Agenda item

[NOTE 1: The Planning Officer advised the Committee of an additional condition and informative as detailed below.

Condition 4

There shall be no storage of goods outside the building at any time.

Reason: In the interests of visual amenity and to preserve the provision of car parking at the site in accordance with Policies CS18 and CS21 of the Woking Core Strategy 2012 and the policies in the NPPF.

Informative 2

The applicant is advised that any external signage associated with the proposed building may require separate Advertisement Consent]

The Committee considered a proposal for the siting of a single storey detached structure to be used as a ‘cash for clothes’ recycling office and store. The proposed building would have a height of 2.85m with a length of 6.3m, a depth of 3.3m and an internal floor area of 18m2. The area in question was currently three parking spaces which would be occupied by the proposed structure.

Councillor L Lyons, Ward Councillor, raised a number of concerns and thought that this development would impact on the residents in Little Riding. Councillor L Lyons was concerned about the impact on the site including anti-social delivery/pick up times (including concerns regarding the size of vehicle), landscaping, pest control and lighting of the site. If the Committee was minded to approve the application, Councillor L Lyons asked them to consider adding an additional condition which restricted the usage hours and also a height restriction on the delivery/collection vehicles.

The Planning Officer commented that paragraph 4 in the report detailed the height and length of the building and it was noted that the Costa Coffee was actually higher than the proposed structure so it was not considered that this would have an adverse impact on the visual amenity. It was noted that there currently was no vehicle height restriction on site and due to the use of the site by the existing businesses, it would not be justifiable to add this restriction to the proposed application.

The Planning Officer commented that if the Committee was minded to, it would be appropriate to amend condition 3 which restricted the hours of use on site. It was queried whether it was possible to tie in any restrictions to the current trading hours on site; following discussion it was noted that the trading hours varied across all stores, so this would be difficult. It was proposed that condition 3 be amended so as to restrict the opening times of the ‘cash for clothes’ office to 8am – 8pm Monday to Saturday and 9am – 5pm Sunday. The Committee were supportive of this amendment.

Following a query the Planning Officer advised that breaches in planning control were usually picked up following complaints by members of the public.

Some Councillors had concerns about clothes being dumped on the site, however it was agreed that any storage bin added to the site was likely to encourage this behaviour. It was noted that the proposal would be under a 12 month review so if there was any issue with clothes dumping this could be addressed then.

RESOLVED

That planning permission be granted subject to the conditions and additional amended conditions as set out in these minutes.