Agenda item

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 decision notice.

Councillor Light requested a recorded vote.

The following Members voted for the motion:

Councillors Artus, Asker, Dean, Fairhurst, Foley, Freeman, Gerard, Hargreaves, LeCount, Lees, Lemon, Light, Lodge and Morris.

The following Members voted against the motion:

Councillors G Barker, S Barker, Chambers, Davey, Davies, Farthing, Gordon, Harris, Hicks, Howell, Jones, Mills, Oliver, Ranger, Redfern, Rolfe, Ryles and Wells.

The motion was defeated by 14 votes to 18.

Councillor Lodge presented a requisition for an Extraordinary Council meeting to the Chairman.

The Chairman received the request and closed the meeting.

The meeting ended 21.30.