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Agenda and minutes

Venue: Council Chamber - Town Hall

Contact: Zoe Crane 

Items
No. Item

134.

Introductions

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.

135.

Apologies for Absence

Minutes:

Apologies were received from Councillors Chowdhury, Gantly and Khan.

136.

Declarations of Substitute Members

Minutes:

There were no substitute members.

137.

Declarations of Interest

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.

 

Minutes:

There were no declarations of interest.

138.

Order of Business

Minutes:

The order of business would be as per the agenda.

139.

Minutes of Previous Meeting pdf icon PDF 136 KB

Minutes:

 

RESOLVED:

That the minutes of the meeting held on 8 September 2015 be confirmed as an accurate record of proceedings and the Chair be authorised to sign them.

140.

Whitehall Park School, Ashmount Road, London N19 3BH pdf icon PDF 2 MB

Additional documents:

Minutes:

Demolition of the existing former Ashmount Primary School building and erection of a new 3 storey, flat roofed school building to accommodate the Whitehall Park School including ancillary play space.

 

(Planning application number: P2015/1089/FUL)

 

In the discussion the following points were made:

·         The planning officer advised that following legal advice, Condition 22 should be converted into the Section 106 agreement rather than stand as a condition. Also the number of trees proposed to be planted (28) should be inserted into the wording of Condition 14.

·         The planning officer stated that a late objection had been received from the Islington Society. A response to the points raised had been circulated to members and was read out at the meeting. A copy would be interleaved with the agenda.

·         In summary, the officer advised that the opinions and advice of English Heritage as a national decision making body were material considerations even if they contradicted officers’ advice at that time (2005); the curtain walling was the primary interest, not the plan form or setting; the deterioration of the curtain walling was a significant factor in assessing the building’s quality and its fitness for purpose as a school had to be taken into consideration. Given that the English Heritage letter confirmed that the building was failing, it was officers’ advice that this should be given considerable weight as a deciding factor.

·         The planning officer clarified that officers had not concluded that the buildings only interest lay in its cladding system, but that its most striking claim to significance lay in that cladding system, as per English Heritage advice. Officers still recognised that the loss of the building would cause harm to the conservation area, but that the degree of harm was thus reduced from substantial harm (Design and Conservation view) to less than substantial harm. If members felt that the loss of the building would cause substantial harm, then the test would still be “that the substantial harm was necessary to achieve substantial public benefits that outweighed that harm of loss” (NPPF paragraph 133).        

·         The planning officer confirmed that it was assumed that the school would manage the community use (as they would be party to the Section 106 agreement) but if an alternative manager was proposed, the detail would be secured in the community use agreement.

·         The Inclusive Design Officer’s comments were considered.

·         It was noted that the application had twice been considered by the Design Review Panel during the design process.

·         The building was locally listed but not listed by English Heritage.

·         There were 31 trees on the site. 9 TPO trees would be removed plus 6 non-TPO trees (but protected by virtue of being within a conservation area) and 28 would be planted.

·         In response to a suggestion that the school’s circulation areas could be larger to avoid congestion, the headteacher stated that the school had prioritised having as large as possible teaching spaces and this was also partly due to the constrained site area.

·         The Chair advised that there was  ...  view the full minutes text for item 140.

WORDING DELEGATED TO OFFICERS

This wording has been provided by officers following the meeting and is included here for completeness.

 

MINUTE 140

WHITEHALL PARK SCHOOL, ASHMOUNT ROAD, LONDON, N19 3BH

 

CONDITION: The two rooftop playground areas hereby approved shall only be used between the hours of 8am and 8pm on any day.

 

REASON: In the interests of balancing making the optimum use of the play areas within the site for children and wider community benefit against the need to protect nearby residential amenity to an appropriate level.