Agenda item

To consider a report of the Chief Planning Officer on an application for a residential development comprising 5 houses

(report attached)

Officers presented an application which sought permission for 5 dwellings comprising 3 four bedroom dwellings and 2 two bedroom dwellings formed in detached and semi-detached arrangements. The dwellings are positioned to front onto Green Lane and front and rear gardens with driveways and open parking bays to the front and side.

Members were informed that gardens depths were limited with plot 5 being the shortest although this plot had garden space to the side of the property.

A previous application on this site for 9 flats was refused. The site was formerly a Milk depot which has now been cleared and the site is currently boarded off.

The application was brought to the plans panel by Cllr. Mark Dobson who attended the meeting and addressed the panel.

Cllr. Dobson explained to the panel that he had brought the application to North and East Plans Panel in respect of 6.2 of the submitted report which cited the grounds of the 6 letters of objection.

•  Parking problems in the vicinity of the train station; narrow carriageway and danger near curve in road and school run times; recent house/office developments resulted in on street parking/blocking pavements/obstructing bus routes; insufficient parking for flats; existing traffic exceeds speed limit.

•  Already huge flood problems around the area and onto Ninelands Lane and the development adds water and waste – improvement of drainage system take precedence over new buildings; drainage infrastructure has insufficient capacity to deal with incidents of extreme rainfall with underlying soils not being effective for soakaways.

Cllr. Dobson informed the Panel that the proposed development was only 100 metres from Garforth station, in a built up area close to other residential areas. Although the site is not classed as a flood zone it is between two flood zones which had been the site of previous floods. He explained that the 1960’s drainage was inadequate and that the sewerage situation needed addressing.

He told the panel that local schools in the area were already at capacity and given the type of dwellings proposed it would be families who would live in them and require school places.

Answering Cllr. Cleasby’s enquiry about the use of permeable surfaces, Cllr. Dobson said that there had been no suggestion of permeable surfaces as he had been told that there was no impact on flooding or parking.

Cllr. Grahame highlighted 10.9 of the submitted report saying that the fencing adjoining the railway and the properties needed to be of sufficient height.

Mrs Fletcher, Support Senior Planner spoke on behalf of the applicant informing the Members that the development would improve the area that it was a brownfield site. The developers had worked with Leeds City Council and Yorkshire Water on the new scheme addressing issues of flooding and providing solutions and the use of permeable surfaces.

In response to questions on safety she informed the Panel that fencing and hedging would be provided to the North of the site and that she would provide the Panel with information of this.

The Area Planning Manager set the context of how Planning deals with issues of flooding informing that planning put measures in place to ensure that the problem is not made worse.

An officer from Flood Risk Management was in attendance for this item and was able to clarify points;

•  Flood risk zones

•  The impact of the new development

•  Ongoing work with Yorkshire Water to address surface water

Members discussed the size of the dwellings, the fact that they fall short of the National Space Standards and the shortage of amenity space particularly at plot 5.

Members were reminded that the National Space Standards was not a policy which had been adopted by Leeds City Council.

The Highways Officer in responding to comments on highway issues informed Members that the parking was compliant to that for modest dwellings taking into account traffic for visitors.

He informed the panel that there was an issue with parking on Woodlands Drive in relation to the railway station.

He said that there was no recorded injury or accidents in the area.

RESOLVED - That Members agreed to defer and delegate approval of the planning application to officers subject to the reduction of the scheme to 4 units. If no agreement is reached then the application is to be reported back to Panel for determination.

Conditions to require the use of permeable surfacing for driveways and provide a suitable fence to the boundary with the railway line to prevent children from accessing the line.