating that a top graphical survey was undertaken and demonstrating the height of the telephone exchange building to the south is actually 7.13 metres within the report at the time we didn't have a definitive calculation so that was estimated using brick by brick estimation and it was in 7 metres it's actually slightly taller the final update in relation to the report is 10.37 there is an improved development that I'll go on to to the immediate it's actually the immediate west so my apologies there the immediate west of the whole site in the report it says that building maximum ridge height of 8.5 metres this is actually 8.2 metres so 30 centimetres less essentially that error has come about through a slight drafting error on one of the plans and also at the time of writing the report there was computer updates we didn't actually have our electronic measuring device available but that's been corrected so the approved scheme to the immediate west it's not east, immediate west that is not built out a maximum ridge height of 8.2 metres in terms of outstanding consultee responses we did consult with Angliff and Water who have not returned any comments so we would take that as being non-objections it is after all minor applications so that's not deemed to be problematic and finally the parish and councillor Neoto was both consulted for an additional 14 days following councillor Chamberlain's departure but no additional comments have been received okay so there are the updates and I shall get on to the slides so here in we have the constraints and the location plan on the left hand side is the location plan in red is the site there are two accesses one from Sydney Oats Road the other proposed from Cambridge Road the Cambridge Road access is not in existence the Sydney Oats Road access is in existence and it would be shared with both the neighbouring developments to the west of those sites that include the existing office and commercial space named 149 to 151 Sydney Oats Road is a park of approximately 6 units adjacent to the whole site to the immediate west is a building we will get on to shortly that has been fire damaged was previously a restaurant so just briefly going through the constraints the middle image the green hatched area is green belt the red area is obviously the application site the yellow line at the immediate east and north of the application site denotes the village envelope the boundary framework of Hardwick so it is within that framework it is adjacent to a green belt flood zone one there are no heritage assets nearby the site is designated from local authorities perspective as a brownfield site and there are no TPO's however in relation to the TPO's to the immediate north of the site you can see another hatched area that is a blanket TPO known as white pits plantations so there is actually on the other side of the A 428 which is to the north of the site it crosses over that road so the vegetation one sees when stood at Cambridge Road under that blanket TPO there's got some invocations I'll come on to the image on the right just gives you a context of the rest of Hardwick in relation to where this site is proposed main site history the host site has been vacant for over 10 years the neighbouring site was last used as a restaurant this has been more recently damaged by fire we have historic records given to us that there was a virtual filling station on site somewhere between the host site and the immediate site to the west where the restaurant fire damaged current years so in terms of the key planning history there has been an extensive set of pre-application discussions taken place two workshops have taken place attended by case officers and say I wasn't present at the authority at the time but say urban design with the original case officer on the withdrawn application that was submitted two years before was present and the current scheme before you today members is very much a result of the pre-application discussions that have taken place the adjacent site has an approved development for five residential units that was approved in 2021 associated parking and cycle storage and this will be explained in due course images of the site these are taken recently so in the top right hand corner I hope you can see there is obviously the site highlighted in red in Lou an analogy of a torch so if you can imagine shining a torch and the beam of that expanding that gives you a viewpoint from where the photograph is taken from so therein we're looking at Cambridge Road and St Neox Road junction the five damage restaurant is on the right hand side this image is taken back approximately 50 meters from the existing St Neox Road access one can see that in the foreground also on the right on the left hand side you can see two cars parked there is a a lay by there that can accommodate five parked vehicles equally this image demonstrates a bus stop and a cycle lane in both directions this view is taken from Cambridge Road looking north again one can see what we see actually in this instance is the telecommunications building so behind the wooden pole the the darker wooden pole that is with the gable end brick roof ridge that's the 7.1 meter high ridge of the telecommunications building and then on the far left of the building sorry the far left of the image is the beginning of the residential row of dwellings that are bungalows in nature and this is then looking back down Cambridge Road to the south showing these bungalows they are approximately 6.5 meters between 6.5 and one in the middle there is approximately 7.5 range of heights these are photographs taken showing the trees opposite the host site they have a material impact on shielding the proposed development so I've included these for that purpose they're not currently TPO trees they're shown at the top images so I have spoken to the tree officer about these trees and the concept of them being protected and they certainly have suggested that they would look into that and obviously if members are minded to recommend protection of those trees that can be further investigated by the tree officer the views towards the site from the Arts Road are shown at the lower images again they're very limited views because of the Hedge Road equally that existing plantation of trees in what is known as plots one, two, two St New York's Road it's actually within the garden of a residential dwelling those trees so views from further afield officers are mindful of the impact of this development so I think this will help members form an opinion essentially the turquoise blue line is the nearest public footpath so that distance is 0.7 miles approximately 100 1,200 metres so it's a significant distance and obviously the long road to the east is further away but it does appear that the topography is flat but officers have actually walked that footpath and as I say taken an image across so the top right view shows a shot from the nearest public footpath of the proposed development and the red arrow indicates approximately where the development would be there is a slight camera in the ground that you can see there again these views are taken from long road further to the east the top left you can see the plan in red is the host site so again views across would be well nonexistent due to the vegetation in place as we move on to the proposed block plan and ground floor plan there have been some amendments that have been achieved and this related to the provision of the balconies chiefly because the balconies of first floor and second floor in particular would essentially directly look into the balcony space of if they were approved the five flats opposite so what we've managed to do is reorientate the balconies of first and second floor to the eastern elevation rather than the western elevation this being the ground floor that you can see before you includes the flat 3 with a balcony facing west but members should note that there are seven car parking spaces to the north of the site and two to the south east no visitor space is proposed but that's largely because of the five car parking space labors on Wales Road itself it's also noteworthy that the neighbouring development to the west that hasn't been built out yet but if it was this would achieve a turning circle for them if they were not using a car parking space so that there is a benefit to that turning facility in the whole site landscaping again this has been reviewed by the landscaping department who have raised no objections to the scheme subject to more detailed provision but that gives you a realistic view of what is proposed and there are some CGI's that I'll come on to shortly these are the elevations the CGI's probably give a clear indication of materials but we are going to be looking for a buff brick finish which would be keeping with the nature and style of the mixture of both commercial and residential buildings on Neots Road the image at the bottom indicates the approved planning application for the five flats in the central image in colour and then to the right hand side we have the existing block of offices 7 metres in height the approved development centrally is as mentioned earlier 8.2 metres in height to the ridge and then the host development that we've got before you here on the left hand side of the image at the bottom of the page has a mixture of predominantly 9.5 metres in height to the ridge with the service stairwell reaching a maximum height of 11.3 metres the proposed ground floor first floor and second floor layout plans again all of the spaces internally reach or meet the required standards for the national minimum floor sizes that is an adopted policy of the local authority equally we've got a policy compliant provision for bicycle storage and facilities the third floor being roof is being used as part of the communal space for the potential tenants residence and there has been a condition to ensure that the privacy of the neighbouring properties needs to be demonstrated in the final designs but again we've got a soft roof finish there with a green roof on one aspect these are the CGI's proposed officers would point out that they're subsequent to the design amendments one would see balconies on that elevation to the left hand side because at the moment the balconies are shown to the rear of that building they've been flipped to take into consideration the potential construction of the residential block next door equally here this is the front elevation a pleasant buff brick finish contemporary in nature and officers are in agreement with the urban design officer that is going to give an uplift to a very run down site that currently exists this is a brief slide to show you the approved development centrally located there is a parking plan there was a slight over provision of parking on that development but again no turning circle was such so although the host development we're assessing today does not have a fully policy compliant parking provision it does provide for that turning arc so cars could leave in a fall gear if all the spaces were occupied some additional images of the site and the local area again we've touched upon it earlier that St Neil's Road is a mixture of residential and commercial in this immediate location we have the commercial block some six dwellings down six buildings down then we have the fire damage building that has planning of permission to be converted into residential only limited weight can be given to that obviously because the construction hasn't taken place and there's no saying it will do but that existing fire damage building has a ridge height of seven meters and again we can see the kind of derelict to preffered state of the host site behind the Harris fencing there okay so the key material considerations have obviously been well documented in the planning report hopefully covers most of the areas of questioning I think I'll touch upon some of these issues in slightly more detail the principal development being obviously one of the key concerns only three objections were received from members of the public notwithstanding the comments from the parish predominantly relating to parking very few if any comments related to the scale or the design of what was proposed although there were comments raised about the cumulative impact of having two residential developments next door to each other offices are mindful of the MPPF direction paragraph 120C that says planning decisions should give substantial weight to the value of using suitable brownfield land within settlements suitable brownfield land where that would support appropriate opportunities to remediate dispoiled grade derelict or contaminated land there's certainly no doubt that the land is contaminated due to the existence of the previous petrol station on site sometime in the past so redeeming to actually make the land good fit for purpose is significant undertaking cost implications etc so that's born into consideration but again it's deemed compliant with policy S7 and S10 that allows units of up to 15 to be considered in group villages which a hardwick is it's not considered there to be a loss of any employment because there's no employment in existing on the site I'll touch briefly on two of the other issues and then I'll wrap up in terms of housing provision the next indicated down there are obviously four one bed flats and five two bed flats the density is greater by some distance that policy H8 requires but obviously this density has come about due to the stacking or the height of the development allowing for a greater density that is deemed appropriate in this instance given the nature of the land that exists also in terms of the housing mix it is interesting to note that there is a shortage across the borough of flats with only 6% of flats being identified in the census at 2011 so this development would help to offset some of that deficiency in that regard and also allow people to recognise and that is also mentioned within policy H9 in sporting text again affordable housing isn't required it's under 11 units it's under a thousand square metres with a total residential floor space of 573 square metres policy compliant in relation to residential standards in terms of character and visual amenity officers have considered this to be making a positive contribution to the local context and the developments deemed appropriate in scale and nature compatible with the locality the other issue which also is a concern for local residents and others in terms of highway safety and parking hearing there is a shortage of parking the standard requirements of the policy however they are indicative figures in policy TI3 and it's deemed that due to the good bus routes the two buses per hour day and evening including a cycle route and a vast propensity of local services shops, schools etc within walking distance which is well documented in the travel statement officers consider that nine parking spaces is acceptable so yes in conclusion the design is deemed to make a positive contribution to an otherwise derelict sites there are some planning balance considerations to take into account I've stressed the environmental improvement of the site socially there is a lack of one bed dwellings smaller units in flats and there is a requirement within the local plan for that so there is a social uplift in terms of provision if approved and economically both during the construction and post development with additional footfall for local people in the local services and shops there are some additional photographs etc but I'll come on to them if required during debate thank you Nick thank you very much a very thorough introduction for members there Members before we come on to our public speakers I will offer members the opportunity to ask any questions of clarity I appreciate we've had a lot of information presented to us there so if anything wasn't clear or we need to go over anything again before moving on this is the opportunity for us members Councillor Ellington please thank you I do know the site quite well I just wondered whether there was access from Cambridge Road onto the site thinking particularly of the building bringing materials on for building and so on which may seriously affect the other residents of that offices and so on Nick if we could just go over the access proposed access to the site again please and any conditions around construction access as well please Yes Members hear me Yes there is no access in existence from Cambridge Road I'll just see whether I've got a photograph Yes so actually that top left photograph indicates that's one looking north on Cambridge Road with St Neil's Road in the distance there so there is no access that is proposed as part of this application and yes within the second point is a very valid point because during any construction obviously there would be quite significant movements of plant materials using the commercial entrance so within the construction management plan so I'll just get the plan in front of me just bear with I'm just Nick is it condition 20 in the report that might cover that Right Yes Actually condition 3 the traffic management plan so we do have a the condition requires that we need we need to assess which aspect which entrance they're going to use can certainly be included in the construction management plan I think it has been mentioned by local objectives so we can ensure via that construction management plan the access for the construction vehicles will be by Cambridge Road only and that would settle that concern Okay thank you Councillor Aikdon does that answer your questions I can't just ascertain then so there will be two or there should be two access routes to the site I think yeah there will be one permanence which is not on Cambridge Road but I think what Nick is saying is a condition can be included to insist construction access is through a temporary entrance on Cambridge Road is that correct Nick? Yes that's exactly correct So there won't be a permanent access construction access will be able to enter and exit the site via Cambridge Road Excellent Councillor Hawkins and then Fane Thank you Chip The plans do show an access of Cambridge Road to parking for two cars when the site is built out Okay is that correct Nick? Yes that's correct I'll just show you the ground floor plan just bear with me so yes there will be two spaces created for residents within the Cambridge Road access Okay presumably that's just the residents that are parking in units 2 and 3 by the looks of it Yes that's correct Just to clarify something Nick said that he might correct me obviously this is on a junction of Cambridge Road and Centinettes Road So I wouldn't want to presuppose that a new temporary access onto Centinettes or Cambridge Road will take place I'm not sure Nick whether or not that's part of the permission I think it's the condition 3 is around traffic management plan potentially utilising the existing site entrance on Centinettes Road I don't know if there's any further clarification on that point because of the proximity and the radius of the junction I'm not sure whether further access is proposed to be created as part of this but Nick can you just clarify that point Yes of course and that's a very valid point The access would only be allowed via the approved access on these drawings before you so any temporary access that isn't in the location of the approved access would need its own permission and its own right So the phrasing of my response initially wasn't as accurate as it should have been what I intended to say was the access that is being created as part of this development if approved would be in the location that you see before you there so that access is created as part of this application and therefore what we would say within the construction management plan is as part of the construction of this development that access shall be the sole access used unless otherwise agreed in writing by the local planning authority because there could well be an instance where for what reasons unbeknown to us at this stage they need to use the St New York's Road Access for I don't know getting certain materials to the front-facing flats but that could be potentially controlled in a more definitive way via planning condition essentially what we're saying is all of the construction access could well come if that's what members request from the Cambridge Road entrance only OK, that's good clarity Nick thank you for your help on that Councillor Fane had a question of clarity as well Yes Nick, I don't know if you can help me on this there's obviously been ongoing some time this was called in by the request of the parish council and your report says at 8 1 that Councillor Chamberlain is in agreement with the parish council can I assume that relates specifically to the call into this committee do you recall whether Councillor Chamberlain had any views on the merits of the application whether he supported their objection or indeed whether you've had any submissions from Councillor Neto since Councillor Chamberlain of course is no longer on the council Yes well that's a good question initially I haven't at any stage spoken to Councillor Chamberlain obviously it predated my time but I have read the correspondence on file and Councillor Chamberlain's email were words to the effect of yes I support this calling and in agreement I am in agreement with the parish and support this calling and that was it separately I have consulted with the new councillor councillor Nealt and for 14 days in the lead up to this application hearing and there's been no responses received Okay thank you Nick Councillor Stobart please Thank you chair There is a brief mention of C2C and one of the root options I believe is in the It's Road so we take the busway right by according to that map the top edge the northern edge of the site does that change the considerations around access and timing I think the answer to that would be we have to judge it on what we have in front of us and the root for C2C hasn't been decided so I think we have to judge it on what is currently there as opposed to what may or may not come in the future I think that will be the official response if any officers want to correct me on that I think that's correct obviously mindful of the public transport corridor that's being created I suppose one could have in mind whether or not there are any implications for the development it doesn't go into the development site there's any suggestion that it will and as the chairs highlighted it is not fixed in terms of alignment the only comment I would make is that obviously a higher quality public transport corridor in front of the site would improve its sustainability in terms of the location of this site relative to concerns that I know are expressed around car parking but it would be premature to draw any firm conclusion on the scheme and finally Councillor Ellington please sorry I didn't quite get the clarity on my question I have a site in my village where a construction entrance was agreed but now when the construction is complete the entrance the highways have refused to allow the entrance to become official and as a farmer now can't get to his land that is causing quite a problem and I just wanted I got Mr Kelly's view that perhaps highways wouldn't agree a entrance for those two parked cars after the construction entrance have been agreed so as I understand it there are two proposed accesses to this site you look on the screen there's one off Cambridge Road which is highlighted in grey and one to the north west as well which is the main access but I think as I understood from the office's response a condition can be sought or is included in the traffic management plan condition which is in front of us that all construction access must be bought on the screen on Cambridge Road as opposed to the one from Sydney at's Road that's how I understood it unless again any officers want to but those two parked cars aren't going to be able to park there if that construction entrance is closed after the construction is complete that's a permanent access that's supposed to be a permanent access after construction is complete highways agreed that perhaps Stephen can come in just to clarify the planning permission grants permission for that those two access points obviously one of them is through other land so I think what condition 3 is seeking to do is to make ensure that unless otherwise agreed with the council that is the access the one in hatched engrave that you can see that is the access point used for construction traffic use yes that's absolutely right Mr Kelly sorry to interrupt I was just stating to add to that that I've got condition 3 in front of me and it does say access to the site the construction site shall be via Cambridge Road access unless otherwise agreed in writing by the local planning authority so essentially we're approving the Cambridge Road access it's on the right hand side of the screen as part of the application as a whole for permanency but that access will be sole access achieved for the development of construction unless otherwise agreed and as I said there may be the odd occasion where the New York Road access needs to be used and on those occasions the developer or applicant will write to us and ask for permission if we refuse that then they will be obligated to use the Cambridge Road access thanks Nick I think that's helpful so for clarity that's page 163 condition 3 and you've got the that's the condition we've been asked to approve today regarding construction access okay I think let's hear from the applicant do we have Mr Chris Dyson with us Mr Dyson if you'd like to come forward to the table so you should have a microphone in front of you with two big grey buttons the button on the right switches the mic on and off and as with previous speakers three minutes or as close to thereof to address the committee at which point if you could stay seated in case there's any questions of clarification for yourself so please whenever you're ready right thank you Jen I don't think I'll need three minutes it's just a few short comments I think you're probably all aware that this site has been an eyesore in the village of Hardwick for it's actually about 16 years now since it burnt down and the building which you've seen in the pictures is just part of what was there originally it did extend across our site as well but it was cleared immediately after the fire so we bought the site in 2017 and we completed the design pretty much as you see it today very shortly after that but we time has just gone by we've had a series of planning officers on the case and as Nick has mentioned we've been through the PREAC process twice and we've had consultations with the urban design team so there's been lots and lots of minor changes to the site and I should perhaps say that since Nick came on board as the case officer things have moved very rapidly and he's been extremely helpful during that time that five years that we've been working on it the adjacent site they started their application two or three years after us but they breezed through the process and got their application approved late last year and because of that approval we then had to make some more changes that Nick has mentioned about the location of balconies but that's all been dealt with and I think is satisfactory I want to speak to the objections that have been received the parish council who requested that it be called in we had a previous application in from 2019 which was withdrawn the parish council supported that application and actually if you looked at two images of the two applications you'd struggle to see the difference between them so it's somewhat bizarre that they support one application but now they're objecting to the current one but obviously that's their privilege there's also objections from a number of other objections but three of them apparently are all from the owner of the commercial building next door and his motivation is that he wants to get the right of way of removed because the right of way to both of these developments goes across his land he actually owned this site and the adjacent site long ago so presumably when he sold the site he gave this right of way he'd now like to get rid of the right of way so it's important that we are just over time if you could conclude that's his motivation so just he mentions refugee spins refugee spins are going to be collected from Cambridge roads that's not an issue one important point concerning construction traffic is that we've now after a long time got provisional agreement with BT to use their land the other side of their building for site parking the site office and welfare and so on and materials so we should be able to get all the access through there rather than through the new access one other little point as electric car charging was mentioned in a previous discussion this morning so I'll just add that we will be providing car chargers for all of their parking spaces brilliant thank you very much members do you have any questions of clarification for the agents of the applicants councillor Hawkins please thank you chair thank you Mr Sen for your presentation question really is you commented that the parish council previously supported previous design that looks like this and the parish council time the next one then I'm not supporting it did you actually have a discussion as to what they would have liked to have seen rather than this sorry that was a question for me he was definitely for you I think it was around your engagement with the parish council regarding the scheme yes the engagement with the parish council was through the agents at Carter Jonas so I haven't had any direct conversations with them but that was my understanding that they were in support of the original application that is irrelevant because what we are considering now is something that they did not want that they objected to the question really is why didn't you and your agent find out from them what design they would have preferred to have seen and why didn't you work with them to get something that they wouldn't objected to well their objection as I understand it is primarily that it's a three story block with a flat roof and they don't like the flat roof they would rather see a pitched roof but everything else the urban design team is in favour of it the planning officer and officers have been in favour of it it's a statement considered to be a statement building in a prominent location as you approach hardwick village from Cambridge and well we stand by that thought really that it's a beautiful design and it will be a high quality construction and a benefit to the village Thank you for that Members any final questions for the Councillor Harvey please Thank you chair I just noticed the one of the conditions around where to go if there isn't sufficient grid capacity either for the air source heat pumps or the electric electric vehicle charging and I just wondered if you had any indication there there might be difficulty in obtaining grid capacity and what would be your plans if you couldn't if that's a fair question to ask there's not something we've looked at but we don't anticipate there being any problem we haven't finalised designs for the potential for PV panels on the roof but we hope to be able to do that and what we would like would be to have some PV panels on the roof and the battery system to feed the car chargers but we don't anticipate there being a problem Thank you very much I think those are all the questions for yourself so just leaves me to say thank you very much for taking the time to come and speak to us this morning but we appreciate your patience and you, as I said, taking the time so thank you very much Members, we have no further public speakers so we will now be moving into the debate part of the the session so again we have another opportunity to ask any questions of clarification of officers and it's probably the time we need to start formulating a view on this members so we'll kick off with Councillor Hawkins please anything but what's then that will be an improvement that's for sure it's two things that I think I just want to three actually first of all I notice that there's nothing at all here in this proposal on how much bird of us did not gain that they have assessed that they could get now whether or not it meets the minimum but I do note that there is a condition for the down the line but we must make sure that that condition is met, it's pre commencement because I don't see that they'll be able to achieve that on this side that's my feeling second thing is the parking there is an assumption that's been made that if we live in these flats if they get planning permission we'll only have one car or maybe no cars are we forgetting that this is a village location yes there you know a couple of buses every hour buses going into town it doesn't mean it's going where people want to go villagers those who live in villages have always had issues with getting to where they want to go on time in good time with public transport so for me that assumption is unfair and whilst the potential is there for better public transport in future what is there now as far as I'm concerned is not sufficient and the third point that I want to make is this our first application we consider today took away three story buildings we looked like four stories lower high buildings and here we are being asked to approve three story building which will have uses on the top of it so effectively a four story building in a prominent location in a village I know this site very well I used to go to the take the Indian takeaway that burns the building down it was very good food and it was a loss and the site has been yes looking awful since then but please the fact that urban and this is the other thing urban design says it's great our villagers are complaining that we are turning villages into urban areas they don't want three story buildings next door is two stories with a pitch roof the office buildings are effectively two stories yes it's a prominent location and let me just make a point here when we did the village design guides we now have nine I think three story buildings they would rather have open spaces in prominent locations not significant looking buildings it's a complete difference there's a difference in village thinking to urban thinking and so for me whilst there's no other objections or anything like that I'm sorry I cannot support this three story building in this location no let's give villagers what they want not what we want as planning officers or urban designers owners please I am not supporting this on that basis it's out of keeping it's out of character and frankly I don't even like this one okay so I think there were some concerns raised there but also a question for officers around the biodiversity net gain whether that has or can be achieved on this site Nick or Stephen I don't know if either of you can comment on that element Nick can you comment on biodiversity net gain and I'll come back to the point about urbanism yes well I think the first point to raise would probably be to respectfully remind oneself because the site is in a very kind of decrepit state at the moment with no biodiversity of any stature on site so a clearing of the site and a well landscape plot there is 74 square metres of landscaping and then there is a whole host of additional soft planting trees planted around the outside additional hedging all of which aren't in existence at present so that should quite comfortably be achieved on site bearing in mind what is there in situ and equally that requirement is defined within conditions 13 so officers are confident that a 10% biodiversity uplift will be comfortably achieved in this instance Thanks Nick and obviously on page 151 page 1056 the applicants have prepared a preliminary ecological assessment which has been reviewed by the council's ecology officer who takes a view that a condition is appropriate and reasonable in the circumstances of the current sites condition and the opportunities provided to enhance it so we haven't got a requirement in policy 20% net gain at this moment in time we've got a requirement for net gain we aspire for 10 in fact in the new local plan obviously we aspire for 20% net gain but I think based on the advice that we've got there's nothing to say that the objectives around biodiversity net gain cannot be achieved through the condition I absolutely recognise the comments about character I think your advice would feel slightly aggrieved if it was considered that it's only interested in urban areas and certainly I know that the assessment process and consideration part of which Nick has gone through in terms of both the rural setting of the site but obviously the approach of the site in a fundamentally commercial corner of the village I drove along myself this morning as well to also consider the concerns and objections but noted very much a kind of small scale but very much a commercial focus to the site and the immediate adjoining site when you drive along certainly as road and clearly as you turn into Cambridge Road it breaks down into a much more village sort of feel but it certainly isn't something having regard to your policies that would be prevented in terms of either the form or style or design but contemporary form of the flat roof building particularly in seeing in the commercial premises which are not traditional village forms in terms of their appearance and the broad frontages and car parking areas isn't something that certainly officers have considered to be harmful to the character of the locality which is actually quite mixed but of course it's a matter for members and it's a matter for your judgment in those circumstances OK thank you I think that was helpful we have a few more speakers on the list now we have councillor Sanford then Ellington then Handling Peter Thank you chair first of all I'd like to echo I think it was councillor Hawking his comments about parking there is insufficient parking on the site and off the top of my head I can't see any alternative parking for visitors and the inevitable second car and also concerned about the safety aspects of putting another access albeit for two cars close to a very busy junction I think I've had a near miss at the junction of Cambridge Road in the past so that would be a little concern from my perspective that's St Neil's Road is a mishmash of residential properties and commercial properties of various types some of them pretty shabby at the moment so visually this would be a good enhancement to the area I think I'm trying to balance the considerations that's good to hear your views councillor let's hear from councillor Ellington please I am absolutely on the same page as councillor if you've heard to me Hawking's I agree entirely with what she said and I would again like to thank her for her approach thank you councillor councillor Handley please thank you chair I usually agree with what councillor Hawking says on this occasion I lean more towards what Peter Samford has said this is a mix commercial residential road it's not in the middle of a village of the village and I think we've got to take it we've got to assess it in that context and I agree also I agree with councillor Samford that parking and councillor Hawking's that parking is a worry on here there is insufficient and I can imagine though because sort of parked all over the place basically if it's built but as a three-story structure on this junction I don't find it I'm not as offended by it as a couple of other councillors are clearly thank you very much councillor Stoball please thank you chair well on a different aspect of this development the comments about air source and I'm assuming that means heating but potentially also cooling this is welcome I'm just pondering whether one unit per dwelling is a good way to go I mean it makes for simplicity and it means still means that if there was solar PV to be shared between the EV charging points and the heat pumps air conditioning units then that could be made to work as well so this is potentially a good architecture but I think needs attention in the delivery to make sure that the system is appropriately optimised maybe that means sharing some plants and equipment between different apartments but I think that could be made to work so that aspect I think has the potential to be a good solution good thank you very much and we have councillor Harvey did I see you indicating a ddechrau I just really like to agree with councillor Harvey actually and this used to be on my cycling route to work and cycle past that building very often when before it was burnt down and after that but I think there is a good case for something that breaks the monotony along that road and we'll see if it's slow on a bike then in a car but I think I think sometimes that building is a good thing sometimes it isn't but I would I would be in favour of of it in this case thank you very much I'll give you the benefit of my opinion at this stage then whilst I do have also concerns regarding the number of parking spaces not being policy compliance and also the building height on this occasion and I haven't always agreed with our statutory consultees but on this occasion I don't feel in a position to second guess our urban design and highways officers regarding those two points so on balance I will likely be supporting the application as I said unless I hear any any strong arguments the other way so that's where my planning balance is lying at the moment councillor Fein please Chairman I have very little to add to what you've just said but I will do so anyway I think we need to bear in mind both the historical and geographical context for this as others have mentioned this has been a nice for 16 years it's worth bearing in mind that the previous application on this site 2019 was for a similar building which had been designed before the next door building which happens to be two stories with Apex now on the question of design I think we have to take very seriously what the parish council say they would prefer a two story building with an Apex roof but as the director pointed out and others have confirmed this is a very mixed geographical context there are a lot of commercial buildings not all them very smart along that site and I think we have to respect Mr Darson's systems that having gone through this process with urban design and taken into account their views the current proposals have been informed from this process that went on until May of last year that he and his company sticks by their original design proposals for this and I think we should respect that just on the minor matter of the car parking I think perhaps unlike Councillor Hawkins I am satisfied but because of the the communities around it and the very good public transport available there it is reasonable to that the car parking needs likely car parking needs are met and there would indeed be some minor improvements as far as arrangements for next door are concerned with the potential for turning and going out on to Cynliad's road Cynliad's road forward so taking into account those factors I am like you Chairman inclined to support the officer recommendation of this Thank you very much Councillor Fein Members I think all of us have chipped into this debate now but I will offer members an opportunity to add anything that hasn't already been mentioned or back up a point that they made earlier Councillor Hawkins Thank you chair for letting me come back Let me just make this clear The design team do a very good job and they know I support them so it's my objection to this is not to do with the work that they do is to do with this side where it is and the fact that we need I know where this is going but we need to make sure that we don't stick a finger at local people by insisting on having landmark buildings where they don't want landmark buildings We are not the ones going to live there we are not the ones I mean yes I go to the post office I go to the shop and the thing is when the shop is busy people park on Cambridge Road sometimes almost all the way up to where this second entrance is going to be so when they have visitors what's going to happen where they are going to park it's a busy road at the best of times so just clarifying that No I think that's all clear Do any members I think we've all given a view one way or the other on this Do any members want to add anything that hasn't already been said? No I don't see that Do any members want to ask any final questions that will help make their mind up or are we in a position now to make a decision on this I think we're there then Members as I think we are going to be split on this we will do an electronic vote so I'm going to ask Democratic Services if they could set this up so the recommendation is on page 162 and that is to grant approval for the scheme that we've been discussing with the various conditions that are outlined in the report so members what we need to do in order to vote is to register we're here if we're in agreement with that and we want to vote for approval we press green to vote against it we press red and to abstain on the decision we press yellow so if all members could vote please how many of us are there 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 so I think that's everyone if them services could display the result in the absence of being able to display on the screen I'll read out we have 8 votes in total 6 votes in favour 2 against so that application is approved so thank you very much everyone for all your input and with that members I think we'll probably have a lunch break there so it is 11 minutes past 1 if we come back at quarter to 2 35 minutes we will then carry on with the rest of the agenda so thank you very much everyone thank you officers and we will break there thank you thank you very much and everyone welcome back to this meeting of South Cambershire District Council's planning committee we're up to agenda item number 9 today's proceedings which starts at page 177 of our PACs members the application is at number 61 Street the End West Wickham the application in front of us is the replacement of an existing single glazed window with a double glazed unit the reason this is in front of us is because it's been called in by the local member council the Jeff Harvey the applicant is Mr Robert Giles and the presenting officer who's joining us physically in the room is Mr Tom Chennery so Tom I will hand over to you to let members know if there are any updates to the report in front of us and then to introduce the report for members please share my presentation so just bear with me a second thank you chair there are no updates on the application the proposal seeks list of building consent for the replacement of the windows and doors at the host site which is a grade 2 list of building known as 61 Street the End West Wickham the officer officers are recommending refusal of the scheme the slide shows the site location plan of the farm obviously there are no adjoining neighbours apart from the building to the north which is also a list of building the next slide shows once again just an aerial imagery of the application site the application site is the site in red so as chairman stated earlier the application has been called in by council Harvey the main considerations that we request the members consider today are the impact of the on the fabric and the significance of the list of building of the proposal and we should also be considering the public benefits of the proposal and the weight that this carries there is some history on the site and there has been some minor alterations to the building and the last dating back to 2015 just run the members through some slides of photos of the site and these are taken pretty recently I think about a week ago and this is just the front elevation these are views from streetly end itself so this would be from a public viewpoint towards the dwelling there are some outbuildings which do block some of the views from this road this is a viewpoint to the west of the site from the public footpath there is some mature vegetation in between but the house is visible from the public footpath and the next slide shows once again that this is from the public footpath itself so it does show that the windows and those are visible from public viewpoints so the applicant within their information within the application provided some details of dating which windows are to be replaced I've refrained from using recent images of this because the applicant's images provide a bit more clarity so obviously the red lines point to the windows that are seeking to be replaced so all of them on the front elevation although it's had chaotic the image also shows that essentially all of the windows and also the back door on the rear elevation would also be replaced the same goes for the side elevation this is not the side that faces the public footpath this is within the farm the farm itself but all the windows are being seen to be replaced and this elevation is the side elevation as shown on the previous images so this is the elevation which is visible from the public footpath and all the windows on this one are seeking to be replaced within the heritage statement they provided a table indicating what is to be replaced describing the current windows and also what they were to be replaced with so the windows would be replaced with pine windows so they would be double glazed and I understand they would have a thickness of 24mm within those windows here are the sectional window details that have been provided to us of the windows this is as much information that has been provided regarding how they would appear so regarding the council's determination there is a hierarchy of policies starting with section 16 of the Listed Building Conservation Areas Act so it starts with that it then filters down to the National Planning Policy Framework in which section 16 is very clear in how the council should determine an application specifically regarding listed buildings paragraph 200 states that any harm to a designated heritage asset should require clear and convincing justification it specifically relates to a Grade 2 Listed Building and then paragraph 202 which is also important for this states where development would lead to less than substantial harm this should be weighed against the public benefits of the proposal including where appropriate security is on the viable use next hierarchy of policies within the local plan which policy HNAH 14 specifically relates to this and then the next one down would be the Listed Buildings SPD which is a payment document there are some details I will refrain from going through each of the documents and what specifically what they say but if members would like to come back to that later point for more detail I'm more than happy to that would be the Historic England guidance so there is guidance regarding specific guidance regarding the modifying of historic windows and energy efficiency when it comes to blazing and also the repair of windows on historic buildings so regarding the application as a summary there were no adjacent neighbours so there were no objections no response from Westwood Comparative Council the conservation officer was then consulted on the scheme they objected due to the appearance not being in character with the Listed Building the replacement windows would fail to make a positive contribution to the Listed Building and as such would be harmful and as a result the proposal would be contrary to local plan policies Historic England guidance and also the MPPF the sustainability officer was also consulted although they were supportive of the principle of development they did note that any double glazing or any effect of change in windows would be a benefit but there was not enough information to fully assess the proposal and in addition to this there was no other detail provided regarding other environmental performance improvements that could be achieved just the double glazed windows on their own I've just highlighted the member comments because there was quite a lot there's a bit of history on the site but I just thought I'd make it clear this is also in point paragraph 8 of the officer's report this is all highlighted within there so just to conclude the proposal is considered to cause harm to the significance and fabric of the building the public benefits in this instance would be the environmental benefits associated with lower energy use the council considers that the proposed benefits are considered to be limited and that limited information has been provided in order for the council to fully assess the difference between the existing windows and the proposed and that is difficult to assess the carbon footprint impact as it is difficult to assess the carbon footprint because obviously with new windows there is the whole life carbon cycle that detail was not provided and no information has also been provided in the other works that could be carried out to the building which would have a greater impact on the efficiency of the building thank you chair thank you very much for that presentation thank you thank you very much for that presentation Tom members we do have two public speakers on this but as usual if anyone has any questions of clarification for the officer on their presentation please do say now councillor Hawkins thank you chair thanks Tom just a simple question really did the applicants refuse to provide the information because you made quite a number of statements about not having enough information were they asked did they refuse why don't we have the information I was not party to when the application was first submitted and the decision being made for refusal so I wasn't I'm not entirely sure of the conversations that were had regarding that all I can comment on is that the information was provided with the application the sustainability officer did highlight that within there I can't comment on whether they refused or not sorry thanks for that clarification it's just when I looked at the list of documentation there's a lot from pre 2020 but I can't get anything going forward I just wondered why correspondence or communication and it is been we've had it a long time anyway from my I was not the original case officer dealing with the application so I can only advise on what I was dealt with from my understanding of the application essentially the council had already come to the decision quite some months ago but we were waiting for comments from the sustainability officer and for the application to be able to go to committee which is why there was quite a long period between those dates we also do have the applicant with us today so perhaps we can ask the applicant directly about that Members any further questions of clarification on the officer's presentation then I can't see any so with that we will then come to the applicant so Mr Rob Giles who's already in position welcome I understand you've got a bit of showing tail for us as well you brought a few props to aid your case as it were I know you've been here for most of the day so 30 thank you for your patience secondly rules are the same as with the other speakers so three minutes to address the committee at the end of which there may be some questions of clarification for yourself so if you wouldn't mind staying seated at the end and then we'll take any questions should there be any so please if you want to pick anything up and get it in position before you start please do but three minutes in your own time sorry would you mind pressing the microphone button it's the silver one on the right you're on South Cambridge council declared a climate emergency in 2019 and that it is green to our core as the residents of Street Yen Farmhouse we cannot agree that our proposal would adversely affect the character of our home when the current windows are standard 1980s single pane pine their replacement has no impact on the fabric of the building and the original window openings will not be affected the windows will have a lifespan of around 40 years a transient change for a 400 year old building and it's highly reversible in the future to paraphrase 199 of the NPPF the more important the asset the greater the weight to the asset's conservation compared to other grade 2 listed properties such as Alexandra Palace and the iconic BT tower our house is of less unique significance it does not seem the converse principle of the less important the asset the less weight should be applied to its conservation is being applied no historic feature would be lost the property has been significantly altered over time lost its feature chimney stack and had an entire section demolished the conservation officer is content we fit double glazing yet insists on 16mm heritage glazing as submitted to the planning officer some parts of the window trade highlight heritage windows do not meet the EN1279 standard and as such are illegal to fit I have a 1980s window and one of our current 24mm windows here to present to you the 24mm window does not have the negative features that the conservation officer refers to to pass by the 16 and 24mm windows would look identical in the photo provided to the committee it is difficult to distinguish between the current single glazing and the 2015 double glazed window which you saw in the photos and there is a far greater difference between the current single glazing that we have and the 24mm glazing that we are proposing the statement that 16mm glazing is somehow more appropriate and 24mm glazing is not is prefaced by preferred it is the personal opinion of the conservation officer not based on any historical basis whatsoever we have provided data showing that the 28mm window will be 30% more efficient than the 16mm heritage window extrapolating from this using a straight line comparison a 24mm window will be approximately 20% more efficient we cannot create a direct comparison the data is not available to us but it is obvious that a larger gap gives more energy efficiency energy efficiency With a cost of living crisis a climate emergency and a green to the core council I cannot see how the council would deny us any opportunity to save energy as much as practicable with a transient feature of our home Thank you very much almost to the second so thank you for keeping to time I know you have the windows here I probably would be helpful if you maybe brought them in front so members could see I put them there side by side I wasn't sure whether the members wanted to go up so on the left hand side I have a window removed from my home today from the middle floor and on the right hand side we have the window which was installed in 2015 when we achieved planning permission and it was signed off by the planning authority to have a 24mm glazing window so effectively what we want to do is replace all of our single windows with a copy of the one on the right which is already installed in the home so the main issue seems to be the thickness of the frame so I think it's probably better if people go up and they can actually assess the window We have a glamorous assistant Mr Kelly bringing them in front of the committee so we can have a look as it seems to me this application revolves around the aesthetic change I think it's handy if members do get an indication of what the one on the left which is the current and the one on our right or my right which is the proposed new window I think it's useful if members for those watching online we have a few members just inspecting the windows we haven't gone quiet for those members that do have any questions for the applicant if you can wait until we're back at the mic so everyone can hear what the questions are and then the responses will be helpful I think that was helpful if you can visit there where the site came to us so I appreciate you doing that for us Mr Giles that's helpful so following that members do we have any having had that presentation do members have any questions of clarification for Mr Giles the applicant there Councillor Williams please Thank you very much Mr Giles I think you mentioned in your presentations some data about the energy efficiency can you just confirm but it would be useful to know when that was provided and who was provided to in this long process I submitted it by email over the last year I believe so the data came from George Barnstale who we have had the quote and the technical drawings from they were able to find me with a 28mm comparison but not the direct 24 at the time and I haven't chased it any further Thank you Councillor Sanford Thank you chair a similar question from me can I refer the committee to paragraph 4.4 on page 179 which states the conservation officer states that no details of the exact materials of depth of the window were submitted the applicant of the local council would dispute this would you like to say by all the information required to the conservation officer I thought we did I thought we sent in fairly comprehensive plans it became quite apparent with the previous conservation officer when she came to a site visit that in her opinion it was best that we kept our current rotting windows and fitted secondary glazing something which we did not agree on so I did very much lose faith in the process at that point I think following on from that we hopefully can clarify the council's position on that a bit further so yes that's obviously the conservation officer's comment but the applicants and the application file online do show the information submitted on the 5th of March by the applicant around this the sustainability officers response to that additional information was to highlight obviously there with me a second I'll just open it but I seem to recall that they highlighted the weren't seeking to dispute the the figures but were suggesting that notwithstanding those figures just there with me a oh actually sorry sorry just because I was obviously partied to the sustainability officer's comment I think the details were submitted by the applicant regarding that I think one of the sticking points especially the conservation officer and the sustainability officer had was that the details that were provided were of the wrong window type so it was 28mm so we weren't able to accurately assess what sustainability benefits would be available as a result of that the sustainability officer did comment on it and they did mention that essentially that there would be sustainability benefits as a result of the details that Mr Giles provided however they did comment within their comments that there is up to essentially it's not her position to comment on whether the impacts of the listed building are that's not for them to decide but they also went into quite a significant detail about potential other sustainability or energy improvements that the Dirling could achieve that would not necessarily cause harm for example insulation etc so but obviously we're not considering that we're only considering the windows so I think it's important for members to understand that yes additional information was provided however council is of the opinion that that information was not sufficient enough and as relating to the MPPF that it's a clear justify clear and convincing justification to outweigh the harm but that is for members to decide whether the sustainability of these windows would outweigh the harm essentially but that detail was received and provided and that was consulted upon with both the conservation officer and the sustainability officer thank you councillor Fane has a question for Mr Giles yes Mr Giles I don't know whether you've ever had an EPC done on your house if you have it would have recommended certain measures including double glazing and it would have assessed the potential cost and impact of that but if that's not the case have you gotten the information on the U value of the two windows under consideration because this is the key factor that would determine its benefits in terms of energy efficiency and carbon saving we've not had an EPC done on the property great to Mr properties are exempt so it's not need to be done for any instance of sale or rental purpose although we could yes have one done however that has a very niche field the property was extensively renovated in the 1980s so it has been clad in cement render amongst a number of other features what we have tried to apply is the natural influence whole building plan kind of concepts so at the moment we're just trying to get windows through but we need to get the windows done before we can get the concrete render off and then redo that render in line so there is a whole building plan that's fairly simple for what is a wooden framed building boss and age in terms of the U values that data was submitted specifically with U value and energy numbers but for that 28mm window not the 24mm however taking a straight line comparison between the 16 and the 28 I think it's fairly safe to assume that 24mm does offer that 20% increase in energy efficiency in actual fact it's not going to be a straight line because the benefits of the thickness of glazing dissipate as they get thicker so we should have probably between 20% and 30% increase in efficiency Thank you very much Members any final questions for Mr Giles Councillor Hawkins you're looking quizzical If I may I've just been looking at the I think it was a letter you sent on the 5th of March last year and that was one that had the email from George Bansdale who are the suppliers I just need to clarify this because the email from George Bansley talks about 28mm glazing not the 24mm I presume you asked them to ask for information on the 24mm not 28mm So I believe I had a phone conversation with the lady who provided the data the email which came through was for the 28mm not for the 24mm I did send an email to try and get that changed but I think they thought they had provided the information and I haven't had a response from them and I haven't chased it yet it would have helped and this has been going on for sort of three years and it's taking up to consider about my time and I had to draw a line somewhere I think that has answered the question Members if there's no further questions to Mr Giles it just needs me to say thank you very much for taking the time to come in and speak to us today and for dismantling your home to speak to us today we really appreciate it So with that members we'll move on to our next speaker who is Councillor Harvey and it's worth just reminding everyone that's watching that Councillor Harvey expressed an interest so he isn't taking any part in the debate or vote on this item but he is still addressing us as local member so Councillor Harvey if you'd like to give us your thoughts in three minutes that would be great Yes thank you chair I did have a brief word before this so I was wondering oh yes thank you Lawrence a brief few seconds in lieu of a site visit so this shows the cat slide window above which is the 2015 double glazed unit that we've got in the chamber here compared with the 1980s unit and you can see the 1980s unit is actually on a 1950s extension and tiled extension and notice on the reflection of the original single glazed window that even in 1980 joinery precision was such that you can't actually see any of these effects that talked about on page 181 where we're supposed to be able to see slight angulation in the different panes leading to a sort of additional visual interest because actually they're completely co-planer and if you look at that very carefully of that effect at all in other words if that were a single pane of glass with a fixed glazing bars it would look identical. If you can move to the next picture that just gives a closer side by side comparison again you can see the one on the left effectively it could be a single co-planer piece of glass you wouldn't see any difference and then on the right the 2015 double glazed unit here in the chamber and then the final picture please and this just shows the internal and you can see on the left hand picture what's interesting there is that contrary to what the conservation officer said in her original report the spacer bars internally are not aluminium coloured, they've been coloured to match the frame and I think to the inattendent passerby you'd agree that those two pictures would look very similar. I would also draw your attention to in the pictures photographs that we saw earlier the thinness of the vertical bar in the photographs and I'll now go on to my written presentation perhaps preface that by just saying that a lot of additional information has been brought in in this report that wasn't raised in the original report on the portal and that partly answers Councillor Toomey Hawkins' point National Planning Policy Framework gives the committee discretion to weigh the balance between the harm to a heritage asset and a public benefit and this council has both declared a climate emergency and past emotion that this balance should address climate change in effect the MPPS says the less important the asset the less of the weight should be given to heritage conservation so inevitably in some cases public benefit and climate change mitigation will outweigh conservation in the judgement of this committee though the MPPS obliges us to give great weight to heritage conservation nowhere does it say that we should not also give great weight to climate change mitigation and we should we are in a climate emergency the argument for refusal is based on the assertion that climate change mitigation has no weight or is negligible and on page 186 of the report section 1024 the conservation officers consider that the energy saved would not be discernible at a public benefit level and by this flawed logic we would never act on climate change since individual efforts would always be diluted by the enormous volume of the global atmosphere now I don't know about fiddling Rome burns but this is an example of fiddling the maths while Rome burns on page 182 section 6.16 we are told that we need the figures on the overall efficiency of the building we don't the payback period both in carbon cost and money cost is entirely determined by the interior and external temperatures the heat losses would be the same in whatever house the windows fitted heritage grade implies that it is now a superior product but in engineering terms it's an inferior one and I've read of concerns in the industry that many of these heritage grade units as Mr Giles mentioned would not pass British standards 1279 part 2 for moisture penetration nor part 3 for gas leakage rate and gas concentration tolerances glazing bars compromise the seal design leading to increase moisture presentation and gas loss and make it more likely that these units are in landfill before repaying their embedded carbon cost and embedded carbon cost is something that is important and has been overlooked in the report because it does affect the planning balance and it needs to be justified now what is the difference in appearance that causes the 24mm double glazing unit to be ruinous to the character of this building while a 16mm one is not please judge this in a modern context using the discretion that the law gives us Thank you very much Councillor I think it was very helpful for the committee Members do you have any questions of clarity for the local member Councillor Fane Chairman, Councillor Harvey referred to the motion which was passed at this council can you just remind us what that required the council to do in terms of assessing the benefit that you referred to It required us to give our reasons in terms of climate change mitigation for a refusal and it also required us to make available if necessary a senior sustainability expert Haven't got the motion in front of me I think those are the two substantive items Members any further or final questions for the local member I don't see any so Councillor Harvey thank you very much for that presentation with that members we'll move into the debate so as usual we still have the opportunity to ask questions of clarity of officers and we can start formulating an opinion on this one please Members Councillor Hanley to start us off It's the first time I've ever got in first with a question I have to say I've no reason to doubt that officers have applied the rules that have established that this is in no way a commentary on their decision making at all but we're probably having a discussion today that should have been having 1985 quite honestly this isn't having to caught palace or a chocolate box cottage on the river store we're talking about a family home which has already been changed substantially over the years and surely the rules that apply to this house should be quite different to those that would apply to one of those properties that I've just described it just seems to me as an anomaly here this gentleman and his family want to make their houses as energy efficient as they can make it and basically the appearance is not going to be changed by what they're doing from what's there already so I know rules are rules but I think here we need to show flexibility and I think almost we've got a bit of a test case to be honest because this could well happen again with a similar application coming again if we get better advice and guidance to officers to apply to maybe buildings which are substantially historically you know have to be protected and those which are listed but have been substantially changed as this one has over the years I think we just need to have some common sense on this one to be perfectly honest thank you Just briefly in defence of the officers they do work to policy so they're quite limited in the decisions they make but I appreciate your comment I was making at the beginning I'm not doubting that they've applied the rules as they stand, it's up to us to change the rules and I suspect that we may have to look at this after this case Absolutely I think the point's been taken I think Mr Kelly will have to come back on it Just for absolute clarity the legislation is exactly the same for Hampton Court policies it is for this dwelling but you're quite right that you're required to consider the significance of the heritage asset in the assessment of the harm to it and and have regard to that when considering the public benefit but it's not Councillor Harvey said that there should be a legislative provision in respect of the climate emergency that the fact of the matter is is the way the planning regime is configured is that there is a very clear emphasis that you have a statutory obligation as the planning authority to consider in the very first instance before everything else the presumption in favour of preservation of the assets now that doesn't mean in today's context that you can't reach a decision that's contrary to officers but I think in discussing this matter today it's really important that you understand that you have a legal obligation or anything else to consider the presumption in favour of preservation you then need to consider and you're not bound by your conservation officers advice you do though need to understand the framework of the decision and particularly the role of heritage buildings heritage assets in that so it's not to decry the significance of the climate emergency but the planning legislation doesn't recognise it in the same way at the moment and I just want to make that clear before you make your decision the decision is with you but a number of statements have been made about we need to rebalance this and the legislative provision and Vanessa will correct me would be not at this moment in time you can't do that you're required to approach it through that legal framework you can weight the public balance differently and you can consider the significance of the heritage assets and the significance of the features of the heritage assets but you are always bound to proceed on the premises of a presumption in favour of preservation and then the harm and the public benefit trade officer that Councillor Harvey and the applicant have highlighted and indeed which the officer reports also just to be clear then Mr Kelly if we take a decision to not support the officer recommendation today that might happen I mean you know who's going to appeal again to what we decide today is it something we can do legitimately? Of course you can what you would need to conclude is that in your view the public benefit associated with the improvement in the performance of the building and its carbon footprint is sufficient to outweigh the harm to the heritage significance of the building that you have assessed having regard to all the matters in front of you so I'm certainly not saying that as a committee you cannot draw that conclusion but a number of statements have been made about the policy emphasis and the way the policy lies and I just want to be clear that it's one of the few areas in planning where there is a very clear registry mandate for you in terms of your purpose and that purpose starts with safeguarding heritage assets and you can then form your judgement away away from that or indeed away from the recommendation I think it's useful for the committee members to understand that Vanessa Thank you chair through you just to confirm you can take your alternative view to that that's been recommended there would be the applicant I'm sorry so can you still hear me so if someone didn't like the decision of the committee they would approach you by having a judicial review not an appeal because that would be the applicant and they wouldn't be that presumably the applicant wouldn't appeal an approval should we go down that rates I've got a few other speakers but Jeff can you switch your mic off first thanks Councillor Williams is next on the list Thank you chair and thank you Mr Kelly as well I think that was very helpful I'll be brief having seen the two windows and having seen the photographs I think my view is that the harm to the heritage asset is minor if we were talking about the windows themselves being of some heritage value so if the windows were fitted in 1689 I would require a slightly higher burden to be passed to rip them out but given that they wouldn't they were fitted in the 1980s I think the harm to the building to the heritage asset is minor as a result of that and I think is more than outweid by the public benefit that we've talked about so I can't myself see any reason not to approve this with the caveat of course that I think the officers have done their job correctly and I don't criticise the officers but I come to a different view Thank you very much and as has been mentioned planning is a balance all we as committee members choose to to proportion that balance Councillor Sanford please your next Go on Peter Thank you chair Councillor Dr Williams actually made the same comment that I was going to I cannot see any difference even fairly close up between those two windows and I'm sure anyone passing by the property would not notice a difference so I think we are the heritage asset we're just predicting in a different way to which the officers recommended Thank you very much for that and we have Councillor Fein please Well this is a balance clearly as the director and our legal advisor have explained our first duty here but there is a balance against the public benefits of the proposal it is quite clear to me as was set out by Councillor Harvey that the windows proposed would be likely to be significantly more lower U value and to have greater public benefits probably to last significantly longer like others I find it difficult to see the difference I recognise the expertise of the heritage and conservation officers on that I think SPD chapter 11 relates to existing windows as was pointed out these are replacement windows that we're talking about we're not protecting the original windows I'm sorry that we weren't able to look at the actual U values because that is the key test but I think it would be very hard to say in terms of this council's commitment to both in our business plan being green to the core and in the motion that Councillor Harvey referred to and the procedures that apply to our consideration of such cases that we did not regard the energy conservation as well as other conservation as being a high public priority and one that should weigh heavily in cases such as this and given what I've seen of the windows themselves I found it very hard to say we should not come to a different decision from that recommended by the officers okay thank you for that because of Stay Barty waving at me so reflecting Councillor Williams Councillor Sandford's view actually like the express view that the visual the change to the visual just looking at the samples reflecting on what they might be like if the slightly thicker frame was installed inclusion we can draw is actually there's very little difference visually but you know if the proposal had been for triple raising and a slightly thicker where would we have drawn the line I mean we seem to be drawing a sensible line I think but are we learning properly from this example as to what is an acceptable point so I would support my colleagues and also their views but I just want to be sure that we're not in the sense creating a decision point which is in some way arbitrary I just want to be sure that yes if we did this again we'd reach the same conclusion or in a similar set of circumstances we reached that conclusion so we thought of an aesthetic and we've concluded that it's okay would we be sure to apply those same standards in the future in other words we'll be learning correctly in making this kind of fine judgement I think that's a fair point to make Members we've heard lots of comments positively for the application does anyone of the same view of the officer and think the application should be refused or speaking in support of that recommendation I don't see anyone so I'll Councillor Hawkins Sorry I just wanted to make a point I was putting my hands up before you mentioned the negative bit I just wanted to say on our website on the Greater Cambridge Planning website we do have a page that talks about how to make historic buildings more energy efficient and changing windows or making them more tight fitting is one of those and I support what my other colleagues have said but I just wanted to make that point I do support making this energy efficient changes and of course for me the fact that we already had approved when I was in the 24mm previously approved says to me that there's no reason why we can't approve another set of 24mm windows to be used thank you So what I'm hearing is I think the general consensus I've misread the room is that members are more inclined to approve the application rather than refuse so I will offer officers an opportunity to come back on that before we do make a decision Thank you Chair Obviously we've heard the debate I think if you are minded to approve the application contrary to our recommendation we would recommend that you included a condition capturing the approved plans and details that were submitted that are on the website that show the window dimensions and so on because that seems to have been a central part of your judgment and also that you require the conventional condition in terms of time limits for commencement of the works but it is a matter for you you've weighed up the significance and impact on the heritage matters and but my recommendation would be if you do draw a conclusion to approve the application that you include those two additional conditions alongside your decision So I can summarise one is the usual condition around time limits for undertaking the work and the second condition was around building to the approved plans that we have on file for this particular property is that correct? Members, should we vote in favour of this application does anyone have any issues with including those two conditions as part of the approval? Nope, okay Members, last opportunity for any questions or final comments before we go to a decision? Nope, I don't see any so we have a recommendation on page 187 in front of us which is to refuse the application for the various reasons outlined Members, what I've been hearing is that members are are generally supportive of the application so can I ask if anyone wishes to vote to refuse or wishes to abstain on this? No, I see no one indicating so can I take it that with the two conditions that Mr Kelly just outlined we're all in favour of approving this application? Agreed? Yes, okay we'll take that as a unanimous agreement then obviously without the vote of Councillor Harvey who's withdrawn for this item so that application is approved so thank you very much again to officers and Mr Giles for helping us with that decision with the physical demonstration of the windows so thank you very much for taking the time to come into us today Members, I think we've been going for about four hours now can I just get general agreement for everyone that we're okay to continue? Is that agreement? Agreed? Good, thank you very much Okay Members, we're moving on now to agenda item number ten which is an application at number two duck end in Gertan the application in front of us is for the demolition of existing garage and store and the erection of a single store inside and rear extensions and rear dorma and front three dormas this is a retrospective application as this has already been constructed the applicant is a misnavir the reason that this application is before us today is because it's been called in by the previous district councillor by God okay, by previous and current district councillors the reason is before us today the presenting officer who will be presenting the application to us is here who I believe is joining us online John Thank you chair, can you all hear me? We can see it here you fine but before you start we've got a point of correction on something I've said by councillor Hawkins Thank you chair, point of correction it was actually called in by councillor Garvey councillor by God supported that request and it's stated in the report as well Okay, understood Called in by the current local member So John, thank you for joining us So if you could introduce the report and give us any updates to the report that we have in front of us, should there be any? Okay Let me start my presentation So thank you chair and good afternoon councillors The application under consideration is to duck end in Gertan which is a retrospective demolition of an existing garage and store the erection of a single story side and rear extension a rear dormer and three dormers to the front roof elevation and my recommendation is for refusal We validated this on October the 29th 2021 I received it shortly after that and I performed a my first site visit on the 12th of November and from that I could clearly see that the works had been underway for quite some time they have subsequently been completed enforcement were discussing the application prior to my involvement but decided to leave it for me to make my decision I believe it was councillor Garvey who initially requested this be put before committee and councillor by got seconded that So the site location plan is here we can see two duck end right in the middle most important I think to draw your attention to is the property called town end here which has its drive along here and the three properties five and seven duck end which are all listed buildings and are the most directly affected by the proposal This is a block plan from 2020 so it shows what the application looked like prior to works commencing We can see the single story garage which has subsequently been demolished and replaced and the rear garden here which is where the extension has moved into Again we can see number three five and seven here and their gardens which run along this area here These were the pre-works elevations of the bungalow We can see again the garage just here which would be demolished and this is the pre-works ground floor plan again and a roof plan I've also included several photos from April of 2019 just to give you an idea of what the property looked like prior to the works being finished I'll also draw your attention to the elevation here As you might be able to see from the photo that is number three duck end and we can see the ridge line of number two here This is pertinent later when we see the dormer being put in and how it relates to this elevation We can see at number three there as well along the front elevation So this is a block plan of the completed works Here we can see that the front garage has now become part of the front elevation This side extension moves all the way to the rear of the property to the rear boundary and we can see the space created by the single story extension just here as well Again, three, five and seven there This is the completed works elevations We can see the garage at the front elevation All three front dormers here and here The single story extension projecting to the rear and the quite substantive large rear dormer on that rear roof slope That includes two Juliet balconies and three extra windows Again we see the completed floor plans the extra space created here up to the rear boundary and on the roof we can see where the loft space has been created through the rear dormer and the front three dormers here These are photos taken on the 12th of November as I said on my first site visit This again is the side elevation of number three duck end and we can see the half completed rear dormer being put in here as well as the front dormers from the front and I've also included some completed photos from a June site visit so this is the completed works Again, the cladding is now in place You can clearly see the impact to the public realm from this road We can see the full extent of the rear dormer and this is from the rear this is from the front drive of town end, which I mentioned earlier We can see the full extent of the dormer and that rear dormer there on the side elevation of number three, one of the listed buildings So the rear dormer presents the principal reason for refusal It's considered to be excessive in scale and bulk due to extending across almost the entire roofscape The conservation officer has also objected to it on the grounds of that rear dormer being excessive in scale and intruding upon the traditional form of the character of the listed buildings at three, five and seven The third reason for refusal is the impact to neighbouring amenity The rear gardens of three, five and seven are already quite small and enclosed and it's considered that the addition of that rear dormer is creating overlooking impacts creating unacceptable impact to neighbouring amenity Thank you councillors Thank you very much John Members, we have a full raft of public speakers on this I would like to move to them as swiftly as possible but of course members an opportunity to ask the officer any questions of clarification before we do move on to them No, I think that's all clear Okay, with that then we will move on to our public speakers and we're starting with Mrs Juliette Atkinson who I believe is with us in the room Mrs Atkinson, if you'd like to take a seat in front of the mic you've got two big silver buttons the one on the right switches it on and off Can you hear me? Yep, we can hear you perfectly so I appreciate you've sitting here a while so you probably know the procedure by now it's three minutes to address the committee at the end of which there may be some questions of clarity for yourself so if you wouldn't mind staying seated that would be great I am the owner and resident of number five Duck End, which is located on the boundary of two Duck End I am speaking today on behalf of number three, nine, one six, ten Duck End and three Woody Green a statement has been submitted separately by Townan Duck End We are against this planning application believe it should be refused because of the following The development is out of character for the area and is unsympathetic to the sixth listed heritage assets number five, seven, the water pump nine and eight Duck End which are all in closed proximity to Duck End the development fails to sustain or enhance the local area the development materially detracts from listed assets and may affect the economic viability of these resulting in a lack of ongoing conservation the natural light to number three and number five Duck End is reduced by the development specifically the increased ridge height, large full width rear dorma and the outbuilding The outbuilding constructed on the boundary of three and five Duck End is 2.8 meters tall and the light to the ground floor and gardens to these properties have been severely impacted The structures built on the property total more than 47.6% of the site The site plan submitted as part of the planning application is incorrect and does not reflect the actual property boundaries therefore the construct is closer to 57% of the site based on the figures they have provided in their application Loss of privacy to three, five, nine and Town End Duck End The large full width rear dorma has been used into these properties and their gardens The owners have also introduced CCTV at the front and rear of the property and from the type and direction of the cameras they are filming the public highway and private property no notification has been received by any neighbour about this The installation of security lighting has illuminated the whole area around the building side, front and rear polluting the night sky with artificial light Other items stated on the application information by the owner's agent that do not reflect what has actually happened include alterations to car parking, there were three spaces now there is one All of the trees have been removed on the property, the public highway has been altered at the entrance and the roof pitch has been altered as the bridge height has been raised In addition to the three trees removed in the back garden the protected hedge at the front of the property has been damaged there is now no natural vegetation at the rear of the property The lack of vegetation will increase the audio risk area of flooding there is no information in the planning application as to how additional surface water will be disposed of When the construction took place it was observed that the rear provision for surface water disposal was connected to the main drainage system This has now been hanging over all concern for over a year now and we would like to see that the effect of this development on the local area listed buildings and us the residents is taken into consideration when planning is determined Thank you Thank you very much, if you wouldn't there are any questions of clarification on your comments there Members, do you have any questions of clarity for Mrs Atkinson? Councillor Hawkins Thank you very much for that there's a lot of information that you've just given us You mentioned security lighting and recording Can you explain a bit about the lighting so they've got LED lighting, security lighting but it's dust filled all lighting so as soon as it gets dark it's on and it's bright, it's like an illuminated public building you can't distract from it and you can see it from every property that's around a circle of it so yes, the sky's lit what a waste of energy Okay, thanks for that Did you mention protected hedge? There wasn't a TPU on the tree though I don't know how protected hedge works but the hedge that's at the front of the property historically has been protected because it has birds nesting etc and it's been the previous panning application in 2007 that's actually listed in there that that is a requirement that they're not allowed to damage it so I assume unless anything's changed that's the same One last one when the works were going on it wasn't with planning permission presumably There wasn't any planning permission until they were forced to do it by the enforcement officer we caught everybody in the street contacted the planning department to inform them of what's going on and they lied a lot to the people around it you know so we were told they were building something but they were building something else Thank you Thank you for that Councillor Fane Thank you for that I suspect our main focus today may be the extension what has been referred to perhaps wrongly as a dorma but there was also you mentioned the outbuilding 2.8 metres tall the wall of which I think is immediately behind your house and that number three can you just describe what height that was previously and how close that is to your property and that number three So it borders on three and five because it kind of goes like that all the boundaries in Duck End are a little bit weird because it's old so it borders both of those originally I'm only five but two I can't see over the wall but I'd say it's about six feet but the old wall in my back garden about six foot whatever that is in metric so it's nearly so it's completely different Thank you and Councillor Hawkins I'm sorry she's given us the metric Members any final questions for Mrs Atkinson I don't think so Again, thank you very much for taking the time to come in and speak to us We will move on now to our next public speaker who is Mr Gerald Hornsby-Adwy who is speaking on behalf of the applicant Mr Hornsby-Adwy Are you with us? Yes, this is Gerald Hornsby-Adwy Just checking to see if you can hear me We can hear you, we can't see you though I don't know if you have a camera facility Well I was there seemed to be a problem when I turned it on so I think it will stand off from your end Okay, no problem We can see and hear you fine now Fantastic, okay thank you I've got three main points that I want to bring to the committee members and the first point is the planning advice because at the start of the project we consulted with greater Cambridge Council through a planning advice meeting that was actually held on the 25th of November 2020 the reference is 251120 the planning officer was Ms J Rodins and the meeting was held over the telephone due to the pandemic I'm just hoping that you would have a recording of the details of that meeting but what I'm going to bring out at the summary of the advice that was received because we discussed all our proposals at the meeting and basically how we were going to achieve them and the brief summary is that the number one all the proposals that met permitted development rights could be completed first that was the first advice that we were looking to get a certain amount of information sorry development some was under permitted development advice was once that permitted development can be built then the second advice was any other proposal that did not meet permitted development obviously had to be applied for through a household planning application it was also discussed at the meeting that when the permitted development construction was roughly about 80 to 90% then the application should go in so by the time it's kind of looked at preferably the permitted development construction would have been completed then my second point is the construction stage based on that advice construction began in August round about August 2020 unfortunately some works that were not under permitted development were actually undertaken so but under section 73a of the Town and Country Planning Act you are allowed to put in a retrospective application so a retrospective application was submitted on the 29th of 21 and was actually validated on the same day but it's also necessary to point out that we are looking at two aspects of this application there's an application that is permitted development then there's the works that are not permitted development so in our view the application that the committee should be looking at today is the works that are not permitted development so it's important that we are able to draw a line and I am prepared that if there's any work that the council can prove or prove show that it's outside permitted development then yes that will have to be dealt with and your enforcement roots but as far as this planning committee is concerned and the application our position on it is that it's the work that is not under permitted development that the committee should be looking at our initial application had these works as the roof extension over the garage and associated rear Doma and the three new front Domas obviously if there's anything else that can be pointed out that is not permitted development we don't have any problem with that being dealt with by the committee then the final point I want to make is that post application the application was originally to be determined on the 24th of December 2021 it's now being over seven months so we've been going back and forth with the planning officer who I must say from his presentation I've dealt with him and I believe he's a fantastic officer I've dealt with a lot of planning officers and he's fantastic but what I want to say about this is that during the communication we had I'm just going to read out an email received from him on in May of 2022 now the email stated we are satisfied that the operations to the roof are at least partially covered under payment development under development under development right sorry I am progressing towards approving the application though a counselor has called the application in so from my point of view after five months of dealing with the Mr McIntyre did not sadly write that email without having looked at all the requirements of the application so we are now astounded that the planning department has done a full 180 degree 10 and now will not support the scheme so we can only conclude that there has been some sort of pressure behind the seams which would have led to the sudden change turned around by the department so I can only hope that the kind of bitter role and the stuff that we've had to deal with on site we've had abuse we've had all sorts of threats even being told that they have people in the council and they'll make sure that this application is refused I can only hope that there is nothing to do with the applicant's ethnicity or that applicant being perceived as an outsider or a foreigner but I'll have to leave the committee and the council to make a decision according to how this issue should go thank you okay thank you for those comments there I'm sure there will be some questions yourself so if you wouldn't mind staying on the line we have one question straight away from councillor Hawkins please thank you chair thank you for your presentation on behalf of the council I take objection to the last part of your statement to do ethnicity it's all about policy and I will ask you one question why did you carry out work that was not in the permitted development why why did you carry out works that were not permitted well as I stated it did happen I'm not going to deny it right so you're at fault from the get go well there is a requirement there is a planning policy that allows you to put in a retrospective application obviously if work is done outside the planning process it is at the onus risk so we are not we are not denying that it was done you have taken the risk and also I haven't finished also what I said was I hope that is not the case I didn't say that there is any you shouldn't even have brought it up you should not have brought that up please take it back let me explain why it was done no take it back please well I am not taking it back because I said I hope that is not the case we have had abuse on site my client has been abused racially my client has received that sort of abuse on site did you report it well I am not a client I can check with a client if it was reported we deal with policy we deal with policy I am fully aware of that and as a minority ethnic myself I am telling you that now I am not disputing what she said but I am looking at what has gone in the past and I have made that statement that I hope that is not the case if you are telling me it is not the case then that is it ok well I think you have answered the question there members do you have any questions around the applicants presentation or any questions for them regarding the application I don't see any so Mr Horn to be a die thank you very much for taking the time to speak to us this afternoon we are going to move on now to our next public speaker who is chair of the parish council councillor Douglas Delacy it would be worth putting out a blanket interest for all members who have sat on south councillor council with councillor Delacy in the past who only this may I suppose from sitting on this council but councillor Delacy good to see you again and you will I am assuming you have the permission of your parish council to represent their views here this afternoon I do chairman good thank you very much I know you are very familiar with the criteria regarding public speaking so three minutes to give us your thoughts and then at the end there may be some questions for yourself so if you could remain seated thank you very much chair and through you may I hate to admit it members but Gertan is not a beautiful village it isn't chocolate boxy we have one indifferent Victorian villa which is likely to be demolished on appeal I fear and some awful 60s housing but we do have duck end and woody green together with five listed buildings and a listed pump it's a delightful and unique corner of Gertan until now number two now dominates the street as you have heard with raw and brutal modernism the parish council was unanimous as I'm sure you would have been to condemn the plans on the grounds of their effect on this architectural dual in Gertan's crown so I ask you committee to reject this application and given the potential blasting damage please instruct enforcement that this building must be restored to its original level to restore our wonderful architectural gem thank you thank you councillor very brief I appreciate that members do you have any questions of clarity for the chair of the parish council there obviously we do have fuller comments in the report from the parish but we have the opportunity whilst councillor Delacy is in front of us councillor Fein thank you councillor Delacy just at one point the parish council asked for this to be restored to its original condition did the parish council accept a significant proportion of the work undertaken would be covered by permitted development the parish council made no comment on that and trying to cast my mind back to the discussion I don't think any member brought it up clearly permitted development is permitted unless you can find grounds to stop it the main concern clearly is with the roofline and with the development which is not permitted okay thank you very much for that sorry councillor Ellington please I just wondered if any member of the parish council had identified that the building was growing faster than they had anticipated and contacted southcams to make inquiries as to why this was happening thank you councillor Ellington I'm not sure I can answer that question we were certainly aware that it was happening and there was no planning application in the pipeline I am reasonably sure that we did comment on that I don't know whether Mr Kelly can confirm or deny that anything came through from the parish council I'm afraid I can't comment I think in the office's introduction he did mention that the planning enforcement team were looking at it but then I think the outcome was they were going to let this retrospective planning application run its course and then any enforcement that may or may not need to happen would follow I think that's a fair assessment Stephen we were made aware of that the first advice works proceeding and we first attended the site on the 15th of October to any Wallace our enforcement officer it's not our practice to divulge the source of a complaint because those matters are kept confidential but our first contact with the applicants through Mr Wallace was on the 15th of October can I follow up on that and just ask whether consideration was given putting the stop notice on this development given that there was no application so the advice from the officer from the enforcement officer to the applicants on that date was that work should stop but the applicants had indicated that they decided to continue at their own risk and they understood the consequences if the planning application is not submitted obviously there is discretion for the local planning authority to serve a stop notice associated with that is an enforcement notice I think the expectation was that the applicant would submit an application to allow the authority to determine whether there was harm and that is what has happened I think in this case that's probably the right course because at that moment in time there was no public consultation through nearly visiting the site and because we had advised that obviously worse were continuing at their own risk and the applicant seemed to be familiar with that level of risk we clearly took a view that we were unimpeded in terms of any subsequent decision that committee or indeed officers might make and the applicant was fully aware of the consequences of potential consequences of the action and so we invited I think an application was submitted I think the agent said at the end of the year thank you very much councillor Delacy I think that's all the questions for you so thank you once again for taking the time to come in and speak to us and with that we will move on to our final two speakers who are the two local members we have councillor Corrine Garvey councillor Garvey if you'd like to come forward sit at the microphone where Douglas just was Corrine no you're used to being further forward than that so whilst Jonathan gets you set up I'll just remind you it's three minutes or as close to as possible to give your comments to the committee and if you can stay seated at the end in case there's any questions of clarity on anything you might present to us so please whenever you're ready yes I'm the district councillor for Gettin Village and people are drawn to live in Gettin because of its village atmosphere and friendly community the delightfully named dark end has listed buildings and has been preserved as a piece of old Gettin it's both charming and an essential part of the village you will have heard the details of the objections to this development so I'll not repeat them I became involved early on because of the alarm for the residents about this un-controlled development of the bungalow we were dismayed that it was developed without planning permission and work continued even after the planning department had become involved in summary this building was originally in bungalow and is now with a storm of windows like a two story house and it's out of keeping with the whole area we would like to see this building redeveloped so that it properly fits into the historical perspective of this area of Gettin thank you Thank you very much councillor Garvey Members do we have any questions of clarity for the local member I don't see any so councillor Garvey thank you very much second local member is councillor Stobart who's on the committee today albeit you aren't taking any part in this particular item discussion or vote so councillor Stobart if you want to give your views as local member you can stay where you are that's fine Thank you chair so I'm going to start by endorsing the views of councillor Delacy and councillor Garvey I fully agree with the position and the assessment I go a little bit deeper I think being new as a councillor to Gettin my trip down to Duck End was a big surprise because this is a little corner of Gettin and I think every village even though it has to be modern and connected and dynamic has a little corner that creates a sense of place and that's particularly valuable and is to do with the continuity of the community and sense of place so it was sad to see this kind of imposition actually quite a delicately balanced area of Gettin and you do notice and the first thing that hits you as you look around is that big rear dorma for want of a better term so my view would be that that is the case I think the office, the planning officer has outlined that or highlighted that that's my opinion I think that is the nub and I think to recover the sense of character in the conservation area is really what we should be concerned about Great, thank you very much councillor at Stobards Any questions of clarity for the second local member? No, I think that's all clear so thank you very much for your views there Members, those are all the public speakers so we're going to move into the debate so as usual we can ask the officers any further questions of clarity that's going to help us make our minds up to make a decision on this please so Members, who would like to start us off? Councillor Hawkins Thank you chair I just want to sort of thank the case officer for the extensive report which actually is quite clear and also for the additional information which we had which is that enforcement did visit the site the applicants were told to stop doing the work and they decided to carry on anyway at their own risk If we look at page 195 paragraph 915 this is particularly to do with the rare doma which is obviously the part of it that according to information we have here is the bit that is causing a lot of difficulty parmita development allows roof space of up to 50 qubit meters and what is built there now is more than that 67.8 qubit meters and that's just that doma the roof space above the garage will add to that we don't know what that is it's not being told but we can see that there's a lot there and obviously extending beyond garage and that bit falls within parmita development rights but I am disappointed that so much was done taking a risk in developing that building in that delicate historic location without the proper permission to do it it's obviously not the right thing for that site and in my view I'm afraid there's no way I can support what's already been what's been put up there now it does need to confirm and at this point in time it doesn't so I'm voting to refuse thank you thank you there I believe Mr Kelly wants to come back on a point I think he missed out at the beginning yes thank you chair I wasn't sure whether the applicants representative was going to mention it in correspondence with the applicants over the last few days we have had a request for the planning committee to defer consideration of the item on the basis that the applicants wish to discuss the matter further with the planning authority our advice on that is that given the works are complete and effectively need a determination and our conclusions are that the works are unacceptable and require substantial modifications isn't a question of minor works that that's not something that I would recommend to you there's a process that follows in the event that the commission is not granted using the relevant legislation but we did undertake to share their request with you and and agreed to put that to the committee but my advice to you is that deferring consideration of a completed development leads to a substantially would lead to resolution of maybe on matters of detail but actually in this case the form of development as I said is complete and in officers view based on reasons for views requires more than incidental modification to render it acceptable but it's a matter for you and we will take your instruction I think it's short so councillor do you want to speak about the potential deferral or that's been no was yours councillor councillor Hawkinson please I'll come back to you Bill thank you I quite agree in that the works has been done it's been built it's already causing the harm effectively and any deferral the process carries on longer I'm not sure what else can be said or can be discussed we need to I think we need to determine this today thank you absolutely that I share that view I think as Mr Kelly has pointed out it doesn't serve any purpose in my view to defer members in all interest of fairness though I will ask does anyone have an opposite view to that does anyone think we should be considering a deferral or are members generally happy we've received with the decision today okay I'll take that as no to the deferral so we will carry on councillor Handley sorry I cut you off there it's quite alright chair we're looking at this it's either acceptable or it's not we're not saying these bits are that bit is, that isn't yes or no isn't it I'm absolutely clear in my mind which way I'm going to go and that is that this is not acceptable I fully support the officer's recommendation I'd go further and say retrospective planning applications are something that causes everybody every ward member problems I think it's something we ought to be discussing quite separate to this okay thank you for that councillor Ellingson please I entirely I entirely support Bill Handley's point of view I would certainly not accept this application but I do wonder how this council is going to encourage the applicant to remove those bits of the house that are unacceptable because that is another game altogether indeed and clearly we're not here to discuss that we're just here to decide whether this application is acceptable or not but I do take your point on that members does anyone else wish to put forward a view to the debate councillor Fein please Chairman I recognise this is complicated because some parts of the development were covered by permitted development I think it's very important there should be a clear distinction in some cases door more windows would be covered this is not actually technically a door more window it's a box extension I think we need to be very careful to recognise that applicants have a perfect right to submit retrospective applications if they want to we should judge the merits of the application on the basis that it is retrospective and clearly we as a council need to be very careful in insisting on the demolition of buildings that have cost the applicant a lot of money already but as councillor Hanley said earlier on she's either right or wrong effectively I should say that in visiting the property I did meet briefly with Mr Atkinson who showed me the back yard I made it quite clear to Mr Atkinson that I couldn't take a view on this until I'd heard the full case I think the report at page 197 paragraph 9.3 when viewed from the public realm on dark end the impact of the roof extension on the setting of the listed building is considered harmful I think it would be very difficult to visit the the back very small gardens of these listed buildings without accepting that both the box extension and indeed the raised wall directly on their boundary to 2.85 metres doesn't have a significant impact on the listed buildings and on those grounds I would share councillor Hanley's view and I suspect others I find it very difficult to say that we should not refuse this application Thank you very much Members we've heard a few comments now supporting the officer's recommendation of refusal Would anyone like to give an alternative view does anyone think the application should be approved Would anyone else like to add anything to the debate before we come to a decision on this any further points that haven't already been made councillor Hawkins I think this really is a is an example and a lesson I guess for us and for Africans really we need to do things in the right way we're looking at policies what's been built is bigger than what will allow it's causing harm in a historic area and frankly the reasons given in 9.67 and 8 cannot be it's absolutely right and the amenity of neighbours is being seriously affected so on those three grounds I think we can very correctly refuse application Okay well members clearly we have a recommendation in front of us from the officers that's on page 201 and the recommendation we have is to refuse the application for the three reasons as laid out Members I haven't heard anyone speak to the contrary of that Do any members wish to either vote to approve this or wish to abstain on this decision I see no hands so can we take it by affirmation that the officer's recommendation of refusal for those three reasons as laid out on the agenda to be the committee's view Agreed, just for completeness does anyone not agree councillor Hanley Just being built in braces here this is going to be considerably difficult thinking of officers to work on Do you think it might not be an idea to have a vote on it Just a question rather than going for my affirmation I'm willing to be shot down I was trying to save Jonathan a job but unlucky Jonathan you're going to have to do an electronic vote on this so members we have okay I need to word this carefully so the officers recommendation members is to refuse the application so what we need to do we need to vote whether we accept to that recommendation or not so confusingly we need to vote green if we agree with the recommendation of refusal red if we're against the recommendation of refusal and think it should be approved or yellow to abstain so is that clear okay please everyone vote and of course councillor Stobart isn't taking part in this vote okay yes please Jonathan if you could okay so for those that can't see in the room that is eight votes in total all in favour of refusal so that application is unanimously refused okay so again thank you to all our contributors to the officers and obviously those in the room who have contributed to this thank you very much for your time and your patience members we have it's half past three we have one more application on the table do we wish to have a break okay I'm seeing a yes so we'll take a very quick ten minute break it's half past three if we come back at 20 to four on the clock in the room we'll start again and hopefully complete the agenda thank you very much thank you very much and welcome back everyone to this meeting of South Cambridge your district council's planning committee we're on the last planning application of the day agenda item 11 the application in front of us begins on page 203 of our agendas and the application is at 34 Heraldwood Close in Pington the proposal is for a single story rear inside extension porch to the front loft extension and roof extension to the rear we're associated internal works the applicant is Mr Daniel Ashman and the reason we have this before us today is because the applicant is related to a member of the district council so it has to come to us as a matter of process the presenting officer as we can see on the screen is Jane Rodin's hi Jane so thank you chair can I just confirm that you can see my screen oh ok go with me second and yes we can see the screen now so yeah please whenever you are ready perfect so thank you chair this application is for a single story rear side extension and porch to the front there is also a loft extension with a roof extension to the rear and other internal layout changes at 34 Herald Close in Impington this is a location plan the site is located in Impington and the exit off Herald Close the proposal contains a semi-detached dwelling there's two stories it's attached to number 36 Herald Close which is to the east of the site to the west of the site is number 32 and to the south of the site are the rear gardens of 22 and 24 Bishopsway here you can see the block plan with the proposals and the extent of the porch to the front to the rear side extension to the back and the dormal window to the roof now here at the existing elevations and the proposed elevations and then the existing and proposed floor plans and then here are some photos of the site to the front of the site this is to the rear this is looking along the street scene towards number 32 and this is the back looking towards number 32 so the recommendation is for approval subject to conditions which are in part and infirmative which in part 11 of the report in front of you thank you chair thank you very much, very concise Members, do you have any questions of clarification? I'll actually say that we've got no public speakers so we can launch straight into the debate if we need to have any any members wish to make any points on this or ask officers any questions No? Oh, Councillor Fane Yes, if I might just ask I was perhaps a bit slow to when you put up the location plan to see whether other houses in the street had had similar extensions and I also just wanted to ask you briefly about the proposed cladding which perhaps should be clear to me from the report the current cladding is very distinctive and I just wondered what the proposal is So through yourself chair is a location plan number 32 that I put up on the pictures is this one here has a similar dormal window to that one proposed I think Jane, 10.8 in our reports indicates that the material of the extension should be the same as the existing building is that right? Yes it will be for the real extension and then the dormal window is a metal cladding instead of the wood as proposed for the rest of it Okay, thank you Councillor Members Councillor Hawkins Sorry, thank you chair It's just paragraph 10.13 which talks about a marginal impact when the 45 degrees is taking from the property Can you clarify what that is please? Yes I can Let me just pop up this proposed site plan It's best to show from that Is that shared again? Yes it is Okay, so the 45 degree is taking from the rear of the neighbouring property are going horizontally towards the corner of the proposal and it would be very marginally cut off from the rear windows along the back of the neighbouring property so that's a rule of thumb firm to seeing if there'd be any impact on light as you can see from the location plan the neighbouring property is set to the southeast so because of the very marginally corner of the extension that would be cut off but due to the location it's considered by the minimal impact Okay, thank you very much Members, any any final points or questions? No, I can't see any Members, does anyone inclined to vote against this application or abstain? No Can I take about affirmation that we approve it as on page 209? Agreed Okay so that is unanimously agreed and approved Thank you very much Members, that comes to the end of the planning applications we've been asked to make decisions on We're now on to agenda item 12 which is an update on enforcement cases and I believe we have an enforcement officer with us Who is it? John Shuttlewood John? Yes, can you see my screen chair? John, yes you can see and hear you fine Thank you for being with us Thank you very much Thank you for inviting me I'd love you to come and speak to the enforcement and eulogise about it whenever possible so I really appreciate your time I'll try and keep it to as close to three minutes as possible So anyone who doesn't know me my name is John Shuttlewood I am the remaining principal planning enforcement officer here across the shared surface I'm normally working the city but since Will Holloway has left I'm stepping in and picking up his caseload as best as I can in the two days by working enforcement So I'll run through the summary of the reports very quickly on page 211 First of August there's 138 open investigations in South Cairns compared with 172 the previous year In the month of July a team opened six or eight cases but managed to close 42 and then we go on to a list of the people operating in the team Unfortunately it's sad to report that our planning compliance officer within South Cairns Charlie Jones has left last week he was a contractor so we've got the option to either replace someone again for three to six months contract and whilst also looking to get that build hopefully by a permanent member of staff if possible Ideally I think the team would like to go towards a permanent member of staff for the benefits of mid and long term continuity within the team So it's remaining that there are still three senior area officers covering South Cairns in the city along with myself Just looking at the figures for months in June and July I think those numbers have dropped in terms of cases close and opens simply due to the bit of changing processes we've been undertaking since Will was left and also some of our team members have been on leave and will be on leave as well until the end of September Okay We are introducing new ways of working with regards to elect breaches of planning control being reported online as well as the introduction of a real time updated enforcement register being made available What I would like to do is just indulge me with a second if I share my screen if I can and bring you up what is the new you have to tell me chair if this is appearing on your on the screens in Campbell Yep we can see it Fantastic, so this is the brand new planning compliance website I'll be employing all members with committee members and parish councillors and also residents as well to have a take a look at this there's a lot of good information here about planning compliance, what enforcement breaches are what we do at a team what isn't a breach of planning enforcement there's also a handy little video that is worth playing as well on that as well and there's lots of links there to basically we signpost and try and direct people to try and work out for themselves whether it might be a breach of planning control for the team to look at or to actually save their time it might be something to do with another service that the council offers such as noise control or it might be doing something to do with building trail or highways or it might be a civil matter so we're basically trying to give people pointers to basically try and work out what the actual problem is and to report it to the CREP people at the bottom of the page there is also a link to our new online enquiry form so at the moment we receive complaints through a variety of means be it email through our email address or through telephone calls to the contact centre or directly to ourselves in the future we are trying to get as many of all enquiries to be submitted through the enquiry form simply so it basically helps us deal with the matters quickly and more efficiently I'll just do stops sharing the screen so hopefully I'll come back to the hall of Campbell so we've just regard to updates on significant cases now unlike will I don't believe that it's proper and correct to give specific details into ongoing prosecution cases however I am happy to talk to members directly regarding any particular concerns they have however I am quite happy to tell you that we have got an experienced enforcement officer in the guide of Neil Langley with Smithy Fenn following on from the report conducted by Ivy Legal I can tell you that Neil has already got boots on the ground out on Smithy Senn Fenn site is already in contact with some of the occupiers on there trying to clear up initially some of the untidy land and some of the people who might not be living on site we basically want to give you an update as well for recruitment just to let you know that an advert has gone out for a principal enforcement lead officer that is now being advertised there's a deadline of 30 of August we are hopeful that we will get applicants coming through for that post even though there is a national shortage of permanent experienced important officers around England, Wales and Scotland however we are hopeful to get people taking an interest in what we do at South Cams and the city and just to also touch on very quickly the appendix to public enforcement notices served for July we had a temporary stop notice and a breach of condition notice served in Cossinham according to our case notes it says that the notices have been complied with so I'll leave it there I'm happy to take any questions that members or yourself may have chair thank you very much John, historically what we have done is we have taken this opportunity to ask the enforcement officer some detail of any currently ongoing or if there is any updates to any currently ongoing cases are you happy to take those types of questions if you feel able to answer well I'm happy to basically listen to the questions and make a note of them and come back at later date if I may with responses is that would that be acceptable Danyn? If that's what you're offering that's what we have to take I'm afraid but I think we do have a few questions following that so Councillor Handley John, thank you for your update and I really do wish you all the best at getting your staffing numbers your posts filled because compliance and enforcement is really important to residents they feel protected if action is carried out where it's due and in a timely way so good luck I hope you find some good candidates can I just ask you a question about the website that you've just demonstrated how new is that is it a pretty new site? Councillor Handley thank you very much for your question and your best wishes I'll totally agree with you we experience also that residents think it's really important that there's effective enforcement in the district council for the moment anyway simply the website details they went live a week ago so this is hot of the press you're probably seeing it for anyone else we probably need to do a bit of communication around it to get it out into the years I would suggest have you spoken to Tom Horn because I think it's the sort of thing we should shout about and you know I understand it's only a week old so that there's probably on your tick list of things to do but I would certainly support it and also if you could put something out on social media I think members will raise a profile of those social media posts thank you thank you very much thank you John Councillor Hawkins has a question for you as well hello John nice to see you it's been a while I don't know what's going on with my answer ok it's back just on the Smithy thing I noticed that there was a meeting held on the 25th of February to agree the approach on how we're going to issue all those notices what has been the progress then and when do we expect to be able to do that John shall I answer that oh ok and before you do that the second thing is just to answer Councillor Handley yes we've already got stuff out on social media about the new compliance webpage and the video so if you go on the southcans facebook and twitter accounts you'll see it so just and John might update me if he's got anything more because I haven't spoken to Neil Langley but we'll holl away our previous enforcement officer was dealing with with Smithy Fenn as I said in the report we've subsequently Neil has Neil Langley who's joined the shared planning service as a contract officer and nevertheless has got quite a substantial amount of experience nationally with working with Gypsy Traveler Romani community in terms of development and as John highlighted he has been on site to meet with Rapsons of the community that the actual number of occupiers of Smithy Fenn at the moment is actually quite limited and so we are Neil's first task was both liaising with Ivy Legal who's giving a specialist legal advice on it but secondly to go on site and reassess the situation based upon the current circumstances and to then set out to me effectively but to the council the way forward from the conversations that he's had there are a number of lawful occupations on Smithy Fenn absolutely with law abiding members of the community Neil was going on site to assess that himself and come back to me so I do expect a further because the report in some respects on page 213 has been taken over by Neil's visit I suspect will bring a further report back to you next month in progress John I don't know that Neil's got anything further that he's added to you but I certainly have been away for a couple of days he has been on site I believe now That's correct I think that's about as up to date appraisee of the situation we can give at the moment thank you very much Thank you both for that Members any final questions for John on any enforcement issues I think that's it John thank you very much for joining us I appreciate your items tends to be at the back of the agenda so thank you very much for hanging on we appreciate it and look forward to seeing you at future meetings Thank you, thank you chair Take care Members item 13 So we have an update on an appeal at the land to the north and south of Bartlow Road, Linton This was an application that was decided at committee so I think we're going to get an update from Mr Kelly No sorry Mr Sexton Sorry my people are sitting very quietly at the end there I forgot you were here Over to Michael is going to give us a verbal update on this appeal Thank you chair Yes I was a case officer for this application in September 2021 and refused and has been taken to appeal so because it's a committee decision it's very much just for your information about how that is progressing It was down as a written reps procedure following a request from Lins and Parrish Council the planning inspector who changed the procedures were hearing but as set out in the report the council doesn't have an expert witness on this matter so the council a council officer would attend the hearing to assist in the process but will not be in a position to offer any evidence in defence of the appeal If it helps your members I have a meeting scheduled with Lins and Parrish Council later in August just to talk to them about the process moving forwards but it's just for your information that this appeal is ongoing and it has been changed to a hearing which we would attend but we won't be presenting evidence That's it, thank you chair OK, thank you for that members any questions on this it's just a verbal update for information but if any members have any questions Councillor Williams Thank you, just a quick one for information It says that council approached drainage consultants How many did we approach just out of interest So I thought that would get asked I've checked and there are six emails that went out to drainage consultants I received five responses saying that they weren't able to assist for various reasons We obviously didn't think it was appropriate to disclose those details in public domain but we did reach out to several consultants on which we have approached previously for appeals and into applications It's just a question for me then as a matter of process presumably as the committee refused that application on the predominantly the Parrish Council's information would just be left to the Parrish Council then to essentially defend that decision, is that correct? We obviously put forward a written statement as part of the written reps appeal that was very much sort of factually based on the reason the original condition was there and why the committee chose to refuse the application Yes, the Inter-Parrish Council I'm assuming because they requested the hearing we'll be attending that and offering evidence on their part as I've got a meeting with the Parrish at the end of August so I will continue to engage and support the Parrish as far as I can in that regard Steven I think it's important to acknowledge why the council is still liable for its decision and so when it goes to matters of costs which may well form part of the discussion of the hearing is this council's decision not the Parrish Council's decision that will go to the heart of whether the council's acted reasonably and so there's an element of reflection that's required in fact the JDDC committee we've tried to also give some advice to because regardless of what third parties promote and they may well convince you of the reasons for refusal in circumstances where a planning appeal follows you are the planning authority and so the judgement on whether the decision and the appeal is reasonable falls to the inspector to consider the planning authority's position now in exceptional circumstances third parties can be the subject of cost applications but it's pretty unusual for that for that to happen but the importance I suppose going forwards is for us to think through how we can work more effectively together in such circumstances to make sure that we do not create a risk of cost particularly around technical matters whereas as Michael said we've approached a number of technical specialists and they've declined to represent the council on the application or on the decision that you made just on that point then obviously when we are making decisions one element that we are told we shouldn't take into account is potentially losing an appeal and i.e costs against the council so take on board what you're saying but as a committee we're told to make planning decisions as opposed to decisions that we think may or could cause the council to incur costs as an appeal so I think yeah it's pretty right but the guidance and the practice guidance around costs does require particular caution when it comes to matters of technical judgement because in such circumstances where you're essentially setting aside the technical advice that you have received from in this case it was angry in water and forming your own view you're obliged to provide technical advice or a technical reason for setting aside the advice of a technical specialist in your planning judgement and that's why we've tried to go to consultants specialist drainage consultants but you are obliged to provide that reasoning on the technical reasons why you have set aside especially from statutory consultees the technical advice, the consultee and that's whether it's a highway authority matter or it's a a technical compliance matter when it comes to matter and so my advice to you always should be one of caution in such circumstances and quite possibly where in future an opon reflection of some of these matters where there is a concern about the technical soundness of the advice that causes you to set aside what you're being told it might be sensible to think about deferring items rather than refusing them in the first draft to allow us to provide either further specialist technical advice or give some considered technical advice to you on matters of judgement and the courts give a very broad range around some of the considerations around amenity in terms of design and so on then clearly there are no technical specifications that underpin that there's various SPD guidance and so on but the requirement is clear on a planning authority that where it rejects an application on the basis of a technical matter then it is required to provide the technical reasons for doing so and in circumstances where some of those technical consultees are your consultees then clearly you're entitled to set their advice aside but in an appeal circumstance you are required to demonstrate the technical basis for doing so thank you I think that's helpful I've got Richard and then I'll take Councillor Hawkins and then Councillor Hanley OK thank you very much chair just a few points following on from that I made the point when we used to have the group that was meeting in response to the report we had I forget who did the report one point I made in that about how we can improve the process in committee is for reports to make very clear where we have discretion and where we don't now I think we've made some progress on that because reports do flag up material considerations but there is a risk I think of frustration all round if something comes to committee and if it comes to committee it appears to the public and I think reasonably appears to the committee members that we have a choice to make but if it's a very technical matter and we don't really have a choice to make then I would query actually whether it should be here at all but certainly if it is here it should be made very clear if there is any scope at all for the committee to disagree because we can't commission technical advice we get these reports two weeks before or ten days before the committee meets there's no way we can produce technical advice or technical reports so it can look to the public and maybe committee members as well sometimes that we're really just being required to rubber stamp something we really don't have a choice and I think we really need to avoid situations where we are appearing to have a choice or appearing to present to the world that there's a choice to be made here when in actual fact there's no choice at all I don't think that really gets anybody anywhere I think that's will certainly take away and always try to reflect upon how we can assist the committee more obviously in some respect building on the point that council Williams has raised it's for that reason that most planning conditions dealing with technical matters don't in fact come in front of the planning committee because you're not as you rightly highlight in the nature of a planning committee your job is to kind of provide the public insight in terms of the balance and the various weightings you're not expected by the courts to be technical experts on any on a particular subject you're there to provide that oversight and balance and obviously in this case I think the conditions were called into committee at the request of the parish council and part of the difficulty that I can understand the committee faces is that these very technical assessments are not something that most members of the planning committee will be intimately familiar with and you're not really expected to read all of the background information provided what we can do is we have spoken to legal colleagues but some of our advisors the chambers that advise us on planning inquiries and so on to get you some some further information on just the way that the courts deal with these types of matters to assist you but at all times I would always try and encourage you if you have questions in advance of a meeting and there are technical matters to contact the officers as soon as the agenda comes out or as soon as possible if you can read it over the weekend because we can try and get you the technical advice that you might wish to have in those circumstances but it is for that very reason that most conditions related to noise assessments and so on generally are probably best dealt with by reference to the technical advisors that you hold as a council whether that's an environmental health or amongst your partners or whether you're placing yourself as a committee in a situation where you don't always benefit from that as for the major strategic sides we have obviously sought to bring the lead local flood authority and highway people along to those meetings to give you that kind of technical advice but obviously it isn't appropriate in all cases Councillor Hawkins Thank you for that my question actually relates to the point that Mr Kelly made about asking for deferral I have noticed a number of times we have these applications come in and it's kind of like on the borderline of the end of the extension of time and we either decide or we don't how do we deal with that I think if there's clarity about reason I would say we need to advise you in certain circumstances but the cost of cost is not a material planning consideration and indeed the threat of fighting in a period is not a planning consideration but the council is obliged through planning guidance to behave reasonably and I think if there are technical matters that are a cause for concern given the potential scenario of not being able to support the committee decision on the basis of a decision that's made I think it's probably important for us to try and advise you on that before we enter that avenue because of the public funds that then get expended in a rather fruitless activity now obviously that's not to say that in this case there's no merits to the argument it's just that we're not able to provide technical arguments to underpin your reasons so the parish council may well satisfy the inspector so I'm not commenting on this appeal but it is important to have regard to the requirements for reasonable behaviour which requires technical reasons to determine technical matters if you're not you're entitled to rely upon the advice that you get but if you depart from that advice you're also required or obliged to provide a clear set of reasoning generally if it's a technical matter citing technical reasons for doing so and in fact that's a matter that the Joint Development Control Committee also receives some advice on recently from the barrister and I think I'm happy to share the advice that the barrister gave about the obligations on committees to behave reasonably if it's helpful I'll distill that out and circulate it Thank you and councillor Handley Thanks chair I just wonder what when you receive an appeal against a planning decision and you get some which are against decisions taking delegated powers versus some by the planning committee do you do we automatically defend them or do you say to all of them or do you say some of less are less defensible on others but my main part of my question is that you also have appeals against enforcement action where the decisions are taken by officers and not by any member do you always defend an appeal against enforcement action So we are you're the council and we're your officers so our job is to defend everything to every decision that you that you take that's the starting point In a case where we as officers effectively have reached a different conclusion our approach is to try and find others who can defend you on that because under the professional code of conduct Royal Town Planning Institute we are not and many other professions essentially you're obliged to be true to yourself in some respects in terms of your professional opinion so you're not allowed to effectively become a hired gun and just go well actually I said this at this stage now I've decided I'm passionately passionately in support of your reasons refusal because in examination the first question that the appellant is going to ask is can you just tell the inspector you'll go through all of those your professional qualifications and experience and so on and they'll ask the witness to then explain what their professional view of the merits are to the inspector and so you don't want us to do that because we have to say well we thought it was acceptable so in those circumstances what Michael did in this case having recommended the application and the members overturned it is he then went to planning consultants and drainage consultants to seek somebody to defend the appeal and we always do that we don't take these matters personally we will always try and defend the decision of the counciller in the best way possible but in circumstances where that's not possible in this case Michael put a statement into the appeal that explained the decision but we will now be called upon to participate in that appeal process and give our professional view and that's problematical when our professional view is that the application should be supported and on enforcement matters absolutely we will always defend the enforcement appeal Thank you and councillor Harvey Thank you chair One of the things that's corrosive of advice from statutory consultees and particularly Angliaw of Water and Cambridge Water is their legal obligation always to say they have capacity to supply so when they ask that question and they say yes we have capacity how are we supposed to take that response given that they can't say otherwise Well I think what you'll tend to find is that as a planning authority you're obliged to have regards to that advice if you can bring forward technical reasons why their advice is wrong this appeal related to the connection point to a manhole Angliaw of Water's advice was they had no objection to the connection so it wasn't about the number of dwellings connecting or anything like that it's about the location of a manhole that the failed drainage system connects to and in those circumstances we haven't been able to find a technical advisor who's prepared to essentially stand again at Angliaw of Water's position that doesn't mean that one doesn't exist it just means that on that particular point they haven't come forward to us to be prepared to do that in other circumstances just because the statutory undertaker advises of a position again you're not obliged to take it and it's quite right and indeed the parish council and local residents and communities often have very valid reasons associated with concerns I'm conscious of a huge amount of time spent by the council in Linton on other matters in which the planning authority continued to persist in exploring matters of drainage and long after Angliaw of Water concluded that their initial response was acceptable but I think it's important to have some understanding of the technical elements of it in order to be able to particularly make a final decision to refuse something which is why my advice in certain circumstances if you're not satisfied but you're uneasy with the advice that you're getting might be to defer the item and seek to try and find further sources of advice Yes, could I just come back and I think that's very sensible advice My point really was this sort of wider legal background and legal obligation does have the long term effect of undermining trust in those two particular parties I think we all had our issues of Angliaw Water's comments sometimes so I think we'll leave that point there but I think we've had a good discussion around technical conditions coming to committee and appeals resulting thereof so I think we can probably move on from that particular item now Final item on the agenda item 14 Age 223 We have an update on appeals against planning decisions and enforcement action I don't know if any officers are going to introduce this or are we just taking questions Can I ask a question I'll be honest with you chair I'm not familiar with every single one of these appeals if you've got a question but I'm happy to take anything away Members any particular questions around any specific appeals against planning decisions or enforcement action I'm a bit of a bit of an interest in the wines lane one this is one of the reasons for my question about do we automatically defend appeals on enforcement action OK I think that's been answered Councillor Hawkins Thank you chair there was one I had a notice thing you know it says turned away what does it mean on appeal to be turned away Page 226 I can do that one I was going to draw that one to members' attention because Councillor Williams raised it at the last committee meeting Phil McIntosh I think at the last meeting mentioned that he had written to PINs questioning the validity of the appeal the appeal was lodged after the time period that the applicant was allowed to appeal for non-determination so PINs incorrectly registered it as appeal they then noted the letter that Phil had sent and therefore turned the appeal away so the application is now back with the local planning authority to determine Thank you any further questions on appeals I can't see any If I may just to say it's good to see that we're keeping in line with performance in terms of what appeals that are allowed and appeals that are refused Yes indeed I don't think we're near any measures quite yet but if there's no further questions on that item I believe that brings us to the end of the agenda our next meeting is at some point next month which I don't have the date in front of me it's normally in the agenda but I'll quickly look it up now so our next meeting is the 14th of September so yeah members you can't make that date please do you try and get a sub as early as possible so just leave me to say thank you very much to officers for your support thank you very much to all of our public speakers who contributed to the debate and thank you very much members for your time today and we'll close the meeting there thank you