To receive a report of the Head of Planning and Regeneration regarding the application requesting Members to determine this new planning application following the refusal of an earlier application for 60 dwellings on this site.
Minutes:
The Committee had before it a report * of the Head of Planning and Regeneration regarding the above application.
The Area Planning Officer outlined the contents of the report stating that this was a new planning application following refusal of an earlier application. Five reasons had previously been given for this refusal. An appeal had been lodged by the applicant and a statement of case would need to be supplied by the local planning authority by the end of the week.
Aerial photographs were shown illustrating various boundaries and the location of the school in relation to the footpath and the community playing fields. A close up of the new junction arrangements was also provided.
In discussing the previous 5 reasons for refusal the officer explained that reason number 4 and 5 would be difficult to defend without any objection from the relevant statutory consultee and as such were not deemed to be as robust a pair of reasons as previously discussed, however, arguments could be made to continue to justify refusal of this application on reasons 1, 2 and 3.
In answer to the questions raised during Public Question Time it was stated that the Local Plan Review had established the Council’s position with regard to the growth of Copplestone. It was confirmed that the site was outside the current settlement limit. He could not comment on why the developer had not sought community consultation before submitting this revised application but confirmed that they had not. He also confirmed that the same suite of documents had been submitted including the Flood Risk Assessment. He further confirmed that there were new proposed junction arrangements and showed the tracking plan that had been submitted and again reiterated the fact that Devon County’s Highways Authority had endorsed these new junction arrangements. He confirmed that there were no significant difference between this and the previous application.
Consideration was given to:
· The way in which school places are allocated by Devon County Council.
· Resulting traffic problems if the application was approved.
· The lack of any change between the previous application and the new one.
· The site being outside the settlement limit.
RESOLVED that planning permission be further refused based upon the following reasons:
1. The application site is outside the current settlement limit boundaries of the village of Copplestone and is in the open countryside. Policy COR18 of the adopted Mid Devon Core Strategy (Local Plan Part 1) seeks to strictly control development outside settlement limits and a development in this location of the scale as proposed would not be permitted under criteria a - f of this adopted policy. Neither is the site proposed to be allocated for housing within the Councils Local Plan Review 2013 -2033. The applicant asserts that the Local Planning Authority cannot demonstrate that it has an adequate five year supply of housing land as required by the National Planning Policy Framework, and therefore Policy COR18 should be afforded limited weight and that the application should be determined against the provisions of Paragraph 14 of the National Planning Policy Framework. When tested against Paragraph 14 of the Framework the Local Planning Authority consider that the adverse impacts of the proposed development would significantly and demonstrably outweigh the benefits when assessed against the policies of the Framework as a whole as well as being contrary to Policy COR1 of the Mid Devon Core Strategy (Local Plan Part 1) and Policy DM1 of the Mid Devon Local Plan Part 3 (Development Management Policies).
2. The Local Planning Authority consider that the proposed unplanned development individually, and cumulatively together with the proposed development within the Local Plan Review for the village, would be out of scale with the size of the settlement of Copplestone to the detriment of its character and the general amenities of the village. For this reason the development would fail to meet the sustainable development principles required to be met by the National Planning Policy Framework and Policy COR1 of the Mid Devon Core Strategy (Local Plan Part 1) and Policy DM1 of the Mid Devon Local Plan Part 3 (Development Management Policies).
3. The Local Planning Authority consider that the application proposal has not satisfactorily demonstrated that surface water from the development can be satisfactorily controlled and discharged to the Salix Stream channel without resulting in unacceptable flood risk downstream of the application site to the detriment of the amenities of the locality where there are already records of flooding concerns. On this basis the application is considered to be contrary to Policies COR1 and COR11 of the Mid Devon Core Strategy (Local Plan Part 1) and Policies DM1 and DM2 of the Mid Devon Local Plan Part 3 (Development Management Policies).
(Proposed by Cllr B A Moore and seconded by Cllr P J Heal)
Notes-:
(i) Cllrs D R Coren, P J Heal and N A Way made declarations in accordance with the Protocol of Good Practice for Councillors in dealing with Planning matters as they had all received correspondence regarding the application and had attended parish council meetings where the matter had been discussed.
(ii) Cllr R L Stanley declared a personal interest in that he had had prior involvement with the application and left the meeting for the duration of the discussion thereon.
(iii) Helen Olsson, objector, spoke.
(iv) Stuart Penny, Chairman of Copplestone Parish Council, spoke.
(v) Cllr D R Coren spoke as Ward Member.
(vi) Cllr N A Way spoke as County Councillor for the area.
(vii) *Report previously circulated copy attached to minutes.
Supporting documents: