Agenda item

To agree the public minutes and summary of the meeting held on 20 November 2018.

The public minutes and summary of the meeting held on 20 November 2018 were considered and approved as a correct record.

MATTERS ARISING

Consultation on Noisy Saturday Construction Work Activities in the City of London – In response to a question, the Town Clerk reported that the Port Health and Environmental Services Committee had agreed with this Committee’s conclusion and had also voted in favour of restricting noisy works hours to 09:00 to 14:00.

COLPAI Project on former Richard Cloudesley School site – A Member questioned why this matter had not been brought back to the Committee for further discussion as had been suggested at the last meeting. She also asked that the Chairman update the Committee on the result of his discussions with the Chief Planning Officer on the matter. Finally, she asked what consideration had been given to some obvious ways of solving the problem, such as:

looking at ways to remove the need for the service trench, investigating alternative positions for gas intake and changing roof falls, and retaining the existing boundary wall.

The Chairman reported that, whilst it had been suggested that the matter be brought back to Committee for further discussion it had not formally been ‘called in’. If Members were of the view that this was necessary it would need to a formal, collective decision. He added that, as the Chief Planning Officer had been absent at the time, he had followed up this matter with the Director of the Built Environment after the last meeting who had subsequently discussed the matter with the Town Clerk & Chief Executive.

The Director of the Built Environment clarified that an application had been submitted in relation to condition 5 of the CoLPAI decision and that the applicant had applied to remove four trees and retain one on the boundary with the neighbouring allotments. It is proposed that three new trees are planted on the boundary. Members were reminded that all of the trees in question are in Islington and, as such, a parallel application has been submitted to the London Borough of Islington.

The Director went on to report that neighbourhood consultations are not carried out in relation to applications to discharge conditions. However, approximately 30 objections have been received. The objections raised a number of issues and the applicant’s responses to those have been requested. The Open Spaces Department have also been consulted on the acceptability of the application.

Members were informed that the determination of applications in respect of conditions is delegated to the Chief Planning Officer and Development Director and it is proposed that the application will be determined in this way in accordance with normal procedures once the necessary information has been received. Islington have also indicated that they propose to deal with the application under delegated authority and not to report it to their Committee.

The Director added that, under exceptional circumstances, the Chief Planning Officer and Development Director might consider referring the discharge of a planning condition to Committee, however, it was felt that there are no exceptional circumstances in this case.

Notwithstanding the above, the Committee can of course call in the discharge of the condition if they so choose. 

Alderman Jones suggested that, given the strength of feeling around this matter, it was his view that it should, indeed, be called in by the Committee. He stated that, whilst he accepted and endorsed the general procedure of delegating the majority of work in this area, this case warranted greater scrutiny. He put the motion to the Committee.

Susan Pearson seconded the motion.

The motion was put with votes cast as follows:

FOR: 12 votes

AGAINST: 3 votes

It was therefore agreed that the matter be called in and brought back to the Committee for further consideration in the New Year.

TfL Control Room Visits – A Member reported that the second of these visits had been to the London Underground Control Centre which had been a very informative visit and useful in terms of building relations.