"And this scheme will be built over the next ten to fifteen years, so what we decide in the next few months may not be what actually is needed in the area in ten years time, so I would also like the period to be there so that the Highways Officers can be, I wouldn’t want to say as generic as possible, but keep the recommended scheme of works fairly high level...."
"If you look at the scenarios where we’ve had the hard working councillors, like Tomlinson, trying to campaign for things like the pub and community centre, these kinds of things are things we need to nail down now and this period of further negotiation would allow Officers to really tackle those kind of points."
Councillor Dale Heenan (Covingham & Dorcan) has been Chair of Planning for several years. He is now a member of the Planning Committee. He also holds the post of Cabinet Member for Strategic Planning & Sustainability.
"Thank you very much, Chair. Just two quick points before we progress to what I want to say. Firstly, well done to Cllr Elliott, he has just made his maiden speech as a Councillor and I think we all welcome his contribution and look forward to what he says in the future. And also to the residents here today who have actually spent nearly three hours now actually listening to the debate and when the crowds get quite heated when it comes to planning applications, particularly when they’re controversial, and we get heckled, we get interruptions and it’s quite tricky to actually manage this kind of meeting when that sound’s going on. I think the residents have sat quite patiently and listened to the debate and not interrupted people, it actually helps the way we conduct the rest, so thank you very much.
In terms of what I would like to say on this, most of my points have been covered already but I think that the previous speaker, that's Toby, has made actually some very valid points and I will be seconding his recommendation, but it will be for delegating approval to Officers for three months of negotiations so that the officers will play hardball with developers, because clearly there are still some concerns that are outstanding and there are questions that need answering and we can't cover that detail tonight. The four areas I want to address are:
One is around the village centre, and in the report it does state, in a table, potential ways in which the centre is phased in. Based on experience, from comments of local residents which have with Crest, it is quite clear there are trust issues here, and that we’ve got to do everything we can do to ensure that phasing is implemented as soon as is feasible within the site, because as it stands at the moment if we have ten years where we’ve got a centre only half built I don’t think that’s acceptable, whether it’s existing residents or those moving into those houses. If you look at the scenarios where we’ve had the hard working councillors, like Tomlinson, trying to campaign for things like the pub and community centre, these kinds of things are things we need to nail down now and this period of further negotiation would allow Officers to really tackle those kind of points.
The next one will be on transport. And as we have heard from the local people on this one tonight, the original applications for the Haydon sector as it came in were very explicit in the way which we could spend section 106 on specific schemes; and that is one of the reasons why there were issues around having to renegotiate several years ago where the Purton-Iffley Road went from something that was £10m plus to £100m plus; and obviously the Council couldn’t afford and the developers couldn’t afford and the government at the time, which was the Labour government, wasn’t prepared to put in the necessary funding to build that road and plans change, and so we also have to adapt to it.
And this scheme will be built over the next ten to fifteen years, so what we decide in the next few months may not be what actually is needed in the area in ten years time, so I would also like the period to be there so that the Highways Officers can be, I wouldn’t want to say as generic as possible, but keep the recommended scheme of works fairly high level so that, if the bus transit scheme doesn’t come forward for a decision of the Council at a future date, that money could be spent on other schemes to mitigate the impact of transport in future. So, for instance, £450,000 if that doesn’t go through, maybe that could be used for Oakhurst Way in future for other ways in which to help residents. I think that is a clear lesson we have to learn from our predecessors twenty years ago that we want to do differently when it comes to long term planning for this town.
The next one would be around education, and clearly you have already heard tonight that there are still ums and ahs about the way in which it is being developed, particularly the primary school. Is it a developer who is willing to put £5m to the Council and the Council then builds the school, or is it a case where the developer themselves are going to build the school and then hand over ownership. I think those kind of things need to be nailed down very strictly so we know we can actually know what’s coming in the future. Just on that point, over the next three years because the infrastructure capacity when it comes to water and the sewage side of it, Thames Water have been quite forthright that they don’t have the capacity over the next three years to allow any more 200 house to be built. And that point to keep on this one – while we are talking about developing a phase of 1,700 houses over the next fifteen to twenty years, actually within the next three years they can only build 200 houses until that infrastructure is sorted out and it is sorted out first.
And the last point is, to see the, I think it’s actually quite a responsible approach, in which the Wiltshire Wildlife Trust has dealt with these planning matters. It would have been very easy for a trust like them to just stand away and oppose for oppositions sake, when essentially this scheme, or the actual application aside, has been talked about for a number of years and, as we have heard from the legal side, it’s fairly communicable in that sense, it is probably the best infrastructure and best deal for the residents of the town and this area. So I think that is something that should be applauded, but some of that also needs to be nailed down still in terms of who owns that land – is it going to Wiltshire Trust, is it the developer who is looking to manage the plan, all that in the report is talking about potential and could, and I don’t think we should approve this tonight until that can be nailed down, cast-iron, and that is what I would like the committee to move on.
So I very much whole-heartedly support Cllr Elliott position on this, where we need to sort out the infrastructure, play hardball with the developer on negotiations, give the officers time to do it. If we go for the deferment I think that is very reckless and shows a lack of understanding about the way in which the planning system works. Because it happens all the time, where, if we defer this, then tomorrow morning it will go to appeal and you know what happens. Likewise, if the officers had recommended anthing other than approval, which a number of times particularly at the original Commonhead, where the application was out of time, and came to committee and [indistinct] were pushing for refusal, which the committee agreed with, the development was really poor after an appeal took it out of our hands. We should not let ourselves get into that position. Thank you very much."
Questions ORA members may wish to ask:
Does keeping the S.106 agreement for highways generic and high level mean that the money will be spent Borough-wide as in the Haydon 3 agreement? Is there a danger that the money will never benefit the residents of Priory Vale? What does the Community Centre or Pub at Redhouse Village Centre have to do with the application at Tadpole Farm? Did the Planning Officer make it clear that this issue was not material to the Tadpole Farm application? Would the Cabinet Member for Planning know this? If he did, then why did he mention something that was not a material planning consideration for Tadpole Farm? As Chair of the Planning Committee did Cllr Heenan ever ask members of the public to keep to material planning considerations only when discussing applications?
