 Thank you very much chair. I can confirm that we are now live. Thank you very much. So welcome everybody to South Cams District Council planning. My name is John Batchelor and I'm chair of the committee. Good everybody in the youth please. There's quite a bit of background noise going on. Thank you very much. I just need to check if councillor Hayling, vice chair is with us. Councillor Haylings, are you with us? No, I did have a note that she wasn't feeling very well. So this point, since councillor Haylings is not with us, members of the committee, are you happy that councillor Hayling sits there? Anybody to get excited? I agree. Okay thank you very much. I'll carry on with the introduction. On the top table we have various officers which I'll now introduce. It's Chris Carter, he's the delivery manager for strategic sites. Mr Carter, are you with us? Good morning chair, yes I'm here. Good morning everybody. We also have Steven Reed, senior planning lawyer. Good morning chair and members of the committee and public. Thank you very much and Ian Senior from Democratic Services who will be taking the minutes. Are you with us Mr Senior? I'm muted but I think we can see you there. Thank you very much. Case officers I will introduce when they come to speak. So a few housekeeping announcements. Please make sure that your device is fully charged and switch your cameras and microphones off unless you are invited to do otherwise. When you're invited to address the meeting please make sure that your microphone is switched on. When you finish addressing the meeting please turn off your microphone and camera immediately. Speak slowly and clearly and please do not talk over or interrupt anyone. Please ensure that you have switched off or silenced any other devices you have so that they do not interrupt proceedings. The normal procedure at planning committee is to take recorded votes and we will continue with this unless there is a clear affirmation. When we move to a vote on any item and there isn't clear affirmation I will ask for a roll call to be taken. I will then ask committee members to speak into the microphone so that their vote is clear both to committee and to those watching the webcast. Members should respond for against or abstain. Committee members present I will now invite each of you to introduce yourselves. Members after I call your name please turn on your camera and microphone wait two seconds and say your name and the word you represent so that your presence may be noted. Please remember to turn your camera off after your introductions. As I said earlier my name is Councillor John Batchelor I'm committee chair and one of the members for leadership. Councillor Bradman please. Good morning everyone I'm Councillor Anna Bradnam and I'm member for Milton and Water Beach Ward. Thank you Councillor Cahn please. I'm Councillor Cahn and I'm member for Easton and Finkton and Water Park. Thank you very much. Councillor Fein. Peter Fein member for Shelford Mall. Thank you very much. Councillor Dr Hawkins please. Good morning everyone I'm Councillor Timmy Hawkins and I'm the member for Caldecott Ward. Thank you. I will call Councillor Haylings but I don't think she's with us. No I don't so Councillor Haylings is not with us this morning. Councillor Rippeth please. Good morning everyone I'm Councillor Rippeth and I'm member for Milton and Water Beach Ward. Thank you very much. Councillor Roberts please. Good morning everybody. Deborah Roberts district councillor Foxton Ward. Thank you. Thank you very much. Councillor Heather Williams please. Heather Williams and I represent the Mordens Ward. Thank you Councillor Dr Richard Williams please. Good morning everyone I'm Richard Williams and I'm the member for the Wittlesford Ward. Thank you and Councillor Wright. Good morning everyone Councillor Nick Wright, Councillor Anne Packford. Thank you very much. So I can confirm that the meeting is quiet but Councillor Haylings is not with us this morning. Thank you very much. Could everybody please turn off their cameras and mute their minds please. Thank you. Councillor Kahn are you having a problem with your equipment? Perhaps he is. We'll come back to that. No I had some problems at the beginning but it seems to be okay now for the moment at least. Okay we've just got a big picture of you on the screen. Okay I'll carry on then. So if at any time a member leaves the meeting would they please make that fact known to me so that it can be recorded in the minutes. So members of the public are aware if a councillor is absent for any part of the presentation or the debate about an agenda item then they may not vote on that item and that does include technical issues. We have several public speakers today and I just like to explain how public speaking will work. This meeting is being broadcast live by the council's website and public speakers are reminded that by participating in this meeting you are consenting to being broadcast and to the use of images and sound recordings for webcast and training purposes. You will each have three minutes to address the committee. When you start speaking we will start the timer please ensure you switch the microphone on before you speak. When your time is elapsed we will ask you to conclude your speech. Once you have finished speaking we may wish to ask you questions. Please be concise in your responses if there are no more questions you may leave this meeting and continue to watch via the webcast. Committee members are reminded that any questions to speakers should be for clarification purposes only and the process for this shall be as follows. I shall ask if there are any questions if you do have questions please ask to speak in the chat function. The committee can only consider planning reasons for or against the application. The planning committee will then vote. The outcome is decided by majority vote and in the event of a tie I as chair have casting votes. When planning committee members vote please can they ensure that they identify themselves and speak into the microphone so that the vote is understood by the committee and those watching the webcast. Members are reminded that they should indicate whether they are for against or abstain when their name is posted. Today as you will know is the 11th of November and Remembrance Day. So at 11 o'clock today I will stop proceedings in order to observe a two minute silence. So my apologies if anyone in particular is speaking at that time but we will observe those two minutes at 11 o'clock. Just before we go on councillor Thane you are not muted and we are having some background noise from you if you wouldn't mind to muting please. Thank you very much. So we go on to apologies. Is the senior do we have any apologies? Thank you chair. Just one apology then from councillor Pippa Halings. All right thank you very much. We now go on to item three which is declarations of interest. Would anybody who got a declaration of interest please indicate that they'd like to speak? Chairman Deborah can I speak please? Yes councillor Roberts please. Thank you chairman. I'm a member of Falmere Parish Council and we have an agenda item for Falmere. I was at the meetings when it was discussed but I come to it today afresh. Thank you chairman. Thank you very much. Any other members? Yes chair. Councillor Thane you're muted. You're muted councillor Thane. Thank you. I am in relation to item eight chairman. I'm a member of Great Shelf Parish Council and because one of the immediate neighbours to that application is a former parish councillor and a friend I will be recusing myself on that item. Okay thank you very much. Any others? I have a declaration myself on item seven Great Abington and number nine for Linton. I am the local member for both these villages. I have been present at parish council meetings when the issues have been discussed. I haven't taken any part and I'm looking at these afresh today. So if there's no more declarations of interest we will move on to item four which is the minutes for the meeting held on the 14th of October. Members do we have any issues of accuracy on those minutes? Yes councillor Heather Williams is that you wish to speak? Thank you chairman. It was just that I had recorded and I did ask it to be recorded that I was going to abstain for the minutes which isn't in these minutes. Okay I'm sure that is noted. So not these minutes but in the minutes of the previous meeting. Welcome to the August meeting. Okay so you're being the correction of that one. Okay that's noted. Councillor Thane did you wish to have a point of accuracy on the minutes? No not at this point. I don't see anybody else. So members are you happy that I signed these minutes of a true record of the meeting we should have held on Wednesday the 14th of October. Agreed. No one again? Okay so they are agreed. In that case we move on to the substance of today our first application. Sorry to interrupt and apologies if I've missed it through technical issues but have we actually officially appointed councillor Thane as your vice-chair? I did it during my introductory speech but we can certainly do it again. So I thought we had to propose the second vote. I missed that point but I was exposed. Okay well I'm happy to propose that. Happy to second bit Chairman. Good. Anyone again? I don't see anybody being against. Agreed. So happy we do that by affirmation. Agreed. It should also be noted that since councillor Thane has cleared some interest in item eight then we may need to look for another vice-chair for that particular application. All right we're now on agenda five which is land adjacent to Moore's Meadow, Great Shelford. It's application 4279 stroke 19 FL. The proposal is for the erection of 21 dwellings, arms houses, relocation of existing lotments and public space provision together with associated landscaping and infrastructure. The applicant is Great Shelford Procure Charities. Key material considerations are the planning committee decision which we made on the 10th of June and mortgagee in possession clause. This will all be explained shortly. The application is coming to the committee because on the 10th of June the planning committee gave officers delegated authority to approve the application subject to one the completion of a legal agreement under the Town and County Planning Act 1990 to ensure that the properties remained affordable in perpetuity and the future maintenance and management of various elements of on-site open space and to the conditions and the informatives set out from the officers report. All works have progressed on the legal agreement and the needs to include a mortgagee in possession clause has arisen which was not present to the planning committee on the 10th of June. The application is therefore brought back to the planning committee to advise members of the need for an MIP clause and seek members endorsement. The officer recommendation is for approval. The presenting officer is Michael Sexton. Mr. Sexton, would you introduce this please? Thank you. Good morning chair and good morning everyone. I'll share my presentation. Chair could you confirm that you can see a presentation on the screen please? I can. Yes, thank you. A lot of this will repeat what Councillor Matlow has just said but I'll try and go through it fairly quickly. The application is for 21 affordable houses in Great Shelford with associated allotments, public open space, landscaping and infrastructure. Just to remind members but I'm sure you recall it's a site on the eastern edge of Great Shelford adjoining the framework boundary and in the green belt. The landscape master plan shows the relocated allotments in the northern section of the site an area of open space in the middle of the site and then the new affordable 21 affordable houses in the southern portion of the site which have been designed around being a green belt location an area essential green space and green roofs as you can see on this slide here how they blend themselves into landscape and as yes Councillor Baxter says and it says in the committee paper members review the application on 10th of June 2020 and granted the officer's delegated authority to approve subject to the minutes of that meeting so I won't repeat again. So the reason we're here today is while completing the section 106 agreement it's come to light that a mortgagee and possession clause is required as part of the section 106 agreement. Ensure a MIPS clause gives lenders comfort that they will be able to take possession of properties unfettered by restrictions if the housing provider defaulted on payment of the loan without a MIPS clause housing providers can't borrow as much money to help fund the development so there's a few figures there showing the slight difference in what you can borrow for the purposes of this application the applicant has provided evidence to us that by virtue of delivering a site for 100 affordable housing they're unable to access traditional development finance and the delivery of project will therefore rely on a combination of grant funding and ethical loan products over and above the applicant's own interest investment where this sits in policy terms the inclusion of a MIPS clause would accord with national and local planning policy so policy H11 is the relevant local plan policy in this instance and I've underlined the relevant section part D of the policy that says mortgagee and possession clauses will be allowed where it demonstrates to be necessary to enable the development to proceed as I mentioned earlier we have had evidence from the applicant that they do require MIPS clause to deliver the development in Greenbelt terms the MPPF sets out that a local planning authority should regard construction of new buildings that's inappropriate development in the Greenbelt exceptions to this include limited affordable housing for local community needs under policy set out in a development plan so that ties back to policy H11 so national and local level use of MIPS clause on this development would accord with planning policy so yes that is the key material consideration in this instance the inclusion of a MIPS clause so the MIPS clause would accord with national and local policy the inclusion is supported by officers including the affordable council's affordable housing team where MIPS clauses have been agreed on other sites in the district it's not been the case that because of that clause the dwelling has needed to become available on the open market and thus no longer affordable in perpetuity to sort of reassure members that even if it was to be a default one part of the mortgagee the section 106 agreement will contain a provisor that the local authority should first be given an opportunity to acquire the the property so the risk of losing an affordable dwelling on this site remains very remote and just I'm supposed to cover everything that there are no other changes in circumstances to the application itself or the all relevant planning policy since the previous resolution to grant in June therefore officers are recommending that the committee again grants permission for this development with all the same reasons as before but with the inclusion of a MIPS clause I do have Julie Fletcher the head of housing strategy with us today and I think she would like to just speak at this point share as well before we move on if that's okay yes that's fine hello chair hello planning committee um said I'm Julie Fletcher head of housing strategy just want to say really that I fully support the application for and MIPS for this reason is slightly different in terms of the applicant is not a registered housing provider that's regulated by homes England but they it has been brought forward as a community led development and they are a long-standing sort of charity within the village I think they were established in 1890 provide alms houses for local people that will be affordable housing offer it's better than the traditional offers on the housing providers so we fully support the scheme and believe it's a really good scheme I'm satisfied that they do require MIPS to be able to get the finance that they need in terms of bringing the scheme forward and without the inclusion of a MIPS they would not be able to borrow the amount required and therefore wouldn't be able to bring forward the scheme which would be a great shame they are also applying for grant funding through the combined authority and this will reduce the amount of loan requirement that they will see that they will still need the MIPS clause in it we do feel that the MIPS clause in terms of bringing forward and losing potentially losing the affordable housing because there are safeguards in place we do have a point of clarification in terms of the recommendation chair which I wonder whether I should just highlight now yes please so within the recommendation it does say that to ensure that the properties remain affordable in perpetuity that the whole thing really with a MIPS clause is that that we cannot completely guarantee that the homes will remain affordable in perpetuity if such circumstances happened that they did default on the loan and we were unable to put all those safeguards in place feel it's highly unlikely that for the sort of technical purposes I don't think we can say in perpetuity within the recommendation and I would ask that that's removed so that the properties just remain affordable so you were simply suggesting we take that word out yes so it now reads remain affordable and the future maintenance so on so that that's simply the one word yeah okay noted happy to take any questions on that's right we're coming to clarification in just a moment okay members any councillor Fein do we have any yes we have some clarification councillor Heather Williams wanted to speak thank you very much councillor Williams please thank you chairman um I just mine was clarity around the perpetuity and also the the myth is something that we've not had before and it doesn't sound like it's very common I have to say thank you very much to Michael um for explaining it um but I think in future there's something completely new like this it would be very helpful for members to be briefed ahead of the meeting and have some sort of training and support for it on on the cases of perpetuity we said about the council being first first to sort of get the to be able to buy it in the event that they need to be sold but I'm just wondering how that works with the right to buy because actually housing um registered housing providers are able to secure things in perpetuity and because they have the right to acquire not the right to buy so how so we obviously can't guarantee if we were to buy them and I think what was very important you know I'm supportive of this site but we we need to be clear on that and the other thing on perpetuity is recently members were given the opportunity to do the uh government dcp site tour for the Cambridge southeast and I was wondering how this fits for so potentially going to be um compulsory purchase in which case we wouldn't be able to guarantee in perpetuity because of the alignment that's proposed so be clear I you know we all supported it but that perpetuity seems to be a bit of a tricky spot and if I can have the clarification to those areas I very much appreciate it thank you very much for that uh who's going to take that I'm happy to clarify please do okay so so your first point council Williams in terms of the mid clause being rather an exception rather than the norm actually it has now become the normal um we did do a presentation to planning committee but I think that was probably a few years back to be fair um and we do now have it written within local plan policies in terms of having a mid clause within an exception site because of the perpetuity issue um so so it is a norm and and that's come about really in terms of because of the grant funding for affordable housing the government um um expect um health and providers to maximise their assets to to fund new development um and the only way they could do that is with the inclusion of a mid clause so it is general practice now that mid clauses are included um with with the appropriate safeguards and generally it's a registered provider so there's more stringent safeguards in place in terms of um their regulation um but happy to do a separate briefing on that is that valuable um in terms you mentioned for perpetuity and I've sort of explained that having a mid clause you can't guarantee perpetuity because there is always that that very small risk that the um housing provider would default on their loan um and other safeguards couldn't be taken into place and therefore ultimately you would lose that affordable home to the private sector um so so we can't guarantee that perpetuity but we do believe the risk is small um and not having the mid clause um the risk is much much greater and significant in terms of not being able to deliver that scheme and right to buy there is no right to buy on this scheme it is a community led scheme and it will be owned and managed by gretchen alford and um charities they have a different type of tenancy agreement which would not allow them to um to buy the property um so it is more secure in that respect um I'm not sure about your point on the cpo um sorry I didn't quite quite understand that um but obviously we would always do it I'm not sure that homes remain affordable where they can chair if you're happy you want to come back yeah I think the my question about the route line it's probably more for um for michael um but the my issue on the right to buy wasn't with the parochial the slides that were shown it referenced about the council being sort of having the first choice to buy them um I can't obviously see the slide right now but that that was referenced that that was my concern by saying that the council gets first refusal and preference would those then be subject to to right to buy whereas if it was a housing registered housing provided then that might not be the case so what's the what's the thought process between us having first first dips as it were um and then I think the other one is more for for michael chairman I think I know but thank you Julie for your response okay so in terms of the right to buy um it obviously you know we promote affordable um council housing and we have our own new bill program so we're obviously you know as a council really promoting that but we do have the right to buy and we we cannot get out of that obligation through legislation um the quite housing what would happen if we ever did take on the properties which I have to be honest I think it's very very slim because you know because the great shelf of charities are well established they've been going since 1890 I think it's such a slim chance but we would have to look at it and if they took on a tenancy um which the council gave then yes the right to buy would probably then start to kick in um it's it's something we can't get away off um unfortunately it's legislation and less policy changes sometime in the future thank you very much for that perhaps chair if I could this is sex and would you come back on it yeah please yeah I'll probably be inviting a few other people to chip in as well but just for clarity on the the slide it simply says that the section 106 agreement will contain a proviso that local planning authority should given the opportunity to acquire the property if necessary and perhaps just be an appropriate point for Steve and Reid just to explain how that works within the legal agreement right yes so Mr Reid would you like to enlighten us yes chair if I may um the the wording in the 106 agreement gives that uh that right to the council or in effect the council's nominee so we we could uh work with a registered provider uh to ensure that the uh the the particular dwelling was held by a registered provider rather than the council in which case the the theoretical risk of the right to buy would not arise the other important point I would like to add is um that um the number of affordable dwellings that would be sold in the event of default is specifically limited under the wording that we've agreed with the charity such that if for example um the mortgagee could be paid off by by selling two dwellings rather than say 14 then only two dwellings would be sold to reimburse the mortgagee so that's another important fact that we've built into this agreement and we've also ensured that unlike a situation with a uh registered provider whereby effectively they will want the the right to mortgage the site even after all of the dwellings are built i.e. so they can raise money for another site in this case the mortgage will be limited to the building of these dwellings and if they did want to raise finance post the dwellings being built they would need to come back and seek the council's permission so that's another important factor right thank you very much for that Chairman you have councilor Nick Wright and then myself okay councilor Wright please thank you Chairman um I have my concerns about this um it does alter our original decision quite a lot because the perpetuity word was a big attraction you know to building an exception site in the green belt and you know looking at this site it's a wonderful development everything about it ticked boxes for us but the fact that it's a very small charity running it does give anxieties about how quickly the mortgage in you know in procession causes may come in and uh cause cause anxiety sorry about this thank you pardon um the uh that will be 10 pounds for the Chairman's charity no doubt absolutely um well hold you to it yes uh I apologize uh there we are on clarification councillor so is there a question please well what's happened never and councillor Wright are you still with us I think he's dropped up chair yeah I'm afraid we appear to have lost councillor Wright for the moment councillor Thane would you like to put your question uh yes thank you chair um perhaps I could check uh with the case officer this is in fact the opposite side of the railway from the proposed c set busway route so the compulsory purchase issue wouldn't arise um it's quite clear to me I think Mr Sexton would confirm that the MIP clause is in line with the relevant policy of the local plan paragraph six refers as to any concerns about perpetuity in the long term this charity has been existing for 130 years not exactly a small charity they own and run 30 wholly affordable houses on the next door to this site um so my intention I see we now have another speaker but my intention was to move was to move that we go straight to a vote I don't know whether I have a seconder for that uh right thank you that I do have uh public speakers so I would would say councillors who are here if I assume one of those public speakers might be the uh parish council um they like to ask them whether they would be happy to move direct to a vote chair would you like me to just clarify the policy position which I think is what councillor Wright was councillor Wright was going to be alluding to yeah so policy h 11 of the adopted local plan is clear that mortgage and possession clauses will be allowed where demonstrated to be necessary to enable development to proceed and national planning policy in terms of green bar development that was limited affordable housing in line with adopted development plan policies so the the inclusion of the MIP clause is in line with planning policy the reason we're back here today is because when the scheme was presented in June officers weren't aware that MIP clause was necessary um in the period between that committee meeting and today we have had those discussions we have had evidence presented to us um obviously Julie Fletcher has just looked at that and we are officers are satisfied so the had we had that information in June we would have been presenting the exact same recommendation because there is no policy conflict with the inclusion of the MIP clause obviously there's yeah perhaps just like wording in terms of not being able to say perpetuity but I think as Stephen really explained there are a lot of safeguards within the 106 and there are MIP clauses on other sites across the district um that have been granted and they're not too distant past and we are not aware that the use of a MIP clause on those sites has yet resulted in the loss of any affordable units on those sites so there is a risk but it's a small risk um and say it is in line with policy so there's no planning policy reason to to say no Excellent okay thank you very much so we have a proposal from uh Councillor Fein to go straight to a vote I will what I'm going to do now firstly I will check that he has a seconder for that and then I will check with the public speakers if they're they're happy for us to go ahead on that basis so Councillor Fein has made a proposal to go straight for a vote um I'm prepared to second that so we have a live proposal um so I have two speakers who I will now um ask their views um um I think uh Councillor Kettle would you view please Councillor Kettle got a lot of background noise on the Lyme forest would you put a view some please thank you very much um is Mike Nettleton with us chair yes I am hopefully you can see me yeah indeed are you happy that we go straight to a vote I'm not at the moment to clarify that you're not okay fair enough and I just check with um Councillor Kettle from the parish council uh would you be happy if you went to a vote obviously I would be completely happy for us to go straight to the vote uh we are um really excited about the prospect of the the proposal um and would really like it to begin as soon as possible right okay thank you very much um I would just now like to take advice from Mr Carter since the applicant would like to speak um perhaps uh you could advise on the process please thank you chair yes um I don't believe Mr Nettleton is the applicant um so I think he has been noted as a supporter um but I believe he does have some other comments to make so I think we should take those comments and I note that there are also members who would like to um have some period of debate as well but I'll leave that matter to you chair but I think we need to hear Mr Nettleton okay thank you very much all right so Mr Nettleton I'm going to go um first off members are we complete on clarifications with the officers yes thank you yeah thank you so let's so Mr Nettleton if you would like to thank you chair your sorry to mess you about that please don't worry about that you've got your three three minutes so when when you're ready then please thank you obviously this is a very important issue because it raises issues around affordable housing and around the green belt previously I've supported this application on balance because I felt it was the only way of actually obtaining truly affordable housing in Great Shelford however I think a number of conditions have to be imposed if we're to allow the development to proceed the first one is the tenancy terms and I've been really concerned to hear this morning that it's the chance that the tenancy terms cannot be guaranteed in perpetuity we are sacrificing green belt land for this development it's a very worthy development but we need to make sure that there is no right to buy and that the tenancy terms continue to be for residents only and for rents around 50 percent of the market values so I'd be very concerned if the if the council were to suggest that we voted in favour of development without that being tied down the second is related and it's down to protection of residual land so the remaining land which is for allotments and for a sort of mini country park also needs to be protected in perpetuity such that it can only be used for allotments or public recreational space and not for any form of commercial use I think that is really really important third issue we've got is parking this was raised at a public meeting which of parish council organised back in January this year and their concerns around parking in the hectare by uses of the country park and the allotments plainly there will be additional parking in that area it's an area where parking is already the premium some form of parking management scheme needs to be devised before consent is given to this application the final thing is the allotments and I think this this is largely gone by the board I'd ask that provision of the allotments be reviewed between the parochial charities and great shelter parish council before development proceeds that has been totally ignored and in fact the the parochial charities have gone ahead with relocation of the allotments in advance of planning commission being granted to me that is wrong so if I can summarize my major concerns around the tenancy terms the protection of residual land so it can't be used for commercial development and also parking issues thank you chair obviously happy to take any questions all right thank you very much yeah members any points of clarification you'd like to raise with Mr Nettleton I haven't got any coming through at the moment no so thank you very much Mr Nettleton can I just check then with the councillor Kettle given that Mr Nettleton has spoken do you wish to speak as well yes thank you very much with regards to the commencement of work on the allotments I would like to point out that I don't believe this has actually happened as such only that allotments are a seasonal usage of land and therefore those whose allotments are going to be moved for the development have been given permission to begin moving their shared etc onto the new plot not into its actual site as yet but simply to release the land ready for the developers when they come in to start building as such there have been some complaints about where the sheds have been relocated and this is being looked into and the sheds are definitely not staying where they are at the precise moment and I believe that that is is where the the discussion has come from that it was simply a means of enabling the allotment holders to not lose a season of planting right okay thank you very much I mean with regards to the parking we are well aware that there have been some discussions about the parking I thought at the time when it was presented to the the planning committee that these issues were thoroughly discussed I do agree that parking is a problem in every village and in every area of every village and it is something that will have to be part of the parochial charities plan and I believe that they are looking into this matter anyway all right thank you very much yep any points clarification for councillor cattel please councillor rilliams was that the clarification um it was more the clarification that um councillor cattel has got the permission of her parish council because I think that might have been missed oh yeah okay thank you very much for that I was kicked back sorry uh councillor keep kettle um just for process I have to ask if you have the permission to speak on behalf of your parish council yes I do thank you very much okay I don't think there's any further questions on that um local member councillor fein I take it that you didn't want to speak further on at this stage no I said all I needed to say earlier on thank you chair okay so what's going to happen now is that um um we will debate the motion put by uh councillor fein and that was to go to a vote so do I have speakers for that please councillor councillor I'm sorry councillor fein I didn't catch that councillor heather williams and councillor tumie hawkins and councillor bradnan okay what which order is that then please councillor fein uh I have councillor bradnam I had down earlier um councillor williams and then councillor hawkins okay fine so councillor bradnan then please and we're speaking to going to a vote okay um I'm quite happy to have the debated people want it but the um a couple of things one is that the parish the planning committee has encountered mortgagee and possession clauses before and I appreciate it might be useful to have an update briefing on it but we are familiar with the process and why they happen and in this case I have I'm reassured by Julie Fletcher's comment about it I think this we know from the looking at the original application that this application was really well thought out and is mindful of the community and making provision where it can um and so actually I have no hesitation in supporting this application and so for that reason I wouldn't mind if it went straight to the vote but I'm quite happy for others to to raise their their concerns my feeling is this has been managed by the charity that lives within the village and knows the village so it will have um an obligation to handle this as well as it possibly can so my feeling is we should have no concerns in that regard thank you okay thank you very much councillor hella williams please thank you chairman I mean the purpose of the debate is to sometimes support as well it doesn't necessarily mean concerns but I think we do have an opportunity to tighten this up given the concerns that have been raised about the tenancy terms um so I might need officers advice as to whether this is possible or not but in the wording of the agreement is it possible that's rather than the council having the first opportunity to purchase that we do change that make it clear that it'll be the council's nominee that way we can hopefully give some reassurance to residents concerned and about the right to buy process if it's clear that it'll be a housing association that we will nominate um and is that possible or is it a legal thing that the local authority comes first so if there's some advice on that if it is that we can do that then I would like to move and propose that we do that to give it the best chance of that perpetuity as we can't include it but um but you know affordable housing is definitely something that we we and so we all look to to support um and I believe the parking issues I think we we have the opportunity to deal that with that back in June um I'm not sure we can revisit that but um I'll take advice on that so mainly about the um appointee nominee rather than buying it please chairman thank you okay thank you let's take some advice on that Mr Karthik can you revise us on that thank you chair um I believe the and I'm sure Stephen Reeve will correct me if I'm wrong but I believe the wording at present is um the council or its nominee so I think that that safeguard is in there um and gives flexibility um to to security uh in that way as uh Julie Fletcher described so the council could nominate it uh uh an affordable housing provider um should that situation arise so I think the flexibility of wording is sufficient at present council Williams would be my view thank you chair chairman can I come back from that please hang on a minute Mr Reeve I think wants to add to that chair I I think if um councilor Williams speaks first then I can hear any comments and address those when I speak all right thank you very much uh council Williams would like to come back please um yes thank you chairman can I just say because this has been raised obviously by members of the public as well can I suggest that it's reworded to say that it will be the council's nominee and only the council even if um another provider cannot be found so reverse it rather the council or a nominee where we've got that flexibility make it clear in our wording that we will explore all other opportunities ahead of ourselves which I think is what's missing at the moment from from the words that have been cited to us and I would hope would reassure um that the residents that the council is taking the best steps it can to increase the rate of perpetuity all right thank you Mr Reeve chair I I am satisfied that we can tweak the agreement such that um the the council uses all reasonable endeavors to get a registered provider on board to take on any of the units which might otherwise go to the open market and it's only if the council is unsuccessful in persuading a registered provider to come on board that it would then itself wish to exercise the that the right to avoid any of the units going on to the open market but I think it's also important to highlight that the charity are not over stretching themselves in relation to the amount that they're seeking to borrow I believe that's part of the information which has been put forward and as I confirmed earlier uh unlike a situation of a registered provider where um they would not they would be reluctant to accept wording the charity fully accept that if they only needed to to sell two dwellings to pay back the mortgage then only two dwellings would be sold the usual situation is the registered provider would want all of the dwellings sold irrespective so that's to my mind a key additional safeguard that places the the risk element in context all right thank you very much for that um I'll have a few more speakers I think councillor Hawkins was next yeah it's councillor right councillor Hawkins please thank you very much yeah I'm not going to prolong this my comment was going to be on the fact that we already had the safeguard that Mr Reid read out to us which is the the councillor its nominee will be the ones to uh purchase the property which gives that assurance and frankly I think we already have that I'm happy for the clarification to be made in the document but I think we need to move forward with this it's the myth that we're discussing not anything else and I hear what um what was said earlier by the member of the public um on parking and some of the other issues what it's the myth that is the point here and we need to focus on that and move on thank you thank you very much and councillor Roberts yeah yeah thank you very much councillor Roberts Sherman I'm very aware that it's almost 11 o'clock so I will just say I think the concerns that I have have been answered I would say however I think it's very important that we just don't not discuss these things and get everything carte blanche it's it's a very good project but we have to make sure thank you chairman thank you thank you very much yes chairman I've made a proposal but we haven't actually agreed if we're going to agree to that you weren't satisfied with the the comments of the legal officer then so chairman I'll second Heather's proposal I'm coming back to councillor Williams can we be clear what you are now proposing which is anything different from what the officers have just said that they're already doing what just comes to a time what um Stephen Reed said was he'd be happy to change change the current wording to that which he said about giving the preference to the housing registered provider first what we haven't done is actually agree as a committee to give authority to Stephen Reed to make that change so you're happy with the suggestion that Mr Reed has made yes and we do simply want to confirm that so that's been second if I understand it by councillor Roberts yeah yes chairman thank you right um so are we all happy with that agreed is anyone against I can't hear any against so that change of wording then is agreed now we need to come back to councillor Fane's uh motion um sorry sorry hang on a minute so councillor Fane's attempts to actually save some time clearly haven't worked um but we've got 59 minutes and we're about to go um to one minute silence um Mr Carter would you be kind enough to do the timing for us yes I will I'll let everyone know when two minutes has expired okay so we're um just coming up to 11 o'clock now so I'm suspending um operations for the moment and it is now 11 o'clock and we will recognise two minutes silence thank you chairman thank you that is two minutes silence completed all right thank you very much so thank you everybody and we return to business um I think we have now agreed the adjustment to the recommendations wording um technically we should now go back to um councillor Fane's request to go to a vote but that would require two votes one to say that we're going to a vote then doing the vote I mean are we ready simply to go to the vote agreed agreed okay we're we're going to the vote then so um the recommendation is on page 15 uh item 32 with the adjusted wording as outlined by uh Mr Reed um the recommendation is for approval uh are we all in favour of that agreed chairman it's councillor Nick Wright I won't take part in the vote because I lost connection during the meeting during the meltdown so uh can you put me down as not voted right thank you very much for that chair if I may yes please Mr Reed so there's uh two two amendments chair one is to take out the reference to in perpetuity and the second one is to ensure that in the event that the charity were to go in default the pref the district council will use all reasonable endeavours to persuade a registered provider to take on the dwelling in advance of the district council doing so yes okay I think I think we've actually agreed to that already yeah you're suggesting that I need to no sorry chair the recommendation of the page just I think you do need to to ask members to confirm that they agree the reference to in perpetuity comes out okay agree members have we all heard that so we need to agree that the word in perpetuity is removed can I take that by affirmation agree and again that council writes phone again okay so we've done that we need to do the substantive vote then and the substantive vote is for the recommendation at item paragraph 32 on page 15 with those adjusted wording can I take this by affirmation please agreed thank you no one against let's recognise that um um council write unfortunately um is not be able to vote in this one so that is agreed then with those um adjustments good we move on then to item six which is at full bomb this is application 2020 02450 FUL this uh Bonsbury house Cox's Grove full bomb the proposal is for a change of use in conversion from C4 use to large house immutable occupancy uh HMO so we use HMO as the um definition of house immutable occupancy the applicant is uh mr bird material considerations will be outlined by the presenting officer the application is brought to committee because it was called in by form on parish council and subsequently agreed at the delegation meeting held on the 22nd of september 2020 presenting officer is Rebecca Claydon Claydon would you please give us your presentation thank you chair sorry bear with me could I just confirm that everyone could see the presentation please we can see that thank you lovely um so the site is Bonsbury house which is located on the east side of Cox's drove um I'll just leave my points for actually so this is Bonsbury house here and you can see it here as well the site does not fall within a conservation area um the development framework does run through the site and cuts off a significant part of the main dwelling and all of the rear garden whilst a section of the rear garden is located within the green belt the majority is not residential dwellings are located to immediate south and west of the site and this is an aerial image showing the location of Bonsbury house to the north of fullborn you can just see it here and I've outlined the site in red this application seeks permission for the change of use from c4 use which is a small house in multiple occupation or hmo to an eight person eight bedroom large hmo which would fall under sui generous use class no external changes are proposed officers are recommending approval of the application so the dwelling is currently in use as a small hmo which as I say falls under use class c4 use class c4 allows for the use of a dwelling as an hmo for up to six occupants under permitted development rights dwellings are able to change between c3 residential use and c4 um hmo use with uh allowing for the occupation of up to six residents without the need for planning permission this proposal proposals for eight occupants which would fall under sui generous use so given the permitted development fallback in this application officers have assessed the impact of the two additional residents beyond the permitted development fallback position of use class c4 so these are the proposed ground floor plans there would be two bedrooms bedroom one which locates here and bedroom six bedroom six will be located in the former annex there would be two kitchens and a drawing living room on the ground floor which opens out into the rear garden the internal immunity space created by the communal rooms as well as the provision of a large external immunity in the form of the large garden is considered to be sufficient for eight occupants and this is the proposed first floor plan where the remaining six bedrooms would be located all eight bedrooms meet the residential space standards required for single occupancy condition two as recommended would ensure that the property is not occupied by more than eight persons and this is the view of barnsbury house which is this building here um looking from cox's drove and this is a view of the front elevation of the north of barnsbury house it's quite large so i couldn't fit the whole um dwelling into one picture um given that there are no all external alterations proposed it is considered that the proposal would not have a negative impact on the surrounding context including impact to the greenbelt in terms of its design um on this site location plan the blue circles indicate the nearest um neighbouring occupiers as stated previously this assessment assesses the impact of the two additional residents beyond the permitted development fallback position of six residents under use class c4 in terms of impact to neighbouring immunity whilst there may be some impact to the residential immunity of the neighbouring occupiers in terms of increased comings and goings as a result of the two additional occupants due to the small amount of additional occupiers and the sufficient amount of internal immunity space as well as the physical distance between the dwellings so they will have quite large curtslages as you can see from this location plan it is unlikely that the proposal is going to have a significant adverse impact to the neighbouring residents in terms of noise in addition given that there are no external alterations proposed there would be no added impact in terms of overshadowing overlooking or sense of enclosure resulting from the proposals a supplementary plan was submitted by the applicant which does aim to clarify the ownership of the garden um as this is what was not clear in the location plan was submitted with the application therefore officers are recommending a new condition um to ensure that there would be sufficient external immunity space so the recommended additional condition would be worded as follows the area edged on the blue plan reference shall only be used and retained for residential use in association with the outside multiple occupation and the reason for this is to ensure that the occupants of the HMO have sufficient access to private immunity space in accordance with policy HQ one of the South Cambridge local plan the key considerations of this application therefore are principle of development neighbour amenity impact to the character and appearance of the area and highway matters taken into account the points discussed it is considered that the property is suitable for a large eight person HMO and that it would not result in significant adverse immunity issues to the neighbouring properties officers are therefore recommending approval of the application subject to conditions thank you all right thank you very much um guess for entire clarity you'll be quite clear that there's a fallback position where they already have a mission for six uh so what we need to concentrate on is the effect of an additional two possible um resistance in this property if you confirm that please um yeah yeah so um there is a permitted development fallback under C4 of six occupants this is for eight occupants so we're assessing the two extra um additional occupants okay good thank you very much so um do I have speakers please do I might not speak at any points of clarification I put down chairman it's Deborah Roberts okay let's counsel Roberts please thank you very much um I wonder if the officer could just clarify for me in my mind because I'm very unsure at this moment and given previous comments from the local members um exactly what use is this building going to be because we're not describing it as bed sits or flats we're describing it as bedrooms and eight bedrooms which is over the number allowed is it in fact a hostel what is the actual use going to be of this it seems to me we are giving very little I've been given very little background as to what use will be made of it by whom um but we're going to be asked I'm sure about the local members to consider has problems so could I have that clarified please chairman it's clarified that and can we be clear whether this is a material matter please um so the use is sui generous use so it falls under a unique classification there isn't a particular use class for it um it would be for eight people the definition of an hmo is a property rented out by at least three people who are not from one household so they're unrelated individuals but share facilities such as the bathroom and kitchens and immunity areas um so it does fall under an hmo and it falls under sui generous use class is does that clarify it a bit more um sorry no it really makes it even I mean I'm even more confused I might go in through a fog here um is it all right that's a hospital and the council robert's let's let's hear from mr carter here is mr carter yes yep sorry chair thank you yes clarify that and we just like yeah have some guidance whether this is material so yes so when a use falls into a sui sui generous use that simply means that it doesn't fall within one of the other specified use classes uh so what that means is that if something has a sui generous use then if it were to change to something else that would require planning permission but this is a house in multiple occupation that's a recognized residential type and as rebecca has explained it would be for eight people only um it wouldn't be a hostel it would be a house in multiple occupation um and um that's really as far as I can explain it chair I think okay thank you is it a material planning issue whether it's a hostel or whatever you can describe it is the issue is that it's eight people in multiple occupancy isn't it yes chair that they've applied for plan permission for a large hmo not for a hostel that would be a different use that would require a separate planning commission if it were a hostel right thanks thank you council robert's are you happy with it no but it won't get me anywhere thanks very much council bradlin then please thank you chairman um I wanted to ask for clarification on two matters uh one is that actually a lot of the concerns that have been raised um are around use of cars and parking um and the fact that in the past that has caused um noise and traffic and I just wanted to ask um what provision has been or what assurances have been sought about how many cars are intended to be parked there and is there a maximum on the number of cars or car parking spaces and also I wanted to ask clarification on although this is eight bedrooms and I understand that the um there is a conditioned to control no more than eight people live there but in theory if those are double beds then it could be 16 people living there and I just wanted to clarify how that is controlled okay thank you okay officer can you enlighten please yeah so um regarding the first point around concerns about car parking and the amount of car parking spaces um the South Cambridge local plan policy ti3 doesn't actually state any car parking standards for HMO sui generous use but the standard for c3 residential use has a minimum of two spaces per dwelling whilst officers do consider this to be sufficient a recommended condition has been attached to any permission um that does require further details of vehicle parking um in order to make sure that um parking is satisfactory um regarding the second point about the eight bedrooms um no it couldn't be 16 um condition two does restrict it to um eight persons I believe it also is restricted under environmental health licensing for the HMO um so definitely from a planning point of view um it would be restricted to only eight occupants and we believe that the residential space standards meet um it uh standards for the single occupancy bedrooms for eight people so again 16 people would not um be allowed in this instance and and my question was how would that be uh maintained um so again condition two does restrict that so if they were to breach that condition that would be then an enforcement matter um I believe we can also impose a condition if needed regarding management um regarding management plan if that would be something that um would potentially be helpful for you um but yes yeah sorry chairman with your permission the reason I'm asking is that um houses in multiple occupation sometimes accommodate people with different shift patterns so it'd actually very be very hard for somebody to monitor how many people were living in it at any one time um and that's why I asked how would this be monitored because it's not clear to me how you would Matt how you would know how many people were living in it I think that's an impossible question isn't it we've already been told I mean we can only put the conditions on and there's an enforcement um regime um which uh I mean we're not under control of um okay I'm going to move on councillor fein do you have further speakers please I think councillor Hawkins wanted to speak chair was councillor Williams also on the list uh I don't see councillor yes I am Toby Williams after I am I am Dan will speak and I am also I'm I'm after Toby um right I thought Toby retracted his um yeah Toby retracted then it's me then Chris Carter then to me right councillor Heather Williams then please thank you chairman I just wanted clarification from officers that we can see from the consultation responses that we're being asked to put um material planning consideration towards the experience when this was previously of noise and so I'd like officers advice as to whether the previous experiences is something that we can take as a material planning consideration thank you chairman thank you I think Mr Carter's going to tell us about that thank you chair um we need to consider the merits of the application in front of us you won't be surprised to hear me hear me say uh rather than in any uh historic uh management issues that may have occurred at the property so uh that would be my advice um just to consider the the matter in front of you rather than um history uh as Rebecca has said um if uh if enforcement issues were to arise around the way in which the property is being used or the number of occupants then that would be a matter for separate enforcement investigation at that time thank you chair all right thank you and I have uh councillor Hawkins please uh thank you chair I think um some of the uh issues I'm going to talk about have been clarified but in terms of concerns about uh you know its use and noise and how that will be enforced that will be enforced under the HMO license it is a licensed HMO it has been given a license and um management is an issue that comes under that and there are hefty funds for HMO landlords who uh do not keep their tenants in check uh so thank you all right there's no question though okay thank you very much I think we have councillor Braden who wants to speak again chair again you sure you want to speak again of course I'm sure chairman thank you not the same question no but I would like to pick up on a point that um Chris Carter advised us about that um or perhaps indeed uh Miss Clayton that if we were concerned about um the management of the development that we could seek a management plan and I would if if and I'm not saying they do but if the committee is minded to approve this I would like that we require a condition that a management plan is included I'm not quite sure what you mean by a management plan well I refer you to Miss Clayton or Chris Carter then because I was asking about how would you be able to check that there were indeed only eight people living there and we were referred to a management plan so I would like that's why I'm seeking clarification Mr Carter would you clarify that for us please yes thank you chair um I think there's there's two issues to discuss here one is the point made by council Hawkins which is that the HMO requires a license under environmental health legislation which you understand it already has and that requires certain management procedures to be um acted upon taking place uh I think what Rebecca was saying was that um if the committee was so minded a condition could be added which would require the submission of a management plan for the agreement of the local planning authority I would suggest such a plan could potentially include um the owner of the property keeping record of the number of occupants um and submitting that to the council periodically in a redacted form um but uh that may well be duplication of of the requirements under the HMO license um so the committee may not consider that's necessary but that is an option that's open to you thank you chair right thank you very much councillor khan was next councillor khan please the main issue that seems to me to be important here is the the access to the property along the private drive extremely narrow uh the highways commented on the issue of the public highway but this is a private highway can we have any uh control of the management of that uh would be for instance passing providing a passing area on the actual drive make a difference um how much of an issue can we take into account the uh the actual access on the drive itself in view of the highways comments okay thank you very much it's Clayden then you can help there please uh yeah so we do have um some recommended conditions regarding highways access um it's potentially not in the applicants control though um regarding passing places and things like that um the highway's potentially not in the applicants control so potentially no we can't necessarily consider it um toby i don't know if you want to speak to that yes i'm a bit uh um uh for you chair i'm a bit worried about that suggestion of a passing place because if you hang on toby nobody knows who you are yet perhaps you'd just like to introduce yourself first apologies i'm i'm the area development manager for team two i'm i'm Rebecca's um manager um apologies chair um i think we would have to look into that in in a bit more detail it might be something that the applicants could clarify when they come to speak but i'm i'm a little bit hesitant to say it's something that could be achievable because i'm not sure whether they for example would have um a right to carry out works to um introduce a passing place on that bit of the driveway that extends from the public highway which is kind of private private after that point to the actual housing question but it may be something that could be put to the um or be clarified by the uh by the applicant all right thank you very much uh chair i'm not sure whether councillor Hawkins wants to speak again or not she's next on the list uh no we've had it's been sorted thank you thank you very much i think councillor Williams Heather Williams was a technical point councillor Richard Williams i think is next to speak okay councillor Heather Williams you want to come back my point was just to say if we're worried about duplication do we have an environmental health officer that could uh present and like we had with the housing to explain if there would be duplication through management plan or not well i think we have to make our you know we've been through quite a lot of this and i think the the answer is pretty clear that you know the license is the license and it is in part a management plan but chairman councillor Bradenam was asking for for it to be included there's going to be thermos back duplication if we haven't any eho officer would be able to confirm if it wasn't the case you know let's just go to help us um thank you chair um we don't have any eho present councillor Williams um i think that uh my advice would be that the condition restricting the number of occupants is sufficient for planning purposes i don't believe that we need a management plan on top of that um and that the other matters in terms of the uh day-to-day management of the premises will be picked up under the environmental health license um if issues arose with the number of occupants i believe that the planning authority would have the ability to act under the terms of the condition restricting the number of occupants and i believe that that would be sufficient thank you chair right thank you very much i think that's Richard Williams then yep councillor Richard Williams please thank you chair um can i just go back to mr carter on on the point about material planning considerations and i'm sort of anticipating something i think the ward councillors are going to say and the parish council may say because they've said it in written form but just about this this issue of the previous experience and the fears of residents not being a material consideration because i would have thought it was i mean it it does relate to a planning purpose it does have a connection with the proposed land um and there are instances where you know fears of local residents and past experience has been accepted as a as a material consideration so i was wondering if you could just say a little bit more on this thinking as to why it wouldn't be the case here okay thank you thank you councillor Williams um thank you chair um i think we would need to be able to demonstrate how that relates to this proposal so um i'm afraid i'm not familiar with the previous issues that may or may not have um occurred at the site i don't know if the team leader toby Williams could shed any further life on that but i think they could only be considered um relevant if we were able to demonstrate that we thought that was likely to arise again through through this proposal um and i'm not from my experience of this site i'm not aware that that would be the case but i'm happy to take advice from the case officer or team leader who may know a little more about that councillor toby is there anything you would add to that yeah my um my understanding is that the previous use was um that caused a lot of concern was much more of a kind of short-term visitor type use with the property being put on an external website like booking.com where there was much more movement of people on a short-term basis coming to and from the property and that is a different type of use to the use that's being proposed today in the local planning authority would retain and control through its enforcement powers if if the property were used um for those uh for those purposes which is much more of a kind of visitor accommodation use so i don't think that those impacts previously are directly relevant to the application that's before members uh members today. Okay thank you very much for that um we do have public speakers i'd like to move on to them please um can i have mrs john mason mason are you with us please i understand your situation for the applicant yeah yes good morning and if you can all see and hear me yeah we can all do that so you've got your three minutes uh so when you're ready okay thank you very much yes good morning chair and councillors thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak on behalf of the applicant and thank you as well to the case officer rebecca claden for her help in managing the application um so the site comprises a detached um house um just on the border of the settlement boundary of four warn it's a large house within a large curtailage an application to separate the house and its annex into two dwellings was dismissed at appeal in 2015 following that it was converted to two separate holiday lets around 2016 at this time the issues referred to by ward councillors and the parish council for rose regarding possible issues of antisocial behavior an enforcement officer visited the site and advised that the use of their annex as a separate holiday let was considered to be in breach of planning control and as a result the holiday use ceased in october 2018 the dwelling was converted to a small house in multiple occupation um which enables the conversion of running to small hmo's um the site is currently in use as an hmo for five people and it has an environmental health license to that effect which limits it at five um although the permitted development rights do allow it for use up to six um while it's been in this most recent use there have been no complaints or issues with the neighbors or the parish council that the applicant is aware of and the applicant and their tenants have maintained cordial relations with the neighbors and it is important to note that this application has not received any objections from residents of other dwellings on coax's place and following the objection from the parish council in september the applicant obtained letters from current tenants to evidence how the hmo is currently used these were sent to the parish council to demonstrate that there was no cause for concern with the future use of the site while it's not a material planning consideration it demonstrates that the existing tenants primarily comprise young professionals working either in Cambridge or in the business parks within south cambertshire there are no issues of noise and organizing large parties or having guests for extended periods would be in breach of their tenancy agreements and so i hope that provides some background to um the previous uses of the site and how this current use is different um just to come back on the access point and the access isn't particularly narrow except for the very last stretch um as there are large grass verges along most of it um and there is at least one passing place as well and so i hope that serves to clarify some of the matters that have been raised so far okay thank you very much for that members of any points of clarification anyone would like to pursue with mr mason no i can't see any okay thank you very much mr mason for that contribution sorry chairman it takes a while to type in i just wanted to ask mr mason in the um google imagery there is a car parked in the parking place and i wanted to ask him in his experience of this location is there often a car parked in that passing place mr mason yes i don't believe so no okay i don't have any other speakers for you mr mason so we're move on yeah councillor hawkins right no councillor hawkins please yeah uh just to ask mr mason uh in his view how many cars can be parked in the continent of the property mr mason can you help us with that please um so at the moment we have space for four cars and then the application seeks to increase that to six and a parking plan was provided but i believe there's going to be a condition attached to it as well and so we are applying for six parking spaces and but then there is a large cycle store in the back as well space for at least eight cycles thank you thank you very much i have no other clarifications chair i just check are we still on oh sorry you're gone very quiet sorry i was i was muted so i was apologies for that i was just saying that we don't have any representatives in the parish council who have chosen not to come today but we have local members who are councillor john williams and councillor claire daughton i think councillor williams is going to speak first councillor wins you have your three minutes thank you thank you chair um the officers report makes no reference to the village design guide supplementary planning document adopted in january 2020 or the emerging neighborhood plan for full-born this is an important omission the location of this application which is within the soft edge of the village is recognized in both documents as an area of sensitivity bordering as it does full-born fen moreover no mention is made of additional light or noise pollution both of which were prominent in the history of this property they impacted on surrounding dwellings as evidence shows in actions by this council against the owner over four years and would be an important consideration given this location as to the full-born vdg spd this application concerns a property which is within the poor well area specifically identified by the guide i quote from the guide about the poor well area this is a unique highlight in full-born and is partly in the conservation area it has links to the heritage of water management and fendland agriculture and brings nature directly into the village the tall trees and green aspects of cow lane at this location provide a memorable image of the village within trees in my opinion this application should be refused on the grounds that it fails to respect retain or enhance the local character as identified in the village design guide its impacts will compromise the countryside frontage with full-born fen through inappropriate increased traffic movements parking noise and lighting in particular no assessment has been made on the impact on wildlife particularly the impact of more human activity on bats which are known from other recent planning applications to be very active in the area members of the planning community i hope you too will respect the full-born as a supplementary planning document and we thank you for allowing me to speak right thank you very much council williams uh any points of clarification councillor fein i think you want to pursue something councillor fein councillor hawkins was first all right councillor hawkins then please thank you chair uh councillor williams thank you for your comments um i'm not clear really how the use of this property as an hmo is contrary to the village design guide because it's already in existence it's already been used even if it were a single house or a single family house you could still have you know i don't know four five kids living at home with their own cars so how does it how is it contrary to the vdg thank you well i can answer that first of all the officer has made no reference to the spd so obviously she has not taken it into account in her um in her reasoning or her um decision on on on this application because she makes no reference to it in the application in her report at all um secondly that the additional traffic and it's clear from what the representative of the applicant has said that there are insufficient parking spaces if you're going to have eight people there there are only six parking spaces there is no parking available elsewhere along that lane for other people so they will end up parking in the conservation area in on the public highway uh so that will have an effect on the conservation area and i'm surprised again that that has not been mentioned in the officer's report and the officer's report has not mentioned the fact that there will be additional light pollution there will be more people living there so therefore there will be more lights on in that building and again this building is in a sensitive location on the soft edge of the village boundary so therefore i find it incredible that the officer has not referred to the village design statement it is a you know it is a supplementary planning document it should be taken into account in this application and it hasn't been and i therefore ask members not to accept this application all right thank you very much chair we have a number of others seeking clarification council have the williams councillor anna braddenham councillor richard williams and i note that uh the case officer would like to speak perhaps in response to what's just been said um we're we're doing that later this is for public speaking and clarification of the um i think it's the points so the next person then there's councillor heather williams and please thank you chairman and councillor williams may i say this is a record the most williams is in a meeting we've got toby as well but um so you referenced about the increased impact for for nature and wildlife and light and noise um but what as a committee we're being asked is to extend it from six people to eight people so could you could you try and um give me some clarity around the the extension of those two people that you think is going to have the most impact not not the site as a whole because we're only looking at the extra two i i know um with the exception of parking i take your point on the parking thank you surely councillor it is for the officer and the applicant to explain what impacts that is going to have on the property it has not been studied there has been no study undertaken into the possibility of noise and lighting impact as a result of this so we don't know do we because it's not been it's not been studied it should have been studied and given the fact that this is a sensitive area under the um under the village design guide that should have been a requirement of this application they have not been asked to do it it is an omission which has an important bearing on this application i'm not i'm not an expert i can't tell you what light and noise impacts there would be all right i would expect to study done into it i will bring the case officer back in at the end of this element so chairman can i come back councillors thank you so so from my clarification what you're saying is you believe that there will potentially be an ink not that there will be an impact of the increase of two people there will potentially and so your your issue is that it hasn't been looked at as opposed to you believing that it does have an impact is that absolutely ever yeah okay so we're not sure what the impact is that's your issue thank you all right thank you very much councillor Bradman yep councillor Bradman then please thank you chairman um i wanted to just check with councillor Williams um i'm fairly familiar with fullborn but i just want to check that the fullborn fenn is actually on the west side of coxswiss drove so it's at some distance now it's to the north it's to the north of coxswiss drove um fullborn fenn actually comes across the railway into the north of coxswiss drove that is all referred to as fullborn fenn okay right and um i'd refer you to the public inquiry into land east of tevish and road which identified that as fullborn fenn okay thank you because um on certainly on google maps it looks as if the land to the north is being fairly moderately farmed it appears to have grazing on it and i just wanted to check where where the the impact of where where where fullborn fenn was okay thank you for that all right thank you very much and councillor richard williams please thank you very much chair um and thank you thank you um councillor williams um for your um submission earlier can i just ask you um uh to say a little bit more about the past problems um that have been um encountered in the house when it was used to house immigrant workers i think you said in your submission um my thinking here is that these things could be a material consideration if fears about the future can be reasonably extrapolated from events in the past because that that could be material consideration so that's where i'm going that's what i'm thinking about here the biggest difficulty in the past was the party issue um the what what you didn't really see from the photograph or the plan is that it is extremely difficult to turn around in that area um and at the time they had upwards of a dozen people living in that house um at short terms all time to the day many many of them were people who were working at as councillor braddenham has said at odd hours of the day and night there was coming and going from early in the morning from 4 a.m to gone midnight um and the parking was such that people were parking along coxies drove because they couldn't get parking in the cartilage of that property one of the reasons for that was it's extremely difficult to reverse or turn around within that car cartilage while there is other while they have a vehicle's part there but it was really upsetting for the local residents in one resident in particular who is a jake lived adjacent who's since moved the family actually ended up moving because it took us four years to bring an enforcement notice against the owner of this property he was very good he employed some very good planning lawyers and he managed to basically turn tires up in knots for years over trying to get this sorted out um and I fear that I hear what you say about licensing but all of this can enforcement can only happen if we can have legal grounds in which to enforce and I know from previous experience with this property and with the owner of this property that we will have extreme difficulty in making any enforcement of any license going forward and it does concern me that um given the uh behavior in the past that I have no confidence that we will be able to control this situation but I go back to my thank you I think this is my objection as I think we've got it's the village design statement and the fact that we have ignored it thank you thank you um just before we move on there's there's background noise and there is a barbara kettle would you please mute barbara kettle sorry I thought it was muted beg your pardon no you're not thank you okay sorry so um Councillor Thane anymore uh Councillor Bradenham um and then the case officer I think chair Councillor Bradenham again thank you Chairman um I just want to clarify again referring to Google Maps I note that to the north of this property in other words in the field to the north there is a farm track there is a quite a wide track and it appears on Google imagery from 2020 that there's some attempt to make access into that northern part of the site is it your understanding that that is their attempt to try and make parking to to provide the parking that they they're seeking to achieve is is that your understanding of what's happening there they made an attempt to um without planning permission to further develop that site they built that road on on green belt without planning consent and it was stopped by us eventually after a lot of money a lot of our our officers time to prevent that happening and I think that just demonstrates who you're dealing with here so is it your impression that I think we'd be need to be a little bit careful on certain aspects I mean I don't see this is actually relevant to this actual application anyway well it doesn't it I'm not going into a debate about it no sorry Chairman sorry what I wanted to check was can we seek in the debate can we seek clarification from the case officer about how we're going to get confirmation about how the parking will be achieved I'm sure we can certainly thank you okay um sorry councillor Thane councillor Deborah Roberts was next question and then councillor Martin Kahn right councillor Roberts please many thanks chairman can I just ask the officer to confirm or maybe the local member sorry are we talking about that the previous problems the owner then is it the same owner who is now putting this application in I understand it is okay thank you very much John Williams thank you thank you and councillor Kahn please and then I'm going to the case officer to councillor Kahn please sorry it's a question that's basically both for the case officer and for councillor John Williams Williams at the moment please fine okay fine currently you've got a permission for six has your multiple application for six people and four parking space there are four parking four parking spaces so in fact there's only five starting people so there's a shortfall of one space if this development took place there will be spaces for six people and eight people living there so there'll be shortage for two space it's therefore useful to know whether there is a problem at present and whether you think an additional one surplus car which could possibly arise would cause problems and could be catered for I think we have to it's not just parking is it you know if you have more people living there you're going to have more deliveries you know we have a problem with you've seen you've seen the width of the road it's very unsuitable for anything other than a car you have deliveries going up there in quite large vehicles they end up having to reverse back down the road because they can't turn around within the curtailage of the there's no turning circle there yes you're quite right at the moment there doesn't appear to be a problem with parking but that's because there are sufficient parking spaces what we're asking is that we should give approval to not give everyone there a parking space and I think we have to accept given its location even within the village that people will have cars and the only place for those people who don't have parking spaces to park is on the public highway in the conservation area and unfortunately you weren't given pictures of actually the area beyond the private drive and down to Cox's Drove it's extremely difficult to park along there it will cause you know problems with with access to the industrial estate along there and therefore you know it will have any parking isn't an issue but in addition to parking there is also the issue of deliveries and the more people that live there the more deliveries you're going to have the more HG HCVs and large vans you're going to have using that private drive which is not suitable for vehicles of that size well I think we've laboured that point somewhat I was just going to ask why there haven't been complaints from neighbours well one of the well the property that's near his swallow field it's been empty for a good while actually because I say the previous owners ended up moving out they got driven out by the by the issue um so yeah so and it's not been and it's to be honest with you it's not I don't I believe it's not been fully occupied anyway okay thank you very much for that did you have a question for the case officer that was the car that's the car yeah yeah sorry yes I did I mean the question was simply whether we could consider ownership as a matter of planning material planning matter I felt that I thought it was okay fine Mr Reid is actually going to help us with that Mr Reid um thank you yes I was going to ask um um Councillor John Williams whether he accepts that ownership is not a material planning consideration yes I do which is why I'm not making my my objection to this it's not based on the ownership of the property no Councillor John Williams thank you for that it was the Councillor Roberts seemed to to buy her question um give the ownership as a material consideration and I just wanted for you to confirm that you accepted ownership is not a material consideration so thank you for that confirmation and I take it Mr Reid that you are confirming to us there is not a material consideration it's not for Councillor Williams to tell us um I think it's a question for a planner but certainly from my legal perspective ownership is not a material consideration in relation to this application excellent thank you very much case officer could you address some of these points please yeah I'll do my best to address all the points raised um thank you very much first of all I think regarding the um village design guide and a neighbourhood plan this wasn't something that was initially raised by the parish council or more councillors in their objection however um given that there are no external changes to the property itself we do believe that um the neighbourhood plan and village design guide will not be as relevant um as it would be if there were external changes um we are assessing the extra two occupants of the um dwelling and assessment by officers is that there is no evidence of additional impact in terms of noise and light arising from the additional two occupants compared to the fallback of um six people or even indeed a large family use of the property um regarding sort of the previous um previous issues as stated earlier um that the reuse then was under short term that so it wasn't the same use as is being applied for now um again I think 12 occupants was raised this is an application for eight occupants six occupants it's already allowed under committed development so again it's the additional impact of those two occupants we believe it wouldn't need to um particular issues with parking um we as stated we do have a parking condition around condition six um which asks for um illustration of turning circles for all those six parking spaces which would then have to be approved by the local authority um the local plan itself doesn't have any standards regarding HMO parking um it's under policy TI3 there is no mention of HMO parking so officers believe that six parking spaces would be sufficient um for the eight occupants considering the lack of policy around it there is no technical shortfall of um parking because again it doesn't reference this in in the in the local plan um I think that address addresses everything that was raised please do let me know if it doesn't no that's fine okay thank you very much um so can I just clarify if the second um local member is actually with us and wishes to speak I do have councillor Daunton on my list is councillor Daunton with us no chairman you also have a further clarification request from councillor Bradnham well I'm pursuing this at the moment thank you uh councillor John Williams do you know if councillor Daunton was going to speak I didn't believe she was coming today I I am surprised all right no okay no thank you very much them um and a final point of clarification from councillor Bradnham and then we really must get on we've spent more than an hour on this already thank you very much chairman thank you very much chairman I just wanted to ask given that we have condition six if the um applicant is not able to demonstrate that there is any way of fitting six car parking spaces within the curtailage um what happens then well it's a condition if you don't meet the conditions it doesn't proceed does it so if just suppose this was approved and they were not able to meet that condition all right let's get from somebody who might know then let's uh speak to mr carter thank you chair um yes the requirements of the condition is to provide the information have it approved by the council uh in writing before the use uh commences uh and so if they're not able to satisfy that condition then the use cannot commence um one word of caution of course that um uh they could uh seek to appeal uh against the condition itself uh to change the wording um if they chose to do so but uh on its face it would restrict uh the ability to implement the permission if they're unable to demonstrate that thank you all right thank you very much for that okay so we're done clarification we're now on the debate should there be any does anybody wish to speak to the uh proposal councillor thane do we have any speakers no uh yes we now have councillor to me Hawkins would like to speak all right good councillor Hawkins please uh thank you chair um i think what you know we have a situation where where being asked to consider a use over and above the uh permitted six and as i see the building already exists it's already been used and whilst i take the point about its previous use that is now no longer the case what is happening here is they're trying to regularize the use of the building which already exists so the question we need to answer is will the use of additional two people cause any harm and as i see it's not being shown that there will be harm uh caused to neighbors um i see no objections and i don't know why there are no objections to what is being used currently which indicates to me that um you know the the proposal should be um supported now the the issue about management yes the landlord is supposed to be managing all the agent managing and responsible for um the occupants uh using the property the phrase is in a talent like manner and if they do not there are ways and ways in which the landlord can deal with the issue and that is not the material consideration that is an h.m. or license consideration and i speak from experience so uh unless we can show that the additional two people will cause significant harm i don't see that we have any reason to refuse this thank you chair right thank you very much we have some more speakers do we count the plane uh yes we have councillor martin carne and councillor judith ripeth and then i'll be putting in application speak myself right thank you very much councillor carne then please i went out to make a slight visit actually to the access to this because i was worried about it and it is a narrow a very narrow access um more than just the top bit that you saw um but uh um but uh it is in fact i was impressed that the fact there seemed to be space there didn't seem to be a problem what really impresses me as i agree with what councillor jimmy hawkins has said the the issues related to planning uh uh the fact that the building is there means that i don't think the any real design or development issue really can be considered the relapse problem is the whether there's too much disturbance from the increased usage uh it seems to me that there is with the permission done there would be a shortfall of two vehicles so parking spaces at present this shortfall of one doesn't seem to cause any problems um the local neighbours have not objected and i take that very seriously because we've got you've got four four actually properties other properties on that narrow drive uh clearly one is not occupied so there's a few other properties not one of them has actually objected so they it can't be causing a new sufficient use of present for them to want to object and therefore i don't really see any planning grounds on which to refuse it um however much the parish council may feel that unhappy about it i don't really see any real planning grounds and i think it should be supported all right thank you very much councillor Judith ripeth ripeth isn't yeah yeah i feel like we've been through this with a fine tooth cone from everything that's been said and all the clarifications and i was going to propose that we move it to a vote thank you very much there's just one more speaker so we let councillor say thank you chair i will use the opportunity to uh second councillor of his motion okay thank you very much so the motion is to go to the vote and the vote is on the recommendation which is for approval bearing in mind what we're talking about is the change simply of the the house of multiple occupancy arrangements so those who are there any is anybody wishing to vote against this i can't hear anything i have seen nothing in the chat so can i take this as approval by affirmation agreed agreed agreed agreed thank you very much for that it is therefore approved unanimously um we've been going over two hours now so i suggest we have a 10 minute break and come back at 12 20 please so um aron if you could close down the operation for 10 minutes you can't hear me i can hear you now yeah you can't hear me lovely okay done thank you very much chair we are now live again thank you very much welcome back to south cams district council planning committee we're on agenda item seven that's page 27 of the agenda um we're dealing with planning application s 3387 stroke 19 stroke rm it's land rear of strawberry farm pampas of road great abington the proposal is approval of matters reserve for appearance landscaping layout and scale following outline planning permission s 1433 stroke 16 stroke ol residential development comprising eight dwellings including affordable housing provision landscaping and associated infrastructure the applicant is shelf of properties limited key material considerations will be detailed by the presenting officer this is a departure and the application is brought to committee um i need to correct the what is said here what he actually says here it's brought to the committee because the planning committee refused the previous reserve matters application on the 22nd of may this s 121319 rm council bachelor has therefore referred this back to the planning committee now council bachelor has not referred this back the delegation meeting has referred this back uh just to be clear on that the officer recommendation is for approval the presenting officer is michael sexton mr sexton could you give your presentation please yeah thank you chair and apologies for the slight error on the recommendation there i sorry i should just carry out this is i've currently got my three year old with me should only be here for about 10 minutes so apologies for any background shouting that may come across i just hear my presentation chair if you could confirm that a presentation is now on screen please i can see that yes excellent yes so this is yes a reserve matters application for appearance landscaping layout and scale following outline plan permission for a residential development comprising eight dwellings including affordable housing landscaping associated infrastructure this has been before committee in may 2020 but that was a separate reserve mass application but a lot of the elements are identical so this is the site location plan we are on the southern edge of great avington village outside of the framework but you'll know that the frame of boundary about the northern boundary and outline consent was established at a time when the council didn't have a five year land supply this is the site layout plan we've flipped 180 so north is now at the bottom towards the bottom of the plan you have plots one and two and plot eight of the three affordable units that are put forward as part of this application and then three uh five detached market properties the layout is very similar to the scheme that the committee saw previously apart from some minor alterations to footprint where design has been updated which we will come on to uh just to give members a flavor of the plots we all of the plots are now one and a half story property so this is plots one and two plot three plot four so you can kind of see a common theme of normal windows being used now throughout the development plot six plot seven and plot eight as far as you're just working through those fairly quickly in terms of the context of the area the uh street view to the north at the top of this um slide is the existing property number three pamphlet road with the application site behind and the uh the street view to the bottom is directly opposite the site where you've got the single story properties long pamphlet road so the northwest of the application site you've got a fairly recent hill development that has been built out in great abington where you can see at the junction of high street and pamphlet road you've got these fairly sizable two story properties before heading down the high street as shown on the bottom image with the hill development on the left and then two story properties on the right hand side as ground levels will fall slightly as you head into the village it's worth noting that the application site is within the neighborhood plan and the officer report clearly sets out how uh or if the neighborhood plan policies are applicable to this development it's important to know that the outline consent was established before the neighborhood plan was adopted and that that's clearly set out in the officer reports in terms of the the style and character of the neighborhood plan again it's important to note that the properties within the land settlement association or the neighborhood plan are predominantly again one and a half story properties and this is a view of north road within the LSA estate with some typical properties at the bottom so you can see how the application is now really replicating that that form so it is responsive in that context to the neighborhood plan area sorry thank you this was the previous reason for refusal of the last reserved method application I've added some emphasis where the development was refused because of the the scale height and design of the properties being out of keeping the character of the area and the dwellings of it sort of being a fairly substantial scale and how they respond in the wider landscape and the topography of the site which I'm sorry I should have mentioned earlier the site does rise as set out on the officer report probably about five meters from the front of the site to the back of the site so many as I said the details between the two reserve matters are essentially the same except for the design of the buildings themselves so this isn't just to show members how design has responded to that previous reason for refusal you have at the top here plot three as original and then plot three as amended as part of the current application apologies my hang on I'm very sorry my son needs to go to the toilet I will be back in one second sorry right well Satch is live the joys of small children chairman it's all right Michael well done Michael so yes at the top original and at the bottom proposed so you can see how it's really looking now at a more one and a half story dwelling a reduced rich height and using that that use of dormers which is very characteristic of the area very responsive to the the layout and topography of the site same here plot four at the top as originally submitted and previously refused a fairly substantial two-story property has now been reduced to a much more sort of rural character one and a half story again with the normal windows and plot six again as an example fairly sizable reduction of 1.2 meters lower in terms of rich height and the more prominent use of normal windows to convey that that style again so it is obviously a reserve mass application its own right but I think it's worth highlighting that the only reason for refusal on the other reserve mass application was scale which is why I particularly highlighted scale here but obviously the key materials considerations as set out in the officer report are compliance with the outline plan permission affordable housing open space revision then the reserve matters of layout scale appearance and landscaping biodiversity flood risk highway safety and residential community but as I think the key consideration really is scale because the details are aside from that almost identical to the previous submission thank you chair my sign is now a shelving finished so if I could possibly please carry on okay members any points of clarification that you would like to raise on this one as you say the main issue is that and the reason that it's come back to us is that we refused it and that the judgment now is have they met the met and overcome the reasons that we refused last time we have council and the brand would like to have a point of clarification okay council Bradman please um sorry actually it wasn't a point of clarification I just think that I was going to say that I think the modifications to the plans have reflected what we asked for okay we wait for Michael Sexton to come back certainly okay all right sorry sorry oh there we go apologies I'm back I think council Bradman was only making the statement I was I was simply saying that I think that the modifications to the designs have reflected what we asked for in the um when we refused it originally so I'm content with this now yeah one bit I did miss sorry for my presentation I think it's worth noting I know the parish council are going to speak but I think it's worth noting that there are no local objections in terms of scale and design which there was objection from the parish council and the neighbour on those grounds to the previous application so the officers obviously endorse that this is very positive response to the previous submission and concerns raised locally and by the planning committee right well I spent the parish and speak for themselves and you know okay thank you I don't see any more so I will go to public speakers now um and the I think the applicant's agent Matt Hare is with us this morning Matt Hare please good morning thank you chair I am here can you uh here and see yeah here and see you lovely oh you know the form you you have three minutes to address us and then the members may wish to question you so whenever you're ready lovely thank you very much chair and good afternoon members um thank you as ever for giving me the opportunity to speak today I propose only to speak briefly um you'll probably be pleased to know um you've heard that the application before you um seeks reserve matters approval um for the appearance scale layout and landscaping of a scheme of eight new dwellings that was previously granted outline planning commission in September of 2017 um you have also heard and I'm sure you will call that the a previous scheme for reserve matters approval was considered by the planning committee earlier on in May of this year uh the committee's summary view at the time was that the height of some of those dwellings proposed uh was such that it would be harmful to the character and appearance of the local area so following that decision the applicant's design team uh conducted a thorough review of the scale and design of prevailing housing types in the local area and that had a particular focus on the former lsa land which is just to the south of the the application site as we've heard is within the the neighboured plan area um in addition to this uh we held some informal discussions with the immediately adjoining neighbour at number three and pampersfield road which is strawberry farm uh and also with the parish council and we sought further views on on matters of scale and design from from those parties and as a consequence of those actions and again as you've heard from the case officer the design of the previously larger and taller dwellings um that were that were that were proposed have been changed in order to significantly reduce their overall height uh and alongside this um we've made significant revisions to the appearance of those units uh in order we hope to better reflect the appearance and key characteristics of existing dwellings on the former lsa site all the houses are all now one and a half storey scale which is reflective of the height and general building typology of existing houses within the adjacent lsa area and uh we're of the view that uh they are now entirely appropriate for the location uh we note the officer report which is comprehensive and and well written uh we note that it recommends approval of the scheme and we fully endorse the contents of that report and we hope very much you'll be able to vote to support the proposals today that's all i really wanted to say to you as i'm very happy to take questions thank you right thank you very much uh well members eddie points of clarification you need i think everything's pretty straightforward so uh mr hair thank you very much for the moment thank you and we move on to the the parish council representative is councillor talbert with us please councillor talbert are you with us is councillor talbert with us it seems not okay councillor talbert was um representing the parish council um caman i note that in chat it's identifying that bernie talbert left the meeting he may be trying to um yeah he's all right it's rejoining the meeting okay we'll wait on a minute or two to see if mr talbert is back with us mr talbert when you're back i'm calling you to speak is councillor talbert with us please really councillor talbert is having some technical difficulties right oh i'll try one more time councillor talbert are you with us all right we'll move on for the moment and if councillor talbert manages to um get reconnected um i will return to him uh in the meantime um i might just say a brief word i am the uh local councillor for this area um and my view is that although that you know clearly it's regrettable that the we have this level of um uh development on this site but the reality is the principle is established and the best we can do is to see that the highest standards are applied so the question today is has the developer addressed the concerns that led this committee to refuse last time round uh there has been significant improvement in design and the houses are much more in keeping with the area as we've just seen with the presentation uh i say with some reluctance i i am on balance think this application is now acceptable and i will be supporting approval okay uh just see if we can raise councillor talbert again councillor talbert are you back with us councillor talbert is muted councillor talbert are you muted he's got his hand up but he's muted i can see that councillor thank you councillor talbert are you with us and he's still not responding all right members um the chairman is it possible for him to join by phone if aron was to contact him i'm not sure if aron has a contact for him um aron yes yeah i uh i actually do have a contact for councillor talbert i'm just emailing them some phone instructions now are you okay then in the meantime uh members did you have any questions for me as a local member no okay we just hang on for a minute then to see if we we can raise councillor talbert chairman yes since you might like to have a question to answer have you got one up your sleeve i've got one up my sleeve yes all right chairman at the previous application we were quite concerned about because the slope the site does slope so significantly from the front up higher towards the back um obviously they've reduced the story height from two to one and a half are you satisfied that that um um will not be so overbearing i mean everybody seems to there have been no objections to this reserve matters application but are you confident that that will make it a more acceptable development um on balance yes i mean i still think there there will be quite prominent um and um you know the the advance that we've made there now the design is actually um in keeping with the settlement buildings it's still out of keeping as you saw with the local bungalows which are the in the immediate neighbors and are you all these things of balances aren't they and are you satisfied there were some concerns about the accessibility and the sweat path analysis are you satisfied that the access road is sufficiently uh is sufficient for the cars and the bin lorry yes i think there has been some slight adjustments there um and the the highways have not raised objections so you know it's very difficult to question that okay thank you uh council saying did you uh chairman i'm not just speaking because we haven't yet found council tolbert they also wanted to ask you in relation to what you were just saying as local member whether you you said that um you were concerned about they weren't uh the design was very different from the bungalows opposite would you accept that as the case as the case officer said that the new design with dormers is very compatible with rather similar to that at strawberry farm itself number three pampas a road and also 44 and 59 north road well well and the settlement in general the design of the houses throughout the settlement are pretty standard and this does follow that design so yeah yes i mean it's much better um yeah i as i was just saying it's clearly doesn't sit terribly well with bungalows immediately opposite but you know on balance and we are getting affordable houses out of a development of only eight houses which has to come into the balance as well right uh mr talbert are you with us yet arin are you having any luck i haven't heard from council talbert i'm afraid yeah well i fear that we will need to move on okay members sorry chairman could we not just ring him so he could speak through arin so do so no but i mean what arin was doing was giving him the dial-in details but what we could do is simply ring him yes all right oh sorry that's a suggestion yeah thank you very much um ara and if you would please treat continue to try and contact it and if we can we'll come back to councillor talbert you have councillor carne councillor carne yes uh poison information again from councillor councillor better bachelor the uh visual proposal with three reserve matters in in may included a link from the uh development onto the path the track going over towards the rest of the land settlement association which has been removed because of the uh comments from the neighbour of the existing um how do you do you feel that this will be a disadvantage in terms of uh accessibility or connectivity uh in the of the development how do you react to that uh to that page um no well i don't see it as has been uh significant and um we have taken advice with officers uh and you know again highways have raised no objections and uh you know to question that isn't easy particularly uh right we now have a message from councillor talbert waiting for a call i'm watching and trying to unmute our mutes okay waiting by my phone so ara is waiting for a call chairman it seems that uh ara and councillor talbert having difficulty contacting each other we did hear from the case officer however that the parish council are not no objecting and mr talbert appears to be talking to my chat yeah i i believe they do have an issue that they yes i think i have sorry chair three you look like a clarified what i said is parish council and and local residents aren't objecting on the grounds of scale as they did to the previous application there is still concern raised by the parish council which i'm happy to go through in the event that councillor talbert's not able to join us but hopefully you can put those views but my statement was purely that there's no objection no objection in on the grounds of scale which there was before yeah i do have councillor talbert on the phone with me now oh great good so councillor talbert are you are you able to communicate with us hello i hope i am can you hear me yes i can can hear you okay yes sorry you're having difficulties yeah i have been trying to unmute but without any success right um would you like to make things safe but then please um yes i'm chair of great having to parish council and i am speaking on the council's you know that's okay it's better now um so um the parish council does continue to object to this development we do appreciate that the fair scale and size and presentation in buildings is much better than uh we uh saw formally and we're very we have continued to object to the um the link road which you'll see on the plan which goes to the east to um another large piece of land and it is as as this site was originally outside the village framework and the land to the east is also outside the village framework and we believe that's on that link because really about um uh six or seven acres and front onto pampas road and if it at later date it need to be developed then it could be access from pampas road so the the um the link into the site isn't crucial any further use of that land um i know that the uh the applicant has um got a contractual arrangement with the the person that they bought the land from to have that link but it still doesn't um uh take away the fact that the parish council has injected to this link being there right through the hole okay thank you very much for that um we see if there's any points of clarification members would like to raise on this Councillor Bradlund if you have a point thank you chairman i was um trying to work out because the plan i've got which it's it's 1900501 that does not have a link road to the east so i'm just wondering if um i'm looking at an out-of-date plan and i'm which i'm wondering i wanted to check which is the plan that's been approved in the amended plan with last the case officer that that's okay thank you anything you would like to raise with with councillor no it was just really that i wanted to check okay which plan number we're talking about thank you okay so if there's no other questions we can release Councillor Talbot down the line we're we're still pursuing this and um Mr Sexton could you help us with the link road please yep certainly chair um i believe that councillor Bradlund did quote the correct plan reference but i would just share screen actually i tell you what i've just discovered that on page 47 it refers to the very first plan referred to is 220051-01 and the plan i've got is 1900501 so i'm probably looking at an out-of-date plan i can't pick up any others from the website at the moment um all right we look at run you know Mr Sexton yeah check as you can see a slight layout plan because my team is telling me you're looking at powerpoint presentation yeah yeah so the what the parish council referring to is this gap here between tops two and three that gap was there on the previous application i believe there was some small discussion around it last last time as well it wasn't a reason for refusal um as highlighted in the the committee report there is this and councillor Talbot mentioned there is a legal obligation on the applicant to provide that um access but obviously it's not a formal access in the sense that it's a grassed area um it's not being marked out in the same way as that there's the access road so as set out in the officer report with there's no reasons for refusal on those grounds in officer's view so you're you're saying this non-material are you? Effectively yes yeah yeah that's fine thank you mr Sexton right is um do we have any other? No other speakers listed at present chair no other speakers listed at present chair? All right no other speakers good all right well we're into the debate should there be one if not i'm happy to move this to um a vote i'll second that chairman yeah fine okay if there's if there's no objection to that can i take this by affirmation? Agreed. Agreed. All right anyone against? No but chairman did we clarify that you have permission to the parish council speak? I haven't yeah he said that himself yeah and uh i know he does anyway so that's fine uh okay so that is approved by affirmation and we move on so next chairman dare i suggest that as it's nearly one o'clock maybe a good idea to break before this starts? Yeah okay then is that agreeable to members? Yeah okay so before we move on to the next one then we'll have a lunch break 30 minutes we'll come back at one twenty five then one twenty five thank you very much chair you are now live again all right thank you uh good afternoon everybody and welcome back to Southcams district council planning committee um just before we move on to the next item our acting vice chair uh stood down for this one um and so we need to appoint another temporary vice chair members um uh Councillor Bradlin was very kindly volunteered are we all happy that Councillor Bradlin acts on this one as vice chair? Agreed. All happy? No one against? Good so Councillor Bradlin if you wouldn't mind uh controlling the speakers please for me thank you okay we're on agenda item eight page 51 of the agenda papers this is reference 20 stroke 02128 stroke HFUL and it's number nine Hallett Gardens Great Shelford the proposal is part single part two story extension and associated works the applicant is Mr and Mrs Norman the key material considerations will be outlined by the presenting officer uh this application is brought to committee because uh referring to to planning committee by Great Shelford parish council and the officer recommendation of approval conflicts with the recommendation of the parish council a meeting was held on the 22nd of September whereby the application was considered in accordance with the principle set out in the council's constitution given the material considerations raised and representations raised by third parties combined with the planning history of the site a referral to committee was justified on this basis uh by the delegation arrangements the officer recommendation is for approval and the presenting officer is Tom Gray Mr Gray would you give us your presentation please thank you chair can you confirm that you can see the first slide please I can indeed thank you um some updates for members to consider first off um so the first thing is that one element of the assessment uh that wasn't included in in the committee report um this is regarding the impact on the setting of the Great Shelford War Memorial um situated to the north the application site this war memorial is a grade two listed building uh listed the the planning listed buildings and conservation areas act 1990 for its special architectural or historic interest section 66 of those acts requires decision makers to consider any development which affects a listed building or its setting and has special regard to the desirability of preserving the building or its setting or any features of special architectural or historic interest which possesses when considering any impact upon its setting officers consider that given that the war memorial is approximately 60 meters from the proposed extension and a design of the extension that is in keeping and subservient um in scale um it's not considered for any harm upon the setting of this listed building would result in accordance with policy h14 of the local plan and the MPPF um there's been two representations that have been received from objectives the first one relates uh the first one comes from number eight and the second one is from number ten um the rest of number ten raises concerns about the transparency of the process um but to clarify both of these letters were sent to committee members in the last few days um i'm just going to summarize uh what is uh what the emails that states um the first point that the um resident number ten raises is proposal is not in keeping with the neighborhood and is overbearing and results in lots of light the six months of the year creating a significant shadow affecting family rooms and wellbeing number two the extension breaks the plans northwest facing building line the layout of the houses eight nine and ten is critical being being built in an area of conservation and facing historic high street and war memorial number three there have been many objections from the community in the parish council and before the obvious design options to other obvious design options to create space so um i consider these representations and um there's no um in regard to know the material considerations within these points have been raised that have not been part of this committee report or within disc updates so i continue with my presentation the application site is situated in the great shelter's conservation area and development framework um this is the application site here number nine um it's noted that um this the consent was granted for this wedding along with eight other dwellings as part of the scheme in 2004 um it's pointed out that one of the reasons for this creation of the layout was to reserve the openness of this area here and conditions were placed on the consent to remove submitted development rights um it's also noted these dwellings here um are closer to the high streets than these current dwellings here so this slide the existing elevations and a proposed elevation from side by side so you can see the differences the only alterations to the front is the um the increase in height of the front windows on the ground floor um the there are um surrounding the property there are other dwellings um with full heights and windows um they do have a split screen in terms of the split glazing with a bar across um however um i thought it put it necessary to impose a condition on this consent regarding glazing details given that the um the first story um also has the lazing of a similar design and other dwellings do have a full height um windows and doors in other properties if however the um committee members have been inclined to approve um the application then we could require glazing details to be conditioned if it is necessary it's the just the changes in heights in terms of the existing proposed and um at the the side elevation where most of the changes are happening um there will be a single story uh rear extension measuring just over three meters in heights coming out about 3.4 meters and a two-story extension which i'll go on to in a moment so these are the next two elevations the first elevation is a northeast this is um where the two-story extension was set so it would be lower than the ridge height of the existing dwelling there'll be three windows um in the side elevation two in the existing dwelling and one in the proposed dwelling um i have conditioned these uh in my report to be obscured in order to protect their neighbor immunity in terms of overlooking the um the rear elevation um shows that the uh use of uh matching materials such as render and brickwork and again i've shown on the height and the depth that coming out by 5.3 meters the height of 7.6 again lower than existing ridge line is the proposed and existing floor plans at the top you can see the existing floor plans at the bottom as you proposed um so to the left of it is the first floor plan where the two-story element will be and the right is the proposed ground or single-story extension these are the existing proposed site plans and the proposed site plan the right here and i've put the distances on in relation to number 10 and in terms of distance to the actual building and number 10 it is approximately 6.2 meters to the garden wall approximately five meters so in terms of some context um i've got some site photos the bottom here on the left hand side it's where i took the photo from so this is in the rear garden number nine Hallow Gardens looking towards um the gap between nine number 10 um but you can't see the ql from this photo is there's two windows in the site elevation of number 10 one at the first floor level around here where our mouse is and one around here where our mouse is on the ground floor it's these already face the existing dwelling um and serve as secondary windows to the habitable room space in the first floor and also the ground floor this is the view taken towards the other neighbouring property at number eight this is the view from the garden space of number 10 towards where the two-story extension would be and this is taken from number eight the front of the dwelling um this is this taken from Tunwell's Lane um but the only change is as I say is uh full glazing to this window here and this window here this is taken from um High Street towards two dwellings um towards number nine and number eight approximately 20 meters from the public footpath this is from the gap um between number 11 and towards the application site um so looking towards the application site over here so there is a great shelf as a conservation area appraisal um in this area appraisal was adopted in 2007 um there's noted there's two important views in this area as well as an undesignated open space the first important view concerns um the High Street along here this view here and there's a photo that I've taken to show what the view is like a presence um there is also another important view um in terms of towards a long Tunwell's Lane which is shown here um as I mentioned earlier this is the view from the War Memorial approximately 60 meters from the from the repose extension and um there are there is some tree cover um although it will be uh visible for some time some months of the year and I don't consider it to be any harm upon the setting of this listed building so the key considerations are the impact upon the character and appearance of the conservation area and the setting of the War Memorial and amenity impacts upon the number 10 and number eight and also impact upon the trees which is covered part of the apoculture of a cultural methods statement that is one of the pre-plans if the committee members are minded to approve this application thank you chairman the case officer um sorry Michael Sexton is offering to share a plan on screen there's the endo yeah I think that's from earlier councillor Bradnam no yeah that's the I apologize okay have we got any but any points of clarification for the case officer nope in that case we'll move on then to the public speakers so public speakers um is mr kid with us please mr Ian kid yes hello hello mr kid yeah welcome to the planning committee thank you can you hear me yes we can hear you very well and see you so uh you know the form it's we've got three minutes and uh thank you um good afternoon Hallett Gardens is in a conservation area the site is significant it's the historic center of the village bordered by the high street the War Memorial Green and Tunwell's Lane and in 2004 the application to build Hallett Gardens was subject to intense resistance scrutiny and changes the planning officer at that time said the development which became 13 properties was intended to respect and retain the existing open parkland setting of the site and the views of this from the adjoining streets and public places to accord with the character and appearance of the surrounding conservation area to locate the dwellings in a self-pleasing position and to arrange the buildings in clusters to create a sense of place given its location and history it is virtually a conservation area within the conservation area yet the conservation officer could state without even visiting the site there are no material conservation issues with this proposal your planning officer was also surprised and had to ask her to make a site visit he can confirm this but her mind seems already to have been made up yes a number of dwellings in the development have since been given planning approvals but none of the scale and impact of this none were two-story the loft developments were internable and involved no external extensions these have no impact nor have the modest and discreet ground floor changes at three other properties only one of which is visible obliquely from outside the site and unsurprisingly there were no objections to them this objection sorry this application is of a much greater scale and significance it's two stories it can be seen clearly from the wall memorial green and from the high street and many of the objections are from high street residents the extension will breach the shared property line at the rear of numbers eight nine and ten and that was a key feature when hell at gardens was eventually approved along with the clustering of properties their self-pleasing and the maintaining of sense of space in addition to breaching conservation area principles as noted by many villagers in their comments to the planning authority and to the parish council and by parish councillors themselves the proposals will have a major impact on numbers eight and ten either side of number nine the case officer has shown the distances to number ten he didn't show any distances to number eight which is more or less on exactly the property line of the single story extension finally chairman and objections made to you and the parish council are numerous many more than for other extensions in the village we urge the committee to accept the views of the parish council who are the custodians of the village who instigated the conservation area and who asked for the application to be called in we also urge the committee to accept the force of the objections from village residents and immediate neighbours we believe the application should be refused one other very brief point there is this late addition to the agenda dealing with the glazing and i certainly request that there should be a condition requiring that any new full length windows at ground floor level should be split thank you right thank you very much members any points of clarification for mr kid uh chairman yeah i i didn't hear if you asked mr kid if he's got the permission of the parish council it is an object he is not okay sorry no okay i don't think we've got any questions mr kid so thank you very much for your contribution thank you um if we can go to mr carter who i believe has a statement from the applicant that he's going to read out yes thank you chair um i won't time myself but i believe this will be less than three minutes anyway uh the proposal the application is for a proportionate extension for the fact the applicants family the extension is set over two stories with the majority of the floor space at ground floor level specifically designed to remain in keeping with the existing building and surrounding properties principle policy s7 applies and allows the principle of extensions to dwellings in this location subject to weighing up other material factors design the building is part of a development of nine uniquely designed homes this quality has been reflected in the design of the extension the development will will appear unimposing in the street scene complimenting and preserving the character and appearance of the area the area generally comprises two-story pitched roof forms the extension maintains this and retains existing separation distances between properties it is in proportion with the existing dwelling and surrounding area the same can be said of the materials render brick and c-declatting are proposed with natural slate to the roof complimenting the building surroundings conservation area the council's conservation officer concluded the proposal preserves the character and appearance of the conservation area and assimilates into the street scene amenity there will be no additional overlooking the majority of openings proposed to face the host property's garden side windows will be obscure glazed and will not create overlooking greater than present the extension includes a single story element to the southwest and existing separation distances are maintained to the northeast the works do not overbear neighboring properties overshadowing the council's design guide allows for certain degrees of overshadowing for example due to its eastern position number 10 overshadows the application site in the morning the existing house number nine overshadows the adjacent shed driveway and to some extent number 10 any increase of overshadowing as part of the proposal would be insignificant with regard to number 10 the extension passes the 45 degree rule set out within the design guide on the southwest side the extension is single story this element of the proposal is located to the northeast its impact on overshadowing to number 8 will be negligible the extension does not significantly overshadow or block views and is considered to be in line with the adoptive design guide trees contrary to representations made the scheme does not cause any impact on trees nor are any to be removed or pruned and they make reference to the submitted of our cultural report and in summary the works proposed are in keeping with neighboring properties and will appear as part of the regional dwelling the extension is of high quality design and does not harm the immunity of neighbors or harm the conservation area it is considered to meet the requirements of the local plan and design guide it represents a suitable extension to an existing dwelling a reasonable reasonable aspiration of the property owner it is respectfully requested that planning commission is granted thank you chair thank you very much um we can't have clarification there as we know van to answer that so we move on to the parish council representative uh is council cattle with us please yes thank you very much um okay i have permission of the parish council to speak good yes i mean we have very much um very many misgivings about this number one is the amount of information that was um initially uh thought through before the whole site was developed in the first instance and the requirements of that to conserve that area in a particular way as has been stated there are single story developments that have gone on but this is the first of a double story development and although everybody's saying that it does not affect the street scene from the front internal of the the site no it doesn't but that site is very much on view from external areas and you saw a photograph taken from number eight's back garden across the building line going out uh towards the north of the village there was not a building in site and once this extension goes on that's that view will be eliminated completely because the extension will be there instead and from the war memorial there is another line of site going across the back of the three properties eight nine and ten which will be destroyed once that building once that extension goes up as a two-story extension as a single story it might be acceptable but it's the height of the second story which is the issue um there is an impact um on trees in the area the street scene as i've already said is not just internal it's an external street scene and basically the building lines were done in such a way that the street scenes and the view lines would not have been impacted by any building in halat gardens and so we are really thinking that we don't like it because it is changing the whole nature of that area as has been said of a conservation area in the historic centre of the village of Great Shelford um we consider that the build the extension is far too big um that there may have been other design options but on top of all of this the very nature of the positioning of that property is that i would like to know where it is intended the contractors vehicles and materials would go as there is no delivery access across the whole site um and we are talking about massive massive contractors vehicles that would need to come in if only to pour the foundations um and i think that the whole site is going to be totally impacted by this it's not just the three houses it's whether this sits with the original development plans of that particular site as such we recommend refusal of this extension thank you thank you very much members any points of clarification you'd like from the councillor i can't see any any uh council breadman i can't see any okay fine so thank you very much indeed for your contribution there thank you and we move on to the local member if he wishes to speak now that's councillor fein thank you chair yes i i would like to speak um i don't want to repeat any of the points that have been made by the parish council by mr kid or by the very reasonable submission on behalf of the normans i declared an interest because uh one of the objectives is a was until recently a fellow parish councillor and therefore i don't think it's appropriate that i should be a member of the committee for this item however as was stated this is a crucial site both for the conservation area in the village and also for the war memorial green to which numbers nine ten are the closest houses and which are visible at most times a year from the green um as was stated by the parish council there were very careful effectively negotiations backwards and forwards between the parish council and planning officers back in 2004 a lot of correspondence relating to that and this uh development was very carefully designed uh not only in terms of layout and numbers but also in terms of grouping of the houses this being the first extension of over 50 percent in area will inevitably have a significant impact on that um some impact as was accepted by the uh presentation for the applicants on light number 10 as well um i don't want to take a view on the the merits or otherwise as i said i'm not a member of the committee for this purpose but i would suggest that in relation to paragraph 59 the conditions when this was built working hours conditions were imposed and it is particularly important here because of the adjacency to the war memorial site and to other houses indeed far more important now than it was then that's a case that has been accepted by this committee in relation to other developments including in this village that uh the impact of development can be much greater when those developments have neighbors than on larger sites as this was in 2004 and the other thing i would just say is it would have been apparent to members from the photographs the importance of that exceptional beach tree to the front and i think it is important that we ensure that they sorry that the committee should consider ensuring the protection of the roots of that tree because there is so little space around there for storage of materials and so on but it it is important those conditions are respected thank you chairman thank you very much shh any points of clarification there if i could just make one that i wasn't clear what direction you're pointing this in councillor in terms of um approval or refusal chairman i was deliberately leaving that to the committee right thank you very much okay i can't see any um points of clarification can you councillor brennan no uh no not yet sir oh fine okay thank you very much then councillor fail and in that case we'll go to the debate does anybody wish to speak we have councillor roberts all right councillor roberts please many thanks chairman i'm longing the toothing of to actually remember when this was a an idea in a concept 15 years ago and i do remember it being classed as a very important site and a very sensitive site and for those of us that often go by it it's clear um that it was important and and really we do have to maintain that and i think the arguments that we decided upon 15 years ago apply equally if not more so now where we see villages really having to battle to retain these um very important physical areas within themselves especially when it's within a village envelope because the pressure becomes ever more it seems to me that looking at the drawings you see it's a substantial extension to the property both width ways and height ways and and changing really very much what that house looks like and i think it will have a very detrimental um effect on the two next door neighbours but actually generally on the site and the area i think that there comes a time when you have to say to an applicant what you what you wish for for your own needs is not complementary with the area that it's within and i think that this is one of those to me quite a clear case that it's now become a detrimental to the conservation area detrimental and i disagree with the officer conservation department i'm afraid detrimental to the the war memorial um and and detrimental to the whole area um so my vote will be going for a refusal it's it's quite clear to me that this is a step far too far you'd also be risking um this becoming a precedent in that area you you give this to one and then other people obviously would expect it to be for them and they may use the same arguments our family is growing um but i'm sorry i can't go along with it i shall be voting for a refusal thank you very much chairman right thank you very much counselor um just a bit just to clarify matters that there that you're um objecting on the on the basis of inappropriate development within the conservation area yes that'd be hq one i say and and over development of the um of the of the uh site itself it's it's too big chairman it's becoming too big it's becoming far too much of a a statement rather than a blending in and i'm just trying to get the you know the on the eyes so that would come in hq one anyway that's okay thank you very much shall we move on then councillor heather williams heather williams please councillor thank you thank you chairman um i have to say that i agree with councillor roberts i think that this is not suitable for the area that it is i think the conservation area um deserves our awful attention and and the place that is in the setting um that what is proposed is this too big it's too large it's both laws it's not even the first floor um and i do think it will have a big impact on that area and that i'm minded to refuse it it's just over development and not suitable in the conservation area all right thank you very much um chairman we've been reminded by uh mr steven read uh that we might be coming up to four hours and we might need to seek approval to carry on all right let's just do that now then thank you very much so we're already well it says five hours on my little clock here so uh yes um do i take it that we labor on you're not going to agree and then agree okay and again oh okay so we've we've done that thank you uh councillor bradnam do we have more speakers there's um uh myself and then uh councillor martin carne all right thank you so thank you bradnam and please thank you chairman um i just wanted to um express my um feelings that although this obviously the parish council are anxious about this and i also have some reservations about the actual construction phase because of the tightness of the site um but i think i don't subscribe to the view um of councillor roberts and councillor heather williams and i think it could be done and could be um acceptable within the curtailage of the development if you like the whole development um but my my concern is that uh in condition sorry wrestling of papers just hang on a moment in condition um c because of the risk of the northeastern elevation of this number nine perhaps overlooking windows in number 10 um the case officer has suggested that the first floor windows on that northeastern elevation should be obscured glass and permanently fixed shut and i notice that this is actually two windows on a bathroom and i would request instead that yes they're obscured but could they be made into top hung vents rather than fixed shut because it would be horrible to have a bathroom where you couldn't open the window so it's just if the if the committee is minded to approve the application could we just amend that elsewhere in the application i thought it said unless it were a top hung vent and that hasn't gone into recommendation c because i think that would be preferable um but in terms of the proposal itself um i i i think it is reasonable within the um surroundings thank you chairman okay thank you very much i think we've got councillor carne are we councillor calm please sorry can we just have some clarification from the officer that that might be an acceptable amendment to the condition well it's up to the committee to decide whether it wants to change the conditions but uh we go to so so do i so do i need to propose an amendment to the condition then german in a moment let me might as well check with the officer sorry councillor calm we're i'll be with you in a moment uh um so what do you think about that proposal my understanding of it is uh on c condition c it says apart from any top hung vents uh the start of that condition and oh okay so okay that's fine so that's all fine and so you're happy with that councillor breadman yes i am thank you thank you very much okay councillor calm then give us some words of wisdom okay uh i looked at this uh the the report and uh felt that i couldn't really judge this site without going having a look so i went out and looked at the site from from the road because the it's a private estate i can't go on the actual estate itself from from the front and from the back uh and my impression was that the impact the visual impact is not going to be significant i agree with the councillor breadman that uh either from the front it would virtually not be seen uh from the rear from the high street it's very well screened uh and the uh if some ways i would prefer a two-story development which a bit extension which looks part of the building the single story development which uh which looks like an obvious extension uh so i didn't and it wasn't gonna the the there was quite a long rear garden it was quite distant i didn't feel that this was actually going to be an impact either from the war memorial or from the high street that significant impact it was going to seem like part of the existing buildings which there so i didn't feel there was any real ground i didn't feel there was any real grounds on on visual impact grounds uh the one thing that i would feel that might have been a reason for concern was the fact that the number 10 that could be overshadowing from the extent of the the rear extension however the number 10 has got quite a large garden i don't think it would make a significant uh my general feeling is that it would only be in very late afternoon in in summer and i don't feel that um that wouldn't necessarily be a significant enough reason to refuse it so my general feeling is that um i don't think a case sufficient cases have been made for the impact on the joining houses for it to be and the visual impact that don't seem significant enough so i will be in favour of approving this application all right thank you very much for that um councillor breadman do we have any further speakers no chairman we don't have any other speakers at present fine okay so we let's tie this up then and bring it to a conclusion um mr carter can i just um check with you the um my understanding of those who may wish to vote for refusal i've got uh inappropriate development within the conservation area loss of amenity for neighbours with the um size of the thing and i think it's all comes down to our q strength and probably yes chair i i have drafted a reason um just quickly whilst uh members were talking which i'm happy to to read out if that would be helpful yes very well uh so i what i've drafted is by virtue of the size location and visual impact of the proposal it would fail to preserve or enhance the character and appearance of the great shelf conservation area the proposal would result in less than substantial harm but there are no clear public benefits which are identified to outweigh that harm the proposal would therefore fail to comply with the requirements of policy policy hq one of the scdc local plan the nppf and section 72 of the planning listed building and conservation areas act 1990 um i haven't included anything about impact on neighbours i wasn't clear that that was part of any proposed reason for refusal so if it if it is could that be clarified let me just check with members in those who may well be uh minded to refuse um is there anything you wanted to add to mr carter's interpretation hi chairman i'm happy with what um mr carter has said uh as a reason for okay fine i don't hear anything from anyone else so i'm happy with that as well chairman okay thank you we we go to a vote then because i'll make a roll call because obviously there's likely to be some difference of opinion so it's um the proposal is for approval so if you agree with that you're for it if you want to refusal you're against it and you want to abstain you abstain so um uh and the reason for refusal as is which was just outlined by mr carter so if i can take the votes then so councillor bradden please four or councillor calm four here councillor hawkins four four thank you councillors councillor ripeth four thank you councillor roberts against thank you councillor heather williams against thank you councillor richard williams four four thank you councillor right against thank you and my vote is four so the outcome of that is six in favour and three against in that we've only got nine members at the moment in that councillor fein was not voting on that um so that is approved with conditioning so thank you very much for that and we move on now to item number nine but before that as i say thank you very much to councillor bradden for sitting in uh as vice chair um just to check that councillor fein is is back on duty again for that purpose chair and i'm i'm back and i'm on duty for required yes thank you very much indeed um okay so we're on item number nine this is page 65 of the agenda the reference is 20 stroke zero one three six nine stroke h f l and it's at 24 mill lane lindson uh the proposal is a single story extension the applicants are mistresses thoughts uh key material considerations will be outlined by the presenting officer and the reason that this is coming to the committee is it's referred to panning by lindson parish council and the officer recommendation of approval conflicts with the recommendation of the parish council a meeting was held on the 18th of august whereby the application was considered in accordance with the principle set out in the council's constitution given the material planning concerns raised particularly with regard to the conservation area design and materials and the significant level of local objection a referral to committee was justified the officer recommendation is for approval the presenting officer is mr tom gray mr gray over to you for your presentation please please can you confirm you can see the first slide i can indeed yes um so 24 mill lane in lindson um the application is for a single story extension um there's been a couple of supporting statements from the applicants uh and the agent on this application this information has been distributed to committee members in the last few days and the site location plan is shown left here um and the site constraints on the right um the application site is located in the lindson conservation area and development framework um the application site is also adjacent to a local green space um shown in this green area here um it's also located adjacent to a public right away shown in this on this blue line here that runs through the green part of the application site is within flood zone two um however the location of the extension will be situated north of us so on the left here have the existing elevations on the right on the proposed the extension concerns uh there are an increase in height of the front front portion of the extent of the current um part of the dwelling in this part here um and it also concerns um an extension to the rear along near to the public right away so i'll show you the measurements at the front and five meters in terms of the great area of the public right away this is actually on higher level grounds than the application site um and to measure approximately 3.2 meters when taken from the level of the public right away the materials used in the um extension would vary between from um timber cladding to the front here to match the other um existing side of the dwelling and also um slaked for most of the for some of the roof um horizontal cladding the part of the roof and vertical cladding and a metal roof for this part of the extension you see there is a variation in the ridge heights um so this is taken from the rear of the site these elevations um you can see the change in ground levels here um in terms of um difference between the public footpath adjacent to the site and the application site where the extension would go so when measured within the application site it measure approximately 4.6 meters when taking into account the ground level changes within the local green space it would measure approximately 3.5 meters according to these these proposed views these are the existing uh and proposed plans as well as the proposed site plan and I put them side by side so you can see what the differences are so these are the wing uh it's the proposed wing of the um dwelling extension um you see the variation in uh roof types um by showing the measurements in terms of the distances about 4 meters from the public right away about 3.5 meters from the local green space in approximately 16 meters to the nearest um dwelling there's some site context for you this is taken from uh further down New Lane uh towards the application site here um and this is the public right away this is taken from within the application site again taken from the application site but from the from the rear of the site you see the change in uh ground levels and just beyond the hedge here is the public right away which is the view towards the public right away and with the extension would be positioned this is taken from the public right away through a gap in the hedge there's a view taken along the public right away this view is taken from the local green space towards the application sites the extension of these positions here this view is taken from the northwest the application site this is taken from the south southwest of the site closer to the application site but within the local green space and from the uh nearby church of St Mary's the key considerations um are the impact on the character and appearance of the conservation conservation error and the setting of the listed buildings um the impact upon the local green space i mean it impacts and impact upon trees thank you thank you very much uh members any points of clarification you'd like here no i can't see any sorry chairman could we could we ask the case officer just to go back on his slides again and show us the one from the southwest yes that one um so on that slide the extension would be going from right to left across in front of the hedges wouldn't it okay yes that's right you're looking from the group the riverside yes thank you so it would be attached the house is the white building on the right isn't it so it would be from there across okay thank you okay okay i haven't got any other speakers so we'll move on to public speakers then please uh is this a Bennett with us please it's the Henry Bennett um yes i'm here oh good can you hear me let's switch on your camera and so on well welcome sorry to keep you so long uh you know the form do you you've got three minutes to address us uh somebody's turned off your camera i think there we are yes thank you very much indeed um yeah i live in mill lane and several local people have asked me to contribute today having read the planning officer's recent report i am relieved that the matter has now been referred to you as a committee as it appears that their approach is very confrontational they vigorously challenge every single point made by us residents and the parish council and they have signally failed even to mention the nine-page report commissioned and paid for by residents from a planning and conservation expert Cory Newell i trust that you have all been able to read her report as she is to her to our knowledge the only expert who is inspected the site and knows the area intimately if as they confirm the officer's report has been produced without any site visits even if due to covid it should not carry the full weight that the decision requires it feels like a real disconnect conservation areas are always special areas and lindsons is one of the biggest local people value this and feel strongly that preservation should be emphasized more than development when so many of us follow the rules conscientiously often in tiny details it's not surprising that we object to a major proposal like this one we all understand your definition of conservation area to preserve or enhance the local character and buildings may be traditional or more modern but both need to fit with the character of the area this case is definitely not borderline the building is a very plain extension running the full length of the public footpath with no windows or doors much taller than normal single story and with a hard unbroken roof line mostly metallic which will never weather it takes center stage blocking views in all directions of trees skyline and other houses and gardens such matters are subtle but important every such development degrades the character of the conservation area until eventually there will be little left worth preserving but this case is certainly not subtle it completely destroys the prospects of both its immediate neighbors and pushes right up to the village green the officers bandy words like innovative subservient symmetrical but none of these is remotely true or relevant people find it uncompromising and even slightly hostile they are claimed that metal roofs are acceptable because they are found on modern farm modern farms is frankly rather absurd the conservation area has no such examples so just finally the recent rebuilding of 24 mill lane has been much praised for being very sensitive and enhancing the area this however is a very different animal and i'm not surprised that so many people are able to discriminate and have objected i very much hope that you will do likewise and refuse this application many thanks right thank you very much indeed mr billet members did any points of clarification you'd like to take up with mr billet i can't see any no okay thank you very much mr billet much appreciated we now move to no you first we look at the letters you all members would have had the letter an email so the letter was from the applicants that you all had earlier in the week so he's chosen to make his points that way rather than appear today and you also have an email from his agent also outlining their position so i'm sure you all read those and are aware so move on to the parish council then is councillor board with us please hello hello okay nice to see you yes i do have permission from the parish council thank you very much so when you're ready then you know thank you um i think that mr billet has actually stated most of the case and he's very close to the area so he knows it well as we all do um the reports submitted by the protect bill lane group has not been recognized by the officer it's critical as site visits by the officer and committee have not been possible so we refer you to this and the illustrations in it as they support the parish council objections the officer report is inaccurate linton conservation area appraisal is accepted and accepted by planning inspectors as we've seen in previous um appeals most of the site is in flood zone two this includes the extension which is to the west not to the north the officer pointed to the garage there is also a pool and raised terracing as part of this application the site is at the core of the conservation area it's not at the edge of the village as in paragraph 44 but it's close to the centre it's next to the infant school it's near shops gp and the church it's a book the village green it's not a local green space village greens have special and higher planning status the site is visually more closely linked to listed buildings than indicated it's linked to mill brook number 18 the mill the mill house also linked to heritage assets around the green 20 and 22 across the pathway with the hint walls and surrounding cottages either the officer nor the design statement has fully recognised these factors the house has already had many additions and extensions and is much larger in bulkier than its neighbours which are mostly modest cottages now another 50 percent is to be added as big as the original house expanding the footprint massively this is too large it's the extension is not at all subservient it's too big and the extension will be impressively close to the boundary of the public space and right of roll the materials are alien to our conservation area the metal roof bound in modern industrial and agricultural buildings is totally out of keeping with the conservation area and local building materials it's been described as a design progression paragraph 43 but this is not a farmhouse this is not a barnyard and it's certainly not an industrial building this metal roof is completely out of character it's said that the extension is for lifetime living but there are no notifications to accommodate older age or disability needs the hedging in the conservation area is not protected and should not be used to disguise poor design and over large buildings the officer report cites policies to enhance protect and preserve historic assets historic character local distinctiveness and to be informed by existing design policy HQ one of the local plan requires new developments to make a positive contribution to its local and wider context appropriate in scale and nature on serving or enhancing important natural and historic assets and their setting this application fails to meet all of these criteria and should be rejected thank you very much thank you very much do you mean there's any points of clarification I don't see any requests no well thank you this is board excellent okay councilor board hey thank you very much thank you I am the local member and I will reserve my comments until later in the debate so we are at the debate now if somebody would like to open the discussion council saying do we have anybody no takers at present year no takers all right I'll make my comments on the stage as it's been I'll speak to him if you wish to get lost yeah okay fine that's fine councillor Bradnum is it yeah councillor Bradnum please thank you chairman I find myself in some difficulty because however hard I have tried some of the documents on the website I haven't been able to open and so I feel I have not got the full story and I certainly haven't seen the comment from Corrie Newell which we were referred to by Mr Bennett I don't know if that's been redacted or not included anyway so I feel at a disadvantage there however I am sort of minded as to whether I ought to abstain having not been able to see the full information however I have been to Linton and I have visited this area on other planning applications and so I am somewhat familiar with the locality and I do feel that what I would be concerned about was if as we know sometimes when developments are made that ground levels are changed and so if the committee is minded to approve this I would seek to ensure that that ground level difference that the but Mr Gray pointed out to us between the public right of way and the ground level of the house to seek that that is maintained so that so that the extension is still lower than the level that it would be if it was still at the public right of way level if you see what I mean so there is so that it's set down into the ground and not proud but I'm mine I'm sort of trying to work out whether I'm entitled to vote or not. Right thank you very much. Next you have Councillor Heather Williams. I mean that's your choice entirely of course Councillor I would say that the report is on the website I have read it. Councillor Heather Williams please. Thank you Chairman and I just want to clarify that we have had those emails circulated to us but to ensure that they are on the website as well for full transparency because obviously that's something we're taking into consideration and one we did get quite late on so if officers could reassure me that those will be in the public domain because if they've been able to speak today then the public there wouldn't be a public record of it. Shall I just check that we have Mr Senior first then? Yeah. Mr Senior are they are are they going on the website? I believe they go on to the planning port rather than the the agenda page. Yeah the planning port indeed. So I will check that that's not something I'm in charge of. Okay. I will make sure that they. The point is that they are in the public domain. Yes indeed. I think Chairman Mr Gray wants to comment on that. Okay do you mind Councillor Williams if I go to him first? That's fine. Okay Mr Gray do you want to tell us something? Yes I can confirm that the both the supporting statements one from the applicant and one from the agent has been uploaded onto the website. Fine thank you very much for that. Councillor Williams did you want to continue? Yes so on to the proposal itself I do find myself in two minds on this one because it is it is quite substantial and I find the conservation obviously there is there is a bit of a conflict in opinion over the conservation area and so I very much will be looking forward to the local member Chairman making his view and that I'd be interested in what others say but I think this really isn't a straightforward one. It very much is a balance and it does seem quite sizable. That's my thoughts at the moment. Thank you Chairman. Okay thank you very much. Councillor Cahn Chairman. Councillor Cahn please. Well again actually I felt that I needed to I couldn't judge from the map much about the site so I felt I needed to do a site visit and I made a visit to the site from the public road in the public footpath. I felt the the difference in level was noticeable. We can't actually see you Councillor. Gosh I put my camera was on try again. Yeah but you're you're out of shot you're back in. Sorry I beg your pardon I was leaning to the side. Okay here I am. Like the previous thing I felt I couldn't judge from the report decided the plan didn't really tell me a lot and I went to look at the site from the road and from the public footpath. The the the area is quite interesting this conservation area is very mixed. Every of the buildings are very different in each building seems to be built from a different material. The building on what the other side of the footpath is built half a brick on the side of no particular distinction facing the actual building and a splint on the other side looking in the other direction which is screened from the building concern that the development side. The levels that it would refer to there's quite a large difference in level surprisingly large difference in level between the footpath and the development site which obviously has to be maintained. I felt that it was really like almost like an extent. A lot of buildings could have been farms in previous time it's quite an old part of the building it seems like it was proposed really looked like a quite like a natural outbuild and the main concern that I had and which was referred to is the idea of a metal roof and which could be intrusive and a bit out of keeping. I don't apart from the mill itself which may in the past have had metal roofs I don't think most of the other buildings around would have had that but that I think possibly could be sorted out by conditions in terms of the actual finisher and metal roof. It doesn't have to be bright silver could be other colors and I find it difficult to feel that it really has such an impact on the conservation area that it was sufficient to refuse it I felt it could in fact seem relatively natural part as long as the roof materials were satisfactory. So I think in the end my feelings that I would I'll support this application. All right thank you very much. Next you have Councillor Roberts. Councillor Roberts yeah please Councillor Roberts. Thank you Chairman. My concerns at this point are on process and making sure that we have got that right and certainly some members have indicated that they couldn't find the input that had been put in from the village's planning consultant not the parish council but the residents and certainly the gentleman who spoke for residents spoke of his concerns that he didn't believe it was seeable and it was in nine pages and I'm therefore thinking and I don't want us to run down a line of making a decision and then it can be challenged because we haven't followed due process and I've looked through again sitting here with it next to me and it doesn't really give us an idea that there's been a very formal input from residents it just talks about you know some residents and some third parties and I think where you have a a lot of information put in by residents in a formal manner it should actually be very clear where those are and that they could be found immediately. Now if there is some query over it Chairman I would suggest that we should defer this matter if that is the case and I'll wait to hear but if there's any question that that is not easily found or in fact if it's not there then I think we would have to defer the matter. Thank you very much for that I mean I can confirm that it is on the planning portal the nine page report I only looked at it at the weekends I mean you know I was it's not terribly easy to navigate that that portal I would say but let's take advice anyway yeah I guess perhaps you would like to comment on this. Thank you chair I think on the basis that the document has been available in the public domain I don't think there's there's any issue that we need to be concerned with perhaps the case office can just confirm that he has taken that representation into account in his deliberations but beyond that I think I'm satisfied that the information was available for everyone to see thank you Chairman. Can can we have the view of the legal as well please Chairman? Yes it is Mr Reid would you agree with that? Chair if I may can we hear from the case officer in response to Mr Carter first of all? Okay Mr Gray please. I can confirm that the representation from the tech mill lane group was taken into account under the representations from members of the public section. All right yeah I'm sorry I'm sorry Tom just are you telling us that it's there and it's easily found because what we appear to be hearing is that it's difficult to find it and it's not clear and therefore you might have to be a computer expert so we've got into that. Chairman can I clarify please? No well no I think Mr Reid is going to clarify for us. Chair I think I need to hear comments from all of the committee members before I comment in case I then have to say something which that's a principle isn't it if it's on it is available. Do not interrupt please councillor and please turn off your camera for a moment. Now Mr Reid it's a point of principle is it since is the since these are in the public domain i.e. we have already established that are sitting on the planning portal then isn't that sufficient? Chair my view is that if planning officers are satisfied that the document is available to the public then I would not be recommending a deferral on the basis that somebody might have not spotted it. Right okay thank you very much for that I think Mr Reid has said that um Chair? Senator Brandon what do you speak again? Sorry Councillor Roberts first did you want to come back? Um no actually I would like clarification from Councillor Bradnam because it was her point that I was taking up Chairman I understood from her that she was saying that she had not been able to find it and I'd like to hear Anna's Councillor Bradnam's view. Okay Councillor Bradnam please. Thank you Chair what I was trying to say was I could see the documents but I was not able to open them so at that point some time ago and prior to that I had not been able to open the document but while we have been in conversation about this planning application I have been able to open the document and I have looked at it so to reassure Councillor Roberts it was simply my computer having a problem earlier on and in the previous days but it has actually opened up now so can I just reassure you I have seen the documents that were submitted thank you. Excellent okay thank you very much for that. Thank you Councillor Bradnam. Thank you Councillor Fain do we have any further? Councillor Heather Williams would like to speak. Councillor Heather Williams please. Thank you Chairman I was just going to make a suggestion that sometimes if something is of technical or importance then we can have an appendix in the report and perhaps that would avoid the problem in future but if we are legally tight given the fact that we've got no extension and agreed and we are past the determination date by some weeks I think there would be an element of concern of over deferral from that perspective but I understand the principle of why I was being asked that was all Chairman. Okay thank you very much okay I think that's down to me now then as the local member well the first thing to say is that there's been a number of extensions and alterations to this property all of them I might say have been welcomed and there's been a significant improvement in this house. I'd also say that a further extension would probably be acceptable the difficulty is that it probably isn't this one the issues here are certainly the bulk and size of the extension and very much the use of metal in the roof. As you've seen from the photographs which have been taken all around this is a very prominent position a very sensitive position it says it is in fact surrounded by listed buildings and it is sitting on the edge in the setting of the village green. So this is the village green which has a higher rating in terms of conservation and so we need to take all this very seriously. As I say I think a further extension is possible but I don't believe it is this one. It's too large and the use of metal in the roof is in Congress particularly within this very sensitive setting so for that reason I'm afraid I can't support this application as it doesn't meet the demand in requirements as far as I'm concerned of policy HQ 1. Councillor Henry Bachelor has also asked me to make it clear Henry Bachelor is the other local member that he supports this view that I've expressed and also is for refusal. So I'm asking you to refuse this one there is a prospect for something here I'm afraid it's not this they need to come back with a revised plan. Thank you. Right so I think we're probably ready to go to a vote can I just check first with Mr Carter that those of us who are voting for refuse on the basis of the size materials under HQ 1 is acceptable. Chair I've taken the liberty of drafting some wording as with the previous item if you're happy for me to read that out. Yes please. So I've drafted that by virtue of the bulk size location and choice of materials the proposal would have an unacceptable visual impact on the character and appearance of the linton conservation area. The level of harm would be less than substantial but there are no clear public benefits which are identified to outweigh that harm. The proposal would therefore fail to comply with the requirements of policy HQ 1 of the SUDC local plan, the MPPF and section 72 of the planning listed building and conservation areas Act 1990. Right thank you very much for that. Members who you'll noted that. Can I? Councillor Khan yes you understand. I was going to say that if one was prepared to approve it can I suggest that we have a condition to approve roof materials before the condition to have roof materials approved because that might be a possible way. I think that's probably already a condition isn't it Councillor. Mr Gray did I see that that was already conditioned? Yeah that's right and it's conditioned C. Okay fine so hopefully that will satisfy you Councillor Khan. Sorry I've a yes okay that's fine. Yep okay all right then members we're going for a vote them. So the recommendation from the officers is for approval so if you agree with approval then you're for if you want refusal you're against if you wish to abstain you're abstain. So I'm going to do a roll call now for the votes. And the first councillor is Councillor Bradlam please. And Chairman on the basis that I have seen the documents I am going to vote and I'm going to vote to refuse. Refuse thank you. Councillor Khan. For. Thank you. Councillor Sain. Against. Against thank you. Councillor Hawkins. For. For. Councillor Ripeth. Against. Against thank you. Councillor Roberts. Against. Thank you. Councillor Heather Williams. Against. Thank you. Councillor Richard Williams. Against. Against. Councillor Riot. Against. Thank you. And my vote is against. So the outcome is 8 against 2 for therefore this is refused. Okay thank you very much members. So item 9 is complete and we move on to item 10. Gender item 10 is on page 83 of our agenda. And it is reference S4252 stroke 19 FL. We're at Fowlmere Cherry Tree Field Sheprith Road Fowlmere and the proposal is a conversion of cow sheds to three bedroomed house within internal annex and stable building. The applicant is Mr and Mrs Fulton. The recommendation is delegated approval. Key considerations will be covered by the presenting officer. Chairman can I just clarify with you with Aaron. You should have Councillor Peter Berg who was the planning committee chairman of Fowlmere Parish Council. But I can't see his name on the list as yet. He certainly was prepared to be coming. Oh yes he's there. Thank you chairman. Yeah that is with us. Thank you very much. Thank you. So the application has brought the committee to allow consideration of parish council objections. The presenting officer is David Norris. So over to you then Mr Norris for your presentation. Thank you. Can you confirm that you can see their slides? Yes we've got that. Thank you. Okay so this is an application to convert some redundant agricultural buildings into a single dwelling. This is the application site plan that was submitted within the application. It doesn't really give a lot of context although it does provide the location of where the site is. However it's useful to go to the Google Maps to give you a better idea of where the site actually is. So the red mark shows the buildings. To the north you have the Shepproth Road, the village and to the south you have Fowlmere and Fowlmere cemeteries here. And upon that this is a show the site in better detail. Existing access from here. These are the buildings in this location here. Some redundant sort of stable buildings here. No real neighbours nearby. There is a building here. This is the view from the road. You see the access already exists. You see the buildings there. You will read from the report that these buildings already benefit or benefited in the past for a prior approval for conversion into two dwellings sort of bungalow type dwellings. Talk about that more in a moment. That's the existing access track which will be used for this development. It also shows the trees around the site. There's a part in the access looking north. You'll see decent visibility displays and a very straight road. Similarly looking south. It's a decent straight road with good displays. This is the front elevation of the building looking for the road. As you'll see there's two structures there with a linking structure with a covered yard type building. That's the side elevation. Again the other side elevation. That's looking at from the rear of the buildings. Looking towards there's a footpath from the top of that ridge which is not particularly visible from the side or from the path down to the side either. There's an owl box which I took a picture of. There's a view driving south looking into. This is one access the proposed well sorry access to serve the development is here. Buildings are behind this hedgerow here. Looking from the road at the buildings. These are dilapidated buildings that will be removed. Looking from the south looking towards Shepproth. You can just about see the building there substantial trees and hedgerow along there. Again a blown-up version. You can just about see the buildings here. These are the buildings to be removed. This is a proposed site layout plan. Access taken from the main road. Some improvements within the site. This is the proposed stable block which will go in this location here at L-shape. Timber building with an undulined type roof. These buildings to be removed. So these are the two buildings that exist and currently the central yard runs right through. You'll see parking going to this location here with a small kind of garden area around here. Additional planting is proposed around the boundary. So these are the elevations. This is the existing building two elevations and this is how they will look when extended. Again two other elevations and how they will look afterwards. So as you'll see the main form of the building is retained certainly the footprint. They are being extended slightly upwards to create a first floor within there and this central area here is being extended to create a hallway and access to them. Materials will be timber, dark stained, powder coat out of many of the windows and the roof will be a profile sheeting that will contain solar panels within it. They won't be sat on top of that. This is the floor plan. As you'll see ground floor, living room kitchen, one bedroom downstairs. Integral garage should get the cars off of the site. It also includes an attic which I believe is for a future family member possibly. So it's a one bedroom attic for the room at first floor and its own living room kind of kitchenette on the ground floor. So the central area's hallway with a landing upstairs above the living room and kitchen will remain open with the bedroom at the back. We have received a revised Kurtlege plan. This is not a revised red line plan as referred to in the report and it's clarified in the update note. What we thought to do was because the impact of a conversion in the countryside sometimes is felt through the domestic paraphernalia that can appear within the garden area. What we've asked the applicant to do is to submit an amended plan that shows a revised Kurtlege, a reduced garden area in effect. That's what this plan trains. Probably worthwhile seeing the drawings of what was approved under Class Q approval. As you'll see there are basic drawings of rudimentary and two bundles that were approved under that two separate three bedroom bundles. So the key planning considerations as you'll know this site is located outside of any development framework and therefore there's a general presumption against residential development. However the NPPF does the life of the reuse of rural buildings to provide homes in the countryside. Furthermore policy H17 of the local plan does the life of the conversion of rural buildings into dwellings. There are however certain criteria which you'll have seen the parish plan cover. The first one is that the buildings must be capable of conversion. As I already said the benefit of having a Class Q in the past demonstrates that they are suitable for conversion and that it will be a conversion rather than a rebuild. We have also received additional structural information that demonstrates that these additions can be held upon the existing structure and that the steel frame is still fundamental to this. So it's not a rebuild. This is a conversion. One of the other points that was brought up is the reuse of the building for employment purposes. This is one of the points within policy H17 as well. I think the key issue here is the fact that the Class Q approval has been granted and would be granted again. Therefore it's not considered to be reasonable to expect this building to be marketed for employment use as there is a genuine fallback position which I can go back more in a moment. The other criteria is enhancement to surrounding area. Obviously this is a subjective assessment but it is considered that this scheme will make good use of these derelict buildings and the planting of trees will provide a positive enhancement to the area. The design and landscaping again is one of those is a subjective issue. As you'll see from the drawings the two bundles that were approved on the approval weren't of any architectural quality. They didn't contribute to the area. They didn't really respect the character of the buildings or the agricultural form. I believe that the creation of one home here, a well-designed home incorporates materials that are appropriate in the area and the formation of the covered area, the covered yard type, is kind of a traditional way of extending agricultural buildings. There is a small increase in the height of the buildings which we accept. However this has to be balanced against other benefits. The vehicle access, yes you'll have read the comments of the highly authority. They are certain that the access is suitable to serve on additional dwelling. Again furthermore the Class Q approval allows for two dwellings being served from this access. I mean the other, before I go into the Class Q approval, it's also worth bearing in mind that the applicant is proposing a raft of sustainability measures. I think that's three in the report. This is ground source heat pumps, solar panels, water recovery, etc. So those sustainable elements need to be collected into this. The fallback position of the Class Q approval is you'll have heard earlier in the meeting. We need to be mindful of what could be carried out under permitted development or under previous approvals. This has been established in case law. I think there's a fairly recent case where it said that local members must take into account previous permitted development for prior approvals when considering applications, when assessing the difference between the two schemes. So in conclusion, when considering this application it's been necessary to assess the current proposal against the prior approval that are currently previously being granted. That approval was for two dwellings in its rural location whereas this scheme is for a single home that boasts a range of sustainable features. It is not reasonable to require the applicant to go through a marketing exercise and there's a clear fallback position. Furthermore, whilst a single home may be slightly larger than the two houses approved, you just consider this impact is not highable, is outweighed by the benefits of creating a single home. If nothing else, it's also harming the amount of vehicle movements that would be coming from the site. And that's it for me, thank you. Okay, thank you very much. And just to be entirely crystal clear that I'd like to comment the weight we should give to the existing approval. And to make clear, class Q means that there is an existing approval, which is the fallback position. And whatever we judge on this, we need to keep that very much in mind, don't we? Yeah, absolutely, Chairman. Okay, good. Councilor Thane, do we have any speakers please? Councilor Thane with us? No, but I think Councilor Bradenham is wanting to speak. Thank you Chairman. I wanted to clarify with the case officer two things. He said, and I had seen that there was this revised curtailage, it's described as a revised curtailage plan. And I wanted to be clear, I think Mr Norris said that in fact it was a revised red line plan. And I wanted to be clear in short that the red line, which is tighter around the building, is the plan that we are actually referring to. Because I'm sure as members know, if the red line went around the whole field, then a number of such buildings could in principle be built on this site with other constraints taken into account. So I just wanted to be sure that this red line does just go around the existing agricultural buildings. That's the first question, if I may Chairman. Yes, the red line plan is the original plan. However, this subsequent plan is a curtailage plan. So that defines the garden area. So the remainder of land outside of the curtailage plan doesn't become a brownfield or previously developed land. We've got a specific condition that ties that second plan to be in the garden area only. The rest of the land remains as paddock or agriculture. That's great, thank you very much. And the second question I wanted to ask, and this might just be a trick of the eye as it were, but on the photographs you had of the existing agricultural barns, they looked much longer from roughly speaking east to west than the current planned proposed building is. And I just wanted to check, is the proposed building actually shorter than the current barns or is it the same length? The buildings I believe are the same length. I think that's where I took the photograph. I've emphasised the horizontal of it rather than the reality. So yes, it's using existing footprints. Could you go back to that photograph of the barns please? It was about three or four in your presentation I think. Can you see my screen now? Yes. This is the elevations. Yes, that photograph made the buildings look much longer than the proposed plan. I mean that looks, I don't know how long that is, but it looks much longer than the plan. I'm sure the officer can tell us, is this the same size? Yes. Yes, it's a four bay building I believe. Yes, and they're using the full length. How long would that be? I think it's a five-inch base, I think it's 20 meters I believe. Okay, but the question was, is it taking the whole length as we saw there? Yes, it is. Yes, okay, thank you very much. Okay, that's the calm, please. Sorry. I wanted to ask about the stables which were indicated on the, you're talking about demolishing some old dilapidated buildings and rebuilding the stables. Are they within the actual application area or are they being developed separately as agricultural buildings? And if they are being built as agricultural buildings, though are stables for horses acceptable as agricultural buildings or do they need planning commission? These are a question in the stable buildings that form them in the red line area of the property. The view or the assessment of stable buildings really has a visual impact for the most part. My view is that the stables with timber cladding will be appropriate in this location. And I suspect it's likely that the front will become maybe paddock area. I don't know what the surrounding fields, but yes, they are being proposed as part of this application. Thank you. Thank you. And Councillor Roberts, please. Thank you very much, Chairman. Yes, Mr Norris, can you tell me the change in the configuration of where the lines are drawn now? Can you confirm to me, is what you now call referring to as the pasture land, is that in the same ownership as the application site land? Yes, it's in the same ownership. It is? Yes. Thank you. All right. Okay. Thank you very much. No more points of clarification, so we have moved to public speakers. Mr Councillor Richard Williams. All right. Okay. Councillor Richard Williams, please. Thank you, Chair. Sorry, it was a late one. So can I just ask the officer to just clarify something about the fallback position? I know we've been here before with fallbacks, but is the argument then that there's a realistic prospect of the previous planning commission being implemented, and therefore that's the fallback? Just to clarify. Yes, that's pretty much something. In the case rule, which was very similar related to the Class Q consent, and the change was that the local authority had given too much weight, I believe, in the simple terms, to a Class Q fallback position, and an objector had just reviewed the decision. I think it was Tom Ridgid and Malin, counsel. But the inspector said, I can actually read it. He said, in my view, therefore, the officer did not misrepresent in his advice to continue on the fallback position. The provision that Class Q was correctly interpreted and lawfully applied, and he basically was saying he would have erred in law if he hadn't told the counsel that there was a realistic fallback position on there. So I suppose, as I was seeing in my report and my recommendation, what we're really considering is against is, there is a realistic prospect of two fund loads being created here through the Class Q. That's a yes, I think. Thank you. I was reading the case myself, and it was the realistic prospect point, so thank you. That answers the question. Excellent. Thank you very much. Right, so if we go to public speakers then, it's Mr Daniel Fulton with us, please. Yes, I am. Thank you, chair. Good afternoon. Welcome. Have you got your camera on? Yes, I do. Is it showing? I just needed to get the officer to take down his presentation, please. I can't see the speaker. That's working now. Yeah, it's working now, so thank you very much. When you're ready. Yes, so I raised these points today, not because the Fuse Lane Consortium has any particular view on the planning merits of this particular application, but because it's essential that the council applies the law and planning policies fairly and uniformly in all planning applications across the district. The first point I'll raise is in regards to the statutory consultation response of the local highway authority. The local highway authority asked for a 2 meter by 2 meter visibility display. I don't know Sheppard Road well. In fact, I think I've been down it twice, but it's my sense that there are not a lot of pedestrians on Sheppard Road and that it is primarily vehicles. And I also recall that I believe it's the national speed limit applies, which is 60 miles per hour. And I would like to suggest that if a car is traveling at 60 miles an hour, a 2 meter visibility display is not going to do any pedestrian or vehicle any good. I'd like to suggest that the advice of the local highway authority is irrational and that it also ignores the county council's own adopted highway development policies. And it is also contrary to the relevant SPD that has also been adopted by this council. Whether or not safe access can be created as one of the principal planning considerations for this application, however condition four would defer any assessment of the size of the visibility display to the discharge of conditions phase. The council's policy under the president administration is not to consult the public parish councils or statutory consultees on discharge of conditions applications. And I question whether it's reasonable for this committee to grant planning permission today whilst deferring one of the primary planning considerations to the discharge of conditions phase. The revisions to the Kurtleidge plan, I'll just say the law on this is very clear that a re-consultation needs to occur any time that failure to do so might quote, deprive those who were entitled to be consulted on the application, on the opportunities to make any representations that given the nature and extent of the changes proposed, they may have wanted to make on the proposed application as amended. That's a high test pass and the citation for Mr. Reed on that is the High Court's 2017 ruling in the Holborn studio's limited versus Hackney-London borough council paragraph 79. And I think the highway safety considerations here need to be taken account. The council cannot safely rely on irrational advice from the local highway authority. And I think this needs to go back to officers for further consideration. And I would thank the committee for listening to me today. Thanks. All right. Thank you very much, Mr. Folton. Any points of clarification from members? Yeah, I can't see any. So thank you very much for your contribution, Mr. Folton. Thank you. And when we move on then to the applicant, Mr. James Folton. Is Mr. James Folton with us, please? Yes, Sylvia. Can you see me? Yeah. Okay. So I take no relative with the previous. No, no relative to the previous speaker. Good afternoon, Chairman, Councillors and ladies and gentlemen. Thank you very much for hearing our application this afternoon. My wife, Emma, is actually going to say a few words about our application this afternoon. Good afternoon, Chairman. We weren't aware of any planning procedural breaches. We've been working closely with South Cams Planning Department on our application for some considerable time. We know the local area extremely well. I grew up locally and have lived in South Cams all my life. We are in fact great family friends of the two farmers next to this site, the Meads and the Sheldricks. We fully appreciate this as a sensitive site. We purchased it with the prior approval for two houses, but would like to convert the barns in a sympathetic, sensitive and sustainable way to create a family house. We went through South Cams pre-planning advice and closely followed the positive advice we received. We limited the windows on the side parallel to the footpath, as though it is green by the trees in some considerable distance away, we wanted to ensure the visual character of the barns is maintained. To ensure the conversion is sustainable, all heating would be provided by the ground source heat pump. All rainwater from the roofs would be collected and reused in the garden and home, and the solar panels would provide a large proportion of the electricity required. The solar panels we wish to use are laminated into the metal roofing sheets, so it would not affect the aesthetics of the barn. We are wanting to plant additional native trees that will provide some screening, but importantly provide additional habitats for wildfire. We've put up bird boxes, relocated the owl box with guidance from the Barnout Trust, and they're maintaining the hedge to promote bird nesting sites. The plan showing proposed courtyards around the barns will safeguard the site from future development and retain maximum land for livestock and agricultural use. We know we have the consent to build two houses, but I hope you feel this proposal for an energy efficient and sustainable home is more suitable. Thank you for your time and considering our application. It's been a very long journey getting to this stage. Thank you. Thank you very much, Chairman. Thank you very much. You've still got a minute left though. Well done. Okay, let's see if anybody wants clarification. Members, any points of clarification you want to pursue? I don't see any comments. No, okay. Thank you very much for your contribution there. Sorry to have kept you so long on there. Okay, members, we're now going to hear from the Parish Council. Is Councillor Peter Berg with us, please? Yes, I am. Just before I start, I'll just confirm for benefit of the committee that I speak today on behalf of the Parish Council with approval from my fellow councillors. Excellent. Thank you to say whenever you're ready then. Thank you. As officers note, the replacement of the existing agricultural barns with this large house in the open countryside needs to be judged against policy H17. The report acknowledges there has been no attempt to market the site and instead presents an argument as to why the barns are now unsuitable for employment use. However, none of this is documented as part of the applicant's submission within the public case file and appears to be an assertion being made on behalf of the applicant by officers. The statement is also totally ignored in the local context. In the last three years, there have been five new steel-framed agricultural buildings granted permission within a one-mile radius of this application site. September this year, we have a new grainstorm, grainstorm permission on Family Road. August this year, and your cultural storage building on Long Lane, and another one on Farmer Road. March of 2019, a new barn for the storage of Hay and Straw on Green Lane. In September 2017, a new portal frame building for card storage on Farmer Road. We therefore do not accept that these current barns meet the criteria of redundancy and believe it is detrimental to the local surroundings to allow such buildings to be converted to residential use only to then create a need for additional agricultural buildings to be constructed in the open country side. As has already been noted, the application in front of you is materially different to what would be allowed on the permitted development. It also does not appear to represent a reuse of the existing structure in any meaningful way. All exterior cladding is being replaced, the roof structure is being replaced and raised in height and in fact only the virtual columns of the portal frames are being retained. It is acknowledged that the existing foundations will need supplementing and the fact that the alignment of the windows in the submitted plans clash with the locations of these portal frame columns cast doubt on the intention to retain even this element of the existing structure. Therefore, it seems hard to argue that this is a conversion of the existing buildings in any meaningful sense. The other crucial test within Policy H17 relates to being sensitive to the character and appearance of the building and locality. Fermi has a single designated public footpath that connects the village of Foxton and this is in regular use. The barns in question are visible from this path that across the open fields and the proposed increase in height of the building and visual change from a pair of agricultural barns to a large domestic dwelling will adversely impact on these open countryside views. In addition, the 20 square meter panel of two-storey glazing proposed for the southeast elevation will reflect the sun and further draw attention to the change character and the scale of the building within the surroundings. We therefore disagree that the application is sensitive either to the character and appearance of the current building or the locality. So, to sum up, this application fails to meet the requirements of Policy H17 on three grounds. The buildings are not redundant and therefore there is clearly demand for similar buildings for agriculture and employment use within this immediate locality. The proposals are changing the scale of the building and we're using little, if any, of the current structure and the increasing scale, changing character of the building and extensive use of glazing is not sensitive to the locality will have a detrimental impact on the visual amenity of the open countryside visible from families last remaining public footpath. We therefore request members refuse this application on the basis that is not compliant with adoptive policy. Thank you. Okay, thank you very much. Any questions for Councillor Birk? Let's give it a second. Yes, Councillor Hawkins would like to. Thank you, Chair. Mr Birk, thank you very much for your statements. You are, do you take, you accept that there is already a prior approval for these buildings to be used or converted into two smaller ones? So from your statements, can I take it to mean that you prefer to see those two buildings than one building? Yes, we would prefer those buildings on the basis that there's not the increase in height of the building and there wouldn't be the linking section with the large area of glazing which would draw real attention to the scale of this new development. The originally proposed two buildings would more naturally sit within the footprint of the original barns. Okay, but the footprint hasn't changed or has it? No, but the height has and it's the joining section that creates a much larger mass than the current two separate barns. Right, actually, so it's the massing that is the issue from your. Exactly, visibility from the public footpath. From the vote it actually would be very well obscured but the public footpath, it would appear as a dominant item on the landscape. Right, thanks for that. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. I don't think I've got any further speakers. So, Councillor Berg, thank you very much for your contribution. Thank you. Okay, local member, Councillor Roberts, did you want to speak now? Yes, if I may, Chairman, thank you. I just quickly like to go back to the some background about the previous approval. That was given when we didn't have a five-year land supply and when we didn't have a local plan. It was, as you saw, a very basic drawing. It was almost like a back of a cigarette box and it was put in by the person who owned the land then, I think just to see, he was flying a kite to see if he could get approval, but it's not the same applicant now. So, I would also wonder whether the two bungalows is even realistic that that would happen because I think that the people who have now bought it are clearly expressing what they are looking for, a house for themselves there. I would say also, I would also query the talk. The officer described the buildings as dilapidated. Well, they're not dilapidated. They haven't actually been up all that long. I think they've been up in, put up in about the last 10 years or so. They were put up to have cattle in them, miniature cattle, which the previous owner breeds and that was put up there. I suspect that we may get another application on other land that he has round about. What we're looking at here is, in my opinion, a new build in the countryside, which is against policy. As the parish council planning chairman has just clearly expressed and explained, there's really nothing left of these cattle sheds in this application. You cannot call leaving possibly leaving four pieces of metal in four corners of a site a conversion. It's clearly a new build in the countryside. It doesn't fit in with the criteria of that. It's not an agricultural farm workers use or anything to do with agriculture or horticulture. It's just somebody who wants to build a nice house in the open countryside. That is very much open countryside. When you come in from the A10 along that road, right until you get to the start of the village, there's nothing. There are no houses on that side whatsoever. It's completely attractive countryside. It builds up at the back there to Foxton Hill, which is very important. We get lots of people walking on that public track there. Because it's in the open countryside, it's where the villages of particularly Foxton and Falmere go to enjoy their rural surroundings. I would suggest that it's completely inappropriate and setting dangerous precedents to be going along with something which is a new build in the countryside. You are hoping to every farm around about to put up something in a couple of years later declare that it's open for a bank on that for a conversion. So I hope that members will actually support the parish council who you've listened to what Councillor Burg has expressed. It's very well thought out. We're not being nimbies, but we are saying that when you have policies which are about protecting the countryside, and the Lord knows, we all know that in every one of our villages, the pressure on our precious landscapes is huge. I would hope that on this occasion, you would support the parish council and refuse this application on the grounds that it does not comply with policies. It could have been put up for somebody else using it as a barn, as Councillor Burg has explained. We've had numerous applications lately for people who are desperate for barns to use for themselves as agricultural barns. Yet this site was never ever attempted to be put up on that market or even for a small business purpose using it as it is, but it's not acceptable really to be changing this into a house. I hope that members will look kindly on my parish council and also remember their own parishes. You start going along with this in one village and it has a ratcheting effect. It will happen more and more and we will lose more and more of our precious country landscape. Thank you Chairman. Thank you very much. I'll come back to you on the policy specifics for refusal later if that's all right. I have some speakers. Do you want to exist to ask clarification from Councillor Roberts, Councillor Braden and the others? Sorry Chairman. No, I thought we were in, if I mistook where we were, I thought we were in debate. That was suggested speaking as a local member at the moment. Is that the same for you Councillor Khan? Yes, I thought it was the base. Yeah fine and Councillor Hawkins, same. Same Chair. Okay well let's get on with that then. So Councillor Braden it's the debate. Okay thank you very much. So I just wanted to get some clarification if we can from the officer on this employment reuse because I must say okay Google imagery is not entirely up to date but I must say I looked at those buildings and I thought well they don't look very old and I see a lot of farm buildings so you know it just struck me that they looked quite new and I noted this comment at paragraph 21 on our page 87 about the employment reuse and it says it requires either a demonstration of the unsuitability of a building for employment use or a lack of demand for employment use evidence through 12 months of marketing and we've heard from the parish council that it hasn't been marketed and then the case officer has said that it doesn't need to have been marketed because it's already got permission for two dwellings. Can we just have some clarification on that because my feeling is that, well I would just like some clarification please. Yeah okay let's do that. I think I go to Mr Carter please if you don't mind. Sorry David. No that's fine whatever. Thank you chair. I mean David may be better placed to answer as he has the detail but I think the point that he's making in the report is that because there is already a class Q consent for residential use on the site the officer view has been that the marketing wouldn't achieve anything because there is a fallback position of residential use but chair I think you may want to hear from David Norris on that as well. Right okay okay Mr Norris would you want to add to that? You're muted. You're muted. David you're muted. All right yes, as Mr Carter said a lot of wages have been given to the fact that there was a fallback position here. There was a you know a prior approval was granted for the use of these buildings for residential and therefore making an effort to go through the process of marketing when there was a residential consent there in effect was not considered to be reasonable or practical and therefore it wasn't appropriate. I mean in terms of other things as well also you'll have heard from a local resident that the access point is on a 60 mile per hour road so therefore in terms of industrial uses that would probably be a concern for the highway authority as well and also as well a couple of other things while I'm talking. Comment was made about the five-year land supply just to point out that class queues are not relevant to those totally separate legislation and the government by granting class queue rights has pretty much decided that rural buildings can be converted to homes in the countryside without needing to go through a marketing process. I appreciate the council has its own policy on that but my view is where a class queue has been demonstrated has been reasonable and they can go through that process. Thank you. Chairman can I also ask one further question? It's on the next paragraph and it's to do with structural integrity of the building and the report says that the building has received a class queue approval and is therefore considered to be of sufficient permanent strength and structural integrity to allow for a conversion rather than a rebuild. Now I find that slightly hard to believe knowing what this kind of building looks like out in the field and I suspect actually a considerable amount of strengthening would be required for such a building simply to take the weight of a first floor but could we have some guidance on that please? Well I think we've seen this a number of times haven't we that the interpretation of conversion can be quite wide but yes Mr. Norris can you tell us in terms of the structural integrity of the building when the local planning authority prior to the class queue approval he would have considered that that it could be a conversion rather than a rebuild. All right okay thank you very much if we can move on then. I think councillor Kahn. All right councillor Kahn please. Yeah this site would have been just a site in the countryside would never have been given permission that's clear it's against all our policies. The problem here is that we've got this class to approval now whether the class peer approval should have been given it's not the question that's a fate of complete we have that. So the real question that as I see it is that we have a debate between do we want to have one building rather than two and it seems a very big opulent building was proposed there are not obviously somebody got plenty of resources but that's not an issue the point is we're going to have one building there on the site the alternative will be to have two separate buildings in terms of that location and sustainability having its isolated location is going to involve a lot of traffic that does seem to me to be in advantage of only having one building. This is an application for full planning permission set against the class Q which seems to be permanent it doesn't seem to disappear can Mr Norris confirm that that the prior approval doesn't seem to be three years like a planning commission am I right on that so we'll ask the point of clarification and I think that's right am I correct? Yeah it looks like I'm back on that. Taking the point on that assumption we seem to be letting the position that otherwise we will have buildings and have one and in that case I would tend to think it is probably a better deal I would be unhappy about having a building there but it seems to be better than the alternative and I can sympathise with precisely with the parish council and council Robber's view but I think we're rather stuck I mean it's a comment upon the whole provision for prior approval conversion and actual buildings which has been a bit of a problem planning terms but there we are where we are and that's what's standing in front of us. All right thank you very much for that. Councillor Hawkins I think the next chair. Councillor Hawkins please. Thank you very much yeah um yeah Councillor Tan has made you know a very good argument is one of the things I was going to talk about I think we are where we are this site has already got permission for use as a residential site and yes the question is is he going to do one or two which is you know my point to um um Mr Berger there one and in my view it's better to have one because we have this traffic um and I take the point about the massing but the massing is only from the footpath but not from the road itself and probably it's more use um you know there'll be more people passing down the road than than the path so I personally don't see that we have um any reason to be calling for this to be advertised for employment use that horse has voted and so um the question we need to ask ourselves is is it one or is it two and I will be voting for one thank you. All right thank you very much. Councillor Ripeth was next. Councillor Ripeth please. I think my points have been made by two previous speakers and I will be voting for this um application on the basis of what's already been said. Thank you thank you very much. Chairman I think I come next myself. Yep. Councillor Sayin you've got one. Thank you chair. Yes as has been stated the fall back here is Class Q development of two conversion of two buildings um the difference here is the connecting area in the middle makes it one with greater height now but it was questioned whether this was a redundant building because there are grain buildings being built all around the conversion of what is a relatively low cattle building to use the modern grain facilities is not something that works easily and I think I accept that this is a redundant building to the extent that that is still an issue following the Class Q um indeed most of the structural members will be used the difference is that the height will be raised about access I really don't see that as an issue um this is not a particularly busy. Chairman could we ask Councillor Fain to turn his camera off we might hear his voice better then. I'll try one more time the question of visibility was raised I'm satisfied that the visibility is good by the officers which I will now turn my camera off then if I may chair I hope you all hear me. Yep yep um so the visibility is good in both directions I don't think that that is a real issue as reflected in the highway's report so what we have is a between two bungalows making use of these buildings or one and the most sustainable design something which in other circumstances might be regarded as exceptional um in planning terms the the use of integrated solar panels is itself very innovative there would be heat pumps and reuse of water on the site the proposal is in fact the sort of building that you would it is a highly imaginative and sustainable reuse of an existing building with very little impact on the surrounding area and marginal impact on the view from the footpath so I would be inclined to say we should suddenly approve this building. Okay thank you very much for that got through in the end and you're very good. Councillor Heather Williams. Okay Heather Williams please councillor thank you. Thank you Chairman um on on this one I think the the issue really is if we see it truly as a conversion of the existing buildings or the construction of a new one and because at the end of the day I know we have the conversion which has already got permission but we have different policies to deal with conversions of buildings and the establishment of new ones um and the changes that are proposed are quite substantial the fact that it's actually going to increase in height I think is something that gives the impression that this is not a conversion as is as you could see it as the two buildings would have been but the establishment of of a new a new one and I think that's that's more the area for debate and I think that there is the possibility for a design of one building that could be achieved without the increase in the height um and so I'm not saying that I support two rather than one but I think it's pushing the limits of conversion in my view and it's constantly taking it a little too far um and that's that's my thoughts at the moment Chairman and there is an annex proposed so I don't think the traffic area is actually you know the amount of traffic that actually that's an argument we can can run on on this one because essentially if you've got an annex and you've got the main property although they're in the same same footprint it is too too sort of family units potentially that could be could be using it so I I don't see that this is going to have any less impact than two houses would have on that basis um yes that's what I'm weighing up anyway okay thank you and Councillor Wright I think is it yes all right Councillor Wright please thank you Chairman um to me this application looks a good one it is redundant buildings in the countryside it's a brownfield site the red line the movement of the red line protects the site from further development it's substantially better design than the two falling back to the two houses and it's sustainable you know everything that this council is looking for I think the planning officers has taken apart the parish council's objections to it by going through H17 in great detail and you know taking apart those and giving reasons why he is supporting this application and I think that's very clear the highway objections we've we've seen the photographs and you know with that visibility display you know if that's not suitable I don't know very few sites in this district would be suitable um taking all that into account I can't see any material reasons for refusing this application and I will be supporting it thank you Chairman thanks very much for that I'll be coming to you Councillor Robertson just a moment but I understand Mr Reid wants to comment Mr Reid please can you hear me chair yes I can hear you thank you two points that I'd like to address if I may first is a comment was made by one of our public speakers about the consultation issue you've heard from the case officer that the red line application has not been amended uh had the red line been amended then I think it would have given rise to a fresh consultation what we have is a red line which the applicant is willing to adhere to in terms of the planning unit that will benefit from the residential consent in relation to the garden area to my mind it is therefore open to members to decide that there has been sufficient consultation and that no fresh consultation is required arising out of a condition limiting the garden area within the overall red line the second point I think Councillor Wright has touched upon and that is uh is there a highway issue again you've heard one of the public speakers say that the uh comments or the representations in the highway authority are irrational um Councillor Wright I think has drawn members attention to the photo that was shown and therefore it is open to members to decide whether they're satisfied on what you have before you that you can make a decision that is not a highway issue notwithstanding the comments from the public speaker as to the highway authority being irrational I hope those comments are helpful right thank you very much I believe Councillor Breddon wanted some clarification on that thank you thank you Mr Reid I just wanted to seek clarification of your clarification if I may that under condition three we've got the statement that prior to the occupation of the development the cartilage of the approved dwelling shall be laid out and finished in accordance with the approved plan the cartilage shall remain as such thereafter now I think Mr Norris was it said that means that there will only be development on the current proposed footprint and there would not be any permission for development of the remainder of the site can you confirm that that's the case so I respond chair Mr Reid yeah or Mr Norris I think that was was it I don't know that Mr Reid the question was given to him yes I think what we're saying is that the condition addresses what will be the extent of the garden area within the overall red line so in effect I know it sounds strange is strange but you have two red lines one for the purposes of the planning application and one for the purposes of limiting what will be the garden area within that overall red line is that helpful no sorry what I'm trying to establish is is there anything in either the original site plan or this cartilage plan that stop development outside the plan that describes the um this this plan that was the revised cartilage plan sorry what I'm trying to get to is that I do not want to see any further residential development on the remainder of the site and is there anything in these plans that protects the rest of the site from having any further residential development on it so so David Norris will chip in I hope a planning application could come forward for development on the balance of the land and that would have to be considered on its merits and yes we could find that the condition I think you said condition three could be the subject of of an appeal to amend the the conditions such as to say that they don't like the red line that they've offered up in relation to the cartilage plan but having best to read this this is what anybody could do on any any application isn't it so this is just standard chair you're you're absolutely right but I wanted to make councillor Bradman aware that that situation we always face let me keep it simple please so are you happy with that councillor Bradman so what we're saying is that there's no more protection than there would be on any other no but no but that's what I'm saying that that actually what we could have requested was that the red line the actual planning application red line went around the place that is currently described as the revised cartilage and the remainder of the site was put as a blue line other land in the ownership of what I'm saying is that without that protection without that protection development could be applied for on the remainder of the land and we wouldn't be able to say no because it had been predisposed as such because of there being a development on the site at present and if the red line goes all around the whole site then one building on the site predicates development on that site so it might not be anybody can make an application not if you restrict the red line to the immediate confines of the building appeal against it now we're not getting anywhere council please let's try and bring this to some sort of the conclusion now so the red line cartilage plan is the garden area that is just garden the remainder of the land in the red line is open countryside like everywhere else in the area and it's no more vulnerable not than any other piece of land in that location good okay thank you for that now let's hear the last word then from councillor Roberts please thank you very much chairman one of the things that hasn't been pointed out as is often when we have planning committees and when we've got something that's already got a previous approval we we are usually very strongly told and and warned about considering what is in front of us on its merits and and whatever else is there in the past even though it's up to date it should not be the main thing on our mind what should be the main thing on our mind is the application that is in front of us and I would ask again for those members who are thinking of going along with this to just give me a few thoughts and seconds on this one because what we had given was a very basic two smallish bungalows there wasn't going to be any great height change in them they were bungalows and though I still was upset about that because it was in the open countryside it went through because of various reasons however what is in front of us today is a different beast all together this is a building that is going to be extended it's going to be ripped apart all that's going to be left of it are if at all our four metal posts how do members quantify and qualify that that fits in with our planning policies our planning policies are quite clear no new build in the countryside in this manner unless it fits it actually fits in with proper criteria this application is a new build in the countryside that does not fit in with any of our criteria or policies I would suggest it's completely unacceptable to be putting this sort of thing as agreeable and acceptable because it's not that area between Sheproth and Falmyr is very special we're not the most beautiful area in South Cams but for us that is very special there is nothing along there that is a domestic dwelling of any kind and now some of you are going along with the notion that it's okay to build a large new house there which will not contain anything of the old building whatsoever and I would just say I'm really sad about that I'm really sad that you are so little care for your own policies and your own countryside go along with this if you will but you know I'm just at a loss to understand how you can go along with that this is not a barn conversion it's a new house in the countryside thank you can I presume you got a vote for refuse or of course um and the grounds for that is under policy h17 as suggested by the parish council chairman can I just add something here there is some some wording within um the officer's report which talks about um a survey that had been undertaken that proved it I would suggest that I'm sure that that survey was done by the applicants um and of course if you pay for something you'll get what you pay for you'll get the answer you want yeah all right however I would suggest that we can say that given all the information about what's going to be taken away what's going to be left we can actually say it does not comply with a barn conversion it is a new build in the countryside you will have to remind me our officers rather remind me what policy number that comes under but it's a new build in the countryside and contrary to policy yeah okay new so new build you're going for yeah okay right uh now I have a note from Mr Reed that I need to ask you members committee to confirm that you have assessed highway matters for themselves uh and taken on board what you've heard today and you are happy with the highway's suggestion um can I take that as the case yes I am yes yes yes okay fine yes and on consultation too right thank you very much um I just go to Mr Carter for a moment um the um there may be some votes for refusals so the basis of that um I've got that they're taking the view of this is new building not conversion contrary to policy I think age 17 is it uh chair yes thank you um I had uh had written some words but along slightly different lines um which was that notwithstanding the extent class q permission the proposal by virtue of the increased bulk and visual impact would be harmful to the rural character of the surrounding area contrary to policy HQ one of the local plan um rather than it being a new build but I'm just can we can we add height as well as bulk please Chris yes uh so by virtue of the increased uh height bulk and visual impact and materials being used uh well the the materials are well can you can you could put in that in fact the lack of anything that's retained yeah all right I think there's there's more more than enough yeah I think I've got enough information there to uh to put it together if necessary okay so we've got that uh I've got another note from Mr Reed and also are you satisfied that you're okay on the consultation issue is can I take a yes for that please agree yes all right that one again yes yes great all right so let's tie this one up then and let's go to uh a vote so uh the proposal is um for approval with conditions if you're in favor of approval you're for if you're against you're for refusal and if you want to abstain you abstain so for is approval uh against is refusal so uh do the roll call now Councillor Bradman please I'm finding this very hard um but I think I'm reluctantly going to have to vote for oh thank you councillor calm uh for oh thank you councillor Thane for or councillor Hawkins please for or councillor Rippith for thank you councillor Roberts against okay so thank you councillor Heather Williams again again thank you councillor Dr Richard Williams um for for councillor Wright for chairman thank you very much and I'm for the result is two three four three is eight two this is therefore approved outrageous okay thank you very much for that we now move on to agenda item 11 which is the enforcement report on page 95 of our committee papers unfortunately the enforcement officer cannot be with us today because it has a funeral commitment um Mr Carter is available to try and fulfill questions should you have them thank you chair just briefly to remind members that there was a supplemental report from the important officer um with regard to Smithie Fenn um and with regard to both that report and the main report itself um what I propose to do is if there are questions I will need to take those away to confer with the enforcement team and then revert back to either individual members or the entire committee on those issues okay just before we do that I just note that councillor Rippith is leaving us now she has another meeting so thank you very much councillor Rippith um any questions then yes councillor Bradnum please yes thank you I wanted to thank enforcement officers very much for finally serving a notice at Fenroad Milton um it's in it's it's written down as land northeast of 76 Fenroad Chesterton I don't think that's the right address it's Fenroad Milton um it's land northeast of Fenroad 76 Fenroad Milton um and uh we're very glad that an enforcement notice was finally served um but what I wanted to ask Mr Carter please is that enforcement could be on the alert as the as the weather becomes nicer in the spring because I think the use will start up again um and also since 28 days has passed since the issue of that notice and the land has not been reinstated uh there was a requirement to remove the track and reinstate it as a pasture um and none of those tracks have been removed yet so I'd like to just clarify when that could be done when the enforcement action could be taken thank you councillor Bradnum yes I'll I'll take those away uh and ask the enforcement officer to respond to directly on those points thank you thank you all right thank you very much uh council heather williams I'd like to raise something thank you chairman um I'm happy to do my um appeals question at the same time that helps me things up uh but on enforcement I'll just look at the year-to-date figures for 2020 there's been been a reduction um which you would understand this year but also on the amount closed it's quite a significant reduction compared to the previous years um and when I looked at the monthly figures we could see there was a bit of a particularly august um I was just wondering if we've if we've identified a reason for that and hopefully overcome whatever reason that will be because of the October we did clear more than we received so just um seeking a bit of reassurance that that was a short problem a short term problem and that's been resolved um would you like me to ask my question now um no it's all right we'll come back to that I'm sorry I think we're just losing another person I'm very yeah councillor carn has had to leave now um cheerio councillor gone councillor right is next I think yeah councillor right please thank you chairman my questions relate to smithy fen um I'm concerned about the the work that's going on in there involved involving large plant and that sort of thing one of the neighbours has notified me about it and I was wondering I was hoping to speak to the enforcement officer today about it um but if he's not there he can't respond but uh there is large plant that has been work on sexual drove and smithy fen and I was wondering if we could have a report on large plant and work sort of going on in there with on some of our injunction sites thank you right thank you very much for that this is the car through I'm sure you're taking that on yeah thank you councillor right I'll ask the important officer to contact you directly in the first instance um to discuss that matter okay thank you I think we've done that one then and we move on to a response to my question from Mr Carter well I'm not sure Mr Carter can respond he's just taken that away to get an answer for you I think yeah sorry councillor Williams um I don't have an answer as to why fewer cases have been closed but um again I will find out I'm afraid I'm not directly involved in the management of the enforcement team so um I can certainly take that away and find out for you though thank you okay thank you very much we're now on agenda item 12 then on page 103 which are appeal decisions worth noting that all the current ones have been dismissed any comments on this Mr Carter no comments chair but as previous months I'll propose to circulate those appeal decisions to the committee um following this meeting probably you should should have done that beforehand but um I will do that just for for members interest thank you thank you very much anything else members Mr Carter or nope so we're at the end of the meeting then I had an appeal question and I have indicated Andy I'm yeah I'm sorry who have I missed I didn't catch your name me and um it was just on page 109 yes sorry on the informal hearings the first two at the land at Mill Lane Thalston it says the 9th of November to be confirmed obviously we're past the 9th of November so just to um find out how did that informal hearing go ahead um and are we able to have an update on that and the grounds of which Mr Reed is keen to tell us all about it oh lovely the planning inspector omitted to send out notice so they had to postpone that meeting that appeal and we're waiting for a new date chairman thank you very much the grounds on which they're appealing on that site it's really I mean it might be a bit deeper Councillor Roberts you still got your camera on I don't know if you wouldn't mind thank you very much I'm afraid I don't have details of the the grounds of the appeal I'm just dealing with the planning obligation matters okay could you have to pursue that outside this meeting and I think it's council Williams chair chair if I may um if given it's a live appeal um the appellants grounds of appeal should be on the the council's planning portal um under the relevant application reference so um the grounds of appeal should be there for anyone to read um but I'll see if we can uh we can uh circulate something that summarizes it for you if that's been submitted by the applicant right thank you very much for that I have a couple more questions I think um Councillor Hawkins please thank you chair uh it's the uh decisions notified on figures one or five and one or six I've said these have all been dismissed and I think uh it shows that it's original decisions were very good decisions absolutely acknowledge that to the officers and members of the committee thank you yeah good okay thank you very much for that um I know I have no further speakers so I just let you need to let you know that our next meeting will be Wednesday the 9th of December 10 o'clock I thank everybody who's taken part thank you the public for watching and thank you members and officers for your attention today it's just after four o'clock and we've got a short day uh the mere six hours today so well done everybody and thank you very much thank you