Mid Suffolk Planning Committee – 17 January 2024

Live broadcast of the meeting of Mid Suffolk’s Planning Committee on Wednesday 17 January 2024 considering applications in: Hemingstone, Stonham Aspal, and Little Blakenham

Full papers for this committee are available at: https://baberghmidsuffolk.moderngov.co.uk/ieListDocuments.aspx?CId=639&MId=3778&Ver=4

Uh good morning and welcome to this meeting of mids suffk District Council planning committee I’m councelor Sarah Mansel and I will be chairing the committee today may I first of all remind you of some domestic arrangements please Ure that microphones are turned off when not in use please do not

Interrupt other speakers or hold separate conversations whilst others are speaking if you are attending the meeting to speak and persistently interrupt the meeting you may be asked to leave leave please ensure your mobile phones are on silent or switched off and that your laptops are switched to silent

The council members of the public and the Press May record film photograph or broadcast this meeting when the public and the Press are not lawfully excluded if you intend to do so please could you inform the committee clerk if you hear the fire alarm leave the building

Immediately via fire exit and make your way to the assembly point at Ipswich toown football ground follow the signs directing you to the fire exits do not re-enter the building until told it’s safe to do so so first of all we have some introductions uh we have the

Members of the committee who’ll be making the decisions on my right uh we have the area planning manager Gemma Walker um and some other planning officers who will be taking the cases um this morning we have our legal advisor Ian dpre and his assistant um so we have

The case officers we’ve got Nikita Mossman Braun Curtis will be joining um on teams and Vincent Pier will be um along later uh we also have um um ail gy just remembered her name um we have my governance officer Alysia Norman who’ll be um making sure that I’m on

Track uh we also have um other governance officers Bethany Webb Mandy Smith who will make sure the meeting’s in order and we have uh new member staff Sammy Gibbs who’s here observing um thank you so can I move to the agenda please um number one apologies for absence and

Substitutions do we have any apologies for absence thank you chair we have apologies from councelor hadingham and we have councelor Morgan substituting thank you uh item number two to receive Declarations of disclosable pecuniary interest and other registerable or non registrable interests by members are there any to declare councelor

Matson is it yeah um yes I need to declare that I am acquainted with the applicant for the um hemingstone application that’s the first one on the agenda and in relation to the third one I need to declare that I’m a patient at need and Market country practice thank

You uh any other um declarations uh thank you uh item number three Declarations of lobbying are there any to declare um well I’ve had an email from um I think it’s the agent for Port one did everyone get that email um so I think we all have to

Declare that as lobbying uh thank you did you get get that councelor Morgan so everybody apart from councelor Morgan uh is there any other lobbying um item number four Declarations of personal site visits uh Council maton so obviously at um I have been to the um applicant the first application

In hemingstone um a few times over the many years is and I’m sure we’ve probably all been to ston and Barnes uh thank you uh well some of us may have been ston and bond but not necessarily for this application we did all we did uh when we had the tour last

Year we did visit part of Port one but it wasn’t specifically about this application so I don’t think that’s needs to be mentioned thank you um right so item number five um com sorry councel Hing him having heard Council maton I should declare that I do know um the site at

Oldal Cottage uh I have been there once or maybe twice that’s all thank you uh so are we ready to move on to item number five um MPL 2322 confirmation the minutes of the planning committee held on the 20th of December 2023 are there any points regarding the accuracy of the

Minutes uh could I have a proposal for the minutes uh Council hardingham thank you an a seconder councilor Davis um and I can we do this just with a show of hands do you think for the minutes no you’ve set it up already right um governance officer will now conduct the electronic

Vote thank you chair members that vote is now open in modgv councelor Morgan you want me to take your vote verbally uh thank you chair so that Mak six votes for and two extensions that’s carried thank you um so the minutes of the meeting are now approved uh they’ve been

Confirmed and will be signed in due course um item number six to receive notification of petitions in accordance with the council’s petition scheme n received chair you item number seven we move to the schedule of planning applications we have three planning applications today and we will be um

Addressing them in the order listed on the agenda um so we’ll start with item 7A DC 23453 old Hall Cottage Main Road hemingstone and I invite the case officer Nikita Mossman to introduce the application to committee over to you Nikita thank you chair and good morning members so this is application DC

23453 at Old Hall Cottage in hemingstone the application seeks permission for the conversion of and the extension to an existing garage to provide ancillary accommodation here is a site location plan this shows the position of the existing out building in relation to the dwelling and how far the dwelling and

The out building is set back from the highway this is the aerial map showing the site in its context there is a dwelling to the southeast of the site but the surrounding area is predominantly agricultural land this is a wider view which shows that there are some dwellings to the

North of the site as you go further down Main Road but again this is most there is mostly agricultural land surrounding the site this is the constraints map showing that the host dwelling is a grade two listed building and the old Hall Farm to the southeast of the site is grade one

Listed with a grade two listed building on that plot too there is also a public right of way which runs along the north of the site these are the existing plans of the out building the drawings are labeled to show that the existing materials are painted render on the walls and clay

Plane tiles on the roof these are the proposed plans with the section highlighted in yellow being the extension and the section in white being the existing it shows that the extension turns the out building into an L-shaped form the proposed materials are to match the existing with painted

Render and clay plane tiles The Proposal also includes the removal of the existing garage door and creates a door in the South elevation in order to to access the building the top drawing shows the existing floor plan this shows that the out building is currently used as a garageworkshop and the bottom drawing

Shows the proposed floor plan which utilizes the space in the existing part of the out building for a kitchen and sitting area and uses the extension for a bedroom and wet room this is the proposed block plan showing the position of the extension on the site it also shows the parking Arrangement on

The site which with the existing access to be retained moving on to site photos this is the front elevation of the host grto listed dwelling and the front garden area this is the position of the out building in comparison to the dwelling the out building is approximately 8 m away from the

Dwelling this is the front elevation of the outbuilding building showing the existing garage doors to be removed this is the rear elevation where the extension will be added onto to create the L shape and this is the side elevation this is the elevation where the door is

To be put in to gain access into the building this shows the path which runs along the side of the out building and leads to the dwelling this is the a driveway facing west and the proposed parking would be on the left hand side of this driveway this is the access Facing East

Which is to be retained and the view onto Main Road this shows the ve vegetation along the boundary when facing north and the public right of way is on the other side of this and just another photo of the veg of the vegetation to conclude based on on the

Information set out within the report the recommendation is to Grant planning permission subject to conditions thank you uh thank you very much um do we have any questions from members to the case officer no questions um so I will now we haven’t got any public speakers for this

One have we so uh and we’ve had no comment from anyone else so I now open this item Up For Debate um anybody wish to say anything Council of War boys doesn’t seem to want to light up oh it has now thank you um thank you

Chair yeah yeah I have no issues with this proposal at all I noticed in the agenda supplement that the um Heritage officer is now satisfied with the roof finishes and wall finishes and notes about external venting so I think that was something that was wanting to be um

Secured by condition but I’m not certain looking at my notes um I think you look at the previous planning applications you see an ongoing program of repairs and improvements to the property I think it’s a more interesting building perhaps on the garage and workshop because you

Got this and it and it makes it a more livable space is in particular as you got space now for a relative so I’m I’m quite happy to support this application thank you is that a proposal it could be yes uh so unless you think it’s too soon but well um is anyone

Willing to Second uh councilor warboy’s proposal councelor Morgan uh does anyone have anything anything further to say on this application uh councilor mson yes just to say that the um it seems entirely to fit within our policies so um there shouldn’t be any problem with it at all

Thank you and we do have a condition for um ancillary to the main dwelling don’t we it’s not going to become a separate house it has to it has got that restriction on which I think is important um so if if no one else has got anything to say uh councelor

Lawrence uh more query than anything else is in the recommendations there’s a requirement for a secure and lit cycle storage and EV charging prior to occupation and I just wondered uh where does that secur L cycle storage fit in on the site and the EV charging point in a grade two

Listed area I don’t know can the officers has helped with can you put EV charging and cycle storage on listed buildings I think looking for a scheme of how they would provide some cycle parking obviously Liv in the what okay we’re losing the garage so we looking at What alternative cycle

Parking would be available that would be up to the applicant to pop something together for us uh could be in the manner of a shed or cycle store for something small scale and available for secure cycle parking and in terms of EV charging that is something we look at on

A caseby Case basis obviously if we’ve got new dwellings we’re looking for something fairly substantial something of this nature might be is there an outdoor plug that is um got appropriate ducting through that you you could run a point to perhaps on this garage it’s right by the parking we’re not looking

At putting a big box on the side of the listed building but it would be up for the applicant to be able to agree just what that would look like vorus just for clarity then for my clarity anyway um we’re not putting a condition in there which the Heritage

Team might in the future refuse so the applicant is unable to comply with the conditions that’s there seems to be a conflict in my view or potential conflict I don’t think we are looking at works that would be a problem in the setting of the listed building so the

Plug on the side of the likely to be on the side of the extension to the garage that we’re just looking at wouldn’t have any issues with Heritage Fabric and wouldn’t affect the character or appearance of that small extension it might be something you’d expect to see of that nature so I think

That’s fairly easily resolved and similarly with secure and lit cycle storage that is something like a shed or cycle store something fairly small scale or some other way of them saying yep actually we store our bikes here and we can do so so that shouldn’t have the

Impact and we can certainly run through that so I think there are plenty of options without having concern over the listed building um thank you are are there any further uh points to raise or questions um if not then we’ll go straight to the vote I will ask the

Government’s officer to uh conduct the electronic vote thank you thank you chair members that vote is now in progress thank you e thank you chair that makes eight votes for so that is unanimous uh thank you very much um so I think we can move um

Straight on to item 7B thank you very much Nikita um DC 24296 ston barns Peta Road ston aspel um uh now is councelor right so councelor H hardingham is the ward member uh so he will just go and um sit across the on the other side um and uh

Part of the mids Constitution is that he doesn’t vote um and uh we’ll now invite the case officer uh Braun Curtis uh who should be with us on teams hello Braun you can hear us um yeah good morning so if you’d like to introduce the application to committee thank

You thank you chair and good morning members okay I will start with the presentation this is a little bit bit of a complicated one because it is a deferral but also in the time since your previous meeting uh which some of you were not members at the time or serving

On the committee at the time we’ve also had the jlp so there’s quite a bit in the report um the site has a bit of complex history about it as well so I will try and give you a rundown of a bit of everything but please do ask

Questions um when I’ve sort of flipped through everything and hopefully I’ll I’ll give you an understanding of what we’re talking about so application is for a pass of land um forming part of the stonum barns complex which is in the countryside between the Villages of stonom masville and Peta

It’s that little boot shaped section which is the application site it’s just showing the context of the two villages and the rights of bra Network Highway Network Etc this plan shows the site in relation to some of the wider complex there’s actually been more development since this plan was received which was a

Couple of years ago and I’ve included this plan please ignore the red line here this is from a slightly more recent application but it gives you a sense of some of the of the complex so ston and barns is a Leisure and tourism complex it includes a couple

Of fishing lakes um almost almost 200 Caravans some of which have um restrictions on them for occupation for Holiday L only some of them are for security um Personnel some of them are not controlled um for various reasons there’s also um foot golf Crazy Golf um like a pitching part there’s the mids

Suffk show ground there’s a conference an event center a theater suff Al Sanctuary um and a complex of retail um and food type units in in Cen so there’s a a really mixed offering at the complex as a whole um there’s also um the former Donkey Sanctuary land at bottom which is

Also within their ownership and the ownership goes off this slide um towards Peta they own the land all the way up to a property to and including Wayside cottage which is sort of halfway between the site and Peta I’ll show you that in some photos a little bit

Later um as I said before there is a lot of history at this site I’ve only included the two most relevant applications in the report because the report would be twice as long if you had all of the history but there is a lot there has been a lot of different

Applications for a lot of different things on the whole the complex has evolved in quite a peace meal way with individual developments coming forward um there has also been a lot of enforcement investigation and action through from both our planning enforcement teams and our um environmental health enforcement action

Teams to do with various things um across the years either unauthorized development or developments not being carried out in accordance with plans or conditions um breaches of noise um conditions working times and days things like that so there’s there’s all of that history as a backdrop to this application not necessarily relevant to

The determination today but just so that you have that context and what that also gives you an idea of is the tension that exists between the site operators and the community so moving on I’ve included the extract from the 2015 plan because you can see in the

Report that um the area of land that is the subject of this application was included in in the extent of the red line for the 2015 permission on which we did Grant the sighting of some Caravans so the land in question has permission to site approximately 11 Caravans in a

In a slightly different Arrangement and things have happened in between 2015 and now which which make things slightly but the general principle of Caravans in this location has already been granted um and that forms part of the reasoning from the landscape professional so I’ll talk about that in

A moment but just say that you’ve got the two for comparison and you have the layout of the proposed here so slightly different from the layout that had been granted in 2015 this is now for 18 Caravan units arranged around uh sort of like a cerac End I’ve included um the layout for a five Caravan extension to this part of the complex which was granted in 2020 just um for context really and um to speak about the precedent of that decision at the time some photographs of the site so at the end of the existing extent of

Cited Caravans you can see into the agricultural field this is looking East towards Peta and then you can just see in the very far background that’s Wayside Cottage so the highway along there you can see the extent of open agricultural land into which the site Extends turning round so looking more Eastward east Southeast South and then turning back towards the body of the complex and you can see the existing sighted Caravans some of you can see some of the planting here you can see some of the more mature planting along the highway in the

Background there there is a ditch that runs along the southern boundary of the site is shown there and then some photographs from the road just show uh some of the intermittent planting and some of the views that there are from the highway so you’ve got some hedge planting some mature trees some

Gaps get a sense of the backdrop of existing complex of permitted Caravans that are on the site as well and then this is a photograph of high summer just so that you can get a sense of how the vegetation um grows at that time of year uh this slide is included because

Um there was a query um in the representations about the capacity of utilities to support the development and that also came up at the previous committee discussion so this shows the location of uh um package treatment plants for sewage the site is off Main sewer which ends around 300 meters to to

The West in um the relig just on Asal so it is entirely functioning on um septic tanks and package treatment plants it also has its own B holes for the abstraction of water um and it obviously has fishing lakes etc for um which is for firefighting ities as well as the

Recreational purposes and we’ve had advice from UK power networks to confirm that the um electricity network has capacity to support the development at the site so I’ve got some more recent photos these were taken in November following an enforcement um investigation visit so again you can see the setting of the

Existing Caravan Arrangement at that part of the site this just shows this is taken where the first photos were showing bits of agricultural field so you can now see that some of some of the new Vans have been sighted with pads being constructed and the Vans sighted on them so these

Two are new additional Caravans and then you can see that there’s two waiting in the center background there so they are placed on the S but they are not in position in their final position and you can see some of the construction works for the pads being undertaken with this

This digger scraping the top soil to put the pad down for those vans and then I’ve included this Photograph because again you can see Wayside Cottage in the background there but you can also see this Earth fund which doesn’t have planning permission so it’s unauthorized Works um it is

Understood that the site operator has um erected that in order to provide some landscape screen screening but you’ll see that the advice that we’ve had from the landscape professional is that that’s actually not helpful um it introduces another um um obtrusive feature and is not really the best way

To go about Landscaping the overall visual impact of the complex but I’m just adding it there so that you know it exists in case um you want to know that how it’s screened even though it’s screened in an unauthorized way so that’s the end of the photos I’m going to go back to

The layout picture and then I’ll give you a quick rundown of what it is that you’re considering again and what some recommend recommending so proposal is for the continued use of land for the sighting of 18 Caravans that would be as an extension to the existing complex of

Caravans which are arranged around the fishing lakes and are used for Holiday accommodation um whilst your plan provides for that um as a specific policy providing for tourist accommodation in the countryside it is on the basis of there being um an exceptional need and a demonstrated business case and what’s happened since

The deferral here is we went away and we got the landscape advice to respond to that that resolution from the deferral um we also risk assessed once we had that advice risk assessed that minded to reason for refusal which was based on the previous local plan and call

Strategy but then we had the progress of the joint local plan so we invited the applicant to make submissions on the basis of the joint local plan and how they were responding to that as well as responding to um you can see that there’s a holding objection from the

County Council um lead local flood Authority on the basis of um insufficient information to demonstrate the management of surface water drainage they have declined to provide any information on that basis so whilst the previous recommendation was one of approval and whilst the principle of development here for tourism development

In the countryside is provided for by your plan your plan is now more specific about requiring the demonstration of that business case and the exceptional which hasn’t been provided in this instance we also don’t have the information to demonstrate that the development would meet the policy or local policy and National policy

Requirements in respect to flood risk so being safe for its lifetime and not increasing flood risk elsewhere with an appropriate um drainage management strategy and uh we also don’t have any information from the applicant on how they intend to meet the requirements of your policy lp16 for the delivery of

Biodiversity net gain as I say we have invited the applicant to respond on those points they have declined we’ve waited for quite a long time to bring this to you in the hope that we might get some Dialogue on that and we haven’t so we’ve we’ve brought it to you to make

A decision so your tabled paper just adds a little bit more to my assessment to make it clear on the points about principle of development but it not being demonstrated that it meets all of the um requirements in the policy that there’s no demonstration of um compliance with policies relating to

Flood risk or biodiversity net gain and an updated recommendation so refusal but on three for three reasons I’ll leave it there for a moment thank you uh thank you um do we have any questions from Members um uh councelor Elkin thank you um Brun hopefully you

Can hear me all right um the you said that they’ve been given ample opportunity to to respond on the biodiversity net gain and flood risk and the business case I just wondered um you know had they been given sort of extra time um is there any sort of extenuating circumstances why they haven’t

Responded the um so as you know the consultation on joint local plan uh went through quite a long period of of public consultation and the agent for this application engaged in that consultation and made representation specifically relating to ston and bars this application has been with us

For four years um that dialogue has been ongoing as the progress of the jlp has has moved through that time I don’t believe there’s um any reason why there would be any different treatment of this application than any other certainly none that they brought to my attention anyway uh any further

Questions no uh Council Lawrence just from my own Clarity on this particular number of 18 did I read it wrong but 11 have already got permission is that correct so we’re talking about that’s correct we’re talking about an additional seven that’s correct so the 2015 permission included the arrangement of

Some Caravans in this location uh a slightly different layout but 11 more or less on this parcel of land and the proposal is for 18 so can I just have a bit more clarification so the suggested con uh reasons for refusal only relate to the additional seven then not the whole

18 18 because that’s what’s being applied for and we’re considering this application as a whole but when you’re dealing with weighing the the difference between what has permission and what’s being applied for then it is material to bear that they have permission to site 11 under a preious permission however I

Should say that there is some uncertainty about which permissions they can rely on we are in the process of working with our enforcement team uh following the hillside Parks judgment and other judgments of the previous couple of years to confirm with them which permissions they’re relying on for what developments

That are on the site um the agent has said that they are going to be providing that information to us so we are waiting for that but in the meantime that doesn’t prevent members from determining this application uh councelor War boys thank you chair and soon um yeah yes um our

Initial uh minding to refuse was very much around the sort of uh Visual and Landscape impact uh the um landscape reporters sort of said that this would be there’ be an acceptable level of visual impact within the sort of nature of the development of the site as a whole and and what’s been

Going on however within that the it did say there were opport we could condition opportunities to secure some mitigation of visual effects plus improve quality and character of the area um your your slides from the presentation are are really sort of do do sort of show what

The character of the area is at present is it possible I you’ve got three quite specific reasons for refusal here is it possible to include this as that there’s been no um effort to secure some mitigation of visual effects or improve the quality and character of the

Area it might be worth my clarifying that the instruction to the landscape professional was not just in response to the deferral resolution but I did ask her to consider the potential for future development on all of the land between the existing complex and the rest of their ownership up to Wayside Cottage

Because I expect there to be more applications come forward it was an expensive piece of work and I thought whilst she was out there assessing visual impact I would ask her a series of questions so the scope of the response deals more with than than just the impact of this

Development it deals with the potential for other development and the opportunities that the authority has to control the visual impact of that development through uh further landscape mitigation and you’ll note in the full text of the response that um she speaks about there being Woodland planting along the roadside and she particularly

Criticizes the the bond so whilst there is an opportunity to do that if we’re going to be looking to to Grant permission and um and Del secure that through the delivery of another development the risk of refusing this proposal on the basis of visual impact I’ve assessed as

Um in the report and I’ve said that we shouldn’t be using that as a reason for refusal I think that makes sense did did that help councilor War I think so thank you thank you any further questions s uh no thank you so um uh I now invite

The public speakers to address the committee I I understand that the parish council can’t uh be here today uh but councelor hardingham is going to read the response from the parish council uh so I will time it with my three minute timer uh thank you councilor

Hardingham thank you chair um this is a statement on behalf of ston mpo Parish Council the parish council objects to this application on the following grounds the application is requesting additional static Caravans over and above the 200 that have permission from the original hybrid application and subsequent applications that have been granted this

We believe constitutes a massive overdevelopment in the countryside locally the site is known as the prisoner of war camp as it blights not only our Parish but also the adjoining parishes of PETA and Crowfield the parish council and local community are aware that the vast majority of the static Caravans are used

By the occupiers as their main or primary residence and not as holiday accommodation in contradiction of planning condition 20 of the original hybrid application this therefore potentially constitutes a population that is nearly the size of stonom Asal Village itself uh which is designated as a secondary settlement however the parish council

Has a great deal of sympathy with the planning enforcement team as they do not have the legal powers to investigate fully the occupation status of occupiers having to heavily rely on the honesty of both occupier and site owner these occupiers are invisible to midu and suffer County councils as they do not

Appear on the Electoral register no council tax is paid by the occupier and the local authorities can accurately fund their social health and other residential commitments the site is not connected to the Village sewer system therefore all foul water has to be managed by packet treatment plants which we Rel that

Number is now in double figures the upshot is that these treatment plants have limitations on the volumes of foul water that can handle and the types of solid waste they can process on a regular basis local residents static caravan occupiers complain of bad smells being emitted from the site and from the

Outflow pipes that adjoin the site with neighboring Fields environmental health are aware of the issues but deem it low priority in their burgeoning case load there is a continuing and worsening environmental impact from the growing number of static Caravans on the site they’re not subject to the same requirements as housing developments and

All cooking and heating provision is provided by LPG gas with static Caravans having on the site uh an internal footprint of up to 1200 square ft LPG usage will be consistent with heating and cooking for a large three-bedroomed house multiply the gas usage by 200 and the environmental impact can be easily

Proved finally this application fails to demonstrate an overriding business need for the development such as would be considered an exceptional circumstance for the purposes of policy lp13 of the recently implemented jlp as such the principle of the de development is in conflict with the development plan and should be refused

Uh thank you um the parish council representative isn’t here to answer any questions so I suggest if we have any questions uh we ask that when the ward member makes his own representation um we don’t have an objector we don’t have a supporter uh I believe we have the applicant of of the

Agent sorry uh Mr Phil Cobalt um if you would like to um make your representation I will time you with my three minute timer thank you thank you if I could first of all refer you to paragraph 34 of the officer’s report which lists the policies which they believe are relevant to the

Application that list admits a number of policies firstly it admits reference to policy spo7 which is your strategic policy for tourism which states new sustainable tourism development that supports the tourism role of the settlements across Baba and mid stuff will be encouraged where appropriate to the scale character and nature of the

Locality this proposal is sustainable as the site is accessible by public transport there are bus stops outside the site entrance and according to the County Council website these are served by four daily services to ipswitch there are also a range of shops and Facilities on site so guests would not be reliant

On the use of a car policy lp12 is also emitted from your report this also deals with tourism and Leisure it states proposals for new tourism and Leisure facilities or improvements SL extensions to existing facilities will be supported where they improve the district’s ability to attract and cater for visitors this

Ticks that box where they improve the Range quality and accessibility of facilities this proposal ticks this that box where they are accessible by public transport and facilities for walk and cycling again this proposal ticks that box and where they include facilities which are open to The Wider Community also Accords with that

Criteria policy lp13 deals with Countryside tourism accommodation it states outside settlement boundaries applications for tourist accommodation will be considered on an exceptional basis in addition applications must demonstrate an overriding business need to be in that location be sympathetic to the character and be accessible by a range of of Transport modes the pretext

To that policy does not explain why tourist accommodation can only be approved on an exceptional basis nor does it g give any guidance at all on what would constitute an overriding business need in this case the existing building the existing building sorry the existing business is in the countryside

Therefore clearly any expansion of that business will also have to be in the countryside your officer report also contains no mention of the council’s visitor destination plan which emphasizes the need to encourage more over overnight stays and for visitors to come all year round there’s also no mention of the council’s recently

Adopted culture Heritage and visitor economy strategy one of the objectives of which is to support diversification of the local visitor to offer especially accommodation infrastructure and to proactively support new developments the report also contains no Comm ments from the council’s economic development and touring tourism officer which is

Surprising with regards to the objection to flooding we submitted a comprehensive flood risk assessment when the County Council flood team requested further information we responded in February last year to all of their queries they still maintain a holding objection but they have not explained why or how the information we’ve submitted is

Sufficient deficient the site is within flood zone one which means it’s not at risk of um of flooding and and the EA Maps also confirm that the site is not at risk of surface flooding so that’s difficult to understand who or what would be at risk we are confident that

Our flood risk assessment is robust are you almost at the end yes sure just like to finish with your final sentence please having declared a climate emergency surely the council should be encouraging people from other parts of the country to visit mids suffk rather than fly abroad for their holidays

Especially as this site is accessible by public transport uh thank you uh do we have any questions uh for the agent any questions for the agent um well I I just like to to ask because my ears pricked up when you mentioned how opportunities of cycling I personally don’t like cycling on the

A120 so I wondered if you could explain what the opportunities of cycling to and from the site were opportunities there’s a bus stop directly opposite the entrance sorry I must have misheard you I thought you mentioned opportunities for walking in cycling I think that’s what the policy referred to I was

Emphasizing that there’s public transport available to the site okay I mean I I’d just like to um uh maybe ask the officer about the comment uh Mr kobo’s made about the response to the flood Authority I know that’s suff County Council but but uh there

Obviously seems to be a bit of a a conflict here if um one side thinks they have supplied the information and um s County Council don’t so I wondered if you could um make any comment on that thank you thank you chair excuse me uh so the

Advice that we have from the lead local flood Authority whose responsibility it is to advise on the engineering capacity Etc of um surface water flood risk is that they have a holding objection that there is insufficient information to enable them to comment uh that then makes it difficult

For us to come to any conclusion as to whether or not the application submission complies with our policies in relation to flood risk and the um precautionary principle applies when we’re dealing with flood risks basically we should be looking at the the worst case scenario when it’s it’s something

That has potential to affect property in life so in the absence of information we should refuse but if the applicant can demonstrate the information that the lead local flood Authority are asking for it’s very likely that that reason for refusal could be overcome thank you uh any further

Questions um of Mr cobal uh thank you Mr cobal um so uh We’ve now got the ward member councelor hardingham um if you’d like to make any um representation about this application thank you thank you chair um I really have very little to add to what our case officer has already

Said um she’s been extremely careful in wording her advice to us um and to um not rely on the landscape um arguments that were um originally listed when the application was deferred by the committee in 2021 um and her advice is that we should rely purely on the the the three um um

Reasons that she’s given um and of which the main one is the lp13 business case argument um I would just add that in terms of flooding and flood risk uh the house immediately adjacent stolin barns um was flooded to a depth of a couple of

Feet um during storm babbit um I re I I appreciate that the water came from across the road from the field the other side um but nevertheless the whole area although it’s one of the highest places in suffk and so you would immediately assume flood zone one and no risk of

Flooding um because it’s relatively flat uh and the ditches and water courses up there are not particularly adapted to the extremely heavy rainfall that we’ve been having um they simply haven’t been able to cope and so flooding has been cropping up in places where it wouldn’t

Normally be expected um and in the past that house is also flooded uh with water coming off the stolen bar site so um there is a flood risk associated with with development up there thank you thank you um are there any questions of the ward member uh Cel M yeah can can

The officer identify which um which residential property is the that um council hardingham is referring to getting flooded um in recent months I believe Council hardingham please correct me if I’m wrong I believe you’re referring to brambley hedge which case that’s probably the best one is

That one in that little triangle it’s on the a 1120 I’ll just try and turn that Cod C I’m not sure we’re seeing the screen you think we’re seeing Brun we’ve got the site plan with the Caravan layer on it still sorry there we go um and I’m going to

Try and change my pointer to laser point there we go R hedg is there yeah thank you yes um yeah I’m I’m recalling that that the flooding of that property was an issue uh in one of the earlier um visits of son and Bar’s um applications to

Committee um so and is Council Harding is saying I mean the problem isn’t it’s anywhere near the river the problem is when there’s a lot of rain it’s flat and it does the water doesn’t get away generally where’s the flooding coming from uh in this case in during storm B

Rbit it came uh I believe from across the road uh from a field which is high higher than than the road on to the north um and um there there are gullies in the road which drain underneath stolen bar site and out to the South um

But they were simply not up to the task um and in the past there has been flooding coming from from the ston and bar site that issue may or may not have been fixed I don’t know uh thank you uh any further questions anyone else got any questions

I would like to ask uh councilor hardingham about the bus service which the agent referred to um I think he said there were four buses a day uh do they go to places that maybe holiday makers might want to go and are they a sort of sensible time of day that you could

Actually make use of them thank you uh I’m afraid I can’t give you that information uh I’m sorry but I’m not well acquainted with the bus service Services um I suspect they are very local services in Stow Market but the agent May well be able to elaborate with the rail

Service any further questions of the uh uh Ward member um if not then we’ll open this item Up For Debate um who would like to make a comment first C Matson yeah well I um I was a member of the committee uh in the um 2021 um

Deferral um and as you members will have read the the risk assessment you can see that that there was that particular um unhappiness on the part of the committee about about the landscape impact I I just just wanted to can we go to slide seven please just just so that people

Can understand the the the problem um the if if you think about ston and Barnes as as a sort of a a village which it more or less is in a way um the the the the the Caravans on the left of that that diagram um they are

Essentially one side of of a of a a cluster of of Caravans and Retail and other activities the officers have described um and the problem that we had and we we were disappointed to find that that half of the extension of the Caravans across the across there um had effect L already been

Approved and that they were really an extension into the countryside in a way that the the cluster was not and so committee was was very keen to to limit that harm as we saw it but as you see the the landscape assessment has not entirely supported that but you can see why

Less Caravans is better than more Caravans um because it extends further and further away from you know if this was a village and we were talking about an outline application we’d be saying well it it needs to fit more comfortably with the the existing settlement not stick

Out a Long Way East East I think it is um so yeah that’s just to explain explain the reasons why so I think I I would have no hesitation in not wanting to increase the 11 to 18 um even if the piece of land is the same because it it just increases that

Um in my view harm which is um you know not entirely supported by the the risk assessment that we’ve had so that’s that’s the my about it that LE less will be always better than more um I think the other thing to say and this is difficult and contentious is that the

The apparent demand for even more that that almost 200 that was that was quoted by the officer of Caravans um I don’t know what the split of that is in planning terms between um holiday accommodation and Resident permanent residential accommodation but certainly the um Enforcement cases I

Think probably a year and a half two years ago particularly were very much about the fact that were what was supposed to be holiday accommodation was being used as permanent residents in fact there were there were people on the Electoral register to vote who were living in Holiday accommodation so I’m a little

Bit concerned that the the business case which hasn’t been put forward at the moment really but that the business case is effectively being supported by um more permanent residents than is either permitted or or or desirable really um we’ve refused other car van applications in great Bret because we

Didn’t think that having 100 odd Caravans um in permanent residential use in one place uh was was desirable and we refused it and I think that that’s I think that refusal was uphold held appeal J great Bryce it not sure memory I think was but I wouldn’t

I’d like to check before giving an answer that so so so we can we can see that that the council view that having a very large number of of Caravans in one place in permanent residence is not a good idea so you know the risk is that we will be having more enforcement

Difficulties because people desperate for somewhere to live um will take on these these Caravans even though they’re supposed to to not live in them more than 11 months of the year thank you um anyone else wish to um make a comment or all their views uh councelor

Davis thank you chair um yeah I clearly wish to support the tourism industry and local uh jobs in our district however it’s really disappointing to see the lack of Engagement in producing an overall plan for the business development of this area and clearly there are a number of issues which um raise concerns

So uh for me not having any information at all and any wish to uh apply the biodiversity net gain which is uh increasingly needed by applicants is further disappointment so I feel unable to support um this application for 18 homes of mobile homes thank you uh anyone else

Wish to um make any comments or proposals thank you thank you I mean yes just to sort of Follow that really I just find it a bit confusing that there’s it’s clearly a large site with lots of space in terms of what could be provided in terms of

Biodiversity net gain that would add to the the value of the site for tourists I would have thought and make it more attractive as well as being beneficial for for wildlife it just seems confusing that there hasn’t been any offer or any engagement on that so um and for the

Other reasons mentioned um without the business case information I mean I would hope I think the developer mentioned that they weren’t clear what they needed to provide so hopefully there can be you know that can be provided and there can be engagement with the officers to clarify that but yeah as other others

Have said in its current form I wouldn’t feel comfortable supporting that thank you uh anyone else uh councilor Lawrence I I was big I didn’t quite follow quite a few of the arguments that the agent was putting forward um policies that weren’t included by the

Case officer um a lot of the issues in my view that were discussed by the agent in that um presentation were rather frivolous in that um the enhancements or improvements didn’t really imply to the greater communities of the nearby Villages or to others it was really enh enhancements

For the benefit of the applicant and and to suggest that people won’t fly abroad um but would rather catch a train to ipswitch and then a bus from ipswitch out to this site with masses of suitcases I I just find uh mind-blowing thank you uh thank you

Anyone else wish to say anything or um we don’t have any proposals uh been put forward Che councilor Morgan I’d just like to reiterate councelor Elkin’s feelings about the lack of response from the applicant This concerns me um and also the concern of permanent dwellings exceeding the amount

And evasion of councel tax thereof it is an element of concern to me so therefore I am against it thank you uh councelor mats did I see you waving again yes yes um yeah I would like to make a proposal to um refuse in line with the officer’s

Recommendations thank you and that’s the officer’s recommendations on the um additional papers the supplementary papers yes just checking that we’re all looking at the same list of um reasons for refusal yeah yeah so that is page five and six of the supplementary papers okay thank you do we have a second

Councilor Davis are you I would be happy to second that proposal yes uh thank you does anyone else wish to um say anything about this proposal to go along with the officer recommendation for refusal on those um three main um reasons listed on page five and

Six no okay so I will then ask the um governance officer to conduct the electronic vote thank you chair members that vote is now in progress on modgv councelor Morgan do you want me to take your vote verbally please yeah just to remind people we’re

Voting um it’s a vote it’s a refusal so for will mean you’re voting for refusal uh thank you chair so that makes seven votes for that’s unanimous uh thank you thank you very much um so uh we’ll now take a um uh was it let’s meet back

We’ll take a break here for Comfort break so can we come back here at 52 so we’ got six minutes is that enough item 7c DC 22628 at Port one business and Logistics Park brownford Road little blenham uh and I will now invite the case officer Vincent Pierce to introduce the application

Committee thank you thank you chair good morning members and members of the audience and anyone who may be watching or listening from home as the chair says we’re looking this morning at a hybrid application and that contains two elements full application for three Warehouse units and Associated access and Landscaping and an outline

Application for the expansion further expansion of Port one the logistics Park as you can see from the screen the majority of the port one site sits within little blakenham there’s a small pocket that sits in great blenham but the part that sits in great Blum is essentially the phase one

Development that’s already under well almost completed now at the top of the screen you’ll see a red flashing area that’s the gipping meadow l land that’s the land that if the committee was minded to Grant permission would become a nature area some 8.8 hectares and potentially could be available for

Transfer to the council for a pound application includes full application as I say for three Warehouse units outline application for what is shown indicatively as six more Warehouse units it includes improvements to Junction 52 on the A14 as we as I said it provides for significant biodiversity

Enhancement and it contains a much wider I’ve called it a green package and I’ve put the highlights on the screen but the report goes into this in far more detail so what is Port one I suspect most members are now very familiar with it but it is a highly successful purpose-built

Logistics Park in gra Laken it’s also a Freeport Customs area which provides it with certain tax advantages that are proving very attractive to inward investment and of course it is on the A14 which is a strategic Highway Corridor particularly for goods Vehicles so on the screen the area in

Turquoise is the area where the full application applies so that includes the Landscaping to to brownford Road it includes a new access completely new access from brownford road and it includes three Warehouse units the magenta color is the outline area and whilst we have a layout on the

Screen that isn’t necessarily the layout that would come in Via Reserve matters if members were minded to Grant permission it is purely indicative but as you can see it follows the general pattern of existing development now within phase one so if we quickly look at how the access

Would work if you were coming off the A14 you would swing down into the new new access if you wanted to leave again you’d use the new access to directly access Junction 52 the point of the layout arrangements and Highway management techniques that are used for this axis is to try and

Prevent hdv movements North and South along the brownford road through some of the residential areas so what we’re trying to do is focus all hgv movements onto the A14 in the quickest way we can so in terms of coming down brownford Road you’d have to swing left Round the

Roundabout and come back in this is simply to get maximum benefit for capacity so going northwards you wouldn’t be able to swing in left into the new access what that looks like here we have a a computer aided simulation so we’re now looking southwards along the brownford road and that Lorry is about

To swing into the new access as I said this is a completely new Junction so you’d come in onto a new spine road that will serve the logistics part you’ll have Warehouse units to your left and right potentially there could be a barrier here to um enhance security because obviously there a

Customs area the applicant has to meet certain criteria to ensure that Goods coming in are secure and then if you we swing left and you look down to the outline application part of this proposal and if we swing right we see what is the full application area and then phase one Beyond

So there we start to see and then that’s phase one looking into the the distance so in terms of the full application we’re looking at unit 5 unit 11 and unit 12 this is a typical elevation um one end of the building has a lot of Glass

And Metal very similar to the format that we’ve already approved in Phase One and the banding Shades from very light gray to site as shown and we’ve all agreed that’s the best uh arrangement of of banding in order to minimize the bulk of these units in the long views from

The east from the Barum cayen Direction because behind this is actually a backdrop of trees mature trees within the blam estate this side actually sits low lower than the Blake estate land significantly lower again some more typical elevations quick shot of what goes on inside for those that haven’t been

Inside state-of-the-art uh warehousing nine racks High floor to ceiling quite a bit of automation but there is a significant amount of job creation in within this scheme as you’ll see from the report when it’s all working at maximum capacity assuming get per Mission this and phase one could

Generate rate up to 1250 jobs but even taking a conservative estimate on on job numbers it’s still in the many hundreds and is is a significant amount just to show you the difference in building Heights and ground levels between the detailed application before you and what we approved previously so here we have

Sorry I’m doing that again you’re over that way here we have phase one what we have here is now the the new phase two and as you can see this is significantly lower than this because a significant amount of land has now been has been excavated as part of

The previous planning permission so what we’re trying to do all the time is to lower the mass of these buildings in the views so average floor to Ridge height is about 20 me met but by sinking it into the ground you immediately reduce the impact on the visual impact of

Those here’s it here you can see literally the difference in level so that red dashed line is The Edge at the moment phase one is to the right the second part of phase one is being excavated and you can see the drop and you can also see the retaining

Structures that are are going in and here you can see the Woodland the plantation that’s part of the blenham estate oh Sor is it better if I do it on that one so you can see how by reducing the levels the buildings will sit below the tops of those

Trees that’s why the darker bands of the building at the top rather than the lighter bands some more cross-sections we have conditioned this particular Bund just to make sure that the angle of what we call the angle of repose this one is structurally stable and we’ve

Conditioned that so it might need to be something more akin to that although as you can see we have successfully approved some fairly steep retaining walls within phase one so as long as they’re structurally sound and we’ll have that all checked we have no concern about retaining structures here we have pound

Lane which is existing road to the South that separates the application site from the existing tomato growing Warehouse as you can see from this angle with the existing trees some raise levels and additional planting you won’t really catch a sight of the end of this Warehouse bearing in

Mind it’s still indicative from from pound Lane pound Lane still retains quite a typical Country Lane character and that’s something we’ve tried to ensure that we keep despite the fact that we are suggesting extending this large Logistics park it is what it is as I say

In the report but I am suggesting in the central green Corridor which I identify in the report I’m thinking it might be better to reverse the banding so that as you’re walking along the green Corridor which contains a designated public footpath I’m just going to reverse the colors just for that section right

Through the middle and what that might do is reduce the sense of presence perhaps the dominance to Walkers of those those buildings because the lighter colors will go up towards the sky that’s what you’ll be experiencing but again that could be conditioned how that might look in relation to the other

Banding we’d have to to think about but it is quite wide it is 72 feet 22 M which is two coach lengths and that will be heavily planted so I my feeling is that the visual impact of those wherehouse edges will be significantly softened here we have another fly

Through so this is Phase One we’re actually at the uh Northern end of phase one I’m just going to fly you around so you can see the extent of planting within the blam State we simply drop down because that’s mounded already as part of the phase one works and if that will then

Swing in the direction of pound Lane so you you see the energy from waste plant in the distance you see buildings in phase one and then we start to move towards phase two and you can start to see the central boulevards how they’re arranged they’re actually arranged at

Right angles to brownford road to reduce the impact on views from brownford Road it’s been very carefully thought through a lot of emphasis on planting within the scheme even though it is a logistics Park just swing around we’re looking back towards the energy from waste building we swing around it is

What it is it’s a it’s a high-tech state-of-the-art Logistics Park and then we look back towards Blake and Plantation uh a really good feature of this so far in Port one is the amount of EV charging that’s been installed you’ll remember that your normal standard is one per five spaces in places we’re

Getting close to 50% and as part of um K and de’s Ethos what they are trying to do is encourage as much use of electric vehicles as possible by really increasing the number of charging facilities within their development we would expect that to continue into phase two were you minded to Grant

Permission so here we have a quick slide showing the cycle parking facilities if we blow that up you can see that there’s a significant number of uh spaces being provided so that’s what 228 and another 50 that’s uh over 300 spaces just within the detailed element

So as well as the emphasis on green electric power usage they are also providing putting an emphasis on cycling that isn’t simply by providing large numbers of cycle stands off cycle shelters it’s also by extending the cycle Network in and around great blenham and we’ll have some slides on that

Shortly so here we have the outline application era and again as I say this is purely indicative so where you mind you to Grant planning permission what would happen is the applicant would submit Reserve matters we’ get all the details and then it would come back to

The committee in just the same way as you’ve seen all the details for units 5 11 and 12 so what you’re look thinking about in terms of the magenta area is simply the principle of development rather than the full details which only relates to 5 11 and and

12 so what is the cycle Network position like in this area so phase one provided extended Network North from what was then the new access which is black Acre Road it also includes a crossing point on on brownford road so that you can actually cross the road now safely

At the Crossing Point that road or the the cycle Network extends to the new residential areas towards um I forget the name actual name of it but it’s the Pimon development so what we were trying to do is provide not just cycle uh connections but pedestrian connections from the new residential developments in

Order to make this an attractive place to work and in a way that you wouldn’t have to use your are to access it as part of phase two if you’re minded to ground planning position the cycle network is further extended down from the existing one right the way down to

The new access and Beyond and it includes a crossing over the brownford road anyone who’s well you can see from the report at the moment it’s simply a well-worn piece of grass in the central reservation with some drop curves this would be a signalized junction so again enhancing

The network and making the site more accessible to people who live in the area and then within the development we have a an extensive network of cycle footways in order to allow members of staff and visitors to continue their Journey safely to the the units in which they want to visit or

Work here in aerial shot in the yellow dashed dotted line is the phase one improvements and in the slides you can see here and here how that network was extended The Wider Network shown on the screen the sort of mustard colored um areas are cycle networks within residential developments in new

Residential developments the committee is ensuring that we do get enhanced cycle networks what we’ve tried to do with ort one is to link them to the jobs via extensions to the cycle Network we have achieved that very successfully here at Port Port one in terms of the LC

Whip the actual desire line from great Blum to Clayton is along Station Road so if we superimpose so that’s uh Station Road that goes under the A14 and we’ve got some slides so what we’re actually doing is enhancing what you’ve already put into the LC whd in order to provide a Spur through

Here and there’s a shot of um Station Road so when you it’s quite wide under the bridge at places it it pinches but it does provide an alternative route to clayon that doesn’t have to go around Junction 52 in terms of Suds and drainage what we have secured is a network of lagoons

Along the Eastern edge of the site and our ecologists have become very excited at the prospect of doing something really Innovative in terms of the planting uh members will be familiar with the old style of basins that were simply a rectangular hollow grassed hollow that were they looked highly

Engineered what we are doing here working with Ken de we just take you slowly through that it’s set within landscape it’s irregular in shape but it will provide the capacity necessary to take all the surface water drainage and from the development but we are looking to create a network of Wet

Woods and these are typically the sort of uh landscape and ecology you would find along flood Plaines Rivers if it was left to its own devices so in some ways this looks a bit primordial but elsewhere we’ve started to secure Wet Woods of this nature with dead tree

Trunks in it and all sorts of things the idea is that it it provides all the necessary drainage capacity but it does it in a way that is particularly attractive to Wildlife and particularly Wildlife that relies on Wet Woods it’s a scarce resource and this is a way of really boosting

Biodiversity so we are encouraged by the applicants Innovative approach and the fact that they want to work with us to achieve this level of of I was going to say Delight but it is actually something really quite beautiful if it works as intended extensive Landscaping included

In this this proposal I won’t go through all the details but as you can see the margins are heavily landscaped what I have suggested is we have a condition that requires further details of this section to be provided simply to ensure that that relationship I showed you in

Cross-section so that if you on pound Lane you wouldn’t see the the end of the building behind I’m confident we can achieve that both in terms of the level differences because pound Lane is already in a cutting but I think it’s just prudent to make sure that we have control over those

Conditions going forward a huge planting list and as you you won’t be able to see what’s on that but what I’ve tried to do is simply if it’s going to work is to blow just I just draw your eye to some of the numbers here over 2,000 field

Maples obviously they’re not going to be uh extra heavy standards but 644 or Thorns that’s just on one part of the site it’s an enormous planting list and anyone who’s been out to phase one of Port one will see that the density of planting is high it’s

Incredible there’s no reason to S to suspect that that won’t continue and just from that list I haven’t counted them up but there must be over 20,000 plants going in there’ll also be a significant number of trees so it’s not all whips just a typical extract just to

Give you some idea of the types of planting this is the new access so here we’ve got a a mixture of Oak lime and Elm interestingly as disease resistant as you can currently buy so it’s a it’s Dutch Elm resistant species of elm it would be nice to start seeing some Elms coming

Back into the the landscape but of course there would be a condition requiring replanting so if for some reason the Elms didn’t succeed we could for five years require replacement and I think even the um I don’t say even the applicant themselves want to make sure that the a shop window to their

Development was as as amazing as possible so I’m quite happy that that level of detail will be followed through the management plan the Landscape Management plan so we’ve we’ve already had that fly through Junction 52 of all the aspects of this development that caused most concern at

The start of this process with the parish councils was what will the impact be on Junction 52 there was a a strong feeling that it could easily uh bring the junction to a standstill well clearly advice from suff County Council is that wouldn’t have been the case but what we have done is

Work with suffer County highways the applicant to secure improvements so at the moment the area the approach with the black circle looks like that left on the left hand lane Straight Ahead the forward Lane that will be amended in order to give notice that this section will now be two lanes wide

At the moment it’s only single Lane so as you can see in the image on the left you got two lores but you got a lot of marking it’s reduced to single what’ll happen is there’ll be two lanes of carriageway which will in significantly increase capacity there’ll be some changes to the

Road Arrangement towards clayon in terms of you’ll see at the top here at the moment there’s uh a lot of segregated land with the Chevrons that you can’t cross that’ll be adjusted in order to create a second approach Lane onto the junction when you are traveling from the

East and then that section in red will be widened in order to increase capacity so the parish councils all five local Parish councils are now satisfied with the improvements to Junction 52 they have accepted that actually dueling part of that is a significant benefit the gipping Meadowland as shown

On the screen already a meadow so you might think well what what benefit AR derives from having it remain a nature area well the benefit potentially is that whether or not the council takes the land for a pound it effectively will manage it in future to a spe specification that it feels is

Appropriate via a management plan that will be presented to the owners and they will have to implement it as set out and we’ve already been having discussions with our public realm team and our ecology specialists in public realm about enhancing the value of that site in terms of Nature and

Biodiversity without changing its intrinsic qualities as a flood Meadow so it’s 8.8 hectares that could potentially become another element in the council’s portfolio of green sites that it manages for the benefit of wildlife quick fly over we’ll just follow the railway this is the gipping Meadowland you can

See part of the site is defined by the river gipping and the railway on the the other side we’ve looked at ways with our colleagues as how that can be improved for recreational very informal Recreation actually um some paths might be created but large areas will remain difficult to access in order to

Encourage Wildlife to be undisturbed so in a nutshell well what what for me is a nutshell um that’s a quick run through the scheme just to highlight the key elements our recommendation is to Grand planning permission subject to securing legal agreements to secure all the items out

In the report and that members Grant conditional full outline where relevant and outline applic permission where relevant thank you chair I’m happy and willing to any questions that arise thank you uh thank you very much for the presentation um do we have any questions of the case officer councilor

Elkin thank you um can I just remind everybody um that it’s quite difficult to hear um with the microphone so please can you bring the mic as close as you can and speak to the mic don’t turn your head to talk to me thank you I’m not very loud either so if

Anyone can’t hear me please just wave at me um thank you it was just a question about I think it’s footpath 21 which goes through the site um and what I just saw in one of the comments that somebody had sent in was um saying that it does currently connect to a

Bridal way um and it was I think the comment was from horse people who ride on that Bridal way concern that they wouldn’t be able to now be able to get through to get to the bridal way um but I was just wondering as it’s such a wide

Green Corridor if there was any capacity for it to be suitable for a sort of mixed use of cycling and riding um which would then connect through to that Bridal way as well so that was that was one question the report includes a plan that shows the exact position of bridleway 30

And footpath 21 the good news is that that green Corridor will keep footpath 21 in exactly the same place as it is it isn’t being obstructed or diverted but effectively that whole strip will be available for the public to use now our colleagues in uh public rights away

Haven’t required that to be upgraded to a brid way but there’s no reason why and I’m not a public rights away specialist but if they’re using the bits that aren’t the designated public footpath then a horse could use it my question might be why are they going

Down there because they’ll end up on the brownford road and if they’re not careful Junction 52 but I mean as it is technically possible yes but it isn’t a requirement to make it a brid way I was thinking really more than the bridal way of it being then potentially a cycle

Route it would be if it was so that was just one one question um or did you have another question um councelor Alin I thought you said you had more than one yeah I did I um should I go for it now um well councelor hardingham had his hand up so perhaps

We’ll come back to you thank you do we have any more detail on the plans for gipping Meadow um it seems to me that as a existing flood Meadow um which is only seasonally grazed it probably has quite High Wildlife value as it is um and I’m wondering um what

Can be done to enhance that from a practical point of view to produce much benefit you are absolutely right it is occasionally grazed what we are looking at with our ecology and public realm colleagues and the parish councils are joining it is I think the grazing regime will

Continue there will be uh areas that are fenced in order to keep the public out there could be some additional planting but whatever happens it would be agreed with our public Realm team K and de the parish councils and it would all be directed at maintaining the current

Value or enhancing it now that’s a weasly way of not answering your question because the honest answer is we haven’t got that detail our public realm colleagues are working on it but you can make it absolutely clear that the if we were if you were minded to Grant

Permission and it was to be included in the 106 we could have the 106 saying that the objective shall be to do no harm to the existing value or enhance that existing value for the purpose of Wildlife and biodiversity because that is our aim but we have got draft ideas but I

Couldn’t show you on the screen what that means it’s minimally invasive so it might be keep it as it is for a number of years until we really have thought through the best way to to manage it uh if I could just have a a followup

Um I presume that we’re looking for a minimum 10% and the objective would be for a 20% BNG Improvement on the site as a whole to include the actual development site and also the meadow um that seems to me a bit of a a tall ask because the the

Development site itself is almost entirely hardstanding roads parking and roofs surprisingly there is a lot of marginal land that’s included that will be enhanced we also secured significant BNG on phase one there’s a whole new Plantation that’s being planted up as we speak to the West so you are right the

Applicants will still need to demonstrate 10% and that’s a a a condition we are expecting it to smash that out of the out of the park and I think you’re Target of 20 is something that I will be encouraging the applicants to to meet and as you say the

Baseline for the gipping Meadow Land is What it already is so it’ll be 10% on top of that or at least in aggregate the two sites will have to meet a minimum of 10% thank you uh councelor Davis uh thank you chair I uh saw with interest about the lagoons and your wet

Wood area if is that by Design having and part of the SS areas that are permanently ponded with water or is it going to be allowed to dry out as we go through wet um dry periods Sor the intention would be to have a a central

Area that is permanently wet or at least boggy um and then the rest will rise and fall but is intended to have it as a wet feature permanently or part of it thank you U if we go back to counc Elkin do you want to do a second

Question and then I I think councel matson’s got a question thank you it was um I think it mentions the sort of skills and education sort of intent to work with I think the local suff one and um and other organizations I just wondered if we had any more detail about what that

Might might look like or is that still being sort of thought through that’s one where my colleague Michelle might be able to to help us because what we’re trying to do is work in across services to deliver or to maximize opportunities for all of our community Through planning applications

So if it’s not unreasonable and through you chair if if Michelle’s willing to chip in at the moment it’s an aspiration but we hope it’ll become something more then thank you thank you chair excuse me um yeah we have an intention to work alongside the applicant to develop a an employment and

Skills plan that would be signed off as one of the conditions for the application within that excuse me we would set out with the applicant exactly how they’re going to engage with all of the skills providers what types of employment that will be offered on site and and what the timeline for that

Coming forward will be so that we can try and support that and ensure that as many local residents as possible have access and the skills needed to be able to take advantage of the jobs being created on site thank you uh councilor meon thank

You yeah if we could um come to the the uh the cycle Network I mean the parking is very impressive um but the what what’s concerning me a bit is is that the are we you know offsite improvements to cycling um it’s all very well linking up to the ajacent Villages but they’re

Not really that populous and the larger numbers of people are to be found in ipswitch and I just wonder if if we whether the county highways have asked for anything to be done because I I I I’ve got a memory of of the CLE between Branford and IPS which being

Awful um and and someone telling me that she wouldn’t let her teenagers cycle it etc etc um you know she was living in Branford and they wanted to go whip Swit and um so so I just wondered what we’re getting to help that cuz if you could if it’s a mile away and

It’s a love cycle route well yeah okay maybe people might cycle but it can almost walk that what what is your question what the question really is can we are we getting any Improvement for people who are going to you know the optimum cycling distance is is need a

Minip switch to this site um really they’re the people we want to get out of their cars are we getting any improvements to the cycle route to IP switch and to need them is the essential question as part of this application no the reason being that as you will

Recall whatever we ask for by way of section 106 has to be reasonable and reasonably related to the development what we have secured if permission is is granted is improvements along brownford road which directly serve this development I understand the point you’re making but this is something for

Our colleagues at suffk County and perhaps our own uh transport people through the LC Whip or the transport plan to identify major projects that require significant investment so my suggestion might be that you continue to put a lot of pressure on our colleagues at suffk highways and our own Katherine

Davis to see if we can extend projects in the LC with in order to secure that comprehensive cycle Network to the major centers of population I mean we are talking millions and millions these are major projects and I I’m sure you’ll say well if we can spend millions and millions on

Roads let’s spend millions of millions on cycle way and I wouldn’t necessarily disagree but you can’t require an applicant on this doing a development of this scale to provide improvements to the system to if which it just wouldn’t be reasonable within the planning sphere so unfortunately on this occasion

We can’t require them to but I know lots of people who we could contact to say this came up at committee let’s let’s see what we can do in terms of the OC web the transport plan uh thank you there there is of course a cycle way

From Witten to clayon so if you come from IP switch you go from Wht to clayon and then you pick up the route as indicated on on the map that we were shown uh you then talked about Branford which is different I’ll admit um officer’s gotor I don’t yeah I think

Um councelor Davis had his hand up again I’m sorry if I’ve missed somebody else can I also yeah I noticed that um councelor Erin grimaced as uh nicely grimaced as Michelle was talking about how we would intend or try and develop our employment scheme it looked as

Though you thought that sounds like jam tomorrow I just wonder if it was um no grimacing intended sorry about that um no it was it was just another follow on maybe it’s something for outside of here just to ask sort of I’d be really interested in the detail of that and

Particularly how younger people can be engaged and just speaking personally as having a a very small uh Business Park uh adjacent to my ward and it’s incredibly difficult for local people to find out what jobs are available there’s no apprenti ships we don’t have any uh

The high we have a high school but there’s very little work experience for young people sort of on our little business park so um you know if it could be sort of all all the age groups included that would be incredible but yeah that that might be a a discussion

To have outside of the sphere Vince did you want to come back committee might like uh Michelle and myself to report back at some future committee where perhaps isn’t the full agenda just so that we can let you know how well we’ve done to provide you with

The detail that you’ve asked for to make an aspiration an actuality thank you perhaps that that that would might be welcome um so I think there was councelor Davis I also think there’s councelor war boys so I’m sorry I’ve I’ve missed you out councelor War boys but I did say councelor Davis

Next and then I’ll come to you uh thank you chair so on the subject of um integrated transport again um we talked a lot about by bikes there um and you mentioned many millions of pounds so what links are there potential with the railway obviously be able to reduce the

Number of lawers and Al likee I’m excited at Prospect of electrically powered Lis and those sorts of things however that is a a brilliant point and it’s made me want to revisit the section of the report where we talk about the Fleet if if three vehicles can be a

Fleet the fleet of electric shuttle vehicles that Port one will be securing because as part of the offer K and D have said that there is potential for local communities to have access to those um electric vehicles outside of peak times for for Port one there is no reason why

Potentially uh they couldn’t be shuttling local communities to the station for example we have tried to come up with a system whereby local people could be shuttled to the um need and Market GP surgery but at the moment that practice is not seemingly willing to talk to us about about that but we

Won’t give up that’s one element of course there’s nothing stopping the shuttle vehicle from picking up members of staff at the station and bringing them to the thing so within the 106 we are looking to flesh out the nature of that arrangement but certainly Kur and de have said yes they’re happy to

Consider how that works in a sense they’ve got the vehicles the electricity is free in a sense because of all the PV that they’re putting on why not open it up to um the communities to Improve connectivity without having to rely on the car thank you uh councelor War boys thank you um yeah on um page 106 our corporate manager for economy and business introduces a bit of a cautionary note uh about the um limitations if you like of the monoculture of logistics Parks uh and

I’m aware this is um Cen de’s business and um it fits very well in with Port one but my question is are we not on page 106 146 sorry you we have B an explanation of this and control over use and it limits this development to to B8 which is actually

Warehousing my question is how we not just sort putting the the lid on any possible diversification on this site in terms of whether there is some assembly of manufacturing or value added um activity going on which will if you like benefit the local economy and the the range of jobs available possibilities for

Trading I I absolutely understand the point you’re making and it is a it is a good one I would argue we are not putting the lid on diversification what we are doing is introducing an ability for us to manage that in a way that means let’s say it was B1 or

B2 we would want to ensure that the off street parking requirement was met because um office let’s say office or industry has a much higher parking requirement than warehousing so what I’m saying is in order to allow those units to be used for let’s say B1 uses well

What were B1 uses you’d have to provide more parking how would they achieve that what we don’t want then to do is to have cars parking on the estate Road and the joining roads so it’s simply saying if you want to change the use you’d have to

Come back to us so look andure you meet our current standards what I am also saying though and it is putting a lid on is what we wouldn’t want for example is for these units to become let’s say retail units because under Class E um you can change use to a multitude

Of uses so one of those is retail well the last thing we probably want in terms of protecting Nom and other centers is to have an outof Town retail Center so in that sense we’re putting the lid on it but all we’re saying in terms of uh

Employment uses generally is we need to be able to ensure that you meet our standard relevant standards for that particular type of use now the difference between Port one and our own site at Gateway 14 is that Gateway 14 does have a general permission for employment uses but our colleagues are

Ensuring that parking there meets the requirements so if somebody wants a B2 unit General industrial unit they’re going to have to provide the requisite requisite parking but Port one is purpose-built logistics Park thank you for exping on thank you um Council Lawrence thank you chair um probably a

Bit of a confusing question uh we welcome normally welcome uh the provision of jobs I think it was something like over 12200 jobs is envisaged in this part alone I’m interested to know what is the travel to work area en Visage to support to obtain that number of jobs only on last night’s

News only 4% is unemployment in East Anglia at the moment and it’s not a lot of good if people are going to travel 30 you know if they’ve Trav work areas 30 or 40 miles to achieve those numbers so that’s the first part but interrelated is to supply those numbers of people in

A limited travel to work area do we have a strategy of Housing Development nearby without again people traveling 30 or 40 miles to work taking your first point first I think that might be a question you want to direct to the applicants because I know they have uh

Done a lot of research in terms of where the existing staff come from in terms of their catchment in order to satisfy us on parking requirements they are recruiting a significant number locally now whether they can sustain that I’ll leave that perhaps to them to answer if you ask

Them direct and your second point which is now completely just gone out of my mind as I was trying to write the the answer sufficient housing capacity that’s right in the near area I’d be very surprised if there was a counselor within the district that said we haven’t

Secured sufficient housing in our joint local plan to ensure that we’ve covered that angle I mean in close proximity we’ve still got some development going on Nan will have more Stow Market will have more elmswell is getting something I’m pretty certain that we are we can guarantee that we’re going to keep

Building houses for the next plan period and because this site is so close to the Stow Market need them the big centers of population I think we’re going to keep up it’s the jobs in a way that we need to ensure that the jobs are keeping up with the residential rather than the

Other way around thank you um well can I just ask a question I oh did did you have a question councilor Morgan sorry you’re you need to wave a bit more thank you hello my count my question is about the tenure of the Freehold of ging Meadow is

There a fixed term of years stated on the agreement because if the council can buy it for a pound you don’t want to find that in 10 years time you suddenly have to go back and renegotiate this having given all the permission it would be the Freehold in perpetuity for a pound

Did you have another question Council just can you remind us I was thinking about um the you know what the remarks about the LC Whip and the cycling uh can you remind us about the seal um status of the um of the application do you mean do you mean will

It be paying any sale I do essentially well that’s the question then yeah that’s a question that’s just caught me on the Hop because this sort of development didn’t traditionally trigger sill but I know we’ve just we’re in the process or have just changed that so that all

Development can I quickly look behind the scenes councelor maton and come back to you it’s a good yeah yeah thank you for the for the leeway to check that out thank you do do you want a bit of uh a bit of time now or

Or has has Gemma got it up already um a minute or two whether you want to carry on them well I just wanted to I had my own question actually about the highway improvements on the junction whatever it is 50 whatever uh is there a timing condition about when all those

Improvements to that Junction are to be implemented um and and do we have a sort of rough time scale I mean should should this application get permission um um when are we going to expect another load of Road works on the A4 that that’s really my question where you minded well if we

Grant planning permission unit five would be built almost straight away suffer County Council have said no more units then unit 5 can be occupied until such time as all the necessary improvements are in place so the record of Kur and de is the buildings go up very quickly

Particularly where they have a tenant they’ve always had a tenant in advance none of this is speculative so I would expect those Works to be happening on Junction 52 well sometime after 12 months but that might be a question you ask directly to the the applicant because I suspect their work program has already factored that in yeah I know I I they obviously have to get permission from highways England presumably as well because no it’s not even though it’s not

On the on the APR just suff County Council yeah interestingly the whole Junction 52 is managed by suff County Council has has JMA managed to find the answer about the seal question I think so chair thank you um so it’s always complicated with Sal just bear with me a sec so it is sale liable as a development but the liability charge is zero so yes and no in to that one I’m

Afraid it may be and I’m looking at the current one which is 2016 we haven’t got an updated version available currently it may be that that rate changes in the future but at the moment the S liability rating is a zero pound if you’re resi you’re looking at anywhere between 50

To15 pounds per square meter your s liability but this has got a zero pound rating despite being liable but I appreciate that’s a bit of a complicated version I must admit I thought it wouldn’t be paying sale but um you’ve confirmed that um any further questions of the

Officer if not then we will uh move on to public speakers um so I would like to invite Mr binder from Little blakenham Parish Council um if you would like to um speak into the you need to press the button on the mic speak as clearly as

You can into the mic um and I will time you for three minutes thank you yes good morning Madam chairman and counselors I’m Wally Bar chairman of uh little Blen and Parish Council I’ve been involved with the council since about 1970 and and uh witnessed several variations to the site it was originally

Going to be a golf course and that fell out of bed and uh then it was going to be a greenhouse development and that fell out of bed and now we’ve got this development and and uh as far as the village is concerned and I speak for them uh you maintain our

Footpath you’re giving us Wildlife ponds and um areas for uh development of of wildlife in in woods and trees and things and you’re building a large bond to protect the B Beach’s development which would Overlook the um site if it wasn’t for the band and we congratulate the developers on

What they’ve done for us and thank them very much thank you thank you um do we have any questions uh of uh Mr binder thank you very much if you’d like to turn your microphone off um um we don’t have another one of those

Do we uh uh right so we don’t have an objector or a support reporter uh we have Mr Davey who is speaking on behalf of the applicant or are you the applicant um I just need to wait for my timer to um drip Through Time on my

Laptop oh yeah okay okay um committee Clark is going to time you so you can start whenever you’re ready um thank you very much Mr Davey thank you uh members uh I’m the agent for the application but I do have the applicant with me and we’d

Be very happy to take questions at the end um and I’ll try and uh address some of the questions uh in what I’m going to say now um I’d like to start by thanking officers uh and the officers in your community team for facilitating discussions with the five Parish

Councils which have helped resolve all of their concerns and have uh resulted in offers to install photo voltaic cells on the roofs of each Paris Hall and to contribute to the building of a new Hall at little blam all to be secured by section 106 um in my experience it’s very rare

To have that level of support for a size and complexity of application of this type and from behalf of Port one we’re committed to continuing to work with the local community into the future um there are of course other benefits and we’ve discussed some of those the creation of the new public

Nature Reserve at M Lane which I can confirm will be maintained in perpetuity from the port one service charge by Port one to the direction of the council and will always be available for purchase to one pound um creation of up to 100 sorry 1,250 new jobs in 40 different trades

Many in Hightech sectors and of high worth um also the potential to save 40 jobs which would otherwise be lost following the closure of the Magnus group um that firm has been bought out by the tenant who’s going into unit five um the commitment to work with the council to provide training mentoring

And support to local people to access new jobs we’ve spoken about the offsite pedestrian and cycle connectivity improvements we also have the electric minius service which runs fre for staff we’re currently doing a circular route into it switch and to the railway station bringing staff in and there’s

Going to be two additional mini buses running that route and as and when staff move around we’ll look look at the route that that runs over time um there’s also of course 7.5 million annual rates payable by the time this development is completed um we spoken about the increasing the

Capacity of Junction 52 we think that will be done by or what will commence on that this year um and when it’s finished Junction 52 will have greater capacity than it does now even after taking into account the development um we hope to generate 100% of the energy needs of a standard

Logistics Park from roof mounted fto Bic cells that would include for the Lighting electric only fork lifts uh and the e V charging uh which is double the prescribed amount as a minimum and there are will be very significant biodiversity enhancements we’re planting we think 2 and a half thousand new trees

That’s in addition to the 175,000 sorry 25,000 new trees in addition to the 17 a half thousand have already been planted in current phases uh and of course creating that wet wood P one is a success story are you about to finish yeah has been built to the specific

Requirements of the tenants and that will continue nothing speculative and I would also point out something that hasn’t propped up 90% of that site already has planning permission for development either for Port one or for the green houses um so if we can take any questions we’ll be happy to do

So uh thank you very much uh do we have any questions of Mr Davey uh C Harding yeah I would like to ask um about tomato green houses they were originally going to be connected to the incinerator plant um to make use of the waste heat um and

Uh I would have thought this would be a a a good thing to safeguard in the future um would this development make it impossible to connect the tomato green houses to the waste heat I mean as in the future I mean as I understand the if they need to make A5 million pound

Investment in that uh plant before they can transport the waste heat um they have been discussion with Port one to take that heat um so if the green houses can’t use it Port one will try and use it yeah thank you thank you um councilor Davis uh thank you chair a couple of

Questions one uh are you envisaging any uh battery storage capacity capacity so that you can harvest the energy I I’ll hand over to Mr Maxwell uh yes we are in fact um obviously with the solar power that’s been generated on the roofs you you get with solar power this

Latitude variations of um generation so that people can either tenants can either export back into the grid and then obviously in what I call the dark months import so it’s Z balance or they can do their own battery storage as well one of the things that we have secured

Is a major uh Power availability from um the Branford substation which is available to us in mid 2025 from um EDF Renewables and that is our next phase where we’d like to then offer that for um electric vehicle charging for commercial vehicles so we want to promote that as

Well thank you many thanks my next question is probably uh little bit uh Blue Sky maybe um there’s some work been done at Reading university looking at using Ivy to produce a green wall on the sides of buildings now clearly on not all of your uh warehousing walls it

Wouldn’t be appropriate to consider but perhaps on one or two it may be worth investigating whether or not using a green uh vegetation may be worthwhile I see you are very open-minded to exploring these sorts of things and looking to absolutely absolutely anything that is uh something which could assist in the

Overall development make it Greener we’re happy to do that and promote it well thank you it has the advantage of reducing summer temperatures yes and also providing some warmth in the winter yes better insallation yes thank you uh any further questions uh cast Lawrence I think you

Know my question what is your plan travel to work area for this development then and I I did note that the agent did say that there was going to be a bus service to IPS um electric bus service which I welcome in in last August we we did a

Detailed survey working with all of the various I um districts and within a 50 minute drive people seeking job seeking allowance was 210,00 people that was from August data obviously as the radius comes in and in figures come down but looking at a 30 minute drive at the moment from December

Figures it’s 22,800 people looking for work in that location that would be suitable for this type of uh facil here at the moment there’s 40 different trades on Port one we think that would probably go to about 60 um I take on board the B8 element but

For instance if you look at the L wheeler there’s a whole raft of Industries within that business that you don’t actually know you just think it’s a warehouse operation and an office operation but there’s a broking operation in there there’s a similiar operation there’s photography there’s whole various forms of different tra

Within these buildings but predominantly there still be8 use and in in terms of planning permission the current phase one is for B2 B8 so there is a mix of uses within the current phase but it’s the market that has sort of pushed it more to to the B8

Use thank you uh councilor oin thank you um with the um it’s great that there’s going to be so much uh solar PV on on the roofs I just wondered if you anticipated having any spare roof space or is it all going to be needed to produce the energy you need on

Site um we think we can generate about five megawatt from what you see with that existing application there um there there would be a small amount of roof space left for various other um operations if necessary but there will be a little piece left here but that’s

Likely to be oh the reason I was asking was if you’re going to have a sort of ample amounts of spare whether could be you know for example a community energy project using your roof space but it sounds like you’ve you’ve got plans for all of it um I think the intention would

Be to just try and get to the fact that there a carbon neutral facility and then if we can do anything else in the future that’s obviously we’re open to look at various ideas thank you um any more questions thank you very much um um do we have any comment from the Ward

Member I I haven’t received anything I just wondered if you’d had anything no I think it’s councelor marot is it no chair we’ve not had any correspondence from counc uh well in that case I will now open this item Up For Debate before we

Start we we also need to get home um but yeah two minutes no you mustn’t talk about the C was that your hand going up uh councelor Harding because you wanted to speak first uh well I I just wondered whether I just noticed that uh I’ve got something written down in my notebook

Here um a question I haven’t asked the agent um which was um about the S scheme um and obviously I’m I’m very enthusiastic about um possibility of wet Woodland um but it seems to me that might not be the whole of the SS um provision and I was wondering what

Proportion of um other other Suds provision there is in addition to that and whether some of that is crates um I I I think our officer can answer that actually about whether there’s more SS thank you the majority of the suds element within this phase I showed on the screen

You’re quite right councel hardingham each Warehouse unit will have a crate system under the parking area that will eventually feed clean water into the drainage lagoons so the answer is it’s a hybrid scheme it’s not a full sud scheme and it isn’t a a non s scheme it is a

Hybrid does that answer your question well it was really really about the maintenance of crate s schemes in the long run and what the provision is for making sure that they they do indeed get desilted or replaced or rebuilt in as appropriate can answer to that one I can by

Saying that’s a very good point why don’t if members are mind need to Grant planning permission why don’t we as part of the drainage details require a maintenance plan to be agreed with the llfa so that we can come back to you later councel and say actually there’s a

Program that requires xmon X year review sortation desolation process it’s probably the first time anyone’s ever asked that question it seems an eminently sensible one and I I I know that K and de will work with us to come up with that regime um in partnership

With our colleagues at suff County as so if you’re minded then happy to add a condition to that effect thank you okay um uh is there so we’re now in the debate um phase of this application so uh would anyone like to uh contribute councilor Davis thank you very much

Um reading the details on this obviously there’s uh a large roof expanse uh lots of uh concrete standing areas so on the one hand you sort of go oh goodness me and then you get into thinking about all the the new jobs the remedial activity and the uh whole approach that this

Developer has taken which is really Cooperative supportive and um open-minded so I’m quite excited by this project and would uh be very willing to enthusiastically support the recommendation of our planning officer thank you anybody else wish to uh say anything councelor warboys thank you chair yeah uh yeah I I do have

Some uh reservations but I think I think they’re not really relevant to this application but there something that needs to be thought about outside this meeting um I think one of the one of those reservations however is about diversification diversity that’s as important in um the environment in

Woodland but it’s just as important in business and employment and Society um so I think my reservation is about the sort of monoculture nature of this development however but if we look at the overall strategy across M suffer this is balanced by the opportunities at Gateway 14 and perhaps

Puts even more pressure on Gateway 14 to provide a more diverse um um range of opportunities I think K and de I have visited um the present buildings at Port one I think K and D have shown really a great deal of skill they’ve produced a quality um

Logistics part uh their ability to sort of realize that is without doubt um I think you know the the way they’ve extended that ethos if you like into sort of sustainability photo volte cells engagement the community and the level of thought that has gone into mitigation for these big

Sheds uh in particular the possib ility of the wet woodlands and circular Parks which take circular walks which take us back to where we started from um it’s it’s a it’s a great opportunity um I I I think we could I think i’ I’d be in favor of approving this and I’d

Like to propose that we do approve this S I think if more developers came forward the same degree of Engagement with our officers the communities we’d have a a a better place if you like thank thank you um um Council War boys um uh I I’ll just check see if we have a

Second uh um are you taking on board the suggestion of another condition about maintenance of the wet Wetland Suds whatever you want to call it yes I think that’s um and did I see a little hand wve from Council Davis you’re happy to Second very much chair

Thank you yeah thank you very much so that is as per the offic of recommendation plus the uh some sort of condition about maintenance of the um drainage system clear Council hingham’s point was about the crates rather than the drainage basin councilor hardingham yeah I no the case officer mentioned um the

Possibility of reversing the the banding on the buildings on the East West Route um I wondered if that’s something that we discuss now um or whether that’s left as as I understand it was weren’t those buildings part of the outline or are they part of the full and if they’re

Outline should we be determining the color of the painting if they’re not there yet it’s a bit of each because one of the buildings is actually along that that route my thought was it would be left to us as officers and the chief planning officer just to work out whether that makes sense

Overall so so is there a condition about the um out you know the the color of the walls or to be determined to be to be agreed by the planning department or something there isn’t reference to that particular route at the moment it’s everything will be the darkest band at

The top but it may be that the recommendation is that the officers give consideration to reversing the banding along footpath 21 yep that seems perfectly um does that uh is that okay with our second our proposal and our second okay um councilor Matson yeah I

Mean the the I think the we we have to place our our trust in in in the planning officers and and all the consules um that that that this is you know a good job has been done here and certainly it all looks looks that way to

Me I think the just just to come back to the question earlier about are there enough people round about um there is the council has a particular duty to cooperate in the jargon um and um I I do know that the there was quite a lot of anxiety about the enormous number of

Houses that were um being permitted and applied for across both sides of the boundary between midu and babber at this point and I think I’d ref reference a spron and um was it was it P a couple of villages so a lot of houses going that

Side and in fact there’s quite a lot of houses going into into clayden and Barum and they’re not all built yet but they’re on their way so I I don’t think there’s any concern that there’s not enough people around um and um I think that you know I’ll be continuing to

Press um County highways as as to what constitutes the necessary um offsite improvements because if we’re going to decarbonize travel then um we are going to need to to look at those things and and it’s great that there’s going to be electric buses picking people up from

Ipswitch um but you know we want people to be able to cycle as well cycling is good for you I’m not sure the chair will agree with this um so that’s that’s something to return to but so I really um I think the you know it has to go

Ahead um so I’ll be voting in favor thank you uh anyone else um ready to say anything councilor Elkin thank you it was just very briefly just to say yes is exciting to see a a a ambition to be a a carbon neutral Logistics Park um and all the care

That’s obviously been taken to work with uh to have all I think all of the parish councils being supportive is is really lovely um very briefly I think I mentioned right at the start about um whether there was any value in being able to cycle on along that footpath 21

And I don’t know the area I haven’t cycled in the area so I defer to my experienced cycling colleagues if that doesn’t add anything in terms of connectivity maybe that’s not something we need to discuss any further but I just wanted to mention it before we kind of get to

Voting thank you um anyone else wish to say anything um if not maybe I’ll I’ll say my piece that that we do we do need um you know economic development in our in our patch and I think that this is is a good place for ITC you know it it’s

Adding on to an existing um employment area um all the parish councils locally are on board with it so you could say that this is in the right place and added to that um all these environmental credentials are just fantastic um and and yeah I do share my concerns with

Councelor Matson about about cycle access but I understand that there’s limitations as to what what we can do in in this particular situation um I’m not that familiar with cycling land little blakenham um I looked on the OS map and and and that path and the path behind

There both look like public foot paths although one of the is a track that I am familiar with because I think it used to go to Blake and chalk pits where I used to do um conservation work um and it’s it turns into a sort of you know it’s a

It’s a Tac road that goes around the back so yes it would be cyclable but I don’t think it’s legally cyclable um and I that again that may be something that you want to be determined by the local Parish councils if it is worthy of uh

Making that a loop um fit for bikes but I I I I’d like to congratulate the devel ER on on the parish aison and the um carbon neutrality of the site um and I welcome it and I will be in support of this application thank you uh does anyone else wish to say

Anything W voice yeah thank you chair just need I just need to come back a bit I think there was a condition regarding the lighting along brownford Road that was recommended in orders this will sort of mitigate the sort of um effects on the housing along brownford Road all lighting is subject

To further condition you’re you’re right one to ensure that it’s um mildlife friendly but also to ensure that it doesn’t give rise to nuisance on the subject of conditions we’ve talked about adding some more conditions onto the uh list that you’ve extensive list you’ve got at the end of

Your report which is split into the um two parts of the full and the outline so do all of these new newly added conditions go on both sections just want to check that that they are relevant for both um and they will be added to both

Hopefully um it is anybody else need to say anything or um could we just read out what the um what we’re actually going to be voting on in due course thank you yeah thank you chair so we’re looking at approving as the recommendation which is set out on your

Papers in pages 156 to 159 with additional conditions for the maintenance and phasing plan for created surface water drainage and for officers to give consideration to reversing the banding along footpath 21 hope that’s everything so is that is that correct proposal in seconda you happy with

That uh right so I will now ask the government’s officer to uh conduct the electronic vote thank you chair members that vote is now in progress thank you chair that is eight votes for so that’s unanimous uh thank you um so uh that brings us to the end of our uh

Agenda uh we’ve just got item number eight site inspections do any inspection requests need to be reported to committee uh n reive chair so in which case I will close this meeting at 12:22 uh the next meeting of the planning committee will be on the 14th

Of February at 9:30 a.m. here in the King Edmund chamber so um