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Item 14, Pages 12-28                                                         Vicarage Field at Wares Farm, Linton Hill, Linton

 

Reference number: 16/505401/FULL

 

Page 12 Reasons for Referral to Committee

Remove first bullet point

It is contrary to the Affordable Housing Development Plan Document (2006) (NB: now superseded by policy SP20 Maidstone Local Plan 2017);

 

Page 17 add following as paragraph 4.10 – additional comments from Cllr Webb

“With regard to the above application that is coming to Planning Committee on the 30th November, I am not going to be able to attend the meeting but there are a few points I would like to make a clear in my reason for referral to committee. On the papers going before committee it clearly states that one of the reasons I asked for it to go to committee was the fact that

"It is contrary to the Affordable Housing Development Plan Document (2006) (NB: now superseded by policy SP20 Maidstone Local Plan 2017)".

I do not remember ever referring to this document in my call-in request (4th November 2016 and copied on the document page of the planning portal for this application). Also, with regard to the traffic issues I would merely like residents to be able to question Kent Highways over the volume of traffic this development would cause on Linton Hill.

 

Indeed, this was the main reason to ask for a call-in. Residents had asked me whether they would get a chance to state their objections before a decision was made, conversely other residents had told me they supported the application and wanted to see it approved. Especially noteworthy are the comments made from Linton Parish Council who raise "no objections" and ask that if passed, S106 monies could be allocated to a crossing scheme on Linton Hill, which I know is being advanced by the parish council and has held a public consultation on a proposed scheme. I therefore felt it was better to go to committee and if these residents felt strong enough about the development they would get their 3 minutes to speak to committee members.

 

Due to the length of time this has taken to reach the decision stage, I have not been asked by any resident to actually speak at the committee and I'm not sure whether there will now be any representations at the meeting itself, but I would like members of the committee made aware, possibly through an urgent update item, the mistake on the papers about my reasons for referral, as it suggests I am being negative about this application, whereas I would just prefer all the arguments to be presented in public and for committee members to make the decision”.

 

Page 22 add following as 6.20.1

“The Conservation Management Plan and Conservation Area Appraisal state that the application site makes a positive contribution to the conservation area by allowing open views from the road and they seek to preserve the existing open land. It is considered that in this context the current proposal that will lead to the loss of openness will lead to substantial harm to the conservation area. With reference to paragraph 133 of the NPPF, with the five year housing land supply in place, the landscape harm and the unsustainable nature of the location there are no public benefits that would outweigh the harm that would be caused”.

 

Page 26 add following additional sentence to paragraph 6.49.

“If members are minded to approve planning permission the applicant has confirmed verbally that they would be willing to sign a legal agreement securing the infrastructure that has been outlined”.    

 

Page 26 add following as 6.49.1

“The consultation response from Linton Parish Council requests that if minded to approve the application, off site s106 benefits should be secured including a pedestrian crossing on the A229 outside St Nicholas Church, and provision of a roundabout at the A229 and B2163 junction (0.7 miles to the north of the site). With the distance between the application site and the church (480 metres), the relatively small number of dwellings and no issue raised by KCC Highways it is considered that a request for financial contributions towards a roundabout and a crossing would fail to meet the necessary legal tests. These tests include a requirement that contributions are necessary to make the proposal acceptable in planning terms, directly related to the proposal and fairly and reasonably related in scale and kind to the proposal”. 

     

Recommendation remains unchanged