B/12/0171 BOSTON BOROUGH COUNCIL Planning Committee 21 August 2012 Reference Number: B/12/0171 Application Expiry Date 27 August 2012 Application Type: Outline Planning Permission Proposal Description Outline application for the erection of residential development (including details of access) (maximum 120 dwellings) with access from Ashton Hall Drive (Departure) At: Land to the north of Boston West Primary School, west of The Peter Paine Sports Centre and south of The North Forty Foot Drain For: Broadgate Homes Ltd Third Party Reps: Parish: Boston Town Area Committee Ward Name: West Author of Report: Paul Edwards Date of Report: 7 August 2012 MAIN RECOMMENDATION: DELEGATE TO APPROVE 1.0 REASON FOR THIS REPORT 1.1 This application is presented to Committee since it is a departure from the development plan and it has policy implications which your officers consider, in accordance with the Scheme of Delegation, should be debated and determined by Committee. 2.0 SITE 2.1 The application site has an area of 4.4 ha (10.5 acres) and is open agricultural land immediately to the north of the Boston West Primary School and to the west of the curtilage of the Peter Paine Sports Centre, across an IDB drain. The North Forty Foot Drain defines the northern boundary to the site, to the west is open agricultural land across a private drain and the southern boundary are the enclosed grounds of the Primary School. A pedestrian footbridge crosses the Drain some 170m east of the site, at the southern end of Punchbowl Lane at its junction with Langrick Road linking to the Sports Centres and Rosebery Avenue to the south. 2.2 There are no listed buildings, tree preservation orders or other statutory local landscape or other designations on the site or in its vicinity. The land adjacent to the east – the Peter Paine Sports Centre and grounds is allocated in the Local Plan as Recreational Open Space. The application site is agricultural land, according to our Borough wide Defra records, Grade 2. The site is within the Environment Agency Flood Risk Zone 3a and within the Council’s SFRA in the Danger For All hazard category with a depth from flooding for the 200 year event (2115) in the range 1m – 2m with a Medium Tidal Flood Probability. 35 B/12/0171 3.0 THE PROPOSAL 3.1 The application is in outline with all matters (layout, scale, appearance and landscaping) except means of access reserved for future submission and determination. The proposal is for the residential development of the site with an undefined but indicative number of between 110 and 120 two storey properties, including between 33 and 36 affordable houses (30%). 3.2 The proposed means of access is from the Rosebery Meadows development to the south, off Ashton Hall Drive along the western boundary of the school grounds. The indicative layout and Design and Access Statement includes the provision of some allotment land and Public Open Space along the site’s eastern boundary; the potential for an informal pedestrian route from the north east corner of the site through the adjacent playing fields to the footbridge which crosses North Forty Foot Drain, and an opportunity for a secondary pedestrian access into Boston West Primary School from a new drop off/ pick up point at the point of entry into the application site from Rosebery Meadows. An area of public open space incorporating a to-be-adopted Sustainable Drainage System (SuDS) to deal with surface water drainage is proposed at the northern end of the site, adjacent to the drainside. Overall the indicative detail suggests that at least 10% of the gross site area would be devoted to public open space. The revised Flood Risk Assessment (FRA) indicates finished floor levels of habitable rooms to be set a minimum of 1m above adjacent existing ground level and that soakaways are unlikely to be practicable. 3.3 The application submission is accompanied by a Planning Statement, a Visual Supporting Statement, an Ecology and Protected Species Survey an updated Flood Risk and Rainfall Run-Off Assessment Report and a Design & Access Statement. 3.4 The nearest residential neighbours are on the north side of North Forty Foot Bank, facing the site and there are no residential neighbours to the other site boundaries. The Rosebery Meadows development to the south of the site is on-going; the applicants estimate that, at the time that this application was submitted, Rosebery Meadows has seen 184 completions with some 93 units remaining to be built. The access would use Ashton Hall Drive and go past some of these yet to be developed properties but the application site would have no other residential neighbours in its vicinity. 4.0 RELEVANT HISTORY 4.1 This site and proposal were the subject of formal pre-application correspondence and meetings in late 2011, early 2012. This process included discussion and debate at the Boston & South Holland Flood Risk and Drainage Management Group (FRDMG) on 17 January 2012 and there were responses from both the Highway Authority and the Environment Agency; the latter advised that the submitted Flood Risk Assessment was not (the former) PPS25 compliant. 4.2 There is no history of any previous planning applications or proposals for this site. 36 B/12/0171 5.0 THE DEVELOPMENT PLAN 5.1 The development plan comprises the Regional Strategy (The East Midlands Regional Plan 2009) and the saved policies of the Boston Borough Local Plan 1999. S.38 (6) of the amended Act requires that determinations must be made in accordance with the (development) plan unless material considerations indicate otherwise. 5.2 The application site is outside of the Local Plan settlement development limits for Boston and for plan policy purposes is thus in the open countryside. The Peter Paine curtilage to the west is within the development limits, as is the Primary School to the south and the entire Rosebery Meadows/ Ashton Hall Drive development underway to the south. 5.3 Based upon the location and the lack of any allocations for the development of this application site, it represents a ‘Departure’ from the plan. 5.4 It has been reported that the Government remains committed to the abolition of the Regional Strategies and this may be a step closer with the coming into force of the Localism Act last year. However, Secretary of State decisions consistently show that only limited weight is given by him to the proposed revocations in applications which the Minister has determined i.e. the Regional Strategy remains a part of the development plan. Regional Strategy (former Regional Spatial Strategy – RSS) 5.5 Policy 3: Distribution of New Development seeks to provide for appropriate development of a lesser scale (than the Principal Urban Areas) to be located in the Sub-Regional Centres – including Boston. The assessment of the suitability of sites should include giving priority to making the best use of previously developed land to contribute to the regional target of 60% of additional dwellings on previously developed land. That this site is outside of, but adjacent to development limits means that, strictly, this policy does not apply. 5.6 Policy 4: Development in the Eastern Sub-area states that development in this sub-area should consolidate and where appropriate strengthen the Sub-Regional Centres of Boston (Grantham and Spalding). 5.7 Policy 5: Strategy for the Lincolnshire Coastal Districts is the Policy out of which the Lincolnshire Coastal Strategy would have emerged. 5.8 This Strategy was to be agreed between, principally, the Regional Planning Body (RPB), the Lincolnshire coastal districts, the County Council and the Environment Agency. This was intended to provide a long term strategic vision for the three districts and the Panel which examined the RSS suggested that until the strategy was adopted there was a need to limit new housing development to existing commitments. The agreed strategy was to form a part of the next RSS review and, the Policy continues, if agreed before adoption of the review, the strategy would form a guide to the preparation of local development documents until the new RS is rolled forward. 5.9 The closure of the Regional Government Offices network in March 2011 and the earlier attempted revocation of the Regional Strategies in July 2010, which was successfully challenged in the High Court, nevertheless meant that the review of the RS is not being proceeded with and the RPB was disbanded. The Draft Replacement Policies that were produced as a Draft Coastal Strategy were not proceeded with given the abolition of the regional tier of government and they were never tested or consulted on in public. 37 B/12/0171 5.10 The commentary to RS Policy 5 advises that until the strategy is agreed housing provision in the coastal district should be limited to the provision set out in Policy 13a, which should be regarded as ceilings. 5.11 RS Policy 13a: Regional Housing Provision. This is the strategic housing policy which the authorities should plan for over the plan period (2006 to 2026). For Boston: the annual apportionment from 2006 is 270 the total Housing Provision 2006 to 2026 (20 years) is 2,700. 5.12 A footnote to Boston’s figure (and West and East Lindsey) says that the total provisions are ceilings, pending the agreement of the Lincolnshire Coastal Strategy. 5.13 Policy 35: A Regional Approach to Managing Flood Risk. This policy seeks that plan documents should be informed by SFRAs to evaluate actual risk, should include policies to prevent inappropriate development, require sustainable drainage in all new development where practicable and that development should not be permitted if it (the development), of relevance here, would be at an unacceptable risk from flooding or create an unacceptable risk elsewhere; impede the flow of floodwater to create risks elsewhere or otherwise unacceptably increase flood risk.