Agenda item

To consider response to an appeal against non-determination for application UTT/23/0878/DFO.

The Senior Planning Officer outlined the report. He said that Planning Committee on 22 November 2023 had deferred the determination and that the applicants had exercised their right to appeal against non-determination and the Council had therefore lost its jurisdiction in decision-making. He said that various emails had been received from the public after the deadline had passed for submission to the Addendum List. He said that the officer’s recommendation remained in support of the development.

The Senior Planning Officer explained that the planning committee would not be deciding on whether to approve, refuse or defer the application but rather on whether and how officers should act in the appeal process given that the decision would be up to the Planning Inspectorate.

He recommended that the Committee support the proposal subject to the section 106 Obligation and conditions included in the officer’s report dated 22 November 2023. If that proposal was supported the Committee would be confirming that the Council would not defend the appeal other than conveying support for the application. If the Committee would not support the proposal, then robust and defensible reasons for not supporting the application should be agreed to inform any defence of the appeal.

In response to questions from Members, officers:

• Clarified the issue of manorial rights.
• Explained that the S106 Agreement  had covered the matter of the provision of public open space (POS) and that it was understood that the current application proposed a POS to the front of the site (without including the attenuation ponds/SUDS features) which would play a mitigation role in reducing flood risk from the development within the site and elsewhere.
• Confirmed that the landscaping proposals presented the same space to be used for the attenuation ponds as wildflower meadows.
• Detailed the six car parking spaces for visitors.
• Said that matters such as refuse cart access had been covered by Essex CC Highways.
• Said that reference could be made to the emerging policy of the Uttlesford Design Code (without including it in any putative reason for refusal).
• Said that by previously deferring the application, this had given the applicant the opportunity to revisit issues, but this had not happened.

Members discussed:

• That the previous grounds for deferral were still applicable as grounds to have refused the application without a deferral and conveyed their frustration that the applicant had failed to take the opportunity offered to revisit issues.
• Concerns in respect of the 3-storey height of the block of flats, inappropriate layout and design; all flaws remained.
• Concerns that for the proposed triple tandem parking arrangements that would create an urban aesthetic for the development at the entrance to the village.
• Concerns that the development was out of context with the village.
• Concerns on the impact on neighbours and on overbearing impacts.
• Concerns that despite the amount of work into revisions requested from the case officer, the applicant failed to perform some last actions to make the details of the scheme acceptable.

Councillor Emanuel proposed that the Council’s response should be to not support the proposal, and that robust and defensible reasons for not supporting the application should be agreed to inform any defence of the appeal in accordance with the members’ discussion/debate.

This was seconded by Councillor Pavitt.

RESOLVED that the Council’s response should be to not support the proposal, and that robust and defensible reasons for not supporting the application should be agreed to inform any defence of the appeal.

The putative reason for refusal to be as follows:

The proposed development, by reason of its appearance, scale and layout, would be detrimental to the character and appearance of the area on a visually sensitive location at the entrance to the village. The layout would create a conflict between the public open space and the sustainable urban drainage systems associated with flood risk mitigation. Triple tandem parking arrangements and the size of the block of flats along with its proximity to existing residential properties, would harm the visual amenity of the area. The development will not function well and add to the overall quality of the area over its lifetime, will not be visually attractive as a result of good layout and will not be sympathetic to the local character, including the surrounding built environment and landscape setting. Therefore, the proposal would fail to comply with policies S7, GEN2(a)-(b) and GEN6 of the adopted Uttlesford Local Plan (2005), and paragraphs 135(a)-(c) of the National Planning Policy Framework (2023).