Issue - meetings

Construction of warehouse units (Use Classes E(g)(iii), B2 and B8) including access and servicing arrangements, car parking, landscaping and associated works at Maple Cross House, Denham Way and Kier Offices off Maple Lodge Close, Maple Cross.

Recommendation: that following the completion of a S106 agreement to secure financial contributions toward biodiversity monitoring, travel plan monitoring and sustainable transport improvements, planning permission be granted subject to conditions.

The application was for construction of warehouse units (Use Classes E(g)(iii), B2 and B8) including access and servicing arrangements, car parking, landscaping and associated works at Maple Cross House, Denham Way and Kier Offices off Maple Lodge Close, Maple Cross.

The Planning Officer reported that since the agenda had been published, an updated Landscape Masterplan drawing and site plan had been received.  These provided further detail on the tree planting (which was also contained on another drawing).  Reference to plan/drawing numbers in conditions 2 and 21 therefore required updating to reflect the revision.  Condition 39 also required updating to reference a later revision of the landscape maintenance strategy document, which had been updated to provide clarity on the provision of replacement planting should any of the existing boundary trees fail.  The Planning Officer also reported that officers would like to add an informative note to any approval to remind the applicant of the acceptable hours for noisy construction works in Three Rivers i.e. 8am to 6pm Monday to Friday, 9am to 1pm on Saturday: this was a standard informative for most planning permissions.  Finally, the Planning Officer also reported that the applicant had provided further clarification on noise levels around the site and the predicted operational noise, and on this basis had requested that the hours for deliveries and collections at units 5 and 6 be amended to allow a 6am start on Monday to Friday.  This request had been reviewed by the Environmental Health Officer (EHO), who had not been able to agree the 6am start time.  However, the EHO had commented that based on the information provided, they considered that condition 36 could be amended to allow collections and deliveries from 7am on Saturdays and from 8am to 11pm on Sundays.  If Members considered this acceptable, condition 36 could be updated on this basis.

The Planning Committee noted that the application was a major development which proposed the redevelopment of the entire site to provide 6 warehouse units within 2 buildings (one containing 4 units (units 1-4), and the other 2 units (units 5 and 6)).   The Planning Officer clarified that condition 36 which restricted the hours of use, applied only to units 5 and 6.  This was due to concerns about the potential noise and disturbance to neighbouring residents from loading and unloading of vehicles to those units.  Restriction on the hours for collections and deliveries were not proposed for the other units as the buildings themselves were considered to provide noise mitigation due to their location between the residential dwellings at Franklins and the loading bays and the attenuation provided by the construction quality, which would be to BREEAM standards.  Access to the site would be solely from Denham Way; the access from Maple Lodge Close would be conditioned to only be used in connection with maintenance of the grounds.  A 6m high timber acoustic barrier was proposed along the bottom boundary of the site to mitigate noise from units 5 and 6; this would be  ...  view the full minutes text for item 6