Agenda and minutes

The Committee is asked to note any apologies for absence and substitutions received from Members.

Apologies were received from Councillor Sudra (with Councillor Smith substituting).

To confirm and sign as a correct record, the minutes of the meeting of the Committee, held on Tuesday 19 December 2023.

It was moved but Councillor Alexander, seconded by Councillor Placey and:-

RESOLVED that the minutes of the last meeting of the Committee, held on Tuesday 19 December, were approved as a correct record and signed by the Chairman.

Councillors are invited to declare any Disclosable Pecuniary Interests, Other Registerable Interests of Non-Registerable Interests, and the nature of it, in relation to any item on the agenda.

Councillor Fowler (Chairman) declared for the public record for Planning Application A.2 – 23/01375/FUL – Parkeston Railway Club, Hamilton Street, Parkeston, Harwich, CO12 4PQ that she did not take part in the site visit that morning and that she had a personal interest in this item of the Agenda. She also said that the applicant, two of the trustees of NEST, the landowner, and several of the people objecting to the application are known to her as they are either friends, colleagues or acquaintances. She would therefore withdraw from the Committee for that item and that Councillor White (Vice-Chairman) would take over as Chairman for this item.  

Subject to providing two working days’ notice, a Member of the Committee may ask the Chairman of the Committee a question on any matter in relation to which the Council has powers or duties which affect the Tendring District and which falls within the terms of reference of the Committee.

There were no such Questions on Notice submitted by Councillors on this occasion.

Proposed conversion of a coach house into a 2 bedroom residential dwelling.

Committee members were told that these applications were before Members as the proposal represented a departure from the Local Plan, proposing new residential development outside of the Tendring Settlement Development Boundary (SDB), as defined within the adopted Tendring District Local Plan 2013 to 2033 and Beyond.

Members were also told that these applications related to a single storey timber coach house within the setting of the Grade 2 listed Tendring Hall and likely having formed part of the former Tendring Hall Estate. The site was located on the northern side, at the eastern end of Long Lane, with the dwelling of Suffolk Barn immediately to the west and the dwelling of Hall Farm immediately to the north.

Committee members heard that the site lay outside of the defined SDB of Tendring. The applications were therefore contrary to the spatial strategy set out within the adopted Local Plan Section 1 Policy SP7 and Section 2 Policy SPL2. However, Local Plan Policy SPL2 did not preclude residential development outside of the defined boundary, but rather required careful consideration of the scale of the development in relation to the settlement hierarchy category, site-specific characteristics, and sustainability of the site.

Members were informed that under the site-specific merits of the case great weight was attributed to the conservation of the designated heritage assets. The coach house lay within the Tendring Conservation Area and within the setting of the listed building. In addition, villages were still under pressure to grow and some small-scale development which was sympathetic to the rural and often historic character of the settlement might help younger people to continue to live in the area, keep services viable and help bring balance to an ageing population.

Members also heard that the proposed two-bedroom dwelling would convert the existing coach house, ensuring its external appearance in terms of its form and use of materials remained the same. Officers were satisfied that existing services and facilities within or near Tendring would be capable of supporting the proposed development of one dwelling.

Officers told Members that, although the application site was outside of the defined settlement development boundary, the development would not result in any material harm in terms of scale, layout and design, heritage impact, residential amenities or highway safety, and was acceptable in all other regards.

The Committee had before it the published Officer report containing the key planning issues, relevant planning policies, planning history, any response from consultees, written representations received and a recommendation of approval.

At the meeting, an oral presentation was made by the Council’s Planning Officer (AP) in respect of the application.

An update sheet had been circulated to the Committee prior to the meeting with details of: “the Officer recommendation of approval remains unchanged, now with a completed unilateral undertaking for a financial contribution towards RAMS.”

There were no public speakers on this occasion. 

Proposed permanent siting of 4 no. storage containers to rear of property to be used as storage.

 Earlier on in the meeting as reported under Minute 72 above, Councillor Fowler (Chairman) had declared a personal interest. She therefore withdrew from the meeting and took no part whilst the Committee deliberated and made its decision on this application. The Chair was thereupon occupied by the Vice-Chairman (Councillor White).

The Head of Planning and Building Control announced:

“In respect of the proposal before you, just before this meeting we had an update about the ownership of the site. Obviously, we have to ensure that the application form is correct, and it usually has a certificate of ownership so that we ensure that relevant owners are notified of the application. Most often we see certificate A as the owner and the applicant are generally the same. Sometimes we have certificate B, which is that they’re looking at lands, if I wanted to put an application in to do something with this building (Town Hall), even though it has nothing to do with me, I’d be serving a certificate B on the Council. There are others that are C and D where you don’t know the owners. In this case, it has been drawn to our attention that there may be owners unknown and owners that maybe haven’t been served with a notice and therefore we need to provide time for that to happen. So, the current applicant is, as I understand, looking at serving a certificate C in order to reconcile that point. So, whatever recommendation we move forward today with either seeking to approve or refuse the application – we have to allow a time for that ownership notification to take place, generally around 21 days, before we can release that decision correctly. It is not an issue you need to concern yourself with as we have picked it up but it does mean that any decision you make today may not be released for a period of at least 3 weeks while the ownership issue is resolved.”

Members were told that this application sought permission to change the use of part of the Parkeston Railway Club car park to site four containers for use by the charity NEST for storage purposes.

The Committee was made aware that volunteers would access the containers to facilitate deliveries and maintain stock during the day. Local residents/families in need would also be invited to the site by prior arrangement to collect specific items to assist their day-to-day living.

Officers informed Members that the proposal was not considered to be harmful to the character and appearance of the area, it would not result in any significant impact to neighbouring amenities, and it was acceptable in terms of highway impacts and flood risk.

The Committee had before it the published Officer report containing the key planning issues, relevant planning policies, planning history, any response from consultees, written representations received and a recommendation of approval.

At the meeting, an oral presentation was made by the Council’s Planning Officer (AP) in respect of the application.  ...  view the full minutes text for item 75.