Agenda and minutes

There were no apologies for absence.

There were no declarations of interest.

The Chair, Councillor Blair welcomed everyone to the meeting. He advised that Councillor Fiona Howard was in attendance in place of Councillor Mark Irvine who could no longer attend. He confirmed that that she would now sit on the Panel for this Review.

The Chair explained that no person present would be entitled to speak other than the Members of the Local Review Body (LRB) and Mr Jackson, who would provide procedural advice if required.

He advised that his first task would be to establish if the Members of the LRB felt that they had sufficient information before them to come to a decision on the Review. Councillors Kain and Howard confirmed that they felt they had enough information before them to come to a decision.

Councillor Blair agreed and confirmed he too felt he had enough information to come to a decision. He advised that he was minded to approve the application and would like the opportunity to seek a competent motion to do so.

Councillor Blair said that it was clear that the recommendation contained in the report was for refusal but after looking at the site and the comprehensive report that had been provided with by the applicants agent, he advised he was minded to approve the application.  He advised however, that he would have concerns over the building being used as a permanent residence, and would require like a condition which dealt with this. 

Mr Jackson advised that Members would require to detail their reasons for departing from Planning Policy, and thereafter Officers could assist in framing their Motion should they determine that it is appropriate to depart from Policy and approve the application. He advised that if Members were minded to approve the application, they would require to request conditions and reasons from Planning to accompany any approval and they may wish to consider, based on the comment from Councillor Blair, requesting the inclusion of a condition restricting the use of the premises as a holiday home for family use and not as a permanent residence.

Mr Jackson highlighted that Planning had advised in their submission that some of the plans provided by the applicant in their submission to the LRB were not to scale, and suggested that Members consider requesting the applicant to submit further scaled plans in respect of the development, which would allow Planning to review these and provide comment in any further submission to the LRB for consideration by Members.

Mr Jackson advised that in terms of requesting further information that the applicants’ agent had advised that he would be unavailable for a period of 4 weeks due to medical reasons and sought agreement from Members to start the process of obtaining further information from the beginning of March to take account of this.

Decision

The Argyll and Bute Local Review Body agreed -

1.    that they were minded to approve the application and requested the opportunity to seek a competent Motion to approve the application;

2.    to request further written submissions as follows –

a)    from the applicant; scaled plans in respect of their revised submission for the development to the LRB;

b)    from planning; comment on their consideration of the revised plans and conditions and reasons to accompany any approval with the inclusion of a condition restricting the use of the building to that of a holiday home for family use; and

3.    that the process for requesting these further written submissions would start from the beginning of March allowing for a four week extension as requested by the applicants’ agent;

4.    to request that the next meeting of the LRB be convened as soon as possible after the 28 day process for obtaining further written submissions had been completed, noting that this would be the beginning of April.