Agenda and minutes

To receive any apologies or substitutions for the meeting.

Apologies were received from:

Cllr Trevor Carbin; Cllr Bridget Wayman, substituted by Cllr Jerry Wickham; and Cllr Glenis Ansell, substituted by Cllr Magnus MacDonald.

To approve and sign as a correct record the minutes of the meeting held on 15 June 2016. (copy attached)

Resolved:

To confirm and sign the minutes of the meeting held on 15

June 2016.

To receive any declarations of disclosable interests or dispensations granted by the Standards Committee.

The Chairman noted that, with regard to application ref: 14/06562/FUL, he was a member of Warminster Town Council, and that, whilst a member of the Planning Committee of the Town Council, he had considered and voted on previous, separate applications on the site. He stated that he was no longer a member of the Planning Committee of the Town Council, and had not, therefore, considered application ref: 14/06562/FUL. As such, he was able to consider and vote on the item on the agenda.

To receive any announcements through the Chair.

The Chairman reminded members of the public that whilst they had the opportunity to make representations on the application under consideration today and to contact and lobby their local member and any other members of the planning committee before today’s meeting, he would not allow any last minute lobbying of members once the debate has started, including the circulation of new information, written or photographic which had not been verified by the Council’s planning officers. He respectfully asked Members and members of the public to please bear this in mind.

The Council welcomes contributions from members of the public.

Statements

Members of the public who wish to speak either in favour or against an application or any other item on this agenda are asked to register in person no later than 10.20am on the day of the meeting.

The Chairman will allow up to 3 speakers in favour and up to 3 speakers against an application and up to 3 speakers on any other item on this agenda. Each speaker will be given up to 3 minutes and invited to speak immediately prior to the item being considered. The rules on public participation in respect of planning applications are detailed in the Council’s Planning Code of Good Practice.

Questions

To receive any questions from members of the public or members of the Council received in accordance with the constitution which excludes, in particular, questions on non-determined planning applications. Those wishing to ask questions are required to give notice of any such questions in writing to the officer named on the front of this agenda (acting on behalf of the Corporate Director) no later than 5pm on Wednesday 6 July 2016. Please contact the officer named on the front of this agenda for further advice. Questions may be asked without notice if the Chairman decides that the matter is urgent.

Details of any questions received will be circulated to Committee members prior to the meeting and made available at the meeting and on the Council’s website.

No questions had been received from councillors or members of the public.

The Chairman welcomed everyone to the meeting. He then explained the rules of public participation and procedure to be followed at the meeting.

A report by the Case Officer is attached.

The following people spoke against the proposal:

Alison Kjaer, Jeremy Stadward and Francis Morland

The following people spoke in support of the proposal:

Richard Watts; Brian Condon and Andy Cockett

Consideration was given to a report prepared by Kenny Green, Development Management Team Leader, that recommended the Committee approve the application subject to planning conditions; and sought Members to agree to defer and delegate the issuing of a decision to the Head of Development Management following the completion of s106 legal agreement to enshrine the obligations as outlined within paragraph 9.67 of the report.

The officer made a presentation in which he first publicly acknowledged the significant amount of work undertaken by Cllr Ridout and Cllr Humphries in terms of responding to local concerns and liaising with the case officer for the entire application process. The officer asked the committee to note that since July 2014, there had been numerous meetings with officers and that the local Cllrs were kept fully informed throughout the process. Before commencing with the PowerPoint presentation, the case officer brought the committee’s attention to agenda supplement 1 and revised comments provided by the Council’s Public Rights of Way officer relating to the removal of the requirement for a secondary (adopted) footpath connection onto WARM6 (PRoW) located to the north of the site (in the NE part of the site). The officer recommended that, if the Committee were minded to approve the application, and seek the deletion of the secondary footpath which was no longer deemed necessary, they should instruct officers to request the submission of revised plans deleting the footpath. The officer also made specific reference to additional late public and consultee representations from the AONB officer which had been received since the publication of the report and after the production of the agenda supplement.

Members then had the opportunity to ask technical questions after which they received statements from members of the public as detailed above, expressing their views regarding the proposal.

Issues highlighted during the course of the presentation and discussion included: due reference to the (June 2016) endorsed WWUE masterplan, including the phasing plan and how the site relates to the town and the remainder of the WWUE strategic site allocation, the views of the highways officers, and the applicant’s plans to mitigate traffic issues arising from construction were explained; a detailed summary was provided relating to drainage issues and an explanation was given as to how constraints had been addressed by the applicant through plan revisions and submission of an on-site drainage solution and strategy to manage surface water run-off; members were informed about extensive modelling work that had been undertaken which led to the key drainage consultees (the flood authority, the EA and Wessex Water) all confirming no objections. In addition, the range and type of dwellings and materials to be used were highlighted; and, specific mention was made to single storey dwellings being planned within and around the scheme to mitigate against overlooking/overbearing concerns in  ...  view the full minutes text for item 51.

To note that the next scheduled meeting of this Committee is due to be held on Wednesday 21 September 2016, at County Hall, Trowbridge, starting at 10.30am.

The Chairman reminded the meeting that the next scheduled meeting of this Committee was due to be held on Wednesday 21 September 2016, at County Hall, Trowbridge, starting at 10.30am.

Any other items of business, which in the opinion of the Chairman, should be taken as a matter of urgency.

There were no urgent items.