Agenda and minutes

*DM&L 38    

There were no apologies forwarded to this Meeting.

Members are invited to declare any personal or disclosable pecuniary interests, including the nature and extent of such interests they may have in any items to be considered at this meeting.

[If Councillors have any questions relating to predetermination, bias or interests in items on this Agenda, then please contact the Monitoring Officer in advance of the meeting]        

*DM&L 39        

Members were invited to declare any interests in the items of business to be considered and the following were made:

Cllr T G Pearce declared a personal interest in all applications by virtue of being a Member of the Devon Building Control Partnership and remained in the meeting and took part in the debate and vote thereon.

To consider those items which, in the opinion of the Chairman, should be considered by the Meeting as matters of urgency (if any). 

*DM&L 40        

There was no urgent business brought forward to this Meeting however the Chairman advised that she had taken the opportunity to review the letter sent to the public outlining how they could request to speak and timescales involved.  This had followed a complaint from a member of the public who had missed the deadline to request to speak at this Committee meeting.  Further to this review, it was the Chairman’s opinion that, as the instructions and deadlines were clearly outlined in the last paragraph of a single paged letter, it was reasonable for anyone to identify there was a deadline and the subsequent timescales.

Meeting held on 24 November 2020

*DM&L 41        

The Minutes of the Development Management and Licensing Committee Meeting held on 24 November 2020 were confirmed as a correct record.

To see Letters of Representation and further supplementary information relating to any of the planning applications on the agenda, please select the following link and enter the relevant Reference number: http://westdevon.gov.uk/searchlanding

WARD                                                                    Bridestowe

APPLICATION NUMBER                                 2205/20/FUL

LOCATION                                                      "The Stables", East Bowerland Farm, Okehampton

DEVELOPMENT                                              READVERTISEMENT (revised plans and description) Erection of stables and change of use of land to paddock and (in part) a separate dog training and paddock area

*NOT TO BE HEARD BEFORE 11AM*

WARD                                                                    Tavistock North

APPLICATION NUMBER                                  1846/20/HHO

LOCATION                                                      12 Watts Road, Tavistock

DEVELOPMENT                                              Householder application for demolition of stone garden wall and creation of single-storey kitchen extension, widening of drive entrance

*DM&L 42        

The Committee proceeded to consider the application(s) that had been prepared by the Development Management Specialists and considered also the comments of the Town and Parish Councils together with other representations received, which were listed within the presented agenda report and summarised below, and RESOLVED that:

(a)      Application No: 2205/20/FUL                Ward: Sourton

Site Address: The Stables, East Bowerland Farm, Okehampton, EX20 4LZ

READVERTISEMENT (revised plans and description) Erection of stables and change of use of land to paddock and (in part) a separate dog training and paddock area.

During the Officer’s update, it was outlined that a revised noise management plan had been submitted in December 2020, which was identical to the previous plan except to amend the hours of operation for doing training on the outside field.  All hours for outside dog training were now consistent across the wider site.  Condition 5 had been updated to reflect this and the last line of Condition 9 removed and altered to reflect this.  One further letter of objection had been received which was added to the website.  The letter did not raise any new matters.  Although the Officer acknowledged that there had been a lack of implementation for mitigation planting on a previous application, this could not be considered at this meeting.  The Officer outlined an error in the report (last paragraph of page 12 of the presented agenda report) where it stated that previous application 3851/17/FUL had been refused and was not supported by a noise report or management plan, however, it had had the noise report.  The Officer also confirmed the hashed red line on the presented agenda report map did not accurately depict the site as some of the line was on the road however the OS submitted with the application was accurate. 

The Environmental Health (EH) Officer updated the Committee that there was no longer an objection raised from EH as a previous noise complaint had been investigated resulting in a limit to the number of dogs allowed to be on site, which was 11, and the introduction of a comprehensive noise management plan which had mitigated the noise issues.

Speakers included:

Supporter – Ms L Langman;

Parish Council Representative – Cllr S Eberle; The Councillor had also provided a video for the Committee to review.  There were technical issues with the meeting unable to hear the sound on the video.  As the sound was integral to the aim of the video, and no technical solution found during the 30 minutes break taken to attempt to resolve this issue, the video was instead emailed to all Members of the Committee who then confirmed they had been able to see and hear the video prior to the application being debated;

Local Ward Member – Cllr C Mott;

RECOMMENDATION: Conditional Approval

During discussion, the following points were raised:

(a)     The Ward Member informed that she had brought this application to Committee because of concerns from neighbours over current levels of noise and this would potentially  ...  view the full minutes text for item *DM&L .42

*DM&L 43     

The Strategic Planning Officer for the Joint Local Plan (JLP) updated on the latest Housing Numbers position as the latest report had now been published. There is now a 6.1 year land supply with 1,449 homes built last year, cumulatively this is 653 homes above target. Going forward, there had been identified a supply of over 8,200 deliverable homes. The Officer highlighted that garden developments were excluded from the numbers due to Government changes to the definition, however these figures were not lost as they would be reported in ‘windfall sites’.

The Authority Monitoring Report would be produced in February 2021 and would also include the split between brownfield and green field sites.  Members would be invited to a future Briefing on this matter.

Members felt that the infrastructure did not keep up with the numbers of new houses built and the lead officer agreed that the relationship between homes and facilities and infrastructure was an issue and needed linking up.  However, the advantage of having a plan did allow the Local Authorities to look ahead and try to direct infrastructure needed.  Although good relationships existed with Devon County Council and other statutory providers, this would remain an issue in the future, particularly with reduced monies available.  The lead officer proceeded to encourage Members to let her have their views on this point.

*DM&L 44     

The Head of Development Management updated the Members on each of the outstanding planning appeals. 

*DM&L 45     

The Head of Development Management updated the Members on each of the undetermined Major applications.

In so doing, he confirmed that not all applications would be called in automatically and clarified that when an application was in the consultation phase, then any Member could call the application into Committee for determination, but once the application had passed that stage then only the Ward Member(s) could call to Committee.  The lead officer also confirmed that he would update the notes to show when an application had been called in.  When questioned, Wollen Mill site in North Tawton was confirmed as still being considered by the case officer.  The applicant had referred to the Planning Inspector for non-determination appeal, even though the Council was still waiting for further information from applicant.  Nothing had been received from the Inspector to say the application had been submitted and Development Management had asked the applicant to confirm.