Proposed residential development to provide 4 no flats.

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

(Proposed residential development to provide 4 no flats.)

(Councillor Powers fulfilled the role of local ward member and accordingly had no vote on this application.)

The Senior Planning Officer (SPO) 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.

In accordance with the criteria for public speaking, Mr C Powell, an officer of Hereford City Council, spoke in opposition to the Scheme. 

In accordance with the Council’s Constitution, the local ward member, Councillor AJW Powers, spoke on the application.

He made the following principal comments:

·        There was no local objection to the principle of development and change of use to residential.  There was an extant permission for a development of 2 semi-detached dwellings with off-street parking. That represented suitable development in contrast to the application for four flats with no off-street parking.

·        There were objections by the City Council and local residents to the new application and an in principle objection from the Transportation Manager.

·        The site was big enough to allow for off-street parking for the new application as it had for the earlier application.

·        The existing parking problems were an impediment to emergency vehicles and refuse vehicles.

·        The proposal would add to highway safety problems and have an adverse effect on the amenity of residents.

·        The location was sustainable in that there was good access to the City by means other than a car residents of the new dwellings may well still own cars.

·        The proposal was contrary to policy MT1 bullet point one as set out at paragraph 6.11 of the report.

·        It could not be assumed, as at paragraph 6.16 of the report, that the likely occupants of the properties would allow for significantly lower levels of off street parking provision as provided for by the car parking standards in the Council’s Highways Design Guide for New Developments as referred to at paragraph 6.15 of the report.

·        The benefit of 2 additional housing units was outweighed by the adverse amenity impact and highway safety issues.

·        There was just as much need for small 2 bed properties as for single bed flats.

·        It was contrary to the principle in Paragraph 17 of the National Planning Policy Framework in that the proposal did not meet the required standard in terms of overall design or secure a good standard of amenity for residents.

·        The application would encourage further conversions of single dwellings in the area into multiple occupancy, a process that had already resulted in a cumulative loss of amenity for neighbours.

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

·        The proposal would meet a housing need and represented good use of a brownfield site.

·        A number of concerns were expressed about parking provision.  There was an extant permission for two dwellings with off-street parking.  It was considered that the site could accommodate off street parking for the new proposal.  Instead the proposal would lead to anti-social parking issues and issues of highway safety with an adverse impact on the amenity of existing residents. 

A question was raised as to whether the parking issue was sufficient to outweigh the other issues to be considered in the planning balance.

·        There was concern about the ability of emergency vehicles and other larger vehicles to gain access.

·        It was suggested that the proposal represented overdevelopment and was out of character with the area.

·        The principle of providing housing without car-parking relied upon pleasant alternative means of accessing facilities.  These pleasant means were not present in this case.

·        The provision of 2 additional units did not outweigh the adverse impact on the amenity of existing residents.

In reply to a question, the Acting Development Manager commented that a planning inspector would have to have regard to a number of factors in the event of an appeal against refusal of the application including the fact that the site had permission for use as a plumbers yard with B1 use that could move to B8 without planning permission.  If this use recommenced this would generate vehicular movements and this had caused issues in the past.  In addition, the extant permission would remove two off street parking places. Also, census data indicated that 27.3% of houses in the area did not have access to a car.  The data was not broken down to indicate ownership by type of property but it seemed reasonable to assume that car ownership of occupants of 1 bed apartments, as proposed, would be lower.  He was therefore concerned as to the strength of a case for refusal.

The SPO commented that the extant permission had been obtained by a former owner of the site and was nearly 3 years old.  The new owner did not consider that proposal to be viable and had therefore submitted the new application. The extant permission would have involved the loss of 2 of the four on street parking spaces in the location with the remaining 2 spaces likely to have been used by the occupants of the two dwellings, meaning no wider benefit to the community.  Those on street spaces were also perpendicular to the road presenting a highway safety consideration.

The local ward member was given the opportunity to close the debate.  He commented that there was a fine balance to be struck.  He remained concerned that approval would set a precedent for similar conversions in other similar parts of the City with close packed Victorian terraces with insufficient parking. A consultation had been undertaken on a strategic residents parking scheme but the conclusion had been that the pressure was too great for a scheme to be operable and residents had not been in favour.  He reiterated that there was no local objection to the principle of development and change of use.  However, the new application was inferior to the extant permission given the loss of on street parking.  In terms of access to the city, cycling on Whitecross Road was dangerous and traffic would, on the evidence of the council’s consultants, increase as a result of housing development in the City and a western bypass.  It therefore did not meet sustainability policy requirements.  The development of four flats could be redesigned to permit off street parking.  Any development of flats in the city should include off street parking.  Not imposing this requirement in this case would make it harder to impose such a requirement in the case of larger scale developments.

A motion proposed by Councillor Baker and seconded by Councillor Holton that the application be approved was lost 5 votes in favour, 6 against and 2 abstentions.

Councillor Edwards proposed and Councillor Lloyd Hayes seconded a motion that the application be refusedbased on the grounds that the application was contrary to policy LD1 and relevant design related policies of the NPPF as it would represent overdevelopment with the appearance being out of character with the area, contrary to policies MT1 and SS4 because of the adverse effect on the safe operation of the highway network  and the impact on the amenity of existing residents by potentially requiring them to park further away and increased risk of anti-social parking and officers named in the Scheme of Delegation to Officers be authorised to detail these reasons.

The motion was carried with 6 votes in favour, 5 against and 2 abstentions.

RESOLVED:  That planning permission be refused on the grounds that the application was contrary to policy LD1 and relevant design related policies of the NPPF as it would represent overdevelopment with the appearance being out of character with the area, contrary to policies MT1 and SS4 because of the adverse effect on the safe operation of the highway network  and the impact on the amenity of existing residents by potentially requiring them to park further away and increased risk of anti-social parking and officers named in the Scheme of Delegation to Officers be authorised to detail these reasons.