Issue - meetings

Change of use of land to create 4 gypsy and traveller pitches including 2 amenity buildings and associated hardstanding and access at Land to the North Of Toms Lane, Kings Langley.

Recommendation: that planning permission be granted.

The application was for change of use of land to create 4 gypsy and traveller pitches including 2 amenity buildings and associated hardstanding and access at Land to the North of Toms Lane, Kings Langley.

The Planning Officer provided updates as follows:

·         Officers considered it reasonable to add a condition to require that the new gated entrance shall at all times only open inwards towards the application site rather than outwards towards Toms Lane, for highways safety reasons.

·         A condition requiring on-site cycle storage should also be secured and made available for use by future occupants prior to first occupation of the development.

·         A further condition securing a fire hydrant on site was also required, to ensure that the development was adequately served in the event of a fire.  This would address concerns raised by Hertfordshire Fire & Rescue Service as outlined in the report.

Parish Councillor Jon Tankard of Abbots Langley Parish Council spoke against the application.

The agent spoke in favour of the application.

Points raised by the speaker against the application included: the character of the area was suburban rather than semi-rural and the application and change of use was not in keeping with the suburban character of Toms Lane; an un-related recent application at another site on Toms Lane had been refused by the committee on the basis of concerns which included intensification and the impact on the linear pattern of Toms Lane.  Consistency of approach was therefore needed with this application; and there were also concerns about contamination arising from the site’s previous use.

Points raised by the speaker in favour of the application included: the application would provide good quality accommodation for a family, and would also free up two pitches on the Sandy Lane site for families who could not afford to develop their own site; there was an established need for gypsy and traveller pitches in the district; the site was Grey Belt and the proposal would not fundamentally undermine the purposes for including the land in Green Belt; and the site was a carefully-designed traveller site with a large area of screening and would retain verdant land at the back.

In response to the points raised by the speaker against the proposal, the Planning Officer set out the reasons why the site was considered to be Grey Belt and not Green Belt, as presented in the report, and the previous planning and appeal history which had informed the officers’ view.  The Planning Officer also highlighted the need for the application to be assessed on its own merits, noting that there were differences in context in relation to the nearby unrelated application which had recently been refused.  In relation to contamination, there had been a requirement for an Environmental Phase One and Phase Two report to be submitted which had been assessed by an Environmental Health Officer who had concluded that the measures identified in the report could be adequately dealt with via planning condition.

Committee Members asked questions about the detail of  ...  view the full minutes text for item 139