For:      Mr P Kelsall per Linton Design, 27 High Street, Bromyard, Herefordshire. HR7 4AA

To consider a planning application which has been referred to the Committee because the Northern Area Planning Sub-Committee was mindful to approve it, contrary to policy and officer recommendations

Ward: Hampton Court

The Development Control Manager reported the contents of a letter received from Mr M Kimbery a local resident who objected to the proposal.  He also provided the Committee with the following update:

Since the report had been drafted there had been further correspondence between the applicant’s agent and the legal representatives of the developer and the Council.  A Section 106 planning obligation was close to being finalised. Further work may be required to fine tune the agreement but the principles were as follows:

·   the scheme would provide for four new dwellings to be sold at a discounted cost to people with a local connection;

·   if no suitable purchasers could be found the properties would be sold to the Marches Housing Association who would take on the responsibility for their disposal but they must maintain the discounted value;

·   detailed provisions were to be finalised to ensure that a discounted price also applied to all subsequent sales of the properties in line with the method for calculating the discount as set out in the Affordable Housing Supplementary Planning Guidance.

Whilst the final wording of the Agreement had not been fully agreed between the legal representatives, the principles had been agreed along with the written agreement of Marches Housing Association to their involvement.

OFFICER COMMENTS

With reference to the 7 criteria of policy H.10, the situation was:

1.      the proposal could be regarded as “intermediate housing” for the purposes of PPS3;

2.      Planning Officers still have some doubt whether a genuine need existed for the four houses in Risbury, although the Strategic Housing officers were satisfied that the Housing Need Survey had demonstrated sufficient need and there was a reasonable chance of finding suitable residents for the houses;

3.      the size and character was acceptable;

4.      assuming that the Section 106 agreement could be finalised, the retention of the houses at a discounted price should be possible in perpetuity (although it should be noted that this has not been successfully achieved elsewhere in the County hitherto.);

5        the site was remote from services and facilities and remained, in the officers’ opinion, an unsustainable location;

6.      the site was not a mixed development;

7.   the proposal remained for four dwellings and not one, as was required by policy H.10.

In the light of the above comments, and recognising that considerable progress that had been made with the draft Section 106 Agreement, planning officers remained concerned that this development was not a response to local need but a proposal to redevelop a redundant barn for residential use in a location where residential development would not normally be permitted. Policy H10 provided an exception to the normal policy of housing restraint but did so only for single dwellings to meet a specific identified need. Policy H10 was not therefore complied with in this case.

The draft Section 106 Agreement proposed that all four houses such be built to full “Joseph Rowntree Lifetime Homes” standards.  The standards would be expensive to achieve on all four houses and may make it difficult to achieve the development of the site within the discounted price needed to comply with the Supplementary Planning Guidance document. The applicant had agreed to provide one of the dwellings to the full standard but not all four.

The Housing Needs & Development Manager said that although the applicant was prepared to provide one dwelling to theJoseph Rowntree standard, the view of the Strategic Housing Section was that all four needed to meet this criteria for the scheme to proceed.  The Committee felt that there was a need for the officers to hold more discussions with the applicants about the issues that had been raised and decided that the matter should be deferred to allow this.

RESOLVED:

That consideration of the application be deferred for the officers to hold further discussions with the applicants about the issues that had been raised