Agenda and minutes

Apologies for absence were received from: -

Councillors A. D. Kriss with Councillor S. A. Webb substituting, G. N. Denaro with Councillor M. Thompson substituting, A. B. L. English with Councillor S. J. Baxter substituting; and

Councillors M. Glass and P. M. McDonald.

To invite Councillors to declare any Disclosable Pecuniary Interests or Other Disclosable Interests they may have in items on the agenda, and to confirm the nature of those interests.

There were no declarations of interest.

The minutes of the Planning Committee meeting held on 4^th July 2022 were received.

RESOLVED that, the minutes of the Planning Committee meeting held on 4^th July 2022, be approved as a correct record.

The Chairman announced that there were no updates.

Officers informed the Committee that the Application was for reserved matters approval (appearance, landscaping, layout and scale), for the construction of 72 dwellings and associated works and infrastructure, pursuant to the hybrid planning permissions 19/00976/HYB and 19/00977/HYB (Cross boundary application with Redditch Borough Council 22/00359/REM).

Officers presented the report and informed the Committee that the application site formed part of a larger site that was the subject of a cross boundary hybrid planning applications for the following proposal.

Hybrid applications 19/00976/HYB and 19/00977/HYB for up to 960 dwellings consisting of a full application for 128 dwellings accessed off Weights Lane, new public open space, drainage system, engineering operations associated works and an outline application (with all matters reserved with the exception of access) for the construction of the remaining dwellings with access points off Cookridge Close, Hawling Street and Weights Lane and including a new District Centre, new play facilities, new highway network, public open space, new drainage system and surface water attenuation, engineering operations and all associated works including landscaping.

Members’ attention was drawn to the following officer’s presentation slides: -

·         District Plan Map

·         Approved Framework Plan

·         Site Location Plan

·         Satellite View

·         Enlarged Proposed Site Layout

·         Tenure Plan

·         Dwellings Heights

·         Examples of Proposed Dwellings

·         Proposed Streetscene

Officers further drew Members’ attention to the ‘Other Planning History’ Phase 1 and Phase 2, as detailed on page 10 of the main agenda report.

The application site formed part of the Brockhill allocation, which was a greenfield site which extending to circa 56 hectares, phases 1, 2 and 3 as detailed on page 10m of the main agenda report.

Phase 4 covered 9.2 hectares and would be sited within the context of the above. Within Phase 4, the most relevant features were the existing woodland, trees and hedgerow cover, which were mainly set over a steep topography (1:3) and contained numerous trees protected by Tree Preservation Orders.

The principle of the proposed development (for up to 960 units) had been established through the granting of Hybrid permission 19/00976/HYB.

Therefore, the issues for consideration by Members were limited to matters of layout (including internal vehicle access), scale, appearance and landscaping.

Page 11 of the main agenda report detailed a table which sets out the house types, tenures, bedroom numbers and totals of each.

Officers highlighted that a total of 42 market homes were proposed to be provided across the site to provide 9%, two-bedroom dwellings: 41%, 3-bedroom dwellings, 37% 4 bed dwellings and 13% 5 bed dwellings. There was a focus on the provision of 2- and 3-bedroom properties (which would make up over 50% of the overall phase). The proposals included the provision of 30 affordable housing units, which equated to 42% of the total dwellings proposed.

As part of the proposal, mostly 2 storey dwellings were proposed. However, there were also some 2.5 dwellings incorporating dormers.

The layout responded directly to the challenging topography across the site and related to earlier development phases and was a direct continuation of Phase 3.  ...  view the full minutes text for item 12/22