Agenda and minutes

The minutes of the meeting held on 13 December 2016 were submitted and approved and the Chairman was authorised to sign them as an accurate record.

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Fishing quay comprising buildings with fisherman's working areas, storage and chiller space, and office accommodation on upper floors, with separate visitor centre and associated development. (Previous Application 130442)

RESOLVED: (Unanimous) That permission be granted subject to a S106 agreement covering local labour issues and the following conditions: 1) The development herby permitted shall begin before the expiration of three years from the date of permission. 2) The development hereby permitted shall be carried out in accordance with the approved drawings submitted on 22^nd September 2016

B037.06A – General Site and Block Plans

B037.07 – Pedestrian, Public Transport and Cycle Routes

B037.08 - General Site Arrangement and Site Uses

B037.09 – Building One and Visitors Centre Plans

B037.10 – General Elevations Building One and Visitors Centre

B037.11 – Building Two Plans

B037.12 - General Elevations Building Two

B037.14A – Full Elevations North and South Street Scene

BO37.16 – Waterfront Access Detail

3) No development shall take place until samples of the materials to be used in the external surfaces of the development hereby permitted have been submitted to and approved in writing by the Local Planning Authority 4) The development shall be carried out in accordance with the approved details++ 5) No development shall take place until details of the following have been submitted to and approved in writing by the Local Planning Authority:

·    The proposed methods of demolition, piling, recycling activities and dust suppression and all other construction methods associated with the development;

·    Noise and vibration monitoring arrangements - to be self-monitoring by the applicants - for the key demolition and construction phases; and

·    Measures, methods of working and the means of screening the site that will be employed to minimise disturbance to neighbouring properties during all demolition and construction work++

6) No development shall take place until a construction environmental management plan has been submitted to and approved by the Local Planning Authority.  The development shall thereafter be carried out in accordance with the approved details ++ 7) Prior to demolition works commencing on site a Construction Traffic Management Scheme shall be submitted to and approved by the Local Planning Authority in consultation with the Highway Authority.  This shall include the size of vehicles, routing of vehicles and hours of operation. (Given the restrictions of the access and the approach road the hours of delivery/collection should avoid peak traffic flow times)++ 8) No development shall take place within the application site until the applicant has secured the implementation of a programme of archaeological work in accordance with a written scheme of investigation including a timetable for the investigation, which has been submitted by the applicant and approved in writing by the Local Planning Authority and the works shall be undertaken in accordance with the approved details++ 9) No development shall commence until details of a Phase II soil  investigation (as recommended in the submitted Preliminary Soil Investigation Report) is submitted to and approved in writing by the Local Planning Authority. If contamination is found to be  ...  view the full minutes text for item 92.

Report of Director of Regeneration and Planning.

The committee considered the report of the Director of Regeneration and Planning seeking the Planning Committee’s views on the Local Development Scheme 2017-2020 due to be considered by Cabinet on 8 February 2017.

Members were advised that the Local Development Scheme (LDS) was the Council’s timetable for the production of planning policy documents. It covered a three year period from 2017 to 2020 and outlined the policy documents to be produced with the key dates and milestones. 

Local Planning Authorities were required to produce a LDS under Section 15 of the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004 (as amended by the Localism Act 2011). The LDS must specify (among other matters) the documents which, when prepared, would comprise the Local Plan for the area. The LDS must be made publicly available and kept up-to-date.  The current LDS was approved in February 2016 and progress against the LDS was monitored on an annual basis through the Authority Monitoring Report (AMR). The AMR had recognised that some documents identified in the LDS were no longer being produced and that there had been some minor slippage in the preparation of the Local Plan.  The Government had recently introduced monitoring the progress of local plan preparation. This monitoring would take place against the LDS and it was therefore necessary to amend the current LDS by April 2017.

Eastbourne’s current Local Plan, the Core Strategy, was adopted in 2013. The National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) was clear that housing policies should not be considered up-to-date if the local planning authority could not demonstrate a five-year supply of deliverable housing sites.  As at 31 October 2016, Eastbourne was only able to demonstrate a 3.47 year supply of housing land. The lack of a five-year housing land supply in Eastbourne meant that the Council’s Local Plan policies could not be considered as up-to-date, as outlined in the NPPF.

The implications of not having an up to date Local Plan was that the Council may lose control over what development takes place in the Borough. The Five Year Housing Land Supply was a material planning consideration in the determination of planning applications, and if the Council was unable to demonstrate a five year supply of housing land there was a significant risk that refusals of planning permission for residential development could be overturned on appeal.

The report further detailed the progress against the 2016 LDS including the current progress on the new plan.  The new LDS covering the period from 2017 to 2020 was provided at appendix 1 to the report.

The timetable for the preparation of the new Local Plan in the updated LDS was as follows:

• Evidence gathering and on-going engagement:  July 2016 – July 2017
• Issues and Options Consultation:  October – November 2017
• Publication:  September 2018
• Submission:  January 2019
• Examination:  May 2019
• Adoption:  November 2019

RESOLVED: That Cabinet be advised that the Local Development Scheme 2017 to 2020 is supported and endorsed by the Planning Committee.

Report of Director of Regeneration and Planning.

The committee considered the report of the Director of Regeneration and Planning seeking Members views on the Tourist Accommodation Retention Supplementary Planning Document (SPD) due to be considered by Cabinet on 8 February 2017.

The draft Tourist Accommodation Retention SPD had been presented to Planning committee previously on 21 June and 30 August 2016 and had been published for consultation between 23 September and 4 November 2016.  A total of 17 representations were submitted from 10 respondents. It was not considered that any of the representations raised any major issues, although some minor amendments were proposed to the SPD.

The committee was advised that there was a need for a change of planning policy approach to tourist accommodation as a result of changes in the tourism market and visitor behaviour since the policy was adopted.

The committee was advised that a Tourist Accommodation Consultative Group, had been established, consisting of representatives from the Eastbourne Hospitality Association, Council officers and a local property agent, which would help provide a trade perspective on future proposals and ensure the quality and standard of applications for the loss of tourist accommodation so that they could be determined more swiftly.

The SPD would need to be adopted by Full Council before it could be used in the determination of planning applications. The Assessment of Financial Viability of Tourist Accommodation SPG, which the new SPD would replace, would also need to be revoked.

It was reported to committee that appendix 1 of the report ‘Representation TAR_SPD/02’ recommended that the threshold for ‘lifestyle’ businesses be eight letting bedrooms.  This had been contested by the Eastbourne Hospitality Association (EHA) suggested that the threshold should be set at 15 letting rooms.  Officers were happy to accept the views of the EHA and amend the final document to include the threshold for ‘lifestyle’ businesses as being 15 letting rooms.

Members agreed that good quality accommodation was an essential part of the tourism offer in Eastbourne.  Some Members raised concerns regarding the loss of bed spaces particularly in light of the enhanced conference facilities currently being developed at the Devonshire Park site.

RESOLVED: That Cabinet be advised the Tourist Accommodation Retention SPD is supported and endorsed by the planning committee.

Report of the Specialist Advisor for Planning.

The committee considered the report of the Senior Specialist Advisor for Planning which provided a summary of performance in relation to key areas of the Development Management Services for 2016.

Given the many varied types of planning applications received, central Government required all Councils to report performance in a consistent and coherent manner. To this end the many varied applications were combined together into three broad categories Major, Minor and Other.  Government had recently amended the criteria for the assessment of the Council’s performance which was detailed in the section regarding special measures within the report.

The report detailed the following elements:

Special Measure Thresholds – This looked at new government targets.

Planning Applications – This compared the volumes of delegated applications and the approval rates.

Pre Application Volumes – A comparison by type and volume over time.

Refusals of Applications – A comparison of ward and decision level.

Appeals – An assessment of the Council's appeal record over time.

Planning Enforcement – An assessment of volumes of enforcement related activity.

Members were aware that Government had recently introduced new National performance criteria (Nov 16 on speed and quality) against which all Council’s would be judged. Failure to perform against these targets ran the risk of the Council be designated as ‘Non- Performing’ and special measures would initiated by Government.  The assessment of the draft against this new ‘special measure’ threshold had two sections - Speed of decision and Quality of decision - and would be reviewing the Council's performance on a backward rolling two year basis, the detail of which was highlighted in paragraph 2.2 of the report.

If the Council were identified as not complying with these standards/criteria they would be declared as ‘non performing’ and formal designation would follow.  In terms of formal designation there were two potential outcomes:-

·               Major applications the applicant would have the ability to bypass the Council and go straight to the Planning Inspectorate for determination. This would mean that the Council would lose determination control until such time as the designation was lifted.

·               Non-Major applications the Council would have to submit the Central Government an action plan addressing the areas of weakness that it had identified as having contributed to the underperformance.

Speed of Decision - It was evident that the decisions taken for the survey period were currently above the special measures threshold.  It was considered that there was significant headroom against those targets and as such the risk of Special Measures for Non-Performance was low.

Quality of Decision - This section looked at appeal decisions and specifically the number that had been allowed or overturned at appeal. This performance indicator was a reflection on the relevance of an up to date local plan and that the decision makers made correct and informed decisions.  Members noted that from the criteria given and the very low volumes of major applications progressed/determined within the survey period; meant that a small number of appeal decisions could have a significant impact upon performance and therefore  ...  view the full minutes text for item 95.

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1)   East Beach Hotel.

1)   East Beach Hotel.  The Inspector dismissed the appeal.