Agenda and minutes

Up to 15 minutes are allowed for public participation.  Participants are restricted to 3 minutes each.

There was no public participation.

i)       Meeting of the Planning Committee held on 12 December, previously circulated.

Meeting of the Planning Committee held on 12 December 2018.

RESOLVED that the Minutes of the meeting of the Planning Committee held on 12 December 2018 be confirmed and signed as a correct record.

Members may make any declarations of interest at this point but may also make them at any time during the course of the meeting.

The Chairman declared an interest on behalf of all Councillors as the applicant in item 71 was related to a Member of the Council.

The Chairman also declared on behalf of all Councillors for item 74 as the applicant was a Member of the Council, and therefore was known to all Members.

Councillor Giles McNeill declared an interest in item 73, 138494 – Land off the Hawthorns Nettleham, as the item had been discussed at a meeting of Nettleham Parish Council.  He had taken no part in discussions at that meeting, and therefore was able to take part, and vote on this item.

Finally, the Chairman declared an interest on behalf of all Members of the Planning Committee as a letter had been posted recorded delivery lobbying Members on item 74, 138563, Land off Dunholme Road, Scothern.

Note – the status of Neighbourhood Plans in the District may be found via this link

https://www.west-lindsey.gov.uk/my-services/planning-and-building/neighbourhood-planning/

There was no update this month.

Note: Councillor David Cotton arrived during this item.

The Chairman introduced application number 138576, an application for approval of reserved matters for the erection of 2no. dwellings considering access, appearance, landscaping, layout and scale, following outline planning permission 134537 granted on 29 July 2016 – a resubmission of 138097.

The application was presented to committee as the applicant was from the immediate family of a Councillor.  There were no updates to this report from the case officer.

There was one public speaker on this item – Mrs Tracey Coulson, representing the applicant.  She highlighted the following points:

·         This was a resubmission of a previously refused application from the planning meeting held on October 17 2018;

·         Following this previous meeting, the applicants had listened and amended the scheme as necessary.  The applicant had looked to reduce the size of the two dwellings, and provide a greater separation distance between plots.  The ridge heights had been reduced on both plots;

·         The overall floor area for both properties had been reduced to 70 metres squared;

·         Comment had previously been made around the properties being three stories high; the properties were actually two stories in height, but with the addition of ‘attic trusses’; these provided additional living space;

·         It was hoped that the reduction of the ridge heights for both properties would afford an acceptable height of the development;

·         The plot sizes were generous in nature and similar to the adjacent properties, as well as those opposite;

·         The proposed sites were to stand around 9.5 metres from the ground to the top of the ridge height, and would not dominate the landscape;

·         There were no issues in relation to listed or important buildings during the outline application, and no archaeological concerns;

·         Ecology and protected species would have been considered by the case officer at the outline stage of planning; no further reporting was asked for;

·         The existing hedge had been removed, but it was proposed to plant a new hawthorn hedge, set further back from the road.  A grass verge was also proposed;

·         New trees to the south of the site would soften the development;

·         It was provisionally proposed to connect into the existing foul water drain to satisfy the requirements for surface water discharge.  There would also be a shallow rainwater basin; full details would be provided in discharge of planning conditions, following the reserved matters stage of the application.  Percolation tests had been carried out on site;

·         The proposed dwellings were set back 18-19 metres from Church Road; the size and the scale of the dwellings were in keeping with the surrounding area.

Following on from the speaker’s comments, it was noted by a Member that the resubmission had not had any objections from the Parish Council.

The application was proposed, seconded and voted upon and approved unanimously.

It was therefore AGREED that the application be GRANTED, subject to conditions.

The Principal Development Management Officer introduced planning application 138491 – land to the west of the A1133 Newton on Trent, Lincolnshire.  This was an outline planning application for a mixed use villageextension comprising of up to 325no. private and affordable dwelling units of use Class C3, community meeting rooms of use Class D1, with ancillary pub-café with use Class A4 and sales area with use Class A1, new landscaping, public and private open space with all matters reserved; a resubmission of 134411.

There were a number of updates to the application, listed below:

·         There was a slight amendment to ‘reason for refusal no.2’ – the second sentence should read:

“insufficient evidence has been provided to determine whether development would sterilise mineral resources within the mineral safeguarding area, and it has not been demonstrated that development could not be reasonably sited elsewhere.”

The rest of the reason for refusal remained as printed;

·         There was an error on page 45 of the agenda pack for this meeting in relation to West Lindsey District Council’s (WLDC) consultation responses – it should have outlined that 76% of letters sent to households from WLDC supported the proposal, with 24% objecting.  This did not change the nature of the recommendation;

·         There were a number of additional responses:

1.    The Trent Valley Drainage Board noted an open water course to the southern boundary; consent would be required if development were within 9 metres of the top of the water course.  Surface water run-off must not exceed 1.4litres per second per hectare.  An area of open space alongside any maintained water course should be 9 metres in width and be provided to allow access for maintenance to the said watercourse.  None of this information changed the recommendations within the report;

2.    The agents and applicants team provided an initial response to the concerns of the mineral waste authority, and indicated that a further report was yet to be completed.  However, in summary that the key points which would be explored in more detail would be that mineral extraction from the site was likely to be restricted by physical and environmental constraints, such as the A1133 road to the east, existing flood defences to the west, Newton on Trent to the south and the east, and a power line crossing the site.

The Lincolnshire County Council (LCC) mapping was based on rather a large scale and included generalisations.  Therefore, whilst it was possible that there may be sand and gravel of up to 6 metres underlying the site this may not be specifically the case for the application site as a number of test pits dug in 2015 indicated that this was limited to 1 metre.  Sustainable drainage ponds could result in extraction of significant deposits should they be found.

Latest LCC figures show that the land bank was 8.25 years, which was above the 7 years required by the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) so extraction is not necessary;

·         Planning officers were recommending a technical reason  ...  view the full minutes text for item 71.

The Chairman introduced application number 138494, an outline planning application for the erection of up to 63no. dwellingswith garages, access roads, footpaths and open space-access to be considered and not reserved for subsequent applications at land off The Hawthorns Nettleham.

There were no officer updates for this application, so Members first heard a number of speakers to the application.  The first speaker was Councillor John Evans from Nettleham Parish Council.  He raised the following points:

·         The first area of concern from Nettleham Parish Council was related to policy H1 of the Nettleham Neighbourhood Plan (NNP), which stated that ‘housing sites should be restricted to a yield of 50 homes, unless it can be demonstrated that their proposed numbers can be satisfactorily incorporated into the community, and also their proposed design, layout and dwelling numbers can be satisfactorily incorporated into their topology and landscape settings.’

Whilst acknowledging an that an indicative drawing had been supplied, the 25% increase in housing numbers from the CLLP and the Neighbourhood Plan could not be accounted for until a detailed plan had been seen.  However, an outline permission for 50 dwellings would be supported;

·         Avoiding ‘planning creep’ was desirable.  A final detailed plan with extra dwellings would not be wanted;

·         The second area of concern was around footpaths.  The proposal mentioned footpaths, and this was to be applauded as they were a featue of the NNP.   However, footpaths should form part of a Section 106 agreement, so that when the application moved to a detailed stage, they were not forgotten or ignored.  Nettleham Parish Council would want footpaths defined as ‘all-weather’ with a minimum width of 2 metres to encourage cyclists and horse riders;

·         The final area of concern was play equipment.  The nearest playground was on Larch Avenue, built some 15 years ago.  This was approximately a 100 metre walk from vehicular access to this site.  The area comprised of one slide, two climbing frames and other childrens’ rides, and was a small site that catered for around 40-50 houses.  To double the amount of houses using that site was wrong, and the new site should have its own play area.

The second speaker was Mr Phil Scrafton, agent for the applicant.  He raised the following points:

·         The application responded to material planning and amenity considerations satisfactorily;

·         The number of houses for development within the NNP was an indicative figure, therefore it was the applicant’s view that 50 houses was not intended to be an upper limit;

·         Paragraph 10.2 in the adopted Local Plan clarifies the above issue; the 50 houses in the NNP was an estimate based on the size of the site, the assumption of the development area, and the net residential density;

·         Paragraph 10.2 goes onto say that developers should produce the most appropriate design led solution, and they need not be constrained by the indicative figure;

·         Other schemes in Nettleham have been able to deliver more dwellings on a site that had a lower indicative figure; for example there  ...  view the full minutes text for item 72.

The Chairman introduced application number 138563, an outline planning application to erect 6no. dwellings with all matters reserved – a resubmission of 136727 -  at land off Dunholme Road, Scothern, Lincoln LN2 2UD. 

Prior to receiving updates from officers, the Chairman read out a statement regarding the proposed financial contribution from the developer to the local community, should the application be approved.  The contribution had been referred to within the application, but should not form part of the decision to be made by committee.  As acknowledged by the agent in recent correspondence, it could not be a material consideration for the planning application – therefore it was not a matter that should be discussed further or give weight to, as only material planning considerations can be taken into account in the determination of planning applications.

There was one update to the application from the Senior Development Management Officer, which was an additional letter of rejection from a resident – the points listed were:

·         10% growth in the numbers of dwellings had already been exceeded;

·         There were existing problems in the village with traffic speed;

·         The money offered to the village should not come into the equation;

This late update did not change the officer recommendation in the report.

The first speaker on this application was Councillor Cathryn Nicoll from Scothern Parish Council.  She made the following points:

·         Following a parish council meeting on 22 November 2018 Scothern Parish Council submitted comprehensive comments against this application;

·         The offer of £150,000 for the village hall had been noted, but not considered as part of the application as this was a private arrangement, not a statutory S106 planning agreement or Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL);

·         This was development outside of the continuous form of the village.  The development area could not be considered infill, as it was within the Manor’s parkland; the site was bounded by areas used for sheep grazing at this current time;

·         The CLLP identified Scothern as requiring 10% residential development, which would equate to 36 dwellings.  Planning had already been granted for over 70 dwellings;

·         The Manor House had been on the application site since the 13^th century.  The park attached to the house was detailed in probate will as being of historic importance, and was catalogued extensively in the Scothern Neighbourhood Plan;

·         Information had been distributed to residents by the applicant; many residents had not received this, and Scothern Parish Council were unsure whether all dwellings had received this information.  The analysis of the responses was within the Design and Access statement for the application;

·         There were already ample properties of the same type under construction opposite this proposed development, and 8 large dwellings were being constructed at the east side of the village.

The second speaker was Mr Andrew Clover, speaking on behalf of the applicant.  He raised the following points:

·         The growth level for Scothern, identified in the Local Plan had been reached, therefore policy LP2 outlined that clear local support was required for any further  ...  view the full minutes text for item 73.

Note: Councillor Robert Waller returned to the Council Chamber.

The appeals reported for January’s meeting were noted.