Agenda and minutes

Apologies for absence were received from Councillor S Mukherjee.

(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 16 January 2024 as published.

RESOLVED

That the minutes of the meeting of the Committee held on 16 January 2024 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 advised the Committee of an update to condition 24 as shown below;

24. ++ Prior to the first use of units 7, 8 and 9 in Class B2 (motor vehicle repair) details of acoustic mitigation along the west boundary of the site adjacent to No.169 Goldsworth Road shall be submitted to and approved in writing by the Local Planning Authority. The approved measures shall be implemented in full prior to the first occupation of units 7, 8 and 9 in Class B2 (motor vehicle repair) use and shall be retained in perpetuity thereafter.

Reason: To safeguard the residential amenities of existing adjoining and nearby residential occupiers in accordance with Policy CS21 of the Woking Core Strategy (2012), Policy DM7 of the Development Management Policies DPD (2016) and the provisions of the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF).

[NOTE 2: In accordance with the procedure for public speaking at Planning Committee, Mr Graham Hills attended the meeting and spoke in objection to the application and Mr Kyle Gellatly spoke in support.]

The Committee considered an application for the demolition of all existing buildings and structures and construction of a new commercial/industrial estate of 12 units together with parking, hard and soft landscaping and associated ancillary works. Units 5, 11 and 12 within Use Class E(g) (Commercial, Business and Service) only, Units 1, 2, 3, 4, 6 and 10 within Use Class E(g) (Commercial, Business and Service) or Use Class B8 (Storage or distribution) and Units 7, 8 and 9 within Use Class E(g) (Commercial, Business and Service) use Class B2 (General Industry) or Use Class B8 (Storage or distribution)

The Planning Officer advised that the B2 use had been added to overcome the prior reason for refusal.

Some Members commented that when the previous application for this site was discussed by the Planning Committee, they had come up with numerous reasons why they thought it should have been refused. The advice at the time had been that these were subjective and were unlikely to hold up when challenged, so the Committee had refused on the grounds that the proposed development would fail to cater for flexibility to (re)accommodate existing motor vehicle repair occupiers (which fall within Use Class B2) which were based on the site, and thus failed to take into account local business needs. Some Members were now disappointed as this reason had been overcome, however the Mabel Street access would remain congested with no improvements made, but it would now be difficult to refuse on other grounds.

The public speaker had suggested a change to the proposed conditions to restrict delivery times to avoid school drop off and in regard to acoustic mitigation, which some thought was a good idea.

Councillor S Dorsett proposed, and it was duly seconded by Councillor T Spenser to add an additional condition related to restricting the hours of delivery to units 11 and 12 to avoid school drop off/pick up during term time.

The Committee  ...  view the full minutes text for item 6a

The Committee considered an application for the Section 73 application to vary Condition 4 (approved plans - relating only to the NIA plan for Parcel B (Phase Red) to alter the affordable/market housing split for Phase Red only) of planning permission PLAN/2018/0337 for the redevelopment of the Sheerwater Estate (please see PLAN/2018/0337 for the original description).

Following a question, the Planning Officer clarified that the one-bedroom specialist units were similar to sheltered housing, however, these were not restricted by age. These were specialist accommodation with an element of care.

Some Members of the Committee did not like the proposal, although understood why it was being changed. Some thought that the affordable housing numbers quoted were misleading, as the properties that were boarded up would not be ready for occupation for some time. There was also concern that it was the larger affordable homes that were being removed from the plan. The Planning Officer explained that the proposal changed thirty-nine units, only one of these was a larger three-bedroom unit, eighteen were two-bedroom units and twenty were one-bedroom units. Sheerwater was a priority place and therefore in terms of affordable housing is dealt with slightly differently by the local planning policies, however there would be no net loss in affordable housing on site.

Some Members were concerned that the larger numbers of one-bedroom properties would lead to a community of only single people or those in care. Planning Officers explained that the units were one-bedroom specialist properties and could be occupied by more than 1 person as planning conditions would not restrict the units to be occupied by only 1 person. The occupancy of these units is restricted by planning condition.

Beverley Kuchar, Strategic Director Place, advised the Committee that there was clear policy that this application should be assessed against and that if Members were to go against this, there were no planning policy grounds to reject this on. Although Planning Officers understood Members concerns, the extant permission on this site had not changed and the Committee should have due regard to the Local Plan. That said, the Committee were also free to reach their own conclusion.

Following a comment regarding the boarded up properties, the Chairman commented that the report considered by Council the previous week detailed that there was HRA money allocated to bring these properties back into use.

In accordance with the Standing Order set out in the Constitution, the Chairman deemed that a division should be taken on the recommendation to approve the application.  The votes for and against refusal of the application were recorded as follows.

In favour:                           Cllrs G Cosnahan, S Greentree, C Martin and T Spenser.

                                 TOTAL:  4

Against:                              Cllrs T Aziz, S Dorsett, D Jordan and S Oades.

                                 TOTAL:  4

Present but not voting:      Cllr L Morales (Chairman)

                                 TOTAL:  1

The application was therefore not approved.

Due to the equality of votes in favour and against approval of this application, the Chairman exercised a second and casting vote in  ...  view the full minutes text for item 6b