Agenda item

Petition for Debate - Alma Road

An e-petition containing 1140 signatories was submitted to the Council on 22 August 2018. In accordance with the provisions of the Council’s Constitution, it was requested by the lead petitioner that the petition be reported to, and debated at, a full Council meeting.

 

The petition reads as follows:

 

‘We the undersigned petition The Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead to defend the unanimous decision of the Windsor Urban Development Management Panel with whatever resource (legal and otherwise) necessary to fully and adequately protect our town from the proposed gross overdevelopment at the forthcoming appeal of planning application 18/00095/FULL.’

 

http://petitions.rbwm.gov.uk/AlmaRoadAppeal/

 

The Constitution provides for a maximum time of 30 minutes to debate such petitions; this can be overruled at the Mayor’s discretion.

 

In accordance with the Constitution, the order of speaking shall be as follows:

 

 

a)        The Mayor may invite the relevant officer to set out the background to the petition issue.

b)        The Lead Petitioner to address the meeting on the petition (5 minutes maximum)

c)         The Mayor to invite any relevant Ward Councillors present to address the meeting. (Maximum time of 3 minutes each for this purpose)

d)        The Mayor to invite the relevant officer to provide any further comment.

e)        The Mayor will invite all Members to debate the matter (Rules of Debate as per the Constitution apply) 

 

 

Minutes:

Members debated the following petition:

 

‘We the undersigned petition The Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead to defend the unanimous decision of the Windsor Urban Development Management Panel with whatever resource (legal and otherwise) necessary to fully and adequately protect our town from the proposed gross overdevelopment at the forthcoming appeal of planning application 18/00095/FULL.’

 

Jenifer Jackson, Head of Planning, explained that a planning application for the redevelopment of the site was received by the council on 12 January 2018.  The application sought a mixed re-use of the site, including 217 apartments in buildings ranging from 1 to 7 storeys in height and for around 16,000 square metres of office floor space.  This was a major planning application which had a target determination period of 13 weeks; the Council had not reached a decision within that period and, in late May 2018, the applicant chose to appeal direct to the Planning Inspector for non-determination.  To respond to the appeal submission council officers would need to know what the grounds for the council’s case at appeal would be and a report was therefore brought to the Windsor Urban Development Management Panel in June 2018.  Following the resolution of the meeting the council’s position on appeal was then communicated to the appellant and officers had proceeded on this basis.

 

Officers had been engaged in ensuring the resource necessary was available to defend the appeal, as they would do for any appeal against refusal of permission in the borough. 

 

Councillor Rankin spoke as lead petitioner. He explained that hundreds of Windsorians, in unprecedented numbers, wrote to object to the gross overdevelopment in question. Over a thousand had signed the subsequent petition, which was the largest in Royal Borough history originating from Windsor. Members from Windsor would already know of its significance, others may not. The extant permission granted on the sensitive site was contentious and litigious, ending up in the Court of Appeal. At that session, which the Borough insufficiently resourced, it lost, leaving local residents with the possible fall-out. That application was now not deemed enough by the developers and they had come back for more.

 

In June last year, with officer recommendation, Windsor Members refused the new application unanimously, to the great relief of the community. However there was now another appeal; this time the council must robustly defend it as the large number of petitioners did not want a rerun of history. The council must understand how damaging the development would be and the petitioners demanded the Royal Borough defended it as robustly as possible.

 

Councillor Rankin explained that Alma Road was set within a conservation area and made an attractive contribution to the town, a low density of attractive late Victorian and Edwardian properties. The wider setting of the site was the listed Victorian churches of St Edward’s and Holy Trinity Garrison Church, Vansittart Recreation Ground and its green open space for the community. In comparison seven storeys of buy-to-let flats were proposed here, at a density close to downtown Beijing. Those who knew the site and its surroundings would be horrified by the footprint of the buildings proposed, the height, the articulation on the site and the relationship to the site boundaries; all were in excess of the already consented scheme. All these would result in a cramped form of development which was massively detrimental to the character of the area. The development would breach a range of policies in the adopted Local Plan and design guidance in the NPPF. There was certainly a material impact on the immediately adjacent conservation area and non-designated heritage assets such as Camperdown House. All these arguments had been accepted by officers and panel members.

 

Some of the points may have been counterweighted if the scheme had other benefits. For example, Windsor was in dire need of new houses, but these needed to be family homes and affordable homes. To be policy compliant the development would have required 65 affordable homes, but it had zero. If the council was to deliver affordable housing in the borough, then it needed to consistently say no to developers who wished to shirk their obligations. Everybody knew how acute the shortage of parking was in central Windsor. The application offered half a car parking space per flat. He questioned whether this was appropriate.

 

Councillor Rankin acknowledged that some of the planning arguments were not the function of the petition debate, but what Members needed to understand, specifically Councillors Coppinger, Dudley and Saunders, was the strength of feeling, of widespread general outrage at the unbelievable plans. Further, importantly, the lack of trust from residents that the borough would appropriately defend and resource an appeal. It was not acceptable to have standard, cheap, pooled legal representation standing for residents, and five QCs for the other side. Regardless of the merits of that case, the council would not win and would be danced around. To understand the lack of confidence, Members must understand the history of the site and the prior appeal.

 

1,140 residents signed the petition, without any particular large push. Councillor Rankin stated that he had not needed to get signatures weekend after weekend on Peascod Street. He had not needed to profile and financially boost his social media posts to drive people towards the petition, it had been achieved by simple organic word-of-mouth.

 

Councillor Rankin asked that the borough pull out all the stops to defend the appeal. He asked the Lead Member to outline how he understood the strength of feeling, to give Windsor his assurances that the council would properly resource and contend the appeal and, noting the report to the Windsor Panel on Wednesday, outline the strategy briefly to do so. It would also be useful if he could explain why some of the reasons for refusal were being stepped down.

 

Jenifer Jackson confirmed that the council had appointed Mark Beard from 6 Pump Court to advise on the case.  Mark had been involved in the matter since the planning application came forward and was also the barrister advising and representing the council in relation to the Borough Local Plan submission version.  Mark, therefore, in her view, had a very good understanding of the borough and local planning policies which would relate to design considerations on which the refusal was based and the general planning considerations which would be pertinent to the appeal.  Sue Rowlands, a Director with Tibbalds, had been appointed as the council’s urban design consultant and was involved in the planning application.  Sian Saadeh, the area team manager, was co-ordinating the council team and also working on the planning case.

 

The borough needed to deliver housing but high quality was expected. Housing land supply would be an issue for the appeal and a robust case would be put together to demonstrate a five year supply. Mark Beard was the right barrister to put the case. Along with the area team manager, the Head of Planning had earlier that day met with a small number of the local residents to update them on the ongoing discussions. The reason for refusal relating to loss of employment land was weak and therefore the removal of this condition would be considered by the Development Management Panel on 31 January 2018.  The focus would of the appeal would then be on issues of bulk and scale. This would enable the Inspector to understand the dispute between the parties at the public inquiry on 26 March 2019 at Windsor Racecourse.

 

Councillor E. Wilson stated that it was good to hear the appeal would be properly resourced. The council did well when it did the right things in the right way.  There was no doubt that any developer would throw the kitchen sink at such an appeal therefore the council had to be absolutely right in terms of its decision-making procedure, the way it approached the application and to be fair to both objectors and the applicant. He welcomed the petition and the reassurances the appeal would be robustly defended.

 

Councillor Coppinger commented that as the Lead Member for Planning he was therefore ultimately responsible for the planning service. Despite being a Maidenhead councillor he had the advantage of knowing the site better than the majority of people as in 1983 he had started to work for Rank Hovis McDougall at 67 Alma Road and did so for many years and although it later move to King Edward Court, he had come back to what was now Genesis behind the police station.  Councillor Coppinger therefore knew the area exceedingly well and fully understood why residents were fighting against the development.  He would work with officers at every stage to ensure that the wishes of both residents and Members were made clear at all times and were driven through the legal process. Officers and the legal team would do everything they could to win the appeal.

 

Councillor Stretton stated that she supported the petition and agreed that the council must do the right thing. Her concern was that the council needed to learn how it got to this point. She questioned why the application had not been determined in time. This laid the council open to appeal before a decision had even made. She was very concerned at what the Panel was being asked to do in relation to removing reasons for refusal. A number of reasons were discussed including lack of affordable housing and lack of parking but in the end only three were given as reasons for refusal. She felt the loss of employment land was a still a valid issue as it was contrary the NPPF and E6 of the adopted Local Plan.

 

Councillor Stretton was advised that the debate should not relate to the planning application or the issues to be discussed at the Development Management Panel on 31 January 2019. Councillor Stretton reiterated that the council needed to learn from lessons of the past. It was confirmed that as a non-Panel Member Councillor Stretton would be able to speak at the Panel meeting on 31 January 2019.

 

Councillor Dudley commented that Windsor was a beautiful place. There was huge public support to ensure the borough discharged the will of residents to provide appropriate resources to the appeal. The council had £8m of reserves which would increase next year. The council would ensure it retained top legal representation and would do everything possible to defend against something that would have a severe detrimental effect on Windsor.

 

Councillor Bowden stated that he had spoken in objection to the planning application at the last panel meeting, where he had highlighted that Alma Road was a bus and coach route into the town and had commented on the transport plan. In this part of Windsor aircraft were at 1600 feet. The top storey of the proposed development would be 1350 feet. He also questioned how a crane of such height could be put in place in the location.

 

Councillor N. Airey endorsed the petition. She had lived in Oxford Street when she was younger and was therefore aware of the challenges relating to parking and the density of housing. The NPPF was for sustainable development; this was a case of overdevelopment.

 

Councillor Jones stated that she supported Councillor Rankin’s statement.  He had raised a number of questions which she believed had not yet been answered. If it were not possible for them to be answered at the meeting, she would appreciate if this could be done afterwards.

 

It was recommended by Councillor Rankin, seconded by Councillor Dudley and:

 

RESOLVED UNANIMOUSLY: That Full Council:

 

i)             Acknowledges the petition and underlying concerns from Windsor residents.

ii)            Commits to resourcing the legal appeal appropriate to the scale of these concerns and the implications of development.

 

Councillors S Rayner, Alexander, Shelim, M Airey, Bicknell, Quick and E Wilson left the room for the duration of the discussion and vote on the item.