Council and democracy

Agenda and minutes

Venue: Council Chamber, Civic Offices, New Road, Grays, Essex, RM17 6SL. View directions

Contact: Wendy Le, Democratic Services Officer  Email: Direct.Democracy@thurrock.gov.uk

Items
No. Item

58.

Minutes pdf icon PDF 65 KB

To approve as a correct record the minutes of the Planning Committee meeting held on 28 November 2019.

 

Minutes:

The minutes of the Planning Committee meeting held on 28 November 2019 was approved as a true and correct record.

59.

Item of Urgent Business

To receive additional items that the Chair is of the opinion should be considered as a matter of urgency, in accordance with Section 100B (4) (b) of the Local Government Act 1972.

Minutes:

There were no items of urgent business.

 

However, the Chair stated that planning application 18/00551/FUL had received a resident email that incorporated comments from the Essex Badger Protection Group. Therefore, the Applicant had requested that the application be deferred to the next Committee meeting to enable discussions between the Applicant and the Essex Badger Protection Group to be held. Regarding the notice of letters sent to affected residents regarding the application due at Committee that evening, he apologised for the late delivery of these letters and gave reassurance that notification would be sent out earlier when the item was due back at Committee next month.

60.

Declaration of Interests

Minutes:

There were no declarations of interest.

61.

Declarations of receipt of correspondence and/or any meetings/discussions held relevant to determination of any planning application or enforcement action to be resolved at this meeting

Minutes:

The Chair declared on behalf of the Members of the Committee that all had received a resident email regarding application 18/00551/FUL (which was deferred as confirmed earlier).

 

Steve Taylor, Campaign to Protect Rural England Representative, declared that he had received an email from Essex Badger Protection Group.

62.

Planning Appeals pdf icon PDF 88 KB

Minutes:

The report was presented by Leigh Nicholson, Interim Assistant Director of Planning, Transport and Public Protection.

 

Councillor Rice asked for a summary of the number of applications that had been approved at Committee and awaiting section 106 contributions to be concluded. Leigh Nicholson replied that a summary could be provided and circulated to Members.

 

RESOLVED:

 

That the Planning Committee noted the report.

63.

18/00551/FUL Land Adjacent Curling Lane Helleborine and Meesons Lane, Grays, Essex pdf icon PDF 444 KB

Minutes:

This item has been deferred to the next committee meeting.

64.

19/01331/FUL Windy Ridge, 251 Branksome Avenue, Stanford Le Hope, Essex, SS17 8DF pdf icon PDF 245 KB

Minutes:

The report was presented by Nadia Houghton, Principal Planner. The application sought permission for the development of eight 2 bedroom dwellings consisting of four semi-detached pairs with car parking underneath. The site of the proposal, Windy Ridge, was situated in a corner plot of the Homesteads and the proposal focused on the rear garden of Windy Ridge. The site had been identified as suitable for development and was one of the last policy developed site.

 

Windy Ridge was modest in appearance and plots 1 – 4 were most visually prominent on the street scene as well as being too close to Windy Ridge. The proposal did not fit in with the appearance of the Homesteads and there was concern on parking on highways so the application was recommended for refusal.

 

The Vice Chair arrived at 18.12.

 

The Chair opened the item up to the Committee for questions.

 

Mentioning that the Homesteads was a protected precinct, the Chair said that there had been a number of planning applications in the area over the years. He questioned why this particular site was one that was not protected as part of the Homesteads.

 

Referring to page 45 of the agenda, Nadia Houghton said that the 1997 Local Plan had identified the Homesteads as a residential precinct due to the character of the area but some of the sites was identified in Annexe A9 where development was acceptable. This application’s site was one of those identified and may be one of the last of the identified sites that had yet to be developed.

 

The Chair opened the item up to the Committee for debate.

 

Councillor Byrne commented that Branksome Avenue on Orchard within the Homesteads had created 15% more traffic when it had been built and if this was site was approved, it could eventually create 8% more traffic. He went on to say that the roads within the area were already dangerous and had traffic issues along with parking problems. Approving this site would end up causing more of these issues.

 

Councillor Lawrence agreed with the Officer’s recommendation for refusal but she felt that more consultation needed to be undertaken between Planning Officers and Applicants to ensure applications came to committee with proposals that followed the council’s standards.

 

The Chair felt the design of the proposed dwellings were bulky and the number of houses proposed were too many within the site.

 

Referring to Councillor Lawrence’s comment, Nadia Houghton clarified that pre-application advice was given to Applicants prior to the submission of an application.

 

With the debate coming to a close, the Officer’s recommendation for refusal was proposed by Councillor Byrne and seconded by Councillor Churchman. The Committee went on to the vote.

 

For: (8) Councillors Tom Kelly (Chair), Mike Fletcher (Vice-Chair), Gary Byrne, Colin Churchman, Angela Lawrence, David Potter, Gerard Rice and Sue Sammons.

 

Against: (0)

 

Abstained: (1) Councillor Daniel Chukwu.

 

Planning application 19/01331/FUL was refused.

65.

18/00313/REM Land Adjacent Church Hollow To Rear Of Hollow Cottages and North Of London Road, Purfleet pdf icon PDF 513 KB

Minutes:

The report was presented by Matthew Gallagher, Major Applications Manager. He gave a brief summary to remind the Committee of the wider planning application 17/01668/OUT that had been granted outline planning permission on 20 December 2019 following consideration in April 2019 by the Planning Committee.

 

Following on from that, the current planning application was for the approval of reserved matters, for a parcel of land. The proposed number of dwellings and parking spaces was detailed in paragraph 1.2 on page 58 of the agenda. The woodland area of the site was protected by a Tree Preservation Order (TPO) so would be partly retained along with play areas and public open spaces forming around 32% of the site area.

 

The style of the houses was outlined in paragraph 1.5 on page 59 of the agenda. Reserved matters included the appearance of the house types proposed and the designs were not aiming to mimic the houses in the surrounding area and the appearance corresponded positively to the National Design Guidance. It would also provide opportunities for ecological enhancement.

 

The layout proposed responded positively to the Council’s own design guidance as well national guidance. The proposal complied with the outline permission granted in April 2019.

 

There was one suggested change to condition 2 on page 89 of the agenda where after the wording, ‘Prior to the commencement of the development’, the following would be inserted, ‘excluding preliminary works as defined on page 4 of the outline planning condition on 17/01668/OUT’ which would enable preliminary works such as site investigations to be undertaken as long as it was consistent with the planning conditions that had been outlined on 17/01668/OUT. The application was recommended for approval subject to conditions.

 

The Chair opened the item up for questions to the Committee.

 

Referring to the proposed 61 dwellings, Councillor Rice sought clarification on the number of affordable units. He also asked if the proposed 94 parking spaces met with council standards.

 

Referring back to the debate that took place on planning application 17/01668/OUT, Matthew Gallagher reminded Committee that the outline permission approved at Committee had secured a minimum of 10% affordable units and, subject to viability reviews, could provide up to 35%. There had been discussions regarding the affordable homes nomination which had been resolved during the discussion of planning application 17/01668/OUT back in April 2019 and the Applicant was required to follow the obligations set within the s106 agreement for the outline planning application permission.

 

Moving on to Councillor Rice’s query on car parking spaces, Matthew Gallagher clarified that parking spaces had been assessed against the 2012 council draft standards for car parking spaces. The assessment had taken into consideration that the proposed dwellings would be within walking distance of the Purfleet train station and would be close to the future town centre. Page 84 of the agenda set out the provision of the 94 proposed parking spaces and paragraph 6.69 highlighted this. The parking spaces were within the suggested Council standards.

 

Julian Howes, Senior Highway  ...  view the full minutes text for item 65.