Agenda item

Proposed residential development of four dwellings (as amended 21.12.2020)

Land South Of Centurion Way , Centurion Way, Heddon-On-The-Wall, NE15 0BY

Proposed residential development of four dwellings (as amended 21.12.2020) 

Land South Of Centurion Way , Centurion Way, Heddon-On-The-Wall, NE15 0BY

There were no questions related to the site visit videos previously circulated.

R Laughton, Senior Planning Officer introduced the application to the Committee with the aid of a power point presentation. An update was provided as follows:-

·       The Highways Team had requested that condition 6 be removed and replaced with a condition for the applicant to provide further details on parking to ensure that cars could manoeuvre safely within the site as follows:-

“The development shall not commence until details of the car parking area has been submitted to and approved in writing by the Local Planning Authority and implemented in accordance with the approved details. Thereafter the car parking area shall be retained in accordance with the approved details.”

A statement in objection to the application from Mrs L Twizell was read out to the Committee by L Little, Senior Democratic Services Officer.  A copy would be filed with the signed minutes and be uploaded to the Council’s website.

A statement in support of the application on behalf of the applicant was read out to the Committee by R Soulsby, Planning Officer. A copy would be filed with the signed minutes and be uploaded to the Council’s website.

In response to questions from Members the following information was provided:-

·       The site was within the settlement boundary and it was identified in the new Local Plan as a settlement village and it was assumed this site would be anticipated to come forward for housing during the plan period. The new Local Plan was not yet fully adopted and therefore to attach full development plan status it was safer to rely on the existing Local Plan.

·       There had been previous applications for the site from a number of years ago and some information was not available. There had also been proposals for 2 dwellings further down the site, but these applications had been assessed on different planning policies which were in place at that time.

·       The principle of residential development on this site was that subject to an appropriate design this was acceptable.  The merits of this scheme should not be measured against other schemes. This scheme was a reaction to modern design and policies in the NPPF, in response to the current market and was of a high end design quality.

·       In certain locations design cues would be taken from existing buildings, however as there was no over-riding design in the area that was not appropriate in this instance.  These design of these houses was in response to height restrictions on the site in terms of scale and massing.  Members must ask themselves if the response was so insufficient that the harm caused by the proposals outweighed the benefit of delivering housing on a site identified for housing in the Local Plan.  The Director of Planning suggested that the application was in response to design cues to the built form and topography of the area. The right to a view through a site was not a material planning consideration, however visual impact was, i.e. that if the buildings were so inappropriate by virtue of their design that they caused an unacceptable visual impact then a refusal could be based on that.  However in this instance he advised that this application was not out of scale for the site and a refusal for this reason would be difficult to defend at appeal.

·       The height of the dwellings from street level was quite low and a condition attached to any permission granted required that all site levels were to be submitted to the Local Planning Authority.  The height of the proposed dwellings was no higher than those previously consented.

Councillor Jackson advised that he considered there was an issue of whether the development was compatible with the distinctive vernacular character of the locality in Policy H15 was crucial and as stated in the NPPF that it had to be sympathetic to the local character and history of the built up and landscaped setting, and overdevelopment of the site.  It was a small site and suitable for 2 to 3 small bungalows, but not for 4 x 5 bedroomed houses.  He thought that the buildings would have a greater impact than being stated and also questioned if sufficient car parking could be provided.  He proposed that the application be deferred to allow a site visit to be undertaken due to the impact that was not shown on the photographs, car parking issues and to judge if 4 x 5 bedroomed houses was an overdevelopment of the site.  This was seconded by Councillor Wearmouth, who advised that whilst he was tending to think that the proposals were acceptable, it would be useful to have a site visit.

Following a short discussion on the merits of having a site visit to determine if Members considered the proposed development would be overdevelopment on the site a vote was taken on the proposal to defer the application in order to carry out  a site visit as follows:  FOR 4; AGAINST 2; ABSTENTIONS 1.

RESOLVED that the application be DEFERRED for a site visit to be undertaken.