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:
Peter Dumble referring to item 10 (Higher Town, Sampford Peverell) on the agenda stated that two reports carried out by Highways experts, Mark Baker Consultants, have never been brought to Councillors’ attention.
In both reports from February and May 2018, he advises that “The Council should refuse the planning application on a number of concerns regarding access”. Concerning, the proposed crossing point on Turnpike near the canal bridge, Mark Baker states that:
“… there would be only 14m visibility to the north “This is severely deficient for a crossing located in a 30mph area where 43 metres is required”.
Since then, the independent highway review by Trace Design asked the applicant to redraw lines of visibility to a safer standard. If done this would reduce visibility to only 9m. It should be 43m.
The applicant has told planning officers that they have addressed all Trace Design’s points, but they have not changed visibility lines at this crossing point or justified why not.
Furthermore, the proposed new footpath on Turnpike is to be only 1.2m wide. The government guidance, “Inclusive Mobility”, says that 1.5m is the minimum. The Council must provide safe access for all including disabled users. This footpath and crossing do not. “Inclusive Mobility” has never been mentioned by the applicant, the Highway Authority or your officers.
Moving on to the north-east access, Mark Baker finds that
“… the cycleway onto Higher Town directs vulnerable users onto a section of shared surface with restricted widths, where vehicles are entering a built-up area”. Trace Design expressed concerns and have asked for visibility lines to be re-drawn and for road widths to be shown on plans. The applicant has not done this. If they were to do so, the plan would show …
• that visibility to the south drops to 12m. It should be 43m.
• that only 4.2m road width is available where Trace Design want 4.8m.
• that where the Highway Authority wants 3.5m road width, only c.2.5m is available.
Officers say that the applicant has responded to Trace Design’s suggestions “where appropriate”. This is simply not true. Trace Design’s work shows the design is even more seriously sub-standard than you were told last July.
Officers have chosen not to put the Trace Design Review or Place Lands response to the review out to consultation. This is unfair. Councillors, it is not ‘unreasonable’ to refuse permission on grounds of road safety when a highways expert directly recommends that this is what you should do.
Let us not forget that Mark Baker’s advice matches the experience of those of you who visited the site during term-time last year. You saw the heavy traffic in the shared space outside the Primary School and parents with children struggling to cross Turnpike near the canal bridge.
In conclusion, Councillors, please stand firm on “Reason for Refusal 3”, but in doing so, please add that highway safety concerns also extend to the north-east access via Higher Town.
Hayley Keary referring to item 10 (Higher Town, Sampford Peverell) stated that - I live in one of the heritage houses, several feet below and a few feet away from SP2 ground level. The Conservation Officer tried to assess any impact on the heritage assets at the north-east. The Framework requires ‘clear and convincing justification’ of any harm to heritage assets. Page 106 of your pack shows that the Conservation Officer made a huge mistake. She believes that the access at the north-east is “less than 2m wide”. But the applicant’s detailed plans show that it is at least 18m wide and over 2.5m high. She bases her findings on an error of over 900%. Any access at the north-east will need to cut back into the field for at least 35m to reach ground level. She never once mentions this. She fails to mention this enormous cutting into an ancient Devon bank within 15 metres of the assets she is assessing. Her assessment cannot be ‘clear and convincing’ which is what the Framework requires. For this reason, it is not unreasonable to refuse permission.
Heritage and Landscape Assessments from the applicant also completely fail to mention this cutting, as does the independent assessment by CEC. None of them looked at the plans that had been published well before their assessments were made. CEC worked from the Conservation Officer report with its serious error and they only used the applicant’s illustrative plan rather than detailed designs. All of the applicant’s assessments assume that there will be screening around the north-east edge of the site, but this is not part of the application. If there is screening, our house will be deprived of natural light. If there is no screening, we lose privacy. Land heights mean that people on what would then be a public space could stand two metres from windows into sitting rooms and bedrooms and look in. No fencing or shrubbery can retain both light and privacy. It is key to today’s decision to have an explanation of how Officers plan to resolve this. It cannot wait or be put off.
Despite not seeing accurate plans, CEC still conclude that …
‘The sunken rural character of (Higher Town) should be preserved e.g. without introducing pavements, kerbs, or excessive signage’. But the plans you are asked to approve today
• cut into the bank
• open up the sunken lane
• add a large, raised paved-area
• mark it with eight bollards and two signs
• create a coloured road surface and
• add painted ‘Give Way’ and other road markings.
These do not “preserve the sunken rural character” of the road, Higher Town.
Please don’t let officers tell you that this can be resolved later. Any access at the north-east would have to be wide, high and long to make up the height difference from road to field.
It cannot be ‘unreasonable’ to refuse permission when the impact on this historic location has been so inadequately assessed. May I ask Councillors, that you please include ‘harmful impact on the character of Higher Town and its heritage assets’ in your reasons for refusal?
Roz Thomas referring to item 10 (Higher Town, Sampford Peverell) stated that - I have voiced several of my questions over the years, but would like to focus on the issue of Transport Safety today. Myself, my husband and 3 young children live on the section of Turnpike without any pavement, overlooked by the proposed development site. The busy road has been a concern for our family since moving to the property, and we have had several close calls whilst walking to and from the village to our house on the roadside, with high solid banks either side, cars and large farm vehicles travelling too fast, and sections with poor visibility. My eldest son catches a bus to Uffculme High School each morning from Batten’s Cross. On 26 February 2018, I wrote a letter of objection. I attached an email from the Devon County Council School Transport team. The team confirmed that it does not think it is safe for secondary age pupils to be picked up or dropped off in the main body of the village outside the Globe and left to walk to and from Turnpike. That is why they arranged a separate stop at Batten’s Cross, at the top of this dangerous section of road. Officers and the Devon Local Highways Authority have never responded or commented on this point that I have made.
Being a physiotherapist, a mother who has used a pushchair, and having cared for my own father, who used a mobility scooter, I am acutely aware of the implications to people’s lives when access is denied due to poor design of walkways.
This application proposes highway improvements along Turnpike, due to the subsequent increase in population at this end of the village. These involve the addition of a "sub-standard" crossing point, a 1.2m footpath that fails to meet the required width set out in “Inclusive Mobility”, and safety railings at the canal bridge are to be removed. I was concerned to hear that Councillors chose not to visit or use the proposed new crossing point on their site visit yesterday. Its only when you experience it, you truly understand the risks, especially with young children. I trust you will bow to the experience of previous Councillors who did attempt the crossing last July. One described it as “nerve-wracking”. Another asked – “Why do that on a blind bend?”
I ask Councillors –
1. Do you think these proposed ‘improvements’ would make this route to and from the village safe enough for the Battens Cross school transport bus–stop be dropped by Devon County Council? (No one is actually proposing this, but if the application proceeds it could be suggested, as the new footway must be regarded as safe for all users).
2. Pedestrian access along this stretch of road MUST be safe and inclusive for all users. Would Councillors be happy to see pupils from homes on Turnpike and the new site walk to and from the Globe Inn using the new crossing point each school day?
If Councillors have any doubts about this, I urge you to refuse permission for this application with its unsafe highway arrangements.
Greeta Tucker referring to item 10 (Higher Town, Sampford Peverell) stated that the applicant wants to build a new main access road across the highest land in the site. This cannot be allowed. Policy SP2 says the highest ground on this site must be undeveloped. On Page 66 your officers say that the Inspector has advised that this site is sustainable. He cannot mean it is sustainable regardless of the SP2 conditions. If that were so he would for example have removed the limit set at 60 houses. Your officers use the Inspector’s approval of the site to advise you that Reason for Refusal 2 is unsupportable. If the Inspector’s words have that much force, then your officers should also be telling you that the main access cannot be built across the highest ground. SP2 clearly says the Green Infrastructure over the highest ground must be “undeveloped.” That was what all Councillors were promised by officers when the allocation was added. Your existing policy COR2 says you must “preserve and enhance” distinctive qualities in our landscape. Building a road across the crest of the highest land does not do this. Not one single assessment of the site ever mentions that the main access will run across the highest land. But before you vote, you need to know exactly what you are being asked to approve. You also need to know whether the Highways Authority approves. On page 68 of the pack, officers say that the applicant has included a new plan for this main entrance. It is now even wider than before. On page 128 of the pack is a list conditions for this application. You are being asked to approve these today. But those conditions tie the applicant to use the old drawings. Also, on page 84, the Highways Authority approves the old drawings. We have no written evidence that it approves the new ones.
So, Councillors …
• you don’t even know what plans you are being asked to approve today
• you don’t know whether they have been approved by Highways
• but you do know that the latest plans and Highways’ supposed approval have never gone to consultation
Councillors, will you agree with me that, with all these difficulties and failing to meet the sustainability conditions set in SP2, it is certainly not unreasonable to refuse permission and vote accordingly?
Leigh Menheneott referring to item 1 on the plans List (Mayfair, Tiverton) asked will the access lane to the site at 10 Mayfair be constructed with a tarmac pavement as suggested in the document A (06)08 A? Or is it to be more in line with A (01) 08 A? Why is there no clarity as to exactly what is proposed for this access road? Is the committee to vote on an application where details are not available to the public, or indeed to the members themselves? Can the officer confirm whether the applicant is responsible for the construction and maintenance of the access road or whether the owner of the lane will hold that responsibility? Or indeed, whether the buyers of the houses will have to meet the demands of the condition?
Mary Chesney referring to the Sampford Peverell application stated that I am a mobility scooter user to get to the local amenities and I have to have a large scooter because there is no pavement and the pavement on the other side of the road isn’t wide enough for my scooter. I have two related questions:
The Government guidance document, “Inclusive Mobility”, recommends that there be … “consultation, at an early stage, with local groups representing disabled people in the process of planning and implementing accessible buildings and other infrastructure”.
Q1. What local groups representing the disabled have been consulted about access, especially the proposed new, substandard 1.2m footway on Turnpike?
I can see no sign that the needs of people with disabilities have been properly assessed in any of the papers relating to this application.
Q2 - Is this Committee confident that it will be properly fulfilling its Public Sector Equality Duty if it approves this application and therefore should consider no approval.
Hon Alderman Mel Lucas in relation to the Sampford Peverell application stated that he had the great pleasure of representing Sampford Peverell both as parish Chairman and District Councillor for 28 years and in those 28 years I have never known any time such a wave on uncertain respect for the planning in front of you this afternoon. Something like over 250 people took the time and trouble to express their concerns about what your are about to discuss this afternoon.
I would now like to point you please members of the committee to page no 85 which is a report from Sampford Peverell Parish Council and 85/86/87 those three pages contain the concerns of the Parish Council and the people whom they represent. I sometimes wonder where democracy has gone because if you are taking into consideration those concerns that is not shown in any shape or form in this report. Once again the little people are going to be trampled on. They are going to be trampled on not that we don’t want or need it at all, and I very much doubt that 60 extra homes within the village are needed, but we are being trampled on because we are concerned about the actual site. It is the site that is at fault, not the location of the village but the site within that village and those concerns have already been expressed this afternoon by other people prior to myself.
I have become very passionate about my village, exceptionally passionate about it, and about the people who live in there. That road at Turnpike is absolutely a death trap if you don’t live there you don’t know it. We who live there know it and no matter what Devon County Highways say that will always be the most dangerous part of that particular road. There are other sites, and we know where those other sites are within village. They have been put forward in the past and they have been rejected and I would again ask members of the committee go to page 85 paragraph 5. You will read there that a particular site was ruled out by Mid Devon Planners because of its proximity to the Grand Western Canal Country Park Conservation Area. If you have concerns there I would suggest you go to Crown Hill and really see where we went wrong because that was passed some few years ago.
The Chairman indicated that answers to any questions would be given during the debate on the item.