Recommendation: Conditional Approval of reserved matters.

Proposal: Application for approval of Reserved Matters pursuant to Outline Planning Consent O/2014/2179, as varied by application 181194. The Reserved Matters comprise details of 178 dwellings with access from Sheerlands Road and the proposed Nine Mile Extension (NMRE), associated internal access roads, parking, landscaping, open space, footpaths/cycleways and Sustainable Urban Drainage (SuDs). Details of access, appearance, landscaping, layout and scale to be determined.

Applicant: Legal and General Homes.

The Committee received and reviewed a report about this application as set out in agenda pages 77 to 114.

The Committee were advised that the Members’ Update included:

·         A decision date for the application;

·         Inserting of approved plans;

·         Amendment of wording to condition 8;

·         Amendment of wording to condition 10;

·         Insertion of new condition 13;

·         Insertion of new informative 14;

·         A correction and clarification to paragraph 34 of the report;

·         Appended plans which superseded the original plans contained in the report.

Ruth Hopkins, on behalf of the applicant, spoke in favour of the application. She thanked Officers for their professional manner in dealing with the application. Ruth stated that Legal General Homes (the applicant) had welcomed and taken on board all comments from Finchampstead Parish Council and had made amendments to the scheme based on these comments. Ruth continued by thanking every member of the public who attended the open events related to this application. Ruth stated that Legal and General Homes would be on site for at least 10 years and would deliver a high quality scheme that met Wokingham Borough’s high standards.

Malcolm Richards asked whether all roads within the proposed developments would be the same width. Judy Kelly, Principal Highways Development Control Officer, stated that the main roads through the site would be approximately 6 metres wide, with some of the smaller cul-de-sacs being slightly thinner in places.

Malcolm Richards asked what the plan was with regards to electric vehicle charging point layout on the proposed site. Nick Chancellor, Case Officer, stated that there was a condition for an electric vehicle charging strategy to be considered prior to development of the site.

Carl Doran commented that he was delighted that the proposed development would meet its 35% affordable housing completely on site and added that the spread of the housing tenure was also very good. He queried why 6 gardens on the proposed site would be 1 metre below the recommended garden depth. Nick Chancellor clarified that as all gardens had rear access this had resulted in 6 properties losing out on 1 meter of garden due to the space requirements of the rear garden access.

Angus Ross queried whether there would be a loss of trees due to SUD installation, whether the SUDs would be managed by the Council and whether it had been considered that the power supply would need to be upgraded to sustain a high uptake of electric vehicle charging. Connor Corrigan, Lead Specialist Planning Delivery & Compliance, stated that underground SUDs required a lot of land to operate and Wokingham Borough Council’s (WBC) policy states that the Council will not take management responsibility of underground drainage crates. Nick Chancellor stated that there would be some tree loss on the site, but these would be replaced by a large number of new trees due to be planted across the site. Nick clarified that the electric vehicle charging strategy would take in to account issues such as power requirements. Connor Corrigan added that the issue of power supply for electric vehicle charging was a national issue and the WBC had been consulting on this issue.

John Jarvis stated that the electric board had no current plans to increase the power supply to accommodate for a vastly increased demand in electric vehicle charging. Connor Corrigan stated that it was unlikely that there would be a 100% uptake of electric vehicles in the foreseeable future, and reiterated that the power supply issue was a nationally recognised issue.

RESOLVED: That application 181422 be approved subject to conditions and informatives as set out in agenda pages 78 to 83, and amendments to conditions 8 and 10, insertion of new condition 13 and new informative 14 as set out in the Members’ Update.