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:
Heather Woodman, representing her client and referring to item 12 (19 Exeter Road) on the agenda, stated that at the last meeting the Committee had spoken about the merits of the proposal. The implications report before you today sets out in detail the fact that this application does introduce change to this part of Exeter Road and that the decision on this application requires a very balanced judgement. We listened to the Members discussion on the website and looked again at the scheme following the meeting in July and the revised plans that you have today have been submitted for your consideration that address those concerns that you raised and as your planning and conservation officers advise they do improve the proposal. It is still considered that to provide two three bedroomed houses on this site is more desirable for the village in principle. Silverton property prices are at a premium, it would be for more affordable for local people who wish to trade up to have a family house rather than a single four plus bedroomed house on this site. The two dwellings have now been set back further into the site as the Members and conservation officer indicated they wanted and this has reduced the impact of the building on the street scene. The access into the site has been moved into the centre so that much of the stone boundary wall along the frontage is now retained and the sense of enclosure is maintained and the conservation area is enhanced because there were concerns about the loss of this stone wall so parking and turning for vehicles has now been provided behind the wall so that vehicles can enter and leave in forward gear as you indicated you desired.
Further landscaping is also proposed with the site especially on the boundary with Orchard Jeffrey, that’s the house that is 22 metres to the north, so the new landscaping breaks up the gable of the north building and the modest increase in height will subsequently have little impact now. Conditions can be attached to this landscaping so that it can be maintained in perpetuity.
The consultation responses on the new plans are that the highways authority has no objection and the conservation officer has advised that this scheme is far less harmful so her previous recommendation for refusal is not repeated. The planning officer’s recommendations are that the new plans are an improvement. It’s considered that your previously stated concerns have now been fully considered and addressed. The consultation responses from your various officers on the changes to the submitted plans that improve the siting, scale and parking and effect on the character and appearance of the conservation area show that the reasons suggested for refusal cannot now be sustained so on the balance of consideration of all material considerations, the scheme before you is now acceptable under your planning policies and the applicant asks that you approve it now please.
Mr Ian Pike speaking in relation to item 14 on the agenda (Conigar Close, Hemyock), stated that his main concern was the affordable properties. He is Hemyock born and bred, his family had lived in Hemyock since at least 1725 and as things stand he would be the last in the family to live in the village. His daughter unfortunately had to move away from the village because she couldn’t afford to live there. She works in the village, her partner has an agricultural contracting business which is based in the village and the majority of his work is in Hemyock and neighbouring parishes. They are unfortunately unable to afford market value properties because they are either on a national living wage or just above. He went on to state that he had three grandsons the eldest of whom started Hemyock Primary School on Monday and he has two year old twin brothers who started pre-school in Hemyock on Monday. They are desperate to come back to the village and it is extremely sad that families like ours who have lived there and whose ancestors have lived there and worked in the farming industry making Hemyock what it is today, cannot afford to live there. I think that affordable housing should be provided and unfortunately with the cut in government funding we have to have market value properties built as well. We need to do something for the longevity of villages like Hemyock.
Over the last 30 years I’ve watched it develop with the result that the majority of the houses are out of the reach of the locals and the majority of the new residents commute to and fro bringing traffic problems which a lot of people are using as an objection against this application. My daughter at the moment will be making three return trips from the village some days of the week purely to get the boys to and from school. If this application is approved and they are lucky enough to get one of these properties it’s a five minute walk to and fro. My other daughter has moved away because of work. They both went to Hemyock Primary School where there were 52 children, of these there are 5 still living in the village. One of those did end up in a shared equity property so obviously the affordable housing does help.
Mr Peter Davies, referring to item 12 (19 Exeter Road) stated that he lived opposite this property. One of the reasons that the Committee were minded to refuse the application was over development. This has not been addressed at all in the revised scheme and we still have two detached houses replacing a small bungalow on a small plot. The Committee was also unhappy with the street scene. The houses will still have an overpowering visual effect. Positioning them back just one metre will be totally insignificant. The conservation officer was minded not to refuse the application on the basis that the boundary frontage would be retained to a great extent, would you clarify how this would be possible given that the 25 metre visibility display will require 80% of the boundary to be below 600 millimetres? Will the planning officer confirm that apart from the 25% of the boundary on the northern end she still maintains that the hedge bank is 900 millimetres or above? The loss of 80% of the hedge bank, an important conservation feature in this road and which was previously 1.7metres high will open up the scene completely. There will be a large open frontage creating a suburban feel and completely out of context. It will not preserve or enhance the conservation area. The visibility splay is shown on drawing 02P16 cuts across the land of both number 19 and 21 Exeter Road, is this acceptable in planning terms given the inhabitants would have no control over future developments? In conclusion therefore this scheme does not overcome the reasons for objection previously expressed.
Mr Steve Batt spoke in relation to item 13 on the agenda (Church Green, Bickleigh) and informed the Committee that he was a long term resident of Bickleigh having lived there for over 30 years. A few weeks ago we were able to view Mid Devon’s working file and we could not see any of the significant input from the Parish Council within this file which gave you a lot of detailed evidence and information countermanding much of the misinformation in the planning documents. I did drop these documents into Mrs Gabriel yesterday, if you wish to see them they are all here. They include a review plan survey, which we did for the local village 2 years ago, a detailed analysis, south west archaeological report, some new historic research and a short detailed historic conservation area appraisal. Also just to remind you the 46 letters of objection from local residents. We do believe our inputs would have assisted your case officer in coming to quite a different conclusion. Do you have any evidence rather than assertions that our inputs were looked at in any detail?
The Parish Council did write to Mrs Clifford on 10 August 2016 expressing concern about the slipping in of changes at the last moment and concern about the definite lack of liaison regarding the documents and other pertinent information which was sent to you. The Parish did receive a response on the 3 September 2016 but there are still a number of inconsistencies. The two issues I really want to concentrate on are firstly the heritage asset listing of Church Green. It was recorded on the original heritage asset list. We assume that Mid Devon prior to its insertion carried out a check against Historic England criteria? The Parish Council only received notification of its delisting some time after the delisting letter from Mrs Clifford was sent to the owner. We were not consulted about the site meeting last year nor were we consulted in any way after this meeting. We wondered why it was suddenly de-listed without any reference to the parish, in fact Mrs Clifford says it was ‘marginal and could be reviewed’. Whilst it was stated that both sides made submissions regarding the sites history and use we were not asked whether we had any fresh evidence of information. We do have more information to hand now. It should be noted that our original information was backed up with evidence rather than merely assertions, for example, we offered 10 affidavits regarding regular use by members of the community going back at least 7 decades. We wonder why you did not ask for that information to be provided. Our understanding is that it is not necessary to meet all of the Historic England criteria and interestingly it does not have to be used as a green so I think there is a bit of a misunderstanding here. If you look ‘green’ is not even within Historic England’s wording. As you may well know Historic England definition of ‘social and community value’, not the word ‘value’ and not ‘green’. It’s a place of local identity, distinctiveness, social interaction and coherence often residing in tangible aspects of heritage contributing to the collective memory of a place and I think we’ve provided a lot of information over many years to confirm that.
We note Mrs Clifford’s comments received by the Parish Council this week when she said ‘Church Green is an interesting, substantially undeveloped plot in the centre of a conservation area with a very important setting and view implications for the church and Bickleigh Castle as well as other listed buildings’. The conservation officer says that change must preserve and enhance the conservation area. Three questions then. Bearing in mind Mrs Clifford’s comments, how can this proposed development be anything but damaging to this special site without any tangible benefits being demonstrated? The houses are not for local need and they could be built anywhere. Why have the Bickleigh Local History group not had a response from Mrs Clifford regarding the request for relisting which was sent on 27 June 2016? Finally, in the same way that you say Church Green cannot be designated as open green space because of objections then surely the Green should remain as a listed local heritage asset because of the valid outstanding objections from the village and anyway even if it is delisted how can the application suddenly become less damaging than it was before, nothing is changed in terms of the view since the last refusal?
Kerry Peters also spoke in relation to item 13 (Church Green, Bickleigh). Our understanding is that local green space designation is a product of local plan and survey. The criteria are, close proximity to the community it serves and demonstrably special, local significance, historic significance, tranquillity, wildlife, local in character and not extensive. The 1960’s picture emailed yesterday of Bickleigh’s historic core, which I have a copy of here, shows the Green in the foreground and show a quintessential Devon scene with a church, thatched cottages and a pretty orchard in the bottom right corner, now known as Church Green. The Parish Council submitted Church Green to be designated as local green space back in August 2013.
As an out of settlement community we also carried out our own local plan survey in March 2014 in response to your requests for parishes to feed into the review process. We supplied committee members with a copy of this survey yesterday in case you had not already seen it. Household responses were analysed by Parish Councillor, Professor Adam Scaife. We believe this is another example of where Bickleigh residents views have been ignored as it was perfectly clear from the survey that there was an overwhelming majority of households in favour of keeping the whole of Church Green as an open space. The percentage response rates in our survey were far higher than many other national response rates. Ours was 67%, with 90% in favour of the status quo i.e. keeping Church Green as an open space. The results of this survey are backed up the 46 letters of objection received in the latest planning application to build on Church Green. Are these very high numbers of letters not valid either? Our arguments for local green space listing seem therefore to have perfect validity. We assume that this was checked by your officers last year as Church Green was included in the local plan as local green space so my question is should the fact that Church Green already appears in the draft local plan as local green space be given no weight whatsoever when so much work has been put in by both the Bickleigh community so far to reach this stage and has it in the local plan? We are all at the local level and have made decisions based on guidelines given so it’s hard to see what objections can be raised about this designation going forward.
Jill Brownlow, also speaking with regard to the same application, stated that the planning officer writes in his report advising acceptance of the proposed development which although it is not policy compliant because of the absence of a 5 year plan of supply of deliverable housing land it should be given approval. However, Mrs Jenny Clifford is on record as saying that more than sufficient land has been put forward for development to satisfy the 5 year plan. In the report it is also stated that Mid Devon District Council’s policies are out of date. He then goes on the justify granting approval by quoting these policies. One of my questions is, are your policies relevant or not? Secondly the historic environment is an asset, this is in policy DM27 and I quote “The historic environment is of great cultural, social, economic and environmental value”. It contributes significantly to our quality of life and to the character of the village. It represents a non-renewable source which once lost is gone forever. Do you truly believe that these proposed buildings and concomitant infrastructure will preserve or enhance the very core of Bickleigh’s conservation area? Your Core Strategy also states that previous experience within the district has shown that allocating market housing in the villages has not produced additional nor supported services or facilities and therefore does not help to deliver sustainable development. How can this application be sustainable and not harmful?
Mr Bill Croome speaking in relation to item 12 (Exeter Road) stated that he lived in Exeter Road and that over the past few years this part of Silverton village has come under pressure from over development. Permission has been granted for two rear garden developments, one was built out on a large scale. A third proposal is to come forward for a large house to the rear of the Three Tuns pub. As members will have seen from their recent site inspection a bungalow nearby has been replaced by a large two storey house. May I ask the planning officer if her reservations about the scaling and massing of the two houses proposed at number 19 remain unchanged in the light of the revised scheme which is on a site which is 10% smaller than a similar one in Newport Road and would she agree that the urban style of design will be out of character with the area?
Mr Nick Dyer speaking in relation to item number 11 on the agenda (Station Road, Newton St Cyres) stated that he had been a resident of Station Road for over 30 years. He had some questions regarding recommendation number 2 on the planning officers report, namely. The recommendation to approve a one way scheme in Station Road at its junction with the A377. If it is approved it would mean that the road would never be fully widened to allow two way traffic this is likely to be disastrous for road safety in the future and I have the following questions. The Committee originally approved condition 10 of the outline consent in October 2014 on the basis of plans produced to them on behalf of the applicant and the highway authority which showed the narrow section of Station Road being widened for two way traffic. The relevant part of the condition that it required highway improvement works, quote ‘inclusive of and not limited to road widening’. Why is a managed one way scheme being recommended despite the wording of condition 10 when the committee presumably anticipated on the basis of the plans submitted to them at the time that the road would be fully widened for two way traffic?
Secondly why was the proposal for a one way scheme slipped into a S106 agreement entered into in April this year, some 18 months after the original approval to grant consent without any previous public consultation or discussion when all the original objectors to the outline application had raised the Station Road issue as a major concern? Why even now was the proposal not expressly mentioned in the Council’s circular letter to objectors advising them of this committee meeting leaving them to find it if they are sufficiently internet savvy in the planning report posted only last week? Why is a one way scheme being proposed when even the stage one road safety audit on behalf of the applicant recommends that the road is widened for two way traffic before the school is occupied and why does the officer report state that the safety audit had been misinterpreted by a local resident who I assume is me when I have set out in detail to the planning officer why the Council has misinterpreted it but I have received no reasoned rebuttal of the points I have made? Why does the officer report failed to mention the relevant parts of the safety audit in order to support the planning officers recommendation? I have a copy of the safety audit and also a copy of my comments on it as to why it does not recommend what the officer report states and I am happy to pass those over to anybody who is interested and indeed I have submitted a copy by email to the committee.
As I think he will be telling you later, it is known that the owner of the third party land which is required to permit widening for two way traffic has not been approached by or on behalf of the original applicant or the current developers except for an initial request, I think well over a year ago, to obtain two valuations as to the amount by which his property would be devalued if he disposed of the land. He obtained and provided those valuations but has heard nothing since from either the original applicant or the current developers. It is also know that the landowner is prepared to dispose of it for a reasonable price and does require anything like key ransom value as is claimed in the officers report. Why has the Council allowed itself to be misled by incorrect claims that the applicant or the developer have sought to enter into negotiations and an incorrect claim that the landowner has demanded key ransom value? Lastly why is there such haste to decide on recommendation 2 when a short delay would not put back start on the new school and that short delay would enable proper negotiations for the purpose of the land to take place?