Agenda and minutes

An apology for absence was received on behalf of Councillor Rob Hiney-Saunders.

To note any urgent items of business which the Chairman has consented to being considered under the provisions of Section 100(B) 4(b) of the Local Government Act 1972.

There were no urgent items of business to consider.

Members should declare the existence and nature of any Disclosable Pecuniary Interest and Non Statutory Interest as defined by the Members’ Code of Conduct in respect of:

a)  any business on the agenda

b)  any urgent additional items to be considered

c)  any matters arising out of those items

and if appropriate, withdraw from the meeting at the relevant time.

There were no declarations of interest made.

To consider the minutes of the last meeting held on 1^st November 2023.

Moved by Councillor Duncan McGregor and seconded by Councillor John Ritchie

RESOLVED that the Minutes of a Planning Committee held on 1st November 2023 be approved as a correct record.

Committee considered a detailed report in relation to the above application.

The application had been deferred from the Planning Committee meeting held on 1^st November 2023 as the viability document had not been made available in the public

domain.

The application had been referred to the Planning Committee for determination because the development was unable to comply with S106 contribution policies for viability reasons.

The application sought approval to change the use of the vacant Amberleigh Manor Care Home (C2), to create 10 no. two storey residential dwellings and the erection of two no. two storey residential dwellings attached to the eastern side of the building (C3). Some single storey outbuildings to the rear were proposed to be demolished. The proposed development was known as Phase II for the re-development of the care home site. It was the applicant’s intention that the submission of this phase would complete the site’s development for residential dwellinghouse purposes. The proposal included the provision of private rear garden areas and off-road parking spaces with electric vehicle charging points.

Phase one of the site had been granted planning permission in April 2021.

Following on from the consultation, nine representations had been received and these were summarised in the report. A further representation received after the agenda was published was included in the update report, however, no additional points were raised that required a separate or additional response.

The key issue for Members consideration related to viability and that the development could not meet its triggered S106 obligations. The scheme had been independently appraised by CP Viability with phase 1 and 2 being taken into consideration. CP Viability had confirmed that the development as a whole was unable to make the contributions required due to overriding development constraints and cost associated with the proposal. The balance to this, as set out in the officer’s report, was that there was overriding public benefits of the scheme which outweighed the potential shortfall in the planning obligations which were required.

The site had been vacant for a period of time and was currently subject to antisocial behaviour issues, it was therefore recommended for approval, subject to conditions.

Following observations made during the committee site visit, it was proposed that the

wording of condition 20 be amended to give assurance that the boundary treatment detail reserved by condition that were still to be approved shall include details of any new features, as well as details to repair / make good any existing ones;

20.  Prior to first occupation, a detailed scheme of works to all boundary treatments (that shall include details of those to be retained / made good and any new boundary treatments) shall be submitted to and approved in writing by the Local Planning Authority. Thereafter only those details approved in writing shall be implemented in full and the agreed boundary treatment scheme shall then be maintained in perpetuity.

Mr Ranjit Sagoo attended the meeting and spoke for the application.

A Member queried the sizes of the  ...  view the full minutes text for item PL5-22/23

Committee considered a detailed report in relation to the above application.

The application was for a relatively large scale solar farm between Whaley and Creswell. Whilst the application had been significantly amended by negotiation to omit the area which contained the highest concentration of best and most versatile agricultural land (BVAL) it still contained about 10ha of it.

Local plan policy SC6 ‘Renewable Energy and Low Carbon Energy’ was fundamental to this decision. SC6 allowed solar farm development on agricultural land, but only allowed large scale solar farms (BVAL) under ‘exceptional circumstances’.

The application had been brought to Planning Committee as there was a need to decide whether or not this bar had been met and so whether or not the proposal complied with the local plan. The officer recommendation was that it had, due to the lack of alternative grid connection points in the District with capacity for this scale of solar farm and because most of the land within range of the connection point was also BVAL. Other impacts had been assessed but none of these warranted the refusal of planning permission because the harms identified were outweighed by the benefits of renewable energy and the need to tackle the climate emergency.

The site was comprised of approximately 46ha of arable agricultural land and located

approximately 1km to the south of Creswell. The closest dwellings to the site were the small group of properties associated with the former Frithwood Farm and Frithwood Farm Cottage adjacent to the northern site boundary.

The area of the site proposed to be developed with solar panels had been reduced during the course of the planning application to omit the two fields at the east side of

the site.

Further information was contained in the update report on the following matters where additional information was awaited at the time of writing the report:-

·       Additional noise modelling;

·       A revised Landscape Masterplan which responds to Landscape Officer comments;

·       A revised Biodiversity Net Gain Assessment relating to the reduced site area.

The update report also noted an additional condition be applied to any consent to deal with noise mitigation for the inverters:

“Prior to the commencement of development, a scheme of noise mitigation measures to deal with noise from the inverters, must have been submitted to and approved in writing by the Local Planning Authority in consultation with the Environmental Health Officer. The approved mitigation measures must be implemented and maintained whilst the solar farm is operational.”

Responses from neighbouring properties were set out in the report. A number of

objections had been against the principal of developing a solar farm in this location and that brownfield sites should be used instead. Another concern was the size of the proposed development.

A late representation had been received and was read out by the Principal Planner.

The key issues in the determination of the application were:

·       the principle of the development including loss or agricultural land and benefits of renewable energy;

·       the impacts on the conservation  ...  view the full minutes text for item PL6-22/23

Committee considered a report which provided an update to Members on the Local Planning Authorities Monitoring report for the period 1^st April 2022 to 31^st March 2023.

The Town and County Planning (Local Planning) (England) Regulations 2012 (as amended) required local planning authorities to publish information about progress with local plan preparation, housing targets, made neighbourhood development plans and orders, any activity relating to the duty to cooperate, and any information collected which related to indicators in the development plan.

Overall, the Monitoring Report, which was attached as an appendix to the report, found that the Council’s Local Plan for Bolsover District was performing well with few areas of concern. Where indicators had been found to not be performing as intended, this was largely due to circumstances outside the Council’s control and beyond the general policy steer of the Council’s Local Plan. However, areas of concern would be followed up to establish what action, if any, could be taken to correct undesirable trends.

Following this meeting of Planning Committee, the Monitoring Report would be published on the Council’s website.

Members welcomed the report and noted it was an excellent report.

Moved by Councillor John Ritchie and seconded by Councillor Duncan McGregor

RESOLVED that the Monitoring Report 2022/23 be noted and published on the Council’s website.

Committee considered a detailed report which provided an update to Members on the housing land supply. The report also sought Member’s approval for the publication of the Council’s Annual Position Statement on the Five-Year Housing Land Supply for 2023.

To support the Government’s objective of significantly boosting the supply of homes, councils were required to plan to meet their local housing need through their local plans and to monitor the delivery of their housing land supply.

The Council was currently in a good position as it was meeting requirements. Table 1 in the report showed the number of houses completed against the 272 requirement over the last few years as set out in the Local Plan. This table also identified that between 1^st April 2014 and 31^st March 2023, the number of housing completions, i.e. those that had reached the ‘ready for occupation’ stage, had exceeded the annual requirement by 912 dwellings.

The Council had no record of under delivery over the monitoring period. Furthermore, the Council had passed the Housing Delivery Test each year since its introduction in 2018 and consequently, in accordance with existing Government guidance, the Council only needed to apply a 5% buffer to its housing requirement to ensure choice and competition in the market for land.

Moved by Councillor John Ritchie and seconded by Councillor Tom Munro

RESOLVED that;

1)    the detailed issues set out in the report, be noted;

2)    the assessment of the Council’s Annual Position Statement of Five-Year Housing Land Supply 2023 as set out at Appendix A, to the report, be approved;

3)    the Annual Position Statement of Five-Year Housing Land Supply (Appendix A) and List of Major Development Sites and their contribution to the Council’s Five[1]Year Housing Land Supply (Appendix B), be published on the Council’s website; and

4)    delegated authority be given to the Assistant Director of Planning and Planning Policy, in consultation with the Chair and Vice Chair of Planning Committee, to make any minor changes to the text or information prior to publication.

The Community Arts Development Officer and the Leisure Special Projects Officer entered the meeting.

Committee considered a detailed report which provided progress in respect of the monitoring of Section 106 Agreements in order to give Members the opportunity to assess the effectiveness of the Council’s monitoring procedures.

Section 106 agreements were a legal agreement between the Council and landowners / developers that were often completed alongside applications for planning permission for major developments. They were needed to deal with the additional pressures on infrastructure which resulted from new developments. They were only required where the effects of the development would otherwise be unacceptable in planning terms, and where they could not be dealt with by conditions of the planning permission.

If the Council failed to spend monies provided through Section 106 Agreements within a set period, often within 5-years of entering into the agreement, there was a risk to the Council that the developer would be entitled to request the money back. As of the Monitoring Group meeting held on 24^th October 2023, there were eight sums within their 24-month deadlines and details of these were provided in the report.

Spa Croft, Tibshelf

An extension to the deadline had been agreed by all parties as being 31^st March 2026.

Rosewood Lodge Farm

The Parish Council had confirmed that they would be claiming for the cost of a new canopy on their insurance further to the previous one being vandalised shortly after installation.

Further monies from the Rosewood Lodge Farm development for health infrastructure was now within its 6 months spend deadline. Since the last update to Members, the Integrated Care Board had agreed to utilise this allocation along with the allocation from Thornhill Drive, South Normanton, to pay for the internal reconfiguration of the Limes Medical Centre. This redevelopment would allow them to cater for a wider range of medical appointments.

Members raised concern that the redevelopment of The Limes Surgery fell outside of the District as it was located within Alfreton. The Interim Head of Planning Policy advised that it had previously been explored whether the surgery in South Normanton could be expanded, however, this wasn’t possible currently. It may be that moving forward more residents would use the facilities at Alfreton as more appointments became available. It was also suggested that the money would be better spent in Tibshelf to improve the facilities available.

Mansfield Road, Tibshelf

Members had been advised at the last update that the Leisure Special Projects Officer was working with the Parish Council to look at potential alternative projects as the time remaining to spend the money for outdoor sport was approximately 12 months. Three potential projects had been discussed including an extension to the current pavilion, pitch improvements and the instillation of a multi-use games area (MUGA).

The Parish Council had also consulted with their local community to see how else the money could be utilised and as a result, a large number of projects had been suggested, with a skate park being the most popular.

Following consideration from the Section 106 working group, a  ...  view the full minutes text for item PL9-22/23