Issue - meetings

REPORT OF THE DEVELOPMENT AND CONSERVATION MANAGER

Construction of the main spine road (The Avenue) from Stotfold Road connecting to High Dane, creation of drainage ponds, swales and other associated drainage infrastructure, signage and other necessary highway and service infrastructure (to serve future development parcels) (outline was EIA development with an ES submitted).

RESOLVED: That application 24/02780/RM be GRANTED planning permission subject to the conditions set out in the report of the Development and Conservation Manager and the delegation of authority to the Development and Conservation Manager to update conditions and information with minor amendments as required.

Audio recording – 2 hours 4 minutes 40 seconds

N.B. Councillor Nigel Mason declared an interest and left the Chamber and did not take place in the debate or vote. The Vice-Chair, Councillor Emma Fernandes, chaired the item.

The Senior Planning Officer provided a verbal update on matters relating to Application 24/02780/RM and advised that:

·       There were no further updates for Members.

·       No objections had been received from the Highway Authority or the Lead Local Flood Authority (LFFA) on any detail of the plans.

The Senior Planning Officer then presented the report in respect of Application 24/02780/RM accompanied by a visual presentation consisting of plans and photographs.

The following Members asked questions:

·       Councillor Dave Winstanley

·       Councillor Ruth Brown

In response to questions, the Senior Planning Officer advised that:

·       The design of the road caused the carriageway narrowed from two lanes to one lane as illustrated in one of the slides in the presentation.

·       The Sustainable Drainage Systems (SuDS) would be attractive, with two ponds in the northern corner, one with a level of water and one without.

·       The swales would be green and usable. 

In response to questions the Senior Transport Officer advised that:

·       This application was for groundworks, not for the infrastructure that would make the bus gate open.

·       There was expectation that a camera would be installed in the spine road after correct procedure was followed and Hertfordshire County Council would have the power to enforce penalty charges for vehicles that passed through that were not buses.

The Chair invited the Public Objector, Mr Richard Wilcox to speak against the application. Mr Wilcox thanked the Chair for the opportunity and provided the Committee with a verbal presentation, and highlighted the following:

·       At that Planning Committee held in July 2023 a decision was taken to defer this item to allow for more traffic data to be gathered.

·       In September 2023 a weeklong traffic survey was caried out, but this data was not shared.

·       In a transport note provided for the planning meeting councillors were given a report showing old data related from manual counts which indicated that traffic flows were in decline.

·       Numerous reasons were given for why data was not provided, including that it wasn’t ready and that traffic data wasn’t material to the outline decision.

·       The Department for Transport does have a count point on the Cambridge Road but the data was not from manual counts as it was estimated.

·       The Department for Transport figures were robust and reported as national statistics, but traffic estimates for individual roads were less robust as they were not always based on up-to-date counts.

·       The response received in August was specifically referenced to this Department for Transport data.

·       Therefore, a decision was made to approve this application where traffic data had been falsely represented and other pertinent data had been withheld.

There were no points of clarification from Members.

The Chair thanked Mr Wilcox for his presentation and the Member Advocate Objectors, Councillors Elizabeth Dennis and Daniel Wright-Mason to speak against  ...  view the full minutes text for item 76