Issue - meetings

            That planning permission be granted subject to conditions to be determined by the Head of Planning. 

The Committee considered the report of the Head of Planning in respect of this application which had been the subject of a site visit on 10 December 2012.  The usual consultations had been undertaken and the responses received detailed in the report.  Additional comments received since the preparation of the report were circulated at the meeting. 

            The Development Manager referred to the site history highlighting the relevance of certain applications to the determination of this application. He identified that the main planning issues were the principle of development, in relation to previously developed land and sustainability/locational factors which were detailed in the report. He stated that the other considerations, scale/form of development, highways and ecology, only came in to play if the first two tests were passed. The officer then highlighted the basis for previous decisions to resist residential development on this land, referring to extracts from decisions by the relevant Inspectors, the Welsh Assembly’s Planning Decisions Committee and from Planning Policy Wales, all of which were presented in the report. He asked Members to base their determination of the current application on whether or not there had been material changes in planning policy and/or in any other material planning considerations since the decisions were taken previously to refuse planning permission for residential development at the site, and not to allocate the site in the Unitary Development Plan (UDP) for use for residential development.  The applicant, through his agent, had indicated that there were material changes in circumstances and these were detailed in paragraph 7.15 of the report. 

            The Development Manager explained that independent legal advice had been sought on the interpretation of previously developed land (PDL) as this was an important factor in the determination of the application.  On the basis of the advice, it was the view of officers that the land occupied by the dwellinghouse and its curtilage did constitute PDL as it met the definition contained in Figure 4.3. but that the remainder of the site did not . He agreed with the conclusion of the Assembly in 2005 that land occupied by buildings previously used for agricultural purposes but which had not been put to any other use since then, should not be regarded as PDL.  The officer concluded that whilst the dwellinghouse and its curtilage should be regarded as PDL, the remainder of the application site (and therefore the majority of the site) was not PDL. However, in referring to Paragraph 7.26 of the report he advised that the question of PDL was not critical as the development failed to meet other criteria, particularly that of sustainability.

            He commented in detail on the sustainability and locational factors referring to the advice in PPW that not all previously developed land is suitable for development. He mentioned that the lack of sustainability had been a factor in previous decisions relating to the site and that it was considered that the inclusion of bus stops and the creation of a footpath did  ...  view the full minutes text for item 114