Agenda and minutes

To receive any apologies and declarations of interest.

Apologies were received from Councillors Felton, Freeman, Knight, Loughlin and Sell.

Councillors Dean and Foley declared personal interests as members of Stop Stansted Expansion.

Councillor Susan Barker declared a personal interest as a member of Essex County Council.

The Chairman welcomed Members and the pubic to the meeting. She said public speaking had been extended to allow those who had expressed interest an opportunity to address Council. Summaries of the public statements have been appended to these minutes.

The purpose of the Extraordinary Meeting will be to consider the following motion:

To instruct the Chief Executive and fellow officers not to issue a Planning Decision Notice for planning application UTT/18/0460/FUL until the related Section 106 Legal Agreement between UDC and Stansted Airport Limited and the Planning Conditions have been scrutinized, reviewed and approved by the Council’s Planning Committee after the local elections.

The Extraordinary Meeting has been called by the Chairman of the Council following a requisition signed by the following twelve members of the Council, specifying the item of business set out above:

Cllrs Alan Dean, Geoffrey Sell, Mark Lemon, Paul Fairhurst, Neil Hargreaves, Anthony Gerard, Barbara Light, Heather Asker, Petrina Lees, Garry LeCount, Martin Foley and Sharon Morris.

A briefing report from Officers will follow. 

The Chairman introduced the item relating to the planning application submitted by Stansted Airport Ltd and approved by the Planning Committee on 14 November 2018 subject to conditions and to completion of an agreement under section 106, Town and Country Planning Act, 1990. She invited Councillor Dean to propose the motion as set out in the agenda.

Councillor Dean proposed the following motion:

To instruct the Chief Executive and fellow officers not to issue a Planning Decision Notice for planning application UTT/18/0460/FUL until the related Section 106 Legal Agreement between UDC and Stansted Airport limited and the Planning Conditions have been scrutinised, reviewed and approved by the Council’s Planning Committee after the local elections.

Councillor Gerard seconded the motion.

Members discussed the motion. The following reasons were put forward by Members as to why the S106 legal agreement between UDC and Stansted Airport and the planning conditions should be considered by the Planning Committee before approval was granted:

·         The draft S106 agreement was a ‘significant departure’ from the resolution of the 14 November Planning Committee – the draft S106 agreement did not adequately address the items listed in the Heads of Terms document issued with the Officer’s report. 

·         Omissions in the draft S106 agreement included; no binding obligation to a railway discount scheme; no revised targets to increase the number of journeys to the airport by public transport; and no penalty clauses for the airport if they missed set targets (with the exception of noise). 

·         The S106 agreement should be made openly and not behind ‘closed doors’.

·         It was not unprecedented for the Planning Committee to review S106 agreements and used to be standard practice.

·         It was for Members, not Officers, to make the decision as they were accountable to the public.

·         The mitigation on offer in the draft S106 was inadequate.

·         This was an ‘extraordinary’ application and Councillors had to ensure the ‘best deal’ possible was negotiated by reviewing the agreement in view of the public at Committee.

·         The S106 agreement was not discussed at the meeting on 14 November.

·         Scrutiny of the S106 agreement needed to occur in the public domain to ensure the reputation of the Council did not suffer.

The following reasons were given as to why the S106 agreement should not be considered by the Planning Committee:

·         The correct process had been followed in respect of the application and to send the S106 agreement back to Committee was procedurally incorrect.

·         The planning process was being politicised.

·         It was standard practice to delegate S106 agreements to officers.

·         The motion brought before Council reflected the ‘unhappiness’ with the decision to approve the application in November, rather than a desire to renegotiate the S106 agreement.

·         If the application had been refused in November, the applicant would have been granted approval on appeal with no obligation to mitigate.

·         The Administration had not whipped Members and the application had been approved in good faith.

·         The Council was leaving itself vulnerable to a costly legal challenge if it delayed issuing the  ...  view the full minutes text for item 3.

Summaries of Public Statements

Mr Day

Mr Day said this meeting was an opportunity to make amends for the decision to approve the Stansted Airport application on 14 November. He urged Members to ignore the party whip and to listen to the public whom they represented. Public trust had been damaged and there was an urgent need to rebuild the relationship between the public and Council.

Mr Beer

Mr Beer said the decision to approve the Stansted Airport application had left residents feeling totally disenchanted with the democratic process in Uttlesford. He said the officer reports were biased and not adequately challenged by Members. The S106 terms had not been discussed at the meeting on14 November and therefore should be reviewed by the Planning Committee before the decision notice was issued. He said it would be shameful if Council did not refer the S106 agreement back to the Planning Committee.

Mr Woodcock

Mr Woodcock asked why the Council were not enforcing previous planning conditions on Stansted Airport, with particular regard paid to the 35 million people per annum (35 mppa) limit that had already been imposed. He said if conditions were enforced there would be 6000 fewer flights per year. He also asked why commercial operations were allowed to operate within the Airport’s boundaries without the intervention of the Council’s enforcement team. He said this was Council’s last chance to get this decision right.

Mr Reeve

Mr Reeve said it would not be a ‘unique’ event for this S106 agreement to be sent back to the Planning Committee for consideration, and cited the case of the Hatfield Broad Oak application at Great Chalks, as well as the previous Airport application in 2002, to demonstrate this action had a precedent. He asked Members to support the motion.

Mr Haynes

Mr Haynes said he was disappointed by the lack of ambition behind the draft S106 agreement, as the current draft would not mitigate against the environmental harm caused by an increase in passenger numbers at Stansted Airport. He said the Airport had previously avoided paying out compensation to local residents by intentionally stalling works on granted development but this was later overturned by a tribunal and the Airport were ordered to pay out.  He said the Airport was a very poor neighbour to residents.

Ms Jones

Ms Jones spoke on recent evidence that suggested noise pollution was as damaging to physical health as air pollution. She dismissed the claim that aircrafts were becoming ‘quieter’ and asked what noise mitigation measures were really being put in place. She said the aviation industry was the worst polluter and climate change had not been addressed in the draft S106 agreement. She asked Members to support the motion in front of them.

Ms Sutton 

Ms Sutton said Members had been elected to make decisions on behalf of the community and yet they seemed to be working with the Airport, rather than for local residents. She said the mitigation package was wholly inadequate and if the S106  ...  view the full minutes text for item 4.