Agenda item

This application is referred to Planning Committee as it represents a departure from the adopted Tendring District Local Plan, proposing housing outside of any settlement development boundary in both the saved and emerging Local Plans.

This is a hybrid application which seeks outline planning permission (access included with appearance, landscaping, layout and scale reserved for later consideration) for up to 10,000 square metres of employment floor space within use classes B1 (business), B2 (general industrial) and B8 (storage and distribution); and 14 houses. Full planning permission is sought for 71 houses.

This application was referred to Planning Committee as it represented a departure from the adopted Tendring District Local Plan, proposing housing outside of any settlement development boundary in both the saved and emerging Local Plans.

This was a hybrid application which sought outline planning permission (access included with appearance, landscaping, layout and scale reserved for later consideration) for up to 10,000 square metres of employment floor space within use classes B1 (business), B2 (general industrial) and B8 (storage and distribution); and 14 houses. Full planning permission was sought for 71 houses.

The application was originally submitted for a total of 72 dwellings and was increased to a total of 85 dwellings in late July, the proposed employment floor space remains unchanged. This change was subject to reconsultation with necessary consultees and neighbours which has now expired. The number of dwellings was increased in order to provide the £430,000 to fund a 3G artificial grass pitch on Charity Field. The Supplementary Planning Document supporting saved Policy COM6 confirmed the open space contribution in this case amounted to £205,024.00.  In addition to this, the applicant was offering an additional contribution of £224,976.00 which combined with the above open space contribution would provide the full cost of providing the 3G artificial grass pitch. This was a departure from saved Policy COM6 and was offered by the applicant in acknowledgement of the scale of the proposed development and its impact upon the Parish of Elmstead Market.

The proposal sought to use the 71 dwellings seeking full planning permission to “enable” the expansion of the existing Lanswood Business Park due to infrastructure servicing the site reaching capacity as acknowledged in the supporting text to Draft Policy SAE3 (Lanswood Park). The viability of the proposal had been independently assessed and confirmed that the proposal could not provide the £955,835.20 requested by Essex County Council Education or the 26 affordable dwellings. In terms of S106 contributions the applicant offered £430,000 to fund a 3G artificial grass pitch on Charity Field (£205,024 open space contribution and additional contribution of £224,976.00); the required RAMS contribution of £10,674.30 (£125.58 per dwelling); and £50,000 towards the upgrade of the traffic signals and introduction of MOVA (movement sensor traffic light signals) for the A133 Clacton Road junction with Bromley Road.

The report confirmed that this was a sustainable location for development and the significant economic benefits of the proposal in providing up to 10,000 square metres of employment floor space, estimated to provide around 600 jobs, were considered to outweigh the modest landscape harm in this context of mixed residential and commercial development.  The proposal did not provide the required contributions towards affordable housing or education on the grounds of viability and this was clearly a negative factor in terms of social sustainability and needed to be balanced against the significant economic benefits of the proposal. Officers were of the opinion that the economic benefits of the proposal, and the viability evidence provided, had overridden the absence of contributions towards education and affordable housing.

The proposal, subject to the recommended conditions, was also considered acceptable in terms of highway safety; residential amenity; ecology; heritage assets; archaeology; drainage; and detailed design, scale and layout.

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.

An update sheet had been circulated to the Committee prior to the meeting with details of:

(1) Hybrid planning application comprising Outline Application for up to 10,000sqm of new mixed use (B1, B2, B8) commercial space and 14 houses, and Full Permission for 71 houses. Existing access amended and new residential access to Clacton Road.

1 Lanswood Park Broomfield Road Elmstead

Application deferred to allow for statutory consultation with The Garden Trust given the listing by Historic England on 18 August 2020 of the adjacent Beth Chatto Gardens as a Grade II Listed ‘Park and Garden’ and as such the need to consider the setting of the gardens as part of the determination of this application.  The reason for the listing is given as the gardens “…being a particularly important and early example of an environmentally sustainable garden design, using plants adapted to, and in harmony with local conditions as the home of Beth Chatto OBE (1923-2018), the leading plantswoman of her age.”

Following discussion by the Committee, it was RESOLVED that, the item be deferred for the following reasons:

(1)  Application deferred to allow for statutory consultation with The Garden Trust given the listing by Historic England on 18 August 2020 of the adjacent Beth Chatto Gardens as a Grade II Listed ‘Park and Garden’ and as such the need to consider the setting of the gardens as part of the determination of this application.