|
The Chair welcomed everyone to the meeting and general
introductions were made.
Iain Jackson, Governance and Law advised the hearing there
was a procedural issue which had been highlighted as a result of
correspondence received by the Council regarding a piece of ground included
in the application but which was not under the applicant’s ownership. A copy
of the correspondence was passed out to the parties to the hearing. Archie
Richmond, Agent for the applicant produced a copy of a notice and it was
accepted by the Planning Officer that the correct procedure of serving a
notice on the owner of the land in dispute had been followed by the
applicant.
Iain Jackson, Governance and Law, then outlined the
hearing procedure and the Chair invited anyone who wished to speak at the
meeting to come forward and make themselves known.
Planning Officer
Howard Young, Planning and Regulatory Services, gave a
brief outline of the application, describing it as being in the style of a traditional
farm steading in a courtyard formation with separate ‘farmhouse’ dwelling at
the centre. He indicated the access
from the main road which showed the disputed area of ground. Members were shown various views and
elevations of the proposed development site.
Mr Young advised that at pre-application stage the location, nature,
and design of the proposed development had been satisfactory and that it had
been assessed against a range of policies. The key issues raised had been
that of noise and policy LPBAD2 and Mr Young concluded by saying that whilst
he considered the development to be a good scheme, he had real concerns
regarding the noise from the adjoining property and in this respect, he
recommended refusal of the application.
Agent for Applicant
Archie Richmond, Richmond Architects, informed Members
that there was sufficient ground on the right of the road, which was in the
ownership of the McGregors that could be used as a lay by and that the
application could be altered to show this.
He advised that the ROA designation in the Local Plan had
been supported by the objectors during the Local Plan consultation process.
Mr Richmond gave a brief history of the application, explaining
that following the initial application, there had been extensive
pre-application consultation with senior planning officer to agree location,
design, style, scale and materials etc.
This had been carried out from November 2008 and continued until the
application was submitted in March 2010.
The issue of noise had not been raised at any stage and was only
highlighted 8 weeks after the application had been validated.
The location and siting of the houses was not proposed by
the applicant or the agent. Mr
Richmond informed members that the current location was recommended by
planning officers from the first enquiry in 2008 and throughout the
consultation process. He added that
Planning Officers had originally wanted to locate the development on the site
of the existing outbuildings which would have been even closer to the
adjoining smallholding.
The applicant and agent’s preferred location would have
been at the entrance from the main road at the bottom of the hill and this
would have negated the need to upgrade the access road. Another suggested site had been above the
log cabin, some 100m south of the current site, where planning permission for
a house had previously existed but was now lapsed.
Mr Richmond said that at a previous enquiry for another
client at the site entrance at the base of the hill in August, the following
response had been received from Planning.
“This particular ROA
is characterised by a limited amount of development which sits high above the
road level. I am of the view that any
development below this higher level would be out of keeping with the
settlement pattern and would fail to accord with policy”
He reiterated his previous statement that from initial
enquiry stage in 2008 up to the current application, that planning had
insisted on this location for the houses.
Mr Richmond informed members that the one single issue in
relation to this application is a perception that there may possibly be
public nuisance complaints from the occupiers of the new properties and that
the application would be approved if it were not for this issue. He
questioned why during the 15month pre-application consultation process, there
had been no issues raised regarding noise and was only highlighted some 8
weeks into the formal application process.
In June 2010, Planning had requested a 24hour Noise Impact
Assessment (NIA) to be carried out to monitor possible animal and vehicle
noise from the adjoining smallholding.
This would not be carried out in wet weather and so was subsequently
not carried out until late July and issued to planning on 13 August
2010. A Consultation assessment of the
NIA by Environmental Health was received on 19th August 2010
recommending refusal on the ground of Bad Neighbour in Reverse.
Mr Richmond advised that despite continual correspondence
and communication with Planning regarding these results, proposed meetings
with EH and the Acoustic Consultant were continually refused until the Head
of Planning agreed to hold a meeting on 18 October 2010. The Agents found it surprising that EH had
discussions with the main objector and visited the site but refused to meet
with them despite numerous requests to do so.
Mr Richmond said that the issue of noise came down to a
difference of opinion and interpretation of the NIA report by the EH
Department/Officer. Once again, Mr
Richmond drew Members’ attention to the use of the word ‘subjective’ in the
report stating that in his view, these opinions should be ‘objective’ and
that there was nothing in the NIA report to support the statement on pg 13
regarding noise levels. Mr Richmond
also questioned the statement in the report which suggested that triple
glazing and increased insulation would be required and that the windows
should remain shut whilst noise levels were at their highest. He said that this was not ... view the full minutes text for item 3.
|
PDF 82 KB