Dear Mayor and Clerk to St Clears Town Council
I refer to your letter of 12 December regarding the above application that Members were minded to grant planning permission subject to completion of a Section 106 agreement at the 13 October Planning Committee.
For ease, I will respond to the matters raised in your email in the same order as they appear in your letter.
Firstly, I can assure you that the comments made by the Town Council on the application were duly taken into account. Committee reports do not re-iterate objections received on applications verbatim but rather summarises their content. Each report provided to Members also includes a link to the Council’s website where all representations received on planning applications are available to view in full for Members to consider. In terms of your attendance at the committee, in line with the protocol set out on the Council’s website, the planning authority does not advise members of the public or town/community council’s as to when applications are being reported to the planning committee. To ensure equal access for all the progress of each application is provided online to allow all stakeholders to be able to track progress online.
In response to the first question that you have raised, following a review of the file, amended plans were received on the application on 10 August 2022. This submission was the subject of a full re-consultation exercise, including an email to St Clears Town Council on 11 August 2022 to which the Town Council responded on 22 August 2022. The 5October 2022 consultation deadline relates to the required press notice that was also triggered by the submission of the amended plans that had been received on 10 August 2022. Unfortunately, due to publishing delays, the press notice was not published until 14 September 2022 which resulted in an overall consultation expiry date of 5October 2022. Nevertheless, it remains that had the Authority been in receipt of responses between the 5 October 2022 and the committee date, sufficient time remained for consideration of those responses prior to the Planning Committee.
It is assumed that the 11 October 2022 appendices that you refer to are the planning committee addendum papers that were circulated. Due to agenda lead in times, on occasions it is necessary to prepare addendum papers to clarify and/or update Members on matters that have arisen since the Committee Report was prepared. In this instance the addendum included clarification of matters and updates to the recommended conditions that had been received from the Council’s Highways Officer and Landscaping Officer only.
With regards notifying intention to be present at a Planning Committee, all requests must be received in accordance with the Planning Committee Public Participation Protocol - https://www.carmarthenshire.gov.wales/media/1227545/part-53-revised-council-09022022.pdf i.e. by Midday on the preceding Monday. A request can also be made when submitting comments in relation to a planning application, and this will be acted upon should the application be reported to Planning Committee. The consultation process is dictated by planning legislation. As a result, all town and community councils are routinely consulted on all planning applications that fall within their administrative area. When the applicant submits amendments/additions/changes this can trigger the need for re-consultation. It is down to the discretion of the Local Planning Authority the nature and extent of that re-consultation exercise. In this case, a full re-consultation was undertaken when amendments were received in August to which the Town Council duly responded.
With regards the highway improvements secured, these were the subject of detailed discussions with the Council’s highways team and on balance were considered an appropriate means of overcoming highway safety concerns. The Local Planning Authority can only secure Section 106 contributions towards improvements that meet with specific tests set out in legislation i.e. they are necessary to the make the development acceptable in planning terms, they are directly related to the development and they are fairly and reasonable related in scale and kind to the development. It was on this basis that on balance it was considered that the proposals put forward would result in highway safety improvements directly related to the development itself. It is highly likely that had this scheme been funded by the Council themselves the costs would have been far greater due to the need to obtain land ownership and undertake the works.
With regards affordable housing provision, the viability of a development is a material planning consideration when determining planning applications. There is a balance to be struck between securing improvements and provision of affordable housing whilst also having regard to the viability of the scheme. To this end, the application was the subject of a detailed valuation exercise using a development viability model that has been adopted by Carmarthenshire County Council for circumstances such as this. The results were scrutinised by the Council’s valuations team which concluded that having regard to the highway safety improvement works, requiring full provision of affordable housing would render the development unviable although a reduced provision would remain acceptable. In terms of their location within the site, as was highlighted in the meeting, “pepper potting” affordable housing units across a development site inherently creates maintenance and management issues and as such cluster siting is preferrable. Due to the development site’s configuration and provision of on-site open space it was deemed on balance that provision of the affordable housing in one cluster was acceptable on this occasion.
The conditions imposed on the planning permission would need to be adhered to. The planning permission has not been formally issued as yet as that does not occur until the legal S106 process has been duly completed. This is currently underway. Nevertheless, a number of the recommended planning conditions require the developer to submit information prior to works commencing on the site. This would be via a formal discharge of condition application. Such applications are not the subject of public consultation but are available to view on our website and are contained on the weekly lists of applications received and decided which are available to view on the website - https://www.carmarthenshire.gov.wales/home/council-services/planning/search-for-a-planning-application/#.Y5x3E3bP2Hs .
If development proceeds without having first satisfied such conditions, or is not in accordance with approved details, the developer is then at risk of enforcement action. The Authority’s Enforcement Team investigate all reports of alleged breaches of planning control received. It is therefore encouraged that any alleged breach is reported to the Enforcement Team. Details on how to do this can be found on the Council’s website and I attache that link for your convenience - https://www.carmarthenshire.gov.wales/home/council-services/planning/breach-of-planning/#.Y5x29XbP2Hs
As referred to above, all community and town council’s across the Authority are routinely consulted on all planning applications received within their administrative area irrespective of their scale and this will continue.
I trust that the above clarifies the Authority’s position on the matters that the Town Council has raised. Should the Town Council have any further queries following its meeting on the 20th December, please do not hesitate to contact me.
Yours faithfully
rhodri
Rhodri Griffiths
Pennaeth lle a chynaliadwyedd/ Head of Place and Sustainability
Lle & Seilwaith | Place & Infrastructure
RDGriffiths@sirgar.gov.uk | RDGriffiths@carmarthenshire.gov.uk
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