County Council's Response To
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COUNTY COUNCIL’S RESPONSE TO CONSULTATION ON THE FOLLOWING DEVELOPMENT PROPOSAL District: West Oxfordshire Application No: 18/00273/OUT Proposal: Outline planning application for the demolition of existing dwellings and farm buildings and the development of a new village, comprising the following, the erection of up to 3000 dwellings (including 50% affordable housing), vehicle access from two new at grade roundabouts, improvements to the A40 (including dualling and new pedestrian/cycle crossing points along the site frontage) alterations to the existing single track lane to South Leigh/Church End, a neighbourhood centre comprising 4500m of floorspace within use classes A1, A2, A3, A4, A5, D1, and D2 and a market square (including retail, a medical centre, pharmacy, community hall, nursery/creche facility and a pub) two primary schools 24700m floorspace science/business park (B1a and B1b uses) parking and a cafe, apartments with care (C2 use class), open space and landscaping, new community buildings, an 80 bedroom hotel and parking (C1 use class) land for a cemetery, acoustic mitigation and associated infrastructure including roads and sewers, sustainable drainage systems (SuDS) and associated engineering and earthworks. All matters reserved except for means of access. Location: Land North And South Of Barnard Gate, Witney. Response date: 6th April 2018 This report sets out the officer views of Oxfordshire County Council (OCC) on the above proposal. These are set out by individual service area/technical discipline and include details of any planning conditions or informatives that should be attached in the event that permission is granted and any obligations to be secured by way of a S106 agreement. Where considered appropriate, an overarching strategic commentary is also included. If the local County Council member has provided comments on the application these are provided as a separate attachment. Assessment Criteria Proposal overview and mix /population generation OCC’s response is based on a development as set out in the table below. The development is taken from the application form Commercial – use class m2 A1 3000 A2 150 A3 200 A4 550 A5 150 1 B1 (A) 12350 B1 (B) 12350 C2 11500 D1 600 D2 750 Development to be built out and occupied out over 2 Application no: 18/00273/OUT Location: Land North And South Of Barnard Gate, Witney. Strategic Comments Oxfordshire County Council objects to the planning application as presently presented due to omissions from, and issues with, the methodology of the transport appraisal. Please see the Transport Schedule (pages 6-34) for more detail. Officer’s Name: Odele Parsons Officer’s Title: West Locality Lead (interim) Date: 6th April 2018 3 Application no: 18/00273/OUT Location: Land North And South Of Barnard Gate, Witney. General Information and Advice Recommendations for approval contrary to OCC objection: IF within this response an OCC officer has raised an objection but the Local Planning Authority are still minded to recommend approval, OCC would be grateful for notification (via [email protected]) as to why material consideration outweigh OCC’s objections, and given an opportunity to make further representations. Outline applications and contributions The number and type of dwellings and/or the floor space may be set by the developer at the time of application, or if not stated in the application, a policy compliant mix will be used for assessment of the impact and mitigation in the form of s106 contributions. These are set out on the first page of this response. In the case of outline applications, once the unit mix/floor space is confirmed by the developer a matrix (if appropriate) will be applied to assess any increase in contributions payable. The matrix will be based on an assumed policy compliant mix as if not agreed during the s106 negotiations. Where unit mix is established prior to commencement of development, the matrix sum can be fixed based on the supplied mix (with scope for higher contribution if there is a revised reserved matters approval). Where a S106/Planning Obligation is required: ➢ Index Linked – in order to maintain the real value of s106 contributions, contributions will be index linked. Base values and the index to be applied are set out in the Schedules to this response. ➢ Security of payment for deferred contributions – An approved bond will be required to secure payments where the payment of S106 contributions (in aggregate) have been agreed to be deferred to post implementation and the total County contributions for the development exceed £1m (after indexation). Administration and Monitoring Fee - £34,559 This is an estimate of the amount required to cover the extra monitoring and administration associated with the S106 agreement. The final amount will be based on the OCC’s scale of fees and will adjusted to take account of the number of obligations and the complexity of the S106 agreement. ➢ OCC Legal Fees The applicant will be required to pay OCC’s legal fees in relation to legal agreements. Please note the fees apply whether an s106 agreement is completed or not. 4 CIL Regulation 123 Due to pooling constraints for local authorities set out in Regulation 123 of the Community Infrastructure Levy Regulations 2010 (as amended), OCC may choose not to seek contributions set out in this response during the s106 drafting and negotiation. That decision is taken either because: - OCC considers that to do so it would breach the limit of 5 obligations to that infrastructure type or that infrastructure project or - OCC considers that it is appropriate to reserve the ability to seek contributions to that infrastructure type or that infrastructure project in relation to the impacts of another proposal. The district planning authority should however, take into account the whole impact of the proposed development on the county infrastructure, and the lack of mitigation in making its decision. 5 Application no: 18/00273/OUT Location: Land North And South Of Barnard Gate, Witney. Transport Schedule Recommendation: Objection for the following reasons: ➢ The applicant has not demonstrated that their proposals give sufficient weight to the emerging West Oxfordshire Local Plan to 2031 in accordance with Paragraph 216 of the National Planning Policy Framework. The transport assessment has not included the emerging Local Plan growth which results in the underestimate of the impact of the proposed development on the transport networks. ➢ The proposal does not support the proposals within the A40 Transport Strategy, some of which have central government funding and have been designed with West Oxfordshire District Council’s emerging Local Plan in mind. ➢ The location is not sustainable. The site can only be accessed from the A40. This is not suitable, as the only other alternative means of access in the event of the A40 being closed is a single track unclassified road with passing bays via South Leigh. The applicant intends to prohibit the use of vehicles along this road within the development. Therefore, the access proposal is contrary to OCC guidance which states up to 400 dwellings only should be served from a major access road which loops. ➢ There is no bus strategy for the site. This is important because no secondary school has been provided within it. When the development is fully built out, approximately 500-600 secondary school pupils will need to get to schools in either Witney or Eynsham. While these locations might be within the maximum acceptable walking distance to school, the applicant has not provided any surfaced, lit footway links to Eynsham. Therefore, pupils will be reliant on the public bus to get to secondary school. ➢ The site does not adhere to current design principles because it does not have a permeable network of streets to a wide range of routes. The only routes out of this development lead to the A40, plus unlit single-track roads that have no footways to Church End and South Leigh, two locations that have minimal amenities. ➢ The methodology used for assessing the traffic impacts of the entire site is not suitable for a development of this nature and size. The applicant has submitted a manual distribution of trips instead of using the Oxfordshire Strategic Transport Model, has not included all the strategic sites listed in West Oxfordshire District Council’s emerging Local Plan in their estimates of background traffic growth, and has not completed an adequate analysis of the relevant junctions and links within Witney. 6 ➢ The applicant has not demonstrated that sustainable drainage systems (SuDS) will be used on site to provide storage for surface water generated on site, in line with the National Planning Policy Framework Paragraph 103, that requires development to give priority to the use of SuDS. ➢ The applicant has not demonstrated that the increase in runoff volumes and rate arising from the site can be fully mitigated for all events up to and including the 1 in 100 chance in any year critical storm event, including an appropriate allowance for climate change. Consequently, runoff volumes leaving the site will increase, leading to increasing flood risk elsewhere. This is contrary to Paragraph 103 of the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF). ➢ The applicant has not demonstrated that the proposed SUDS features are appropriately sized to manage surface water flood risk onsite for all storm events up to and including the 1 in 100 chance in any year critical storm event, including an appropriate allowance for climate change. Consequently, the attenuation will not be able to cope with increased volumes, leading to increasing flood risk elsewhere. This is contrary to Paragraph 103 of the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF). ➢ The drawings which show the new highway works on the A40, including the new bus stop laybys and roundabouts need to be annotated to show that they comply with the Design Manual for Roads and Bridges, and should include deflection lines, visibility splays for the two roundabouts, and tracking for an HGV.