Agenda item

The Committee refused the application contrary to the recommendation in the report from the Planning and New Communities Director. Members agreed the reasons for refusal as being that the proposal amounted to an unsustainable development in that it would

1.     have an adverse visual impact on this part of the village and cumulatively create a hard urban edge to the village; and

2.     fail to deliver community cohesion through its demands on the local doctor’s surgery and primary school for which there is no certainty that the additional capacity required can be met

Members visited the site on 2 June 2015.

Colin Conner (representing the Meldhac group of local residents) and Shane Lawrence (objectors), Tim Havers (applicant’s agent), Philip Kratz (agent for Melbourn Parish Council), and Councillors Val Barrett and Jose Hales (local Members) addressed the meeting. During the course of public speaking, Planning Committee members noted

·       Concern about access to facilities and public transport

·       Concern about the quality of design and quality of life

·       Infrastructure considerations, including traffic and pressure on the doctors surgery

·       Concern about the disproportionate nature of the site

·       A suggestion that the proposal was in the wrong location

·       Scepticism about the need for a care home

·       The 40% level of affordable housing (both positive and negative) surrounding environmental, social and economic factors

·       The contribution the development would make in tackling the current shortfall within South Cambridgeshire in the supply of land for housing

·       Sustainability arguments

·       An agreed reduced period of two years for dealing with Reserved Matters

·       The consequences of many of the Council’s policies being deemed “out of date” by virtue of its inability to demonstrate a five-year housing land supply

·       An argument that benefits from the development were not sufficient to outweigh planning harm

The Committee refused the application contrary to the recommendation in the report from the Planning and New Communities Director. Members agreed the reasons for refusal as being that the proposal amounted to an unsustainable development in that it would

1.     have an adverse visual impact on this part of the village and cumulatively create a hard urban edge to the village; and

2.     fail to deliver community cohesion through its demands on the local doctor’s surgery and primary school for which there is no certainty that the additional capacity required can be met