An Unwelcome Decision

On the 2nd April the Council's Development Control (North) Committee meeting again decided to approve the residential, commercial and stadium development at the Memorial Ground.

We believe the reason for the re-submission of the development application was due to changes to the design of the building being deemed significant enough to warrant a new planning application.

Residents attended the meeting and a number of statements read to the committee opposing the development plans. Many of the arguments against the proposals were on noise, loss of daylight, overlooking, sustainability, privacy and environmental, issues but the arguments were in the main, ignored by the committee.

It fact, there were a number of non-planning issues raised by Council Officers which influenced much of the discussion by the Councillors present, and after reviewing the minutes and video of the meeting, the HorfieldROSE committee has decided to make a formal complaint to the Council over these issues.

The main points of the complaint are as follows :

• Committee Members were advised before their consideration of the redevelopment proposal that, if the decision was refused, the Council could face substantial Legal Costs. This statement focused member’s attention on possible legal action against the Council rather than on the merits of the planning application.
• The Local government Ombudsman’s continuing investigation into the previous planning application (06/03850/F) was also raised a number of times during the course of the meeting. This matter is not a planning issue and should not have been raised by the legal officer or any committee member, as a view on the possible outcome of the Ombudsman’s investigations could, and possibly did, influence the decision making process.
• The Council failed to publish a number of updated design detail drawings on the public website, and this denied the community access to, and the opportunity to comment on, new revisions to the development design.
• Outstanding issues surrounding the submitted air quality report had not been addressed, the Council still awaiting a full response from the developer's air quality consultant. The proposed Conditions could not therefore be tested against a credible air quality report.
• No Environmental Impact Assessment had been carried out. The presented traffic and air quality assessments were considered sufficient information by the Council to substitute for an Environmental Impact Assessment for the previous planning application, but both these assessments now appear to be flawed and therefore fail to address environmental impacts of the development as qualified by national and EU policy.
• Noise conditions proposed for the previous application (06/03850/F) and carried over for this application, are not fit for purpose. A noise assessment had been completed for the stadium itself but not for noise associated with on site traffic and from the enabling developments. These additional assessments should have been carried out and considered in the course of processing the application, to provide greater certainty on the noise issues. There is the possibility the existing conditions may not be capable of being complied with and therefore compromise the permission.
• No information on the sustainability of the current proposal was provided to the committee. Sustainability of a development of the scale proposed is a major planning matter, but the changes to the build process (except in the reduction in the number of loads of spoil to be removed from the site) and the re-arrangement of the enclosed space was not considered in terms of long term sustainability of the development.

Many issues associated with the new development such as increased height of parts of the development, loss of daylight to properties on Alton Road, reduced sustainability due to increased use of precast concrete and re-arrangement of internal accommodation, overlooking, etc. have been raised through correspondence prior to the committee meeting, but were not addressed in ay detailed way.

According to the Council's code of conduct on Development Control matters, "When dealing with planning matters only material planning considerations should be taken into account. Section 54(A) of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 requires all planning applications to be determined by reference to the Development Plan, if material to the application, and any other material consideration."

The events of the committee meeting has raised deep misgivings amongst those residents who attended the meeting, perhaps even more than after the planning meeting of January 2007. The HorfieldROSE committee has therefore decided to seek advice on the soundness of the planning decision from elsewhere.
We will report on this matter when we have more information.

HorfieldROSE committee.