To receive any questions relating to items on the Agenda from members of the public and replies thereto.
Note: A maximum of 30 minutes is allowed for this item.
Minutes:
Mr Cook referring to Item 11 (Chettiscombe Estate) on the agenda asked the following questions:
1. In April 2015 this Committee resolved that planning permission be granted for Chettiscombe Trust’s outline application subject to their signing the Conditions set out in the Officer’s report presented to you on that day. They were not draft Conditions as suggested to you in the Officer’s report before you today and so, should not be negotiable.
Very sound reasons for the Conditions were provided by the Officer in the same Report. These Conditions and the reasons for them are as valid today as they were then and should not be changed.
Does the Officer now believe that these reasons, including the interests of all users of the adjoining highway involving a traffic calmed Blundell’s Road, are invalid?
2. The MDDC’s Masterplan and subsequently during Planning Committee meetings, residents have been assured by MDDC Planners supported by DCC Highways and confirmed by this Committee that no Chettiscombe Trust development will be commenced before the delivery of a functioning new LILO junction with the A361 through to Blundell’s Road.
Common sense dictates that construction traffic serving building sites allocated for a total of 600 properties including the 330 properties already allowed to Waddeton Park, should not be allowed to use a ‘calmed’ Blundell’s Road. The Conditions that this Committee already approved are in accord both with the requirement of the MDDC’s Masterplan, the National Planning Policy Framework and importantly, will help to protect public safety during the largest urban development programme this town has ever seen.
The Conditions as originally presented provide as clear and solid a case as there could be for this Committee to decide against this application so,
will this Committee please stand by its Resolution in April last year and re-affirm the absolute necessity of Conditions 10 and 11 in the Officer’s original report?
3. Because of the poor siting of the LILO, DCC Highways have only recently discovered from their more detailed design work, that an additional £1 million and more is required for its proper construction.
Is this the real reason that Planners now want to backslide on Conditions that are essential to the safety of the public?
Mr Salter (on behalf of Tiverton Civic Society) again referring to Item 11 on the agenda (Chettiscombe Estate) had provided the following questions and requested that the Chairman read them on his behalf:
Councils are well aware that, unless they can demonstrate a five- year housing supply, owners of land outside allocated boundaries are likely to submit opportunistic planning applications. Developers, or, as in this case, landowners, who have already submitted applications, and are backed by expert legal teams, are increasingly using this situation to their advantage to wrest concessions from overstretched and under-resourced Local Councils. These required concessions include the removal or modification of conditions, as well as the threat not to sign S106 agreements unless these changes are made.
(‘We're entering the perfect storm – the South West planning policy position is vulnerable. There's a proven oversupply of employment sites, a very limited robust five-year housing land supply, and there's a national policy push for housing. This provides developers with a great opportunity to go in there and be ambitious about what they are trying to achieve – identifying sites slightly outside of the box, and pushing them through the planning process.) Jo Davis, Senior Director, GVA
Question 1.
A key objective of the phasing, set out in the Masterplan, was that ‘all major infrastructure should be in place before development in the Tiverton Eastern Urban Extension commence’ and, specifically, that 'prior to any development a Left in / Left out junction to the A361 and highway link between this junction and Blundell’s Road will be constructed'. As a result of developers’/landowners’ demands this is now clearly redundant: the Left-In/Left-Out junction will no longer be constructed and it is very possible that up to 600 houses will now be built and occupied prior to the construction of the main A361 junction, meaning that all major construction traffic related to this will be channelled along Blundell’s Road. In addition, the Chettiscombe Trust are, amongst other demands, seeking the removal of a number of planning conditions, including those relating to the planning and delivery of Green Infrastructure and the attenuation of surface water drainage, as well as requiring the imposition of considerable extra access costs on the development of Area B. (and we have not even reached the Reserved Matters Stage yet!)
‘It will be impossible to develop a more detailed strategy …until the phasing of the development has been settled’ Caroline Waller, Clarke Willmott, for the Chettiscombe Ttust, 15/6/16.
Have the general public, including the large number who attended consultation meetings, have any reason to feel confidence that the remainder of the Masterplan for Area A has any validity, or will landowners or developers, as seems increasingly likely in this application, themselves be allowed to decide exactly what is built, when, and where?
Question 2.
‘With DCC aiming to get the junction delivered by 2018 subject to getting all the funding required, there is unlikely to be more than 200 dwellings on the EUE site before the junction is completed, meaning that the initial DCC suggested trigger point of 300 dwellings before a connection to the A361 is required would still be met." Dave Black, Devon CC Senior Transport Officer
There appears to be a mismatch between Devon County Council’s projected date of completion of the full A361 junction in September 2018 and the date when the Chettiscombe Trust can provide their full £3.7 million S106 contribution for this. The figures given for the rate of estimated house completions in 4.4.6 suggest that, once building starts, it would take at least six years, or until 2023, for 270 houses to be built, and, therefore, for this funding, and the equivalent in match-funding, to become fully available.
Assuming that agreement on the Chettiscombe Trust’s demands can be reached and that the S106 Agreement is eventually signed, will MDDC be taking out a loan, subsequently rechargeable to the developers with indexation, so that this infrastructure can be paid for and delivered according to the time scale envisaged by Devon County Council?
Cllr R M Deed again referring to Item 11 on the agenda (Chettiscombe Estate)
Could you please explain in English ‘no employment floor space over and above the amount (square metres) equivalent to the occupation of 270 dwellings (equivalent in terms of traffic generation numbers)”? How many square metres equates to one dwelling for example?
To give some context to the question, in view of the fact that MDDC were considering moving their Waste Disposal & Recycling operation to the employment site to the North West of the development, would such a move be allowed before the completion of a full A361 road junction or not?
‘What about the impact on Residents’? Do they not count as they only pay Council Tax to support both the operation of Devon County Council and MDDC who, one might think, give no consideration to them?
Therefore, why are you, Members of the Committee, considering reducing the affordable renting units further?
In your papers at 4.4.3, funding to deliver the full A361 road junction is proposed at 15.5 million pounds. What is the estimated costs of completing the works? If it is only 15.5 million pounds, why has the cost reduced over the last 12 months?
Members – why should you roll over to this dilution of this original proposal, which as some might think, with sufficient financial acumen, should have been seen coming from the outset.
Miss Coffin referring to Plans List item 4 (Menchine Farm) stated asked if she could raise the following questions which reflect the considerable concerns that have been raised by her Parish Council as well as a growing number of Mid Devon residents. Given the overwhelming number of piecemeal and retrospective planning applications that have been approved and are still being submitted to this and other council’s across the whole of the South West, by the so called Renewable and Sustainable CAD Industry, as well as Industrial (indoor only) chicken farms – is there any point whatsoever in having a Council Planning Department or indeed (with respect) a Planning Committee. It would appear to the general public that under this Government’s amended Planning and Conditions Guidelines you have been made at best ineffective and at worst irrelevant; particularly when it appears that the same developer can repeatedly, again and again, put forward duplicitous and erroneous applications, or worse deliberately build contrary to the confines of Approved Applications – confident in the knowledge that Councillors feel impelled to grant retrospective approval.
Neil Parish MP recently stated in the 12th July edition of the Gazette that everything must be done to protect and enhance our tourism and its normal pursuits of walking, cycling and driving around our beautiful countryside; do Councillors appreciate that having to share or fight for space on our rural lanes and highways with enormous tractors and implements that do not fit within the white lines, even when they are present, can only have a detrimental effect on the South West’s major industry of Tourism. After all our hotels/shops and holiday attractions pay business rates unlike the so-called farmers exploiting the present and possibly designated loopholes in the Government’s proclaimed Green Energy policy.
Add to this the apparent inability to propose meaningful and enforceable conditions to ensure compliance with approved applications – and one might ask exactly how this implements the government’s proclaimed “new clarity and openness” for the Planning system.
Mrs Peters referring to Item 2 on the Plans List (land adjacent to Bickleigh Church) stated that Architects Harris Mc Millan have shown the massive visual impact these 4 houses would have on important views into Bickleigh's historic core. They have used the drawings provided by the applicant to produce this to scale. Can the Committee members confirm that they have seen this document?
Mrs Brownlow again referring to Item 2 on the Plans List stated that Historic England say that the Heritage Statement supplied by the applicant does not assess significant views and the relationships between open spaces and buildings. Why has this assessment not been carried out by the applicant and can an informed decision be made without this information?
Mrs Smythe referring to Item 4 on the Plans List (Menchine Farm) stated: stated, in relation to the application for the newly laid track and in the light of recently supplied, dubious information regarding traffic movements for feedstock in and digestate out of Menchine Farm I would like to ask the Planning Authority the following questions:
Is this track really necessary other than to enable the applicant to falsely claim saved journeys through Nomansland when in accurate figures have been submitted in the second quarter records to the Planning Authority and has the Highway Authority carried out an assessment of the traffic movements on the road from Nomansland to the track as it is the least used in the hamlet because of parked vehicles for the 8 houses on it with no off road parking?
Seventy acres of fodder beet which we believe has been tilled to the south of Menchine could be transported to the farm via this track. However, it has to be cleaned to go through the digester and disposal of the debris, tops and tails plus waste water is a major concern for the Environment Agency. Where is this washing to be carried out as it will determine which roads are used for the feedstock to reach Menchine?
In view of the excessive feedstock being imported and the lack of information to calculate the amount of power likely to be produced, has there been any visit from an Enforcement Officer to ensure that the approved production of 500kw is not being exceeded and has it been established why an electricity cable from Menchine Farm to Edgeworthy has been installed?
There is currently no way of monitoring just what goes over the weighbridge so how will the Committee members ensure that approving this track will not increase the productive capacity of this 500kw plant in view of the already installed 2nd CHP. Will this track enable the applicant to continue importing higher than declared feedstocks with the potential to produce more power to be sold to sources other than the grid?
Mr Welchman referring to Item 11 on the agenda (Chettiscombe Estate) stated that it appeared to him that this committee and its officers are incapable of dealing with developers who consistently run rings around them. The Crown Hill AD plant was a good example where in my opinion a deliberate deception was perpetrated. Now, the first development in the Eastern Urban Extension is in my view going exactly the same way. You appear to be willing to drop the key condition of a new link road junction thus creating traffic chaos in Post Hill, Blundells Road and Halberton. I see only three explanations for this, naivety, incompetence or collusion. Do you have any other explanations? Oh, there might be a fourth actually, the totally arrogant and condescending disregard of local public opinion which has already caused resignations from the Committee and of which there are examples.
The Chairman indicated that answers to questions would be given when the items were debated.