Agenda and minutes

Apologies for absence were received from Councillors Diane Hind and Phil Wittam.

Any member who is substituting for another member should so indicate, together with the name of the relevant absent member.

The following substitution was declared:

Councillor Gerald Kelly substituting for Councillor Phil Wittam.

To confirm the minutes of the meeting held on 7 June 2023 (copy attached).

The minutes of the meeting held on 7 June 2023 were confirmed as a correct record and signed by the Chair.

Members are reminded of their responsibility to declare any pecuniary or local non pecuniary interest which they have in any item of business on the agenda, no later than when that item is reached and, when appropriate, to leave the meeting prior to discussion and voting on the item.

There were no declarations of interest made.

Report No: DEV/WS/23/016

Planning Application - conversion of existing outbuilding to form dwelling

Application for Listed Building Consent - conversion of existing outbuilding to form dwelling

Planning Application - conversion of existing outbuilding to form dwelling

Application for Listed Building Consent - conversion of existing outbuilding to form dwelling

These applications were referred to the Development Control Committee following consideration by the Delegation Panel on 8 June 2023 and in view of the Parish Council’s objections being in conflict with the Officer’s recommendations for approval of both the Planning Application and Listed Building Consent, subject to conditions, as set out in Paragraphs 97 and 98 of Report No DEV/WS/23/016.

A Member site visit was held prior to the meeting and as part of her presentation to the meeting the Planning Officer also showed videos of the site.

The Committee was advised of two corrections to the agenda papers:

1.   Paragraph 14 of the report indicated there was no planning history. This was in fact not correct. Application E/88/3985/P was refused for an Outline Planning application for a single dwelling on land to the rear of this application site and Malting Row. This was dismissed on 31 January 1990.

The reasons for the dismissal were: 

·         That a dwelling on this land at the rear would adversely affect the setting of the listed buildings.

·         That a dwelling on this land would not be well related to the existing pattern of development.

Officers were satisfied, given the age of the decision, the difference between the proposals, and the policies in place at that time and currently, and for the reasons expressed in the report, that the relevance of the previous application and appeal decision to the consideration of the current scheme seeking determination was negligible. 

2.   The proposed site layout plan indicated that the ‘existing garden space’ was to be retained and used with the new dwelling. Firstly, Officers were not satisfied that the current lawful use of the land was as garden land. Secondly, this annotation was incorrectly left on the revised drawing when the red line application site was reduced during negotiation on the application. A revised plan with the annotation removed had been received from the applicant and this was displayed to the meeting.

Speakers:    Councillor Robert Williams (Chair, Honington cum Sapiston Parish Council) spoke against the application

                   Councillor Andrew Smith (Ward Member: Bardwell) spoke on the application

                   Mark Cleveland (agent) spoke in support of the application

The Planning Officer responded to questions/comments in connection with the following topics:

Restoration Works – attention was drawn to condition No 3 of the Listed Building Consent recommendation and Members were reassured that no works in this respect would take place until a fully detailed specification had been received and approved by the Planning Authority;

Light Pollution – attention was again drawn to the conditions; No 13 of the Planning Application recommendation required a lighting design scheme for biodiversity to be submitted and approved by the Planning Authority;

Bin Storage/Collection – the Planning Officer confirmed that the land on which the adjacent cottages had historically stored their refuse bins was not owned by them and it appeared that no  ...  view the full minutes text for item 358.