Agenda item

Land Adjacent To 30 Ashby Road Packington Ashby De La Zouch Leicestershire LE65 1TD

The Planning and Development Team Manager presented the report to members. 

Mr C Miles, Parish Councillor, addressed the meeting.  He stated that the Parish Council supported the officer’s recommendation and would want this application to be refused.  He added that that this was also the case for subsequent item.

Mr S Clarke, agent, addressed the meeting.  He stated that there were no sustainable objections from statutory consultees or third parties and no issues of material substance had been raised in the letter of objection and the negative response from the Parish Council.  He added that there were no objections in respect of protected species ecology, the River Mease, drainage and flood risk, highway safety, residential amenity, archaeology, design or layout.  He made reference to the balance to be struck between the National Planning Policy Framework, the adopted local pan and the submitted local plan.  He commented that significant weight had been given to the submitted local plan, whereas little weight had been given to national policy.  He added that at present, the only approved and published local planning policy document was the adopted local plan and that its  policies must be deemed out of date by any reasonable measure.  He added that the submitted local plan had been submitted for examination but was not yet approved, and he made reference to the inspector’s statement at the Roscon appeal where the inspector at the time stated that little if any weight should be given to the submitted local given the early stage that it had reached.  Mr Clarke felt that the application was fully deserving of an approval and the presumption in favour of approval applied.

Councillor D Harrison referred to the robust defence for the application made by the agent and asked officers to respond to the comments made.  He added that he was not aware whether there was a need for bungalows in Packington as it was a very well established area.  He expressed support for the recommendation in light of the importance of the submitted local plan and due to the application being outside Limits to Development. 

The Head of Planning and Regeneration explained that the development plan was the starting point, and if a proposal was contrary to the development plan, the presumption was that the application would be refused unless there was a material consideration that suggested otherwise.  He added that the National Planning Policy Framework was a material consideration. He made reference to the significant number of recent appeals where the site was outside the Limits to Development, and therefore contrary to the development plan, and advised that all of these appeals had been dismissed with the exception of the Roscon appeal.  He added that all of these appeals had taken account of the National Planning Policy Framework.  He stated that it was a matter of fact that this site was outside the Limits to Development in the adopted and submitted local plan and officers, in their professional opinion, did not consider that the scheme merited contravening the development plan as the application did not outweigh the demonstrable harm. He added that the submitted local plan was at a very advanced stage and, as such, it did carry some weight.  He concluded that both local plans should be taken into account when making a decision.

It was moved by Councillor J Legrys, seconded by Councillor J Hoult and

RESOLVED THAT:

The application be refused in accordance with the recommendation of the Head of Planning and Regeneration.