Agenda item

Report No: DEV/FH/15/018

Change of use of land to residential use for three gypsy families including 3 no. mobile homes and 6 no. amenity buildings

Change of use of land to residential use for three gypsy families including 3 no. mobile home and 6 no. amenity buildings.

This application was referred to the Development Control Committee by the Head of Planning and Growth due to the controversial and contentious nature of this proposal.

A Member site visit had been held prior to the meeting.  Officers were recommending that the application be approved as set out in Paragraph 93 of Report No DEV/FH/15/018.

The Planning Officer advised that since publication of the agenda West Suffolk Strategic Housing and Suffolk County Council Rights of Way had confirmed that they had no further comments to make beyond those which were summarised within the report.

Officers had also been made aware of the letter of objection that had been sent to all Members from an agent on behalf of a public objector.  A further five letters of objection had also been received by the Council which all covered issues previously raised by objectors; including lack of local primary school places, land contamination concerns and the impact on the highway/traffic.

The following clarifications were also pointed out to the Committee:

·         A minor amendment to the layout of the site’s access (as detailed on the plans shown as part of the presentation);

·         The measurement concerning the gates on the site as set out in Condition 9 in Paragraph 93 should be amended to read 5 metres (as opposed to 10m); and

·         Contrary to that which was written in Paragraph 88 of the report, the application before Members was NOT an alternative permission to the 2011 consent (F/2010/0012/FUL) and was an additional use.

Lastly, the Officer advised that an additional condition was to be added to the list set out in Paragraph 93 with regard to the levelling required to the site prior to development.

Councillor Bill Sadler asked if it would be possible to include another additional condition to prevent the amenity buildings being used for residential occupation and the Officer agreed to include this.  Following which Councillor Sadler proposed that the application be approved as per the Officer recommendation and including the two additional conditions, this was seconded by Councillor Louise Marston and with 4 voting for the motion and 10 against the Chairman declared the motion lost.

Upon the debate opening up again a number of Members raised concerns primarily relating to the lack of local primary school places and land contamination on the site.  Officers explained that the District Council was working closely with Suffolk County Council and a new primary school was timetabled to open in Red Lodge in September 2017.  The Planning Officer explained that both the Environment Agency and the West Suffolk Environmental Health Team considered the contamination report to be satisfactory and had stated that it could be managed with conditions (as included in Paragraph 93).

Councillor David Bowman proposed that the application be deferred in order to allow additional information on the contamination risk to be provided prior to a decision being made on the application, and this was seconded by Councillor David Bimson.

The Service Manager (Planning - Development) explained that Members could defer the application for this reason and she would request that representatives from the Environment Agency and the West Suffolk Environmental Health Team attended the next meeting in order to answer Members’ questions.  However, she asked the Committee to be mindful that these expert consultees had already stated that they did not consider the application to pose a significant risk in terms of contamination and the Council was, therefore, at risk of an appeal for non-determination.

The Chairman then put the motion for deferral to the vote and with 13 voting for the motion and 1 abstention, it was resolved that:

The planning application be DEFERRED for consideration at the next meeting of the Development Control Committee on 1 July 2015 in order to allow additional information on the contamination risk to be provided prior to a decision being made.