Agenda and minutes

Councillor Klute welcomed everyone to the meeting. Members of the Committee and officers introduced themselves and the Chair outlined the procedures for the meeting.

There were no apologies for absence.

There were no declarations of substitute members.

If you have a Disclosable Pecuniary Interest* in an item of business:

§  if it is not yet on the council’s register, you must declare both the existence and details of it at the start of the meeting or when it becomes apparent;

§  you may choose to declare a Disclosable Pecuniary Interest that is already in the register in the interests of openness and transparency. 

In both the above cases, you must leave the room without participating in discussion of the item.

If you have a personal interest in an item of business and you intend to speak or vote on the item you must declare both the existence and details of it at the start of the meeting or when it becomes apparent but you may participate in the discussion and vote on the item.

*(a)     Employment, etc - Any employment, office, trade, profession or vocation carried on for profit or gain.

(b) Sponsorship - Any payment or other financial benefit in respect of your expenses in carrying out duties as a member, or of your election; including from a trade union.

(c) Contracts - Any current contract for goods, services or works, between you or your partner (or a body in which one of you has a beneficial interest) and the council.

(d) Land - Any beneficial interest in land which is within the council’s area.

(e) Licences- Any licence to occupy land in the council’s area for a month or longer.

(f) Corporate tenancies - Any tenancy between the council and a body in which you or your partner have a beneficial interest.

 (g) Securities - Any beneficial interest in securities of a body which has a place of business or land in the council’s area, if the total nominal value of the securities exceeds £25,000 or one hundredth of the total issued share capital of that body or of any one class of its issued share capital. 

This applies to all members present at the meeting.

There were no declarations of interest.

The order of business would be as per the agenda.

RESOLVED:

That the minutes of the meeting held on 23 April 2018 be confirmed as an accurate record of proceedings and the Chair be authorised to sign them.

Members noted the tabled paper proposing the memberships of the Planning Sub-Committees.

RESOLVED:

a)    That the Sub-Committees be confirmed as five member Sub-Committees and the Terms of Reference be noted.

b)    That it be noted that the allocation of seats was determined in accordance with the advice in the report.

c)    That Councillors Picknell, Cutler, Convery, Nathan and Graham be appointed as members of Planning Sub-Committee A for the current municipal year or until their successors are appointed.

d)    That Councillors Kay, Chapman, Klute, Khondoker and Woolf be appointed as members of Planning Sub-Committee B for the current municipal year or until their successors are appointed.

e)    That it be noted that Councillor Picknell had been appointed Chair of Planning Sub-Committee A and Councillor Kay had been appointed Chair of Planning Sub-Committee B for the current municipal year or until their successors are appointed.

f)     That Councillor Graham be appointed as Vice-Chair of Planning Sub-Committee A and Councillor Chapman be appointed as Vice-Chair of Planning Sub-Committee B for the current municipal year or until their successors are appointed.

g)    That it be noted that any member who was a member or substitute member of the Planning Committee could substitute at any meetings of either Sub-Committee if they had not been appointed as a member of the Sub-Committee.

Removal of the Angel Wings sculpture and kiosk, erection of a new kiosk and first floor bridge/outdoor restaurant seating area, and extended first floor balcony. Conversion of existing 100 space basement car park and reconfiguration of ground and basement level floorspace to provide a mix of retail units, including additional 1945sqm of flexible retail (A1) and leisure (D2) floorspace, retaining 27 parking spaces. Conversion and extension to first floor retail unit 5A (A1) to provide restaurant/café (A3). Partial demolition of 2 external staircases. Installation of first floor awnings. Partial external terracotta cladding and projecting windows to west elevation. Replacement hard and soft landscaping and associated works.

(Planning application number: P2017/2964/FUL)

In the discussion the following points were made:

·         The planning officer advised of the following updates:

-       Condition 5 to be amended to enable details of (b) soft landscaping to be submitted to and approved in writing by the Local Planning Authority prior to the commencement of external works

-       Condition 8 to be deleted;

-       Condition 26 to be amended to read,
“The public toilets within the development shall be open and available for use for the duration of the opening hours of the A1 (shops).”

-       Condition 29 to be deleted as the aspects were covered by Condition 15.

·         In response to the chair’s question as to whether the scheme had been back to the Design Review Panel (DRP) since amendments were made, the planning officer advised that it had not been back, as the changes requested by the DRP were straight forward and were supported by planning and design and conservation officers.

·         The planning officer confirmed that the outside space was designated as open space but was private land. The S106 required public access to be maintained but the space and Angel Wings sculpture belonged to the owners of the site.

·         Members asked if the art work was required to be replaced with equivalent art work. This could be in terms of value, impact and quality. The planning officer advised that this could be a relevant factor and that the original agreement was sought to be amended which required a 1% spend of that original (1998) permission of the value of that development.

·         The planning officer confirmed that officers had negotiated with the applicant on the Heads of Terms and the ones in the report had been agreed between the applicant and officers. However, the S106 had not yet been signed and could be amended.

·         In response to a member’s question about landscaping, the planning officer stated that the site had limitations as it was above a car park so there were not many opportunities for new soft landscaping. It was proposed that planters would be used.

·         A member asked whether wooden panels had been considered as a cladding material and the planning officer advised that a number of materials had been considered by the applicant and design officer. As timber and render did not age well, they were generally not supported on a large scale  ...  view the full minutes text for item 8.