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 Andrew Herniman spoke in relation to item 10 on the agenda, Howden Court, he asked, are the committee members aware of the recommendations on footpaths in the latest Official Police Security Initiative document Secured by Design 2016? The following is verbatim from that document and is highly pertinent to today’s determinations:
‘Routes for pedestrians, cyclists and vehicles should be integrated to provide a network of supervised areas to reduce crime and anti-social behaviour.
Public footpaths should not run to the rear of and provide access to gardens, rear yards or dwellings as these have been proven to generate crime.
Designers should consider making the footpath a focus of the development and ensure that they are:
It is important that the user has good visibility along the route of the footpath. The footpath should be as much ‘designed’ as the buildings.
The need for lighting will be determined by local circumstances. In an inner city environment the lighting of a footpath is generally only effective in reducing crime levels (or preventing them from arsing) if it is matched with a high degree of natural surveillance from surrounding buildings where reaction to an identified incident can be expected i.e. a witness calls the police, or the footpath is well used.’
In the light of that document, are the committee members aware that the proposed footpath:
It is hoped that due consideration will be given by the committee to the Police Security Initiative document, Secured by Design 2016, when a decision is made about this proposed footpath.
Mrs Herniman, also speaking in relation to item 10, Howden Court, asked, are the committee members aware that at the time the planning application was submitted for approval, it was pointed out by the developer to the Planning Officers that the pathway, because of the variance in elevations, would be impossible to be built to adoptable standard? I’m wondering if anyone from the planning committee came to see these difficult elevations prior to granting consent?
In recent weeks, councillors on the planning committee, who have made a site visit, have been appalled that this was part of the consent in the first place. It seems ridiculous that originally, when Heritage was granted planning permission, Heritage had to put in a road, which curved three times to get to the top. Now you are deliberating on a footpath, which was also going to include a cycle path originally, which is to have forty steps to ascend a near vertical hill.
I feel if a site visit had taken place at the very beginning, the committee would have seen that the proposed footpath was not fit for purpose. No one will use it. The security of various properties will be put at risk. My question, my plea is, please think seriously about this and make a pragmatic decision and not one that just fulfils policy.
Mr Cook spoke in relation to items 4 and 5 on the Plans List, acoustic fencing on Blundells Road, Tiverton. He stated that the application covered a condition change to the original planning application for acoustic fences which were put into the original design something like two years ago. It is an interesting fact that the sound or traffic noise consultant who designed the original planning application is not involved in the latest design and the condition for secondary fences has now been put in as the original fence was not in the right position or wouldn’t have had any effect at all. The fact that it is now going to be put in a different position we consider to be a vast improvement on what we were faced with. However, at a meeting which Neil Parish MP attended on our behalf with Devon Highways, we asked that the fence, or so called ‘baffle’ for traffic noise, at the eastern end, on the westbound slip road, should be at least 3 metres high, if not more, to cut off the noise angle. What is more important is the visual angle for people living in houses close by.
As a point of interest, the World Health Organisation recommends that the maximum decibel level for residential properties should not be more than 55 decibels. Noise consultants have a wonderful way of producing noise level permissions on the basis that it is taken over twelve hours and the figures are spread over some other equation. The point is this, I live in Uplowman Road and so do many others and we suffer at the moment, as we have it recorded on our own machines, 68 – 71 decibels, although the argument will be that that is only a passing figure and why worry about it because it’s only now and again. That is the rather laboured and if you like, the difficult way of presenting it to people living in houses. At the moment we are being faced with figures by the noise consultants that some of the houses will still be suffering with a 68 decibel level. In other words the planning department are designing the road levels that we will have to live with and people coming on behind us well above the maximum levels recommended by the World Health Organisations. This needs to be considered and we would like to make two requests:
Mrs Westcott spoke in relation to item 1 on the Plans List, Cheriton Bishop. She stated that she wished to clarify her role in relation to the letters of objection. She was the Parish Councillor who was asked by the Parish Council to represent them on the Community Land Trust and she did not receive any benefit from doing this unless you count working with a number of committed individuals with public benefit at the heart.