Agenda and minutes

Apologies for absence were received from Councillor S Dorsett.

(i)    To receive declarations of disclosable pecuniary and other interests from Members in respect of any item to be considered at the meeting.

(ii)   In accordance with the Officer Procedure Rules, any Officer who is a Council- appointed Director of a Thameswey Group company will declare an interest in any item involving that Thameswey Group company. The interest will not prevent the Officer from advising the Committee on that item.

No declarations of interest were received.

To consider any business that the Chairman rules may be dealt with under Section 100B(4) of the Local Government Act 1972.

There were no items of Urgent Business.

To approve the minutes of the meeting of the Planning Committee held on 12 December 2023 as published.

RESOLVED

That the minutes of the meeting of the Committee held on 12 December 2023 be approved and signed as a true and correct record.

The Committee received a report on the planning appeals lodged and the appeal decisions.

Resolved

That the report be noted.

The Committee determined the following applications subject to the conditions, informatives, reasons for refusal or authorisation of enforcement action which appear in the published report to the Committee or as detailed in these minutes.

[NOTE 1: The Planning Officer had circulated a written update in advance of the meeting.]

[NOTE 2: In accordance with the procedure for public speaking at Planning Committee, the agent, Katy Davis attended the meeting and spoke in support of the application. There was no registered objector.]

The Committee considered an application for the demolition of existing buildings to provide a new building of up to 11 storeys (10 storeys plus ground floor) comprising Use Class E(g)(i) office space (levels 2-10 incl.) and flexible Use Class E ground and first floor space, cycle parking facilities and associated public realm improvements.

Following a question regarding the proposed air source heat pump provision and the additional informative included in the written update encouraging further engagement between the developer and a District Energy Network (DEN) operator (currently Thameswey Energy Ltd), some Committee Members questioned why this informative has been included as there was a lower carbon footprint with the heat pump provision. The Planning Officer explained that in both scenarios (i.e., with the DEN as it presently exists today and with, potential future, decarbonisation of the DEN in place) the applicant’s submissions demonstrated that the air source heat pump solution would provide a better carbon solution than the DEN , but that there was no harm in adding an informative (which was not a condition and therefore not legally enforceable) encouraging the applicant to further engage with the DEN operator moving forward.

Following a question from the Chairman, the Planning Officer confirmed that the design and access statement showed that stairs could be added internally to connect the ground and first floor levels of the Flexible Class E spaces if required. The Flexible Class E spaces had been designed to be as flexible as possible and these kinds of internal changes could be undertaken without further planning permission within the scope of the current conditions.

In response to a question on the location of, and access to the goods lift, the Planning Officer explained that as the majority of this space was expected to be office floorspace, there was not a very high frequency of deliveries expected. Surrey CC Highways had confirmed that they were happy with the application and access points. It was noted all the ground floor units had access points to the pavement.

Some Members were concerned regarding the practicalities of receiving deliveries and wanted a condition added to detail this. There was uncertainty around whether large deliveries would need to come through front of house and whether the back of house delivery was big enough to accommodate larger pump trolley deliveries.  It was noted that condition 14 could be expanded so that this was specifically addressed, and the applicant would need to demonstrate how larger deliveries would take place to upper levels. The Committee agreed that condition 14 should be updated as discussed.

Following a query, the Planning Officer explained that condition 21 had been amended (by way of the written update) to allow the office floor  ...  view the full minutes text for item 6a

The Committee considered an application for  a change of use from Class F1 (Learning and non-residential institutions) to Use Class E (g) (offices, research and development, industrial process), Class B2 (General Industrial) and Class B8 (Storage and distribution).

RESOLVED

That planning permission be GRANTED subject to conditions.