Agenda item

PROPOSAL: Approval of Reserved Matters (Access, Appearance, Landscaping, Layout and Scale) comprising Phase 1b of Outline Permission Ref: 15/01149/OUT for the erection of 154no. dwellings and associated public open space, engineering operations, drainage infrastructure and landscaping.

OFFICER RECOMMENDATION: Delegated Approve

28.29        This application was for the approval of reserved matters (access, appearance, landscaping, layout and scale) comprising Phase 1b of outline permission 15/01149/OUT for the erection of 154 dwellings and associated public open space, engineering operations, drainage infrastructure and landscaping.

28.30        The Planning Officer advised that the proposal was the third reserved matters application for housing at the Twigworth strategic allocation. It related to phase 1b of the wider development. The principle of this development had already been established through the outline permission and therefore this application related solely to the approval of the access, layout, appearance, scale and landscaping. Whilst an indicative masterplan document was submitted with the original outline application, a condition required a Site Wide Masterplan Document to be submitted to the Council which had since been approved. The condition required all Reserved Matters applications to be in accordance with the approved document and a two-dimensional layout drawing was shown to the Committee which had been approved as part of the Site Wide Masterplan Document. The application now before Members had been primarily assessed in accordance with that document. The application also had regard to the outline consent, the Section 106 Agreement and the details approved under other conditions attached to the outline consent. Turning specifically to the layout, the Planning Officer considered that the road layout, block sizes and location of the Public Open Space were generally in accordance with the Masterplan. The Planning Officer also considered that the layout, scale and appearance accorded with the Character Areas described in the Masterplan and, to demonstrate this, sample street scenes were shown. The proposal was also acceptable in terms of residential amenity. With regard to landscaping, the strategy for the wider development was for a network of open spaces and green corridors. The proposed planting was consistent with what was approved on Phase 1a and was in accordance with the Site Wide Masterplan Document. The application also included a village green with a local equipped area for play. As indicated on the additional representations document that had been circulated, the submitted details were now considered to be acceptable and in accordance with the Section 106 Agreement. In regard to access, again, as indicated on the additional representations document, further details had been submitted in respect of the proposed shared surfaces and the Highways Officer had advised that the proposed design revisions now provided a visually contrasting surface to assist persons with a visual impairment as well as providing a comfort space from vehicles. The revisions also created a visual narrowing of the carriageway space which would assist in maintaining a slow speed environment and the proposal was now considered to be acceptable in this regard. In summary, the proposal was considered to accord with the outline consent and the Site Wide Masterplan Document approved under that consent. In the light of the revisions put forward, the Planning Officer stated that the scheme was now recommended for approval as opposed to the delegated approval set out in the report attached to the Agenda.

28.31        The Chair invited a representative of the applicant’s agent to address the Committee. The representative indicated that this reserved matters submission for 154 houses had been made by Vistry Cotswolds and related to Part B of the first residential phase of Land at Twigworth. It included the proposed village green and children’s play area as well as associated infrastructure. The site had outline planning permission, approved by the Secretary of State in December 2017, and was allocated within the Joint Core Strategy for housing. The principle of residential development on this site had therefore been established and the site formed an important element of the Council’s short-term and medium-term housing supply. Reserved matters approval for Part A of the first residential phase, comprising 79 homes, was approved by the Planning Committee in December 2019 and construction of Phase 1A had commenced on site. In accordance with the outline permission, a Site Wide Masterplan Document and a detailed Drainage Strategy were submitted by Robert Hitchins Land pursuant to conditions 5 and 21 of the outline permission. These documents were approved by Tewkesbury Borough Council in 2019 and set the design parameters for all reserved matters submissions. The applicant’s representative stated that the application now before the Committee provided full details of all reserved matters and had been submitted in accordance with the approved outline planning permission, associated planning conditions and obligations, the parameters plans, the approved Site Wide Masterplan Document and the approved detailed Drainage Strategy. A summary of the proposals and key layout documents were provided directly to Twigworth Parish Council and local Ward Members when the application was submitted. In addition, prior to submission of this reserved matters application, Vistry Cotswolds had engaged in extensive pre-application discussions with Tewkesbury Borough Council and Gloucestershire County Council. Prior to the proposals being submitted amendments to the layout were made in response to consultee comments specifically in relation to urban design and highways. Following submission, further amendments had been made to the street design to ensure that satisfactory design speeds could be accommodated within the development. The street design and layout had subsequently been agreed with the Highways Authority. All issues raised by consultees had therefore been fully addressed via the revised plans. In summary, the applicants representative stated: phase 1B would deliver 123 market and 31 affordable homes, the drainage design which included sustainable drainage systems (SuDS) was in accordance with the approved detailed Drainage Strategy submitted pursuant to condition 21 and the Lead Local Flood Authority had confirmed no objection, the proposed village green would deliver a children’s play area with a range of equipment that would be suitable for all users, the streets had been designed to appropriate design speeds and had been agreed with the Highways Authority, a comprehensive landscaping scheme was proposed and pedestrian linkages throughout the layout provided linkages to onsite facilities and public open space. In conclusion, the applicant’s representative stated that the reserved matters submission accorded with all the parameters, principles and details approved as part of the outline planning permission and she asked the Committee to endorse the Planning Officer’s recommendation to approve the application in order to enable much needed new affordable and market homes to be delivered on the site.

28.32        The Chair invited one of the local Ward Councillor’s for the area to address the Committee. The Ward Councillor stated that the key issue with this application was to make sure conditions were in place to address the concerns raised by the community. He maintained that there was a question in relation to the five year land supply as the site counted towards Gloucester City’s numbers and that Authority could demonstrate a five year land supply. He was of the opinion that this created an interesting technicality where the Council may be able to set a precedent at appeal, should it ever come to that, especially with the potential future abolishment of the duty to co-operate in the new Government White Paper. He went on to advise that the Parish Council had raised several concerns about the development and the fact that construction vehicles had been parked in surface water ponds on several occasions recently hardly instilled confidence locally. The main concern which needed to be addressed with the application before Members today, was parking which, even now, was presenting issues with parking taking place in the layby off the A38 as well as outside the church and the pub car park. With regard to parking, the Highways Officer had raised concerns that the level of parking for the four bedroom properties was not in line with the guidance contained in the recently adopted Manual for Gloucestershire Streets (MfGS). The MfGS advised that four bedroom homes should be afforded at least three parking spaces excluding garages. The revised plans submitted showed that not all dwellings were in line with the adopted Manual for Gloucestershire Streets and, given the potential risks of parking on the A38 and its impact on traffic flow combined with the cumulative traffic impacts from three simultaneous major development projects within several hundred yards of each other, he believed that a condition should be placed on the development to, as an absolute minimum, comply with the MfGS; this should not be difficult with a blank canvass site as this was and failure to do so, in his opinion, would also have a significant impact on the visual appearance of Twigworth. The local Ward Member also raised other concerns including the long-term upkeep and maintenance of the Surface Water Drainage Strategy in line with condition 21 of the outline permission section f) and safeguarding of trees and wildlife which he felt could be covered by meaningful conditions supported by proactive enforcement. In concluding, the Ward Member asked the Committee to impose an extra condition that, as an absolute minimum, the development be fully compliant with the Manual for Gloucestershire Streets with regard to parking spaces.

28.33        A Member of the Committee, who was also a local Ward Member for the area, asked questions in relation to the awareness of any Light Detection and Ranging (LIDAR) data pre-development, the  topography changes that would occur from raising land levels by 750mm which was 450mm above the industry standard, what the current flow rates were into the site especially after the major development below the Brockworth escarpment and the culverting that occurred on that site to speed up the water flow and the checks and balances that would be put in place to ensure building was in accord with the conditions, in particular the highway requirements and the restrictions on numbers of properties being built and in occupation until specific highway works had been completed. The Member indicated that he also supported the comments that had been made by the last speaker in relation to the parking requirements and, dependant on the answers, he received to his questions it was likely that he was going to ask for a deferral on the grounds that further work needed to be undertaken on the water flows on and off site bearing in mind the culverting that had already taken place downstream which flowed into this site. The Planning Officer indicated that he could not answer the question in relation to the LIDAR data but indicated that it was probably tied up with drainage of the site and, in that regard, it was a condition of the outline planning consent that a Drainage Strategy be submitted for the whole of the site; that Strategy was submitted and was approved. The conditions then attached to the outline application just required the reserved matters to be in accordance with the Strategy. He went onto explain what that meant in relation to the proposals now being considered; which was literally just the two parcels of housing and how they connected into the previously approved Drainage Scheme and a scheme that had also been previously approved involving a Sustainable Drainage System (SuDS) which then go down to a balancing pond. The representative from the Lead Local Flood Authority spoke about the flow rates and how other developments in the area fed into the scheme and were controlled elsewhere. He indicated that the Drainage Scheme had been thoroughly modelled and all the necessary information was contained in the environmental statements including flow rates. The Member expressed very strongly his concerns about the piecemeal approach to SuDs and his concerns about flooding to existing properties and how he was of the opinion that rise and fall lakes would be a better solution for the strategic A1 site. The representative from the Lead Local Flood Authority confirmed that the modelling had been undertaken on flood risk assessments in relation to both existing and new properties. The local Ward Member maintained that the data used to undertake the pre-planning of this development was out of date in the light of other large developments in the surrounding area and in particular Brockworth. The representative from the Lead Local Flood Authority explained how carefully each of the individual developments were assessed to ensure that any run off from them were matched to go to the same catchment area as previously so that it would not have any impact. He explained why, in his view, a series of attenuation basins were better than one big structure and were easier to manage and he was not in agreement with the local Ward Member that this was causing any increased problems. In terms of the highway matters raised, the Planning Officer indicated that the condition in relation to the roundabout had been discharged and works had commenced, but it was correct that there was a limitation on occupation until the works had been finalised; however, since no dwellings on site had actually been completed, and were some way off occupation, he did not feel that this was going to create any problems. Nevertheless, the condition on occupation of no more than 150 houses until the roundabout works had been completed was in place and could be enforced should it be necessary.

28.34        A discussion then ensued in relation to parking and the concerns raised that the parking provision was insufficient. A Member asked a question in relation to electric charging points and it was confirmed that these were included in the development. Another Member sought clarification as to whether parking was included in the application being considered and, if so, whether a condition could be added to comply with the MfGS. The Planning Officer advised that the Highways Authority had raised some concerns in relation to car parking mainly in relation to the 4 bed units. He clarified that the MfGS had been adopted part way through the progression of this application, so the parking situation across the site had been examined to see what adjustments could be made to come in line with the Manual for Gloucestershire Streets. The complication was that this scheme already had outline consent and previous phases had been permitted and there had been a transitional period in between the guidance being adopted and its application to new developments. Nevertheless, efforts had been made to come up with the best possible solutions taking a pragmatic approach and using a mathematical calculation to address the parking on site. With the aid of a diagram he advised the Committee that the concerns of the Highways Authority were in relation to the main spine road running through the development and whether four bed houses with two spaces would result in displaced parking that would cause highway safety issues on the spine road. Accordingly, where it was possible, increased parking had been provided for those plots with the creation of triple parking and a garage to the rear. There were some properties where there were still only two spaces but, in these instances, efforts had been made to provide a carport, rather than a garage that may be used for domestic storage as opposed to additional parking provision. All four bed properties on the spine road had three parking spaces whether that was three spaces or two spaces and a carport. There were four bed properties on the periphery of the site that did not have three spaces but any displacement would likely be onto the smaller cul-de-sacs as opposed to the main spine road. Additional visitor parking spaces had also been provided which resulted, in respect of the four bed properties, in there being 2.3 spaces per household rounded up to three spaces. Should the MfGS be strictly adhered to and included as a condition, three spaces per four bed property would be required and this would result in the loss of a number of units and have implications for housing delivery across the whole site; this would fundamentally change the layout of the site which could not be dealt with by condition. The Planning Officer hoped that his explanation had given Members some background on the parking issue. The representative from the Highways Authority confirmed that the MfGS had been adopted part way through the processing of this application and therefore the Authority had worked closely with District colleagues and the applicant to ensure the most sensitive areas were dealt with and appropriately addressed. It was his view that the properties on the periphery were low risk in terms of displacement onto the main highway and the very high bar of severe impact on public safety was not crossed. In this instance as a transitional site the proposals were acceptable to the Highways Authority, but it had been made very clear that future housing schemes would be expected to comply. It was clarified that this would include future schemes on this development and across the County as a whole. The Planning Officer also stated that it had been the intention that the approval recommendation would include a condition, which he therefore added to his recommendation, that no internal or external alterations shall take place to the garages and carports which preclude their use for housing motor vehicles without coming back to the Authority for a specific consent so, in effect, permitted development rights would be removed in respect of the garages and carports. This mirrored a condition that had been placed on Phase 1a of the development. In response to a question about the overall provision for off road parking and what the average was per property, the Planning Officer stated that all of the other units had been afforded two plots each and this was in accordance with the MfGS. A question was asked about solar panels and the Planning Officer indicated that there was no requirement for any of the units to include solar panels. The Planning Team Leader (South Area) indicated that it was important to focus on the fact that this was a reserved matters application pursuant to the outline application that had been allowed by the Secretary of State in 2017. He stated that a requirement for things like solar panels would need to have been a condition of that application; as far as he was aware it had not been a condition of that application.

28.35        Following a further debate in relation to flooding, and the concerns Members had in this respect, it was proposed and seconded and, upon being put to the vote, it was

RESOLVED          That the application be APPROVED in accordance with the Officer recommendation.