Issue - meetings

To consider the report of the Director of City Development setting out an approach to dealing with planning applications which may be expected to extend the temporary planning permissions given for 12 cleared sites in the City Centre to be used for commuter car parking, contrary to planning policy.  The temporary period comes to an end in March 2017.  The report also seeks endorsement of this approach as a material consideration for determining the renewal planning applications.

The Director of City Development submitted a report presenting a proposed approach towards dealing with those planning applications which may be expected to be received by the Council in order to extend the temporary planning permissions which had been given in 2012 for 12 cleared sites in the city centre to be used for commuter car parking provision, contrary to planning policy. The report noted that the temporary permissions were due to come to an end in 2017, and as such, the report also sought endorsement of this approach as a material consideration for determining the renewal planning applications.

In noting that the expectation was for these sites to be gradually developed, Members discussed the process by which the overall level of city centre car parking provision would be managed in the longer term.

RESOLVED – That approval be given to the following approach, as set out below, as a material consideration in the determination of any renewal planning applications for the 12 temporary City Centre commuter car parks approved in 2012:-

i.  Subject to the full range of planning considerations appropriate for each site, renewals of consent on the sites previously granted temporary planning permission will be favourably considered in principle for a further period of up to 5 years from April 2017;

ii.  In each case there will be an expectation that developers will continue to bring forward the sites for development as soon as possible and that as a result car parking will remain a temporary and diminishing use of the site;

iii.  Each consent will include conditions and/or be subject to a S106 agreement to set out a phased programme of reducing long stay commuter spaces as improvements in public transport come forward and in light of landowner’s own development plans during the life of the extended permission;

iv.  The Council will reserve the right to take enforcement action if appropriate phasing reductions are not met, and to refuse to grant further renewals in due course if it considers that development is not progressing as expected.