Outline application for up to 120 dwellings with associated open space and landscaping with all other matters reserved, except access.

The application was refused contrary to the Case Officer’s recommendation.

(Outline application for up to 120 dwellings with associated open space and landscaping with all other matters reserved, except access.)

The Principal Planning Officer gave a presentation on the application, and updates/additional representations received following the publication of the agenda were provided in the update sheet, as appended to these Minutes.

He explained that the application was a resubmission of an application refused by the Committee on 4 March 2015 with no material change.  He referred to the officer comments in the update to the report that it was a judgment for a local planning authority to make as to whether it decided to decline an application.  There was no suggestion that an application was not valid if it was not materially different from one which had been previously refused.

He added that officers remained concerned that the council was not meeting its five year housing land supply and it was primarily for this reason that the application had been brought before the Committee for its consideration.  The proposed modifications to the Core Strategy were also pertinent to the re-submitted application as they acknowledged the fact that there was likely to be a need to find further sites beyond strategic allocations. 

In accordance with the criteria for public speaking, Mr R Page of Bromyard and Winslow Town Council spoke in objection to the application as did Mrs G Churchill of Avenbury Parish Council.  Mr T Watton spoke on behalf of Bovis Homes and Mosaic Estates in objection.  Mr L Lane, the applicant’s agent, spoke in support.

In accordance with the Council’s Constitution, the local ward members, Councillors PM Morgan and A Seldon, spoke on the application.

Councillor Morgan made the following principal comments:

·        Avenbury was a rural parish and had no housing allocation proposed within the Core Strategy.  It should not have to accommodate the urban development proposed.

·        The Conservation Manager (Landscape) objected to the proposal.

·        The development was a significant one in the context of Bromyard and would be detrimental to future plans for the Town.  The application was premature.

·        The resubmitted application was identical to the one rejected by the Committee in March 2015.  The grounds on which the Committee had rejected the application as set out at paragraph 3.1 of the report remained valid. 

Councillor Seldon made the following principal comments:

·        He expressed his dissatisfaction that the application had not been refused by officers under delegated powers given that the application was identical to that refused by the Committee in March 2015.

·        There was no housing land supply shortage in Bromyard.  Land identified in the north west quadrant of the area could accommodate up to 600 houses and would represent organic growth in the Town’s preferred location.

·        The grounds on which the Committee had rejected the application as set out at paragraph 3.1 of the report remained valid.

·        In relation to the adverse effect on the landscape, a number of recent decisions by Planning Inspectors following appeals had stated that land did not have to have a designated status to be of value.

In the Committee’s discussion of the application the following principal points were made:

·        Regard should be had to the views of the Town Council and the local population.  The Town Council had not been opposed to all housing development.  On the contrary it had identified a preferred location for development that would meet the area’s housing need and had community support.

·        The Council had on a number of occasions successfully defended refusal of planning permission at appeal when one of the recommended grounds for approval had been the absence of a five year housing land supply.

·        The grounds upon which the Committee had rejected the application as set out at paragraph 3.1 of the report remained valid.

·        Although the application site was not designated, the Conservation Manager (Landscape) and the Town Council considered that the development was detrimental to the landscape.

·        It should be acknowledged that the other identified development sites in the area had similar landscape constraints.

·        The developer was not offering significant community benefit.

·        It was suggested that the development was also contrary to paragraph 109 of the National Planning Policy Framework.

·        It was requested that in preparing reports officers ensured there was a consistent approach to the weight given to relevant plans and policies.  It was questioned in the case of this application whether it was appropriate for officers to give such weight to the modifications to the Core Strategy.

·        Whilst Bromyard Town Council had decided not to produce a Bromyard Neighbourhood Plan proposals for Herefordshire Council to produce a Bromyard Development Plan were now included in revisions to the Local Development Scheme.  It seemed sensible to allow that Plan a chance to set out the local vision.

·        It was cautioned that the weight being given in the report to the change to the wording of Policy BY1, introducing the word “minimum” and requiring the provision of a minimum of 500 new homes in Bromyard, where previously the policy required approximately 500 new homes, could have significant implications if this interpretation was applied across the County.  The report stated at paragraph 6.3 that “The Council’s justification for the proposed modifications is quite clear - to ensure that wording in the Core Strategy is in line with the NPPF by not restricting growth.”  It was suggested that this was an incorrect approach because the NPPF contained many grounds on which growth could be restricted.

The local ward members were given the opportunity to close the debate.

Councillor Morgan had no additional comments.

Councillor Seldon commented that the Town Council had started to develop a Neighbourhood Plan but had stopped, deciding to restart work once the Core Strategy was in place and the framework within which the Neighbourhood Plan could be developed was established.

The Senior Litigator commented that ground 4 of the reasons for refusal advanced by the Committee in March 2015 was no longer applicable.  It was open to the Committee to refuse the application on the other three grounds.

RESOLVED:  That planning permission be refused for the following reasons:

1.     The site occupies a prominent position in an open countryside location on the western edge of Bromyard.  It represents an important visual approach to the town and is visually prominent from a number of public vantage points, particularly further to the west from the A44 and from Panniers Lane and Pencombe Lane and is considered to be important to the towns landscape setting.   The proposal would result in the introduction of a large suburban development on the edge of the town that lacks any visual link to it and would be of a scale, character and appearance that would have a significant and demonstrable adverse effect upon the landscape setting of Bromyard.  The topography of the site is such that this cannot be readily mitigated through the implementation of a landscaping scheme to filter views of the development and it is therefore considered that the proposal is contrary to Policies LA2, LA3 and LA5 of the Herefordshire Unitary Development Plan and the National Planning Policy Framework.

2.     By virtue of its unacceptable landscape impacts the proposal fails to meet the environmental dimension towards sustainable development as described by paragraph 7 of the National Planning Policy Framework. The impacts of the development are not outweighed by the economic and social benefits that might be derived by permitting the scheme.  The proposal therefore represents and unsustainable form of development, contrary to the National Planning Policy Framework and Policy S1 of the Herefordshire Unitary Development Plan; and

3.         The development of the site would be premature and prejudicial to the delivery of the strategic housing land allocation at Hardwick Bank as defined by Policy BY2 of the emerging Herefordshire Local Plan – Core Strategy 2011 – 2031.  It would undermine the plan-making process by predetermining decisions about the scale and phasing of new development on the strategic site and it would serve to pre-determine the provision of vehicular access via the A44.  The emerging plan is considered to be at an advanced stage, having been subject to an Examination in Public in February 2015, and therefore the tests to justify grounds of prematurity as outlined by  Paragraph: 014 Reference ID: 21b-014- 20140306 of the National Planning Practice Guidance are met.

(The meeting adjourned between 11.31 and 11.45 am)