Minutes:
Prior to the consideration of Agenda Items 7, 8, 9 and 10 the Case Officer for the four Lakenheath planning applications tabled a set of supplementary documents which related to the four reports (Report Nos DEV/FH/18/018, 019, 020 and 021).
The Chairman then allowed a 10 minute adjournment in order to permit the Committee time in which to peruse the tabled documentation.
On reconvening the meeting the Chairman invited the Case Officer for the applications to provide the meeting with a collective introduction to the four reports in question.
The Committee was advised that all four applications were referred to the Development Control Committee because they were proposals for ‘major’ development, raised complex planning issues and the recommendations to grant planning permission were contrary to the provisions of the extant Development Plan.
The Principal Planning Officer reminded Members that the applications had all been considered previously by the Development Control Committee culminating in resolutions to grant planning permission at meetings in June and July 2017.
The applications were returned to Committee in the light of material changes in circumstance which had occurred since the decisions to grant planning permission were made.
In particular, a ruling made in early 2018 by the Court of Justice of the European Union which changed the way in which decision makers were to interpret and apply the specific provisions of the ‘Habitat Regulations’.
The Court ruling also had knock-on implications for the way in which national planning policies were applied to the applications and, ultimately, the way in which the Development Control Committee needed to approach and balance the material issues raised by each of the proposals.
Furthermore, the Government in July 2018 updated national planning policies and published a revised National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF). The policies set out in the NPPF were material to the consideration of the planning applications and were discussed in each of the four reports.
The Principal Planning Officer explained that each of the four reports in question were comprehensive and stand-alone, prepared in light of the decision of the European Court of Justice.
Members were not to give any regard to the previous reports presented to the Committee in respect of these applications and no weight was to be given to the previous resolutions to grant planning permission – the applications were to be considered afresh.
The Case Officer then spoke on each of the supplementary papers and summarised what Members had before them, he responded to points raised within some of the documentation where considered pertinent to the applications:
i. Letter from Clarke Saunders Acoustics (advisors to Lakenheath Parish Council) with appended noise survey time history data document and map identifying the location of the noise monitoring equipment during the survey period;
ii. Letter from WSP UK Limited in response to the correspondence at i. above, on behalf of the applicants proposing the development at Agenda item 10 (Report No DEV/FH/18/021);
iii. Further comments and appendix (RAF letter to Lakenheath Parish Council addressing military aircraft movement data at RAF Lakenheath) received from Clarke Saunders Acoustics (on behalf of Lakenheath Parish Council); and
iv. Letter from Richard Buxton Environmental & Public Law (on behalf of Lakenheath Parish Council) in response to each of the four Committee reports in question.