Proposed erection of up to 38 dwellings (including details of access).

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

(Proposed erection of up to 38 dwellings (including details of access)

The Principal Planning Officer gave a presentation on the application.  He noted that the application was a resubmission of an application that had been refused by the Committee on 11 February 2015.

In accordance with the criteria for public speaking, Mr P Fountain of Lea Parish Council spoke in opposition to the Scheme.  Mr S Banner, Chairman of Lea Action Group, spoke in objection.  Mr B Weatherley, the applicant’s agent, spoke in support.

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

He made the following principal comments:

·        The site was in the open countryside not on the edge of the village.

·        It was a mile from the school and the access would mean that people would have to drive to it.

·        He did not consider it to be the most suitable site in the village for development, as had been suggested by officers.

·        Lea had met its housing allocation with up to 59 dwellings having been approved in the past 6 months.

·        The site was in a valley and he considered it likely to be at risk of flooding.

·        In summary nothing had changed since the Committee had refused the application in February.  The grounds on which that application had been refused, set out at paragraph 3.1 of the report, remained valid.

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

·        The emerging Core Strategy identified a 14% minimum growth target for Lea over the plan period.  That target had already been exceeded.

·        The application was a resubmission and there needed to be good grounds for the Committee to overturn its previous decision.  There had been no significant change to the application.  The reasons for refusing the application in February remained valid.

·        There had been no accidents in the location and highway safety was not a ground for refusal.

·        Drainage issues could be resolved and were not a ground for refusal.  In relation to this view it was observed that Welsh Water had expressed strong concerns about overland flooding downstream of the proposal. It was also noted that the exact cost for the flood attenuation works was not yet known.

·        A Planning inspector had stated in response to an appeal in another county that because an area of land had no landscape designation that did not mean that the landscape could be considered to have no value.

·        The Council had indicated that it was reluctant to adopt the bridges shown on the indicative layout plans.  This had implications for future maintenance.

·        A concern was expressed that the provision in the Core Strategy of minimum growth targets put the Committee in a difficult position in refusing applications, particularly whilst such weight continued to be given to the absence of a five year housing land supply.  It was asked when the Annual Monitoring Report and a revised assessment of the County’s five year housing land supply, the current calculation of which was questioned, would be produced.

The local ward member was given the opportunity to close the debate.  He reiterated his opposition to the Scheme.

The Principal Planning Officer commented that the growth targets in the Core Strategy were minimum targets. National guidance was that setting a ceiling on growth was not the preferred course and that there should be flexibility.  Officers remained of the view that the site was the most appropriate for development in Lea.

He added that the draft heads of terms provided for a sum for the delivery of a flood attenuation scheme.  He noted that the sum was calculated on the basis of a reduced affordable housing provision of only six dwellings.  The applicant could have asked for a further reduction.

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

1.               The proposal represents the addition of a significant residential development in Lea where; in the context of this village location, other large-scale development has recently been approved.  It is therefore considered that this proposal represents an over-development that would detrimentally change the rural character of the eastern fringe of the village, contrary to Policies DR1, H13 and LA3 of the Herefordshire Unitary Development Plan.  The Council does not consider that the visual impacts of the development can be mitigated through the imposition of conditions.  The scheme fails to contribute to the protection or enhancement of the natural or built environment and therefore the proposal also fails to meet the aims of the National Planning Policy Framework.

2.         The application is not accompanied by a completed Section 106 agreement which is considered necessary to make the development acceptable.  It is therefore contrary to Policy DR5 of the Herefordshire Unitary Development Plan and the Council's Supplementary Planning Document on Planning Obligations.

Informative

The Local Planning Authority has acted positively and proactively in determining this application by assessing the proposal against planning policy and any other material considerations and by identifying matters of concern with the proposal and clearly setting these out in the reason for refusal.  The Local Planning Authority is willing to provide pre-application advice in respect of any future application for a revised development.

(The meeting adjourned between 11.27 and 11.40 am)