Issue - meetings

Recommendation: Conditional approval subject to legal agreement

Proposal: Full planning application for the proposed erection of 5 no. buildings for commercial development to provide flexible light industrial, general industrial, and storage and distribution uses, with ancillary offices, associated car parking, formation of new accesses, and landscape planting, following demolition of existing buildings.

Applicant: HE2 Reading 1 GP Limited

The Committee considered a report about this application, set out in agenda pages 51 to 134.

The Committee were advised that updates contained within the Supplementary Planning Agenda included:

·         Correction to paragraph 11 to state that the scheme would produce 222 to 433 jobs;

·         Clarification that Members had received an email from a resident at Lily May Court, located to the west of the site, however the concerns raised related to existing impacts which occurred outside of the red line boundary of the site.  Therefore, it was not considered materially relevant to the scheme as the planning application was only required to resolve impacts caused by the proposed development;

·         Confirmation that an increase of 3 HGV movements per hour was expected as a result of the proposals, which was considered a minor increase which would not result in harm in planning terms to the extent as a reason for refusal.

Keith Baker, Woodley Town Council, spoke in objection to the application. Keith stated that officers had often repeated that applications must focus on the red line boundary and could not be expected to rectify existing issues outside of this area, which was correct up to a point. Keith added that the cumulative effect of this application on the immediate area must be considered, and there had been no response from officers with regards to this. Keith stated that an additional 3 HGV movements per hour had been identified within the Supplementary Planning Agenda, however no justification had been provided for this, and Keith queried how many HGV movements were currently carried out on site. Keith stated that the access for HGVs was via a very narrow strip of land, which restricted the number of HGVs that could access the site currently, which gave an artificially low basepoint for the suggested increase of 3 HGVs per hour. Keith added that there was in practice one company operating on site, and the narrow access suggested that the nature of their work did not require many HGV movements, whilst the contrasting proposals included 10 new units each with their own HGV parking slots with many having 3 slots for HGVs. Keith stated that assumptions had been made in relation to the suggested increase of 3 HGV movements per hour, however this information had not been made public. Keith asked that the application be refused.

Kai Meade, resident, spoke in objection to the application. Kai stated that with regards to the letter received from Lily May Court, one of the core NPPF objectives was to ensure that planning decisions were made to provide appropriate development for its location including the cumulative effect of pollution on health. Kai felt that the Committee was being  ...  view the full minutes text for item 8