Agenda item

Report of the Assistant Director (Planning).

The Committee received a report of the Assistant Director of Planning on the car park, High View. Permission is now sought to remove condition 27 (car club) and vary the approved plans condition on planning permission 6/2022/0059/VAR. The application, submitted under Section 73 of the Town and Country Planning Act (S73), sought to substitute a range of approved plans with new plans which include a number of revisions. The changes to the plans can be summarised as follows: 

·        Addition of four new car parking spaces

·        Changes to EV charging point locations

·        Changes to kerbs and splays on High View

·        Changes to Church Square – increased space for a hearse and the addition of retractable bollards

·        Changes to the cycle storage outside the block CH houses – these now have cycle stores in front of the units

·        Changes to the rear garden layout for the block CH houses

This application is presented to the Development Management Committee because the Council had an interest in the land.

Councillor Rowse addressed the Committee as Ward Councillor:

“I have not objected to this planning application as I'm not disputing the requested changes. However, I would like to raise two issues with DMC, which I hope will improve matters, and I did note the officers comment on what my first issue is, which is the provision of the disabled parking spaces. In the main bit by the shops, there are two disabled spaces provided in the shared resident retail parking area. One of these is right next to the Fairfax Plumbing and its location makes it unsuitable for use as such a space as access is regularly blocked by traders. I can honestly say I live locally, I've never seen a disabled person park there.

The second used to be close to the Tesco Metro, and I think this has got missed. It was quite handy when it was next to the Tesco Metro, but they moved it when they put in the allocations of reserved parking for the local traders up there. The new location makes it inconvenient to users of the main businesses there, which are the Tesco Metro and the dental surgery.

I hope that DMC will request that as part of its approval, that the disabled spaces be placed in more suitable locations. I don't know whether that's in our remit, but I believe we should be. The obvious options would be one adjacent to the butcher's and the other equidistant to the Tesco Metro store and the dentists. I mean there is ample spaces there, it's just where we allocate the disabled spaces.

The other bit I wanted to pick up was the implementation of the parking enforcement, I saw just before Christmas I think it was that Cabinet approved that we're going to move forward with parking enforcement. The lack of enforcement of the proposed parking regulations has resulted in representations to me from both local traders and indeed residents, and I had a big meeting with residents yesterday. I understand that the resident parking scheme will be deployed soon. My plea at this meeting, is that every effort is made to do this urgently..”

Members discussed the application and key point is summarised below:

·        Officers confirmed that disabled parking was not a matter for the Planning Committee to consider in this application as it was not proposed to change from that which had been agreed in a previous application.

RESOLVED

(unanimous)

That the planning application be approved.