Planning Sub-Committee – 08/05/2024

thank you good evening everyone welcome to count council’s planning subcommittee I’m councelor Jessica Webb I’m chairing this evening’s meeting this meeting will be recorded and is being live streamed on YouTube council is taking part and voting this evening are present here in the council chamber welcome to any members of the public and press who join us this evening meeting um anyone joining remotely via Google meet there is a chat function um and I’m not going to monitor it so please only raise it for it related issues meeting participants reminded to turn off their mobile phones put them on silent um and just behave yourself with the Quorum in the event of an internet outage we will adjourn the meeting and come back and continue once resolve that’s always an issue I just want to put you on edge make you a bit more exciting uh firstly I will turn to my fellow planning subcommittee members and ask to introduce themselves councel arros councelor Michael Desmond councelor CLA Potter thank you very much uh those in attendance will note that we’ve got various Council officers present at this meeting both in the room joining us remotely so we have a a multitude of planning officers tonight can we just go through them when we go through them thank you um some of you joining us this evening would have contacted the government’s officer in advance of this meeting to register to speak objetives to the applications and representatives for the applicant are also in attendance I need to run through how we are going to proceed we will hear each planning application in turn summarized by the planning officer we will hear a five minute statement from the ejectors followed by a five minute statement from the applicant if there’s more than one speak out from an applicant to an objected they will have to agree amongst themselves how they will split that five minute speaking time members of the planning subcommittee will then be free to ask questions of everyone in my role as chair of this planning subcommittee we’ll ensure that committee members have everything they need to make a decision that objectors and applicants have had the opportunity to set out their case and this meeting runs properly I will not be taking any contributions from the floor you must have given notice to the Govern officer before the meeting to register to speak and the deadline for registering to speak was 400 p.m. yesterday subcommittee members are not representing either Wards or their political parties members will make decisions on the basis of site visits they’ve made what we’ve read and the report what we hear this evening we must make any decision on an application in accordance with our development plan our local plan the London plan unless relevant material planning considerations indicate otherwise subcommittee members are reminded Ed not to take into account or discuss non-material planning matters when taking a decision members should not have allowed themselves to Prejudice any application prior to this meeting similarly if a member has any interests relating to an application on the meeting agenda they must consider whether that interest ought to be disclosed and where appropriate they must withdraw from the meeting while that application is discussed and voted upon when we have finished our deliberations on a planning application I will read out the recommendation as set out in the publish application report and then members will vote on the recommendation by raising their hand when the decision is made that is normally the end of the matter for the subcommittee the applicant May appeal our decision and objetives may seek legal address I advise you to seek legal advice in either case um finally depending how this meeting goes we’ll probably take a comfort break at some point and now we will start with the order of the business beginning uh with agenda item one apologies for absence um sh so councelor young uh is obviously speaking objection to item five um and I understand councelor Joseph is running late uh but then Council young I understand will be joining us virtually for item six on hello I can’t I have to recuse myself from the other wood down item which is the West Reservoir project because I’m overly involved in the project thank you that was a little jump to item number two jump which would be be would be a declaration of of interest um Council young but we do know that you have accused yourself from the reservoir item so what I’m doing in effect is I’m giving my apologies for the whole of the meeting despite the fact that I’m obviously here right thank you councelor n um councelor sedak send his apologies have we finished with the apologies sorry I jumped into uh Declarations of Interest Declarations of Interest other than the ones that we’ve heard chair obviously the all the committee know one of the objectors as he obviously is a former Hackney Council I also chair of this committee so uh and obviously uh two of the council is speaking objection this evening obviously also sign now so I’ll note that as a record agenda item three to consider any proposal questions referred to the subcommittee by the council’s monitoring officer at the time of the agenda we do not have any questions that have been correct chair thank you minutes of the previous meeting we’ve got two sets of minutes for the committee to consider and approve first of all 6th of March this year have committee members had a chance to look are they satisfied with the contents thank you very much and how about the 12th of March which was the preapplication meeting thank you all right first substantive item then agenda item five is it’s a great name is it site known as phase four just call it phase four should we move to the um officer to make the um opening for please thank you thank you chair um yes so this site is an application in St phase four of Woodby down and it’s land bounded by Seven Sisters Road rear of St Olaf’s Church Woodby down and Woodby Grove in and4 it is a scheme of 511 units and and a Redevelopment of the existing um state within wood be down Le is phase four it currently on site there’s 200 units um and there is to be an uplift of three 311 units so that makes 511 in total in terms of the F horing provision on the site that is um 43% by unit and 47% I habitable room and I’d just like to jump back slightly because I haven’t mentioned the addendum yet there is an addendum um which you should have been provided with that is a reconsideration of some of the comments in terms of the total comments provided and how they were provided and there is two additional conditions that are not pre- commencment conditions um jumping back to the site location plan as you’ll know we’ve got a site there with six six blocks of um residential Flats um the postwar in nature um we’ve got Seven Sisters road to the north we’ve got Woodbury Grove to the east we’ve got would be down the road known as wood down to the south of the site and St ola’s Church to the west of the site which form the boundaries of this this section of Woody down here we’ve got a aerial photograph of the site that gives you a bit more context you’ll note there’s the Eastern res Reservoir to the south of the site a bit further and you can see that that parts of would bre down are currently under construction and we’ve got a few more aerial views from perspective using our Google Google Maps tool another aerial view looking South with s Road in the foreground there AAL view looking East towards we’ve got phase three that’s in the background there we got the reservoir to the south of the site and here’s an AAL view looking back from where we’ve just been viewing from we’ve got Seven Sisters Road there quite clear to the north of the site and here we’ve got a few photographs of the site as it currently is taking about month ago this one’s on woodreed down the road this one’s from the pavement on Seven Sisters looking towards phase 4 uh this is looking a crosswood Bri big Grove sorry that’s looking across will bre down just clarity here’s another site another photograph and here’s a um plan showing map map and plan showing um The Heritage Assets in the locality you’ll note there’s St Olaf’s Church which is listed to the west of the site here this and this this plan shows us phase four within the context of the rest The Wider would be down phase um so you you’ll notice the north of phase four you’ve got phase six and phase eight and You’ got phase three to the to the East and further east you got phases five and seven which due to come forward at later date um you’ve got a lot of the elements of the elements of wood be down that are either completed under construction towards the towards the reservoirs and going on to phase four itself here you’ve got Landscaping plan and the Landscaping in the central Garden area that’s um that’s that’s on that’s on what we call a Podium um which has parking underneath and has some of servicing underneath as well we’ve got um the residential unit residential units towards the extremities of the site and kind of bounding the site as it were and we’ve got a lot a new planting within that that Urban Garden area and within the Muse to the West between the proposal and St olaves and we’ve got the town kind of Central Square area that’s fronting on to woodrey Grove and moving on Mrs Morel plan view that shows you kind of the level of Podium so towards the center you’ll notice it’s quite hard for me to show because I can’t show my cursor on the screen fortunately but towards the center of the site underneath the podium you’ve got the disabled parking and the parking that relates to the residents that have a right to retainer space and the new development that being decanted from other phases um towards the east of the site you’ve got a pale green area that’s where the non-residential units of the scheme will be and that’s got that potentially going to be a mixture of E-class uses and F1 with the intention that the council if it wishes to as a service provid it can take on a library or Civic Hub type Arrangement and that will be any any use that could be any use under the F1 but the intention is that the council will have the ability to take that on and should they wish to do so um whilst we’re on this one it’s quite good um quite a good um slide to show you this on in terms of showing the difference between the different tenue splits on the site so um to the South to the southeast Corner you’ve got um the tower known as C1 that is to be Market units and that is to be 146 Market units and the north of that you’ve got blocks A3 and A4 that are also Market units um if you slide down there because you’ve got the four blocks across the north frontting well a butting Seven Sisters Road further south down s sisters Road W vry part you’ve got um shared ownership units and there’s 132 units in there and the other two units which are known as B1 and B2 you’ve got so social unit social rent units within the scheme and also there’s four Muse units fronting on duplexes on the Muse that to be social rent also here we’ve got a CGI um to the right of this picture um with Seven Sisters Road in the foreground there you can see because it’s well it’s got the buses if if you’re very Eagle eyed you can see the buses on there that indicate that that is Seven Sisters Road and you’ve got the reservoirs to the rear which I’m sure you can see um this is a CGI visualization of the the proposal has been provided by the applicant part the do it wouldn’t fall like a lot of the CGI visualizations they don’t form approve plans which I’m sure you’re aware but they’re very useful to illustrate the scheme here’s another CGI we’ve got this is Seven Sisters Road in the foreground and that tall tower is the one I was referring to a C1 which is market and these first two that you can see they’re also market with the shared ownership ones further away in the picture with the social rents rent unit with the social rent box hidden towards the not that don’t appear in this photograph in this sorry visualization this is a view within the podium um once the vegetations had a chance to mature this is a landscaping plan of the Central Square those white areas um to the left of this picture that’s that’s where the F1 and E eClass units will agre go um you’ve got various play options throughout those little pockets on there and areas of landscaping and trees here is a view of the Central Square um looking towards the non-residential units of the at the lower level with the podium above up above then you’ve got the you’ve got those units I was referring to before C1 C1 tower on the left and A4 on the right with A3 behind it there’s some further Podium cgis have been provided to us and there’s some Podium sections that show you how the the intention is for the trees to be planted in kind of tree pits this slide shows us the uh play strategy within the scheme has various Play features throughout the park adding interest for people for children particular and here we got a CGI of what some of the frontages will look like this is within the podium here’s a visualization of the Muse area this is between St ola’s and the Muse social rented units that will front onto this area of the scheme that block to the the The prominent block there that’s one of the social rent blocks uh sorry shared ownership rent blocks um known as A1 so this slide here shows us the trees and how they’ve been classified and which ones will be to not to be removed and we are getting a c contribution on this site as well as achieving a biodiversity net gain and policy compliant ugf urb Greening Factor here is a typical floor plan of the scheme so the the long Runner block the long run of blocks to the top that’s what I was refering to is starting from the left that’s a that’s A1 and A2 that shed ownership and the market ones which are A3 and A4 to the right then you’ve got C C1 which is the market another Market block to the South and then the two similar blocks that are in the look appear to be independent on this FL um those are the social rent units where there’s 90 [Music] units these are some sections to give you a bit of idea of the height of the buildings and we’ve got some quite like familiar with a lot plan applications we get elevations and we’ve got quite a few elevations this is the north elevation looking from Seven Sisters road so you’ve got the trees that are run along seven sister the edge of Seven Sisters Road between here at between the proposal and 7 the road itself got a South elevation here looking from the street knowers would be down got block C1 to the right there and this is the East Elevation so this is looking as if you’re looking towards the non-residential units on the scheme and this is from the new side and this is fr looking from within the podium South I thought these were quite useful to include because we do have unusually we’ve got eight sets of elevations because of the areas where you can see the scheme from and this is a roof plan which shows how uh the the applicant sought to maximize their renewable opportunities as well as having living roofs so you’ve got yeah you’ve got very solar PVS on the top of there and you’ve got green roofs yeah this is the typical flaw plan um and my that concludes my presentation um the recommendation is to approve the scheme subject to conditions as amended by the update and the in the in the addenda thank you very much chair thank you um we take the council or should we go for the um well chair I have listed the council as as first um but you are the chair after all and if Council Selman and Council young are happy for the three members of the public to go first yeah you okay with that Council young if we take the objectiv first so you can hear what they’re saying so um very now we have um STS Jeff Bel and gley um have you worked out your five minutes between and you thank you um I was Vincent stops I was parted to the m planning of forb down as Cabinet member for planning 2002 to 2004 I chaired this committee um from 2006 to 2022 I’m here to remind members that a key move has always been the narrowing of 7 sisters Road from six to four lanes this to connect the estate reduce Severance and the other impacts of a six Lane Road it would benefit thousands of local residents this was agreed by Barkley I think they still agree with it and by tfl and by Hackney Council this committee um agreed a substantial payment in 2013 as part of this develop the overall master plan development The Proposal was for is for a treelined Boulevard along Seven Sisters road we talked about it before in your presence I’m sure councelor web um the image I’ve shown you which I I understand has been given to members um was part of the application we discussed that in committee and subsequently what this means it means a widening of the paved area along Seven Sisters Road and the creation of just two carriageways a wide bus and cycle Lane and one General traffic lane the money was not for tfl to do what it chose to do and effectively what it wants to do is keep the road width and create to bike lane and all the paraphernalia of inaccessible bus stops with Cycles passing through the pavement if tfl wish to do something else they can but the money from this development should be spent to benefit residents or if not affordable homes um I hope you will remember that and keep reminding yourself of the the the Seance issues of Seven Sisters Road thank you thank you my name is Ona gorley I’ve lived on the woodb down estate for almost 10 years I’m a member of the woodco board where I present here in a personal capacity this is a difficult site and the planners have mly done a good job I make the following points hly I ask planning to consider the environment along seven sister’s road to ensure that properties on that road do not become undesirable leading to the being help by investors for shortterm rentals private talents are becoming the majority on the estate and their needs are little considered I gu the plann is to consider servicing Arrangements along would be down this is a narrow road which currently becomes gridlocked on a regular basis pushing all services onto this road will increase traffic to unsafe levels we need to remember that there is a school immediately the opposite s and a church which attracts a great number of cars The Junction with Seven Sisters Road near Manor House Tube Station will become congested and dangerous odos planning insist on further negotiations with tier to enable the addition of delivery Fe for servicing access on S sister’s Road the podium Garden finally the podium Garden seems to me a good solution to an otherwise intractable problem and I support it it will provide Pleasant Outlook to those residents in these blocks who would otherwise be looking out onto a car park there is no other viable solution we need to be pragmatic yes I’m Jeff I’m speaking on behalf of wood D and the organization wood this is the first time we have asked for conditions to be placed on any part of the Regeneration we have never been a new organization indeed we believe our proposals here are instructive first on social homes social 144 social homes are being knocked down and 190 are are are being built just 177% of the new builds will be suen homes this follows a similar loss in phase three and the loss of 200 social homes from the first to the second master plan we were promise these losses would be made up instead the problem is made worse in Phase 4 and indeed worse still in the draft third master plan the start fact to that that in the first master master plan 35% of the new homes would be social WS but now this total has been halfed all this means that there will be so few social Homes at the start there few social Homes at the end of the we generation than we began than we began phase four is part of that problem and what of the proposed non private homes these used to be called affordable the preferred term now is intermediate this double speech is not surprising Nan Hill Jenison has produced a report on their shared off offer on that that that shows that this is not affordable I would just briefly say something about the uh Podium we object to the podium on two grounds on the grounds that it will increase service charges and on the grounds that will be a uh privatized Park a GED immunity something we have always resisted thank you very much Mr B um councilors online we’ve got Council young um you’ve got five minutes as well thanks so I think the first thing to say is that everything we have to say is um supportive and uh essentially complimentary to what wood Co has submitted and we would really encourage the committee to listen very seriously to what they have to say they’ve got years of experience linked to this um regeneration know the importance of having to compromise but also have some um serious concerns that they would like this committee to scrutinize like them there’s lots in the proposals that we welcome but the things that we’d set out here are things that we would really like you to scrutinize test and potentially consider conditions that can be put on the application um in addition first of those is in relation to the podium in addition to the points that Jeff have raised just to add to that so there’s two separate things one is about the concern about the privatization of a large chunk of space um and the other is the fact that is on a Podium and raised up but the concerns is that the latter um increases the problem of the former so we have some small pockets of um privatized space already with some of the uh buildings that are up but they are on a lower the majority of those are on a lower level so if you’re walking past them you can still see into them um into them so you can still get the sense of Green Space even if you can’t access that green space that will not be the case with something which is a Podium which is up we have existing concerns about if you look at phase three which has gone on and it is creating quite a long slabby wall along Seven Sisters and the concern is that when you put in the podium the thing that I think you don’t see when you see for example the bird’s eye view that you’re seeing just now is that instead you’ll be seeing a wall not into into the green space that’s there and generally we’re very proud of the public realm that has been put in place as part of the Regeneration but the small bits that haven’t worked so far are the bits the smaller versions of what is going in this space so Podium spaces within some of the existing areas and for example puchin and some of the other blocks that have gone in which are spaces that are not actively used by residents we basically like the committee to do two things one is first of all to um really test and ask Barkay why it is that um we’re aware of the concerns about design constraints but why it is not possible to go down um in order to accommodate things like plant and and the parking in the biking spaces but without having the podium and why that’s not possible and and also to really test what could perhaps be done through apologies um uh in terms of conditions to make sure that reassurance can be provided that the issues with the exist spaces that have gone in don’t work aren’t replicated with this the other thing very quickly is to do with the town hall square and we really welcome the efforts of the council and also um Barclays in terms of the current um ground floor strategy which is much more robust than before but what that is tending to start to show is the concerns that we already and would go had which is about the viability of things that are going into that space we would really like that to be tested to the committee that we’re not going to be building a bunch of stuff that’s going to end up to be vacant white elephants rather than active Ed space and then the last thing I would like attention given to is to do with um the impact of wind so there have obviously been wind assessments um those wind assessments I think say that it’s tolerable but I have lived on that street and walk down that street and I as an able-bodied person have been pushed over by the wind on that street um and I any sort of um expert submission will not convince me that there is not a problem an existing problem with wind at this location some of the proposals are aimed at addressing that but I would really like there to be scrutiny of of um like I say the recommendations before we Dr about it and the impact that that wind can have on both the town hall Square a windy place and like I say the the um Podium as well um I’m going to pass over to Sarah and I Thanks hi uh I’m going to briefly support absolutely everything that councelor Selman has said and also really emphasize the you strength and power of the experience of of woodco members who have lived and given their voluntary time for a very very long time to this project i’ really listen to their experience um going to mention four things very briefly the first is just to emphasize the point about social and affordable housing um the I think the the ask for the committee here is to really look to explore we understand that the history of this is that principal development agreement um fixes the proportions of Social and affordable housing and there is no reason for other members of that signatory to that contract um to want to row back from that but we would ask you as planning committee to really think about whether this is enough social housing whether there could be more social housing and to look at phase four thinking about the master plan ahead as well and to see what you what could be done here and to include woodco members in that discussion second thing very briefly is the capacity and design of the heating unit um this hasn’t been been mentioned very much in the um planning documents here but there are real concerns based on the experience of previous phases about whether the meeting unit and plans are adequate whether they will adequately provide for the um for the future phases of the the buildings um that are coming up in phase four and that’s based on on plans that have gone through planning committee where the he Qui headlin work third is would we down the street to support what unas just said to you and the fourth is really to look at alternatives to cycle parking that’s it thank you so now we have the applicant um i’ really I mean we will ask questions but you’ve heard questions already so please do think about um picking up some of those points as well in your presentation so thank you very much you get 10 minutes I correct chair just to clarify for those in the room and watching virtually because we’ve had two counselors residents speak the applicant gets an additional five minutes and therefore has 10 minutes to speak but of course you have to speak 10 minutes up to you but you have the option of 10 minutes here we good evening everybody my name is Jamie and I’m the senior development manager ofy it’s a pleasure to be here this evening in a year that we celebrate our 15th three on site will be down and 18 years since the council selected propy homs and not kill Genesis as development Partners in that time the development Partners along with woodco and manah House Development trust have worked together to bring forward the Regeneration and create a truly special place to live and work as a result wood down has won many awards and is often cited as a blueprint for regeneration which is a fantastic recognition for what has been achieved to date but by Far and Away the best reward and what matters most is that the Regeneration has helped many fames families who were living in poor quality and often overcrowded accommodation move into better homes with a brighter future at w by next summer 291 new homes will have been built of w down including 1,130 which were affordable along with new public open space a new community center commercial facilities an energy center a biod divers net gain of over 145% and over 200 apprenticeships as a partnership we have achieved so much that we can be proud of but there is still a lot to do a lot more to do and that’s starting with phase four our journey on phase 4 started back in January 2021 where the design committee which is made up of Representatives of barley homes L Hill Genesis acne Council and woodco selected the key Consultants including the architect and the landscape architect two months later Co arrived and threatened to derailed the process but the design committee embraced walking and online meetings to ensure the continuation of this important project for phase four the principal requirement was was to replace the existing poor quality and unsized homes with new high quality homes that meet modern child safety accessibility environmental and faace standards The Proposal will deliver 511 homes of which 222 will be affordable this is 43.4% of homes were calculated by units and 47 by habitable room 47% by habitable room delivering these homes significantly contributes to ha these annual housing Target which is a particularly important at this in this current housing shortage in line with the London clown policy h8 The Proposal rovides all social rented floor space and with the addition of shared ownership homes will substantially increase the overall provision of affordable homes on site this meets the original core aspiration of the council to deliver an increase in affordable homes whilst creating a truly mixed and balanced Community all social rented homes will be delivered to parkar plus 10% standards which is larger than the minimum London plan standards but was something that residents negotiated in the original development agreement over 92% of homes are duel ECT and we’ve ensured that there are no uh North facing single aspect homes all homes will have generous private immunity spaces and access to high quality communal garden and improved public realm the new social rented homes in phase four will be for existing secure tenants located within later phases of wown The Proposal includes a a Podium above which sits a large attractive Garden for all residents of phase four to use regardless of tenure the podium design allows replacement car parking plant and bicycles to be securely located underneath and ensures that the opportunities for delivering active Frontage and green spaces are maximized phase four sits at the heart of w down and it is important to create a hub where the community could come together for this reason the idea of the Central Square evolved enlarged and reorientated from the original master plan it incorporates 1,250 square meters of flexible floor space to be used as a mix of commercial or Community use this is set around attractive Landscaping that has been designed to retain as many trees as possible whilst allowing for outdoor events whilst the construction of the development will require the removal of some trees we have worked hard with the design committee to ensure many more trees will be retained in the original 2014 master plan but we will also plant 104 new trees which will enhance the biod biodiversity net gain of the development in conclusion I believe that the application before you represents a great opportunity for the residents of w down to benefit from the ongoing regeneration we remain as excited as ever to continue our involvement with the community on this fantastic project personally I’ve had the pleasure of working on wood down for the last eight and a half years and I would like to take this opportunity to publicly thank partners for their commitment to the Regeneration and their help and support in developing the phase four proposals being presented to you this evening thank you again for your time the team and I welcome any questions that you may have thank you very much GNA go to questions um councilor Joseph just going to say because you were late you’re welcome to ask all the questions you like but you will not be able to count as a vote is that okay yeah I just want to be clear on that but I’m sure you’ve got questions so do you want to start if that makes up for anything so do you want to start with your question questions go on councelor CH it’s good to know as to what what you can hear so if if you can’t hear do say we can ask people to speak louder and slower and clearer yeah it’s really hard to tell from I’m up here sorry it’s and I think chair as we know we are slightly fighting against the acou of the room we do have the microphones but your point obviously about asking people to speak up as well so apologies for that we will try and make sure wave say and members if you can make a effort to use your microphones we can but try we’re fighting everything history perhaps technology it’s not a good combination is it okay well we we will keep that monitored thank you all right um councelor Joseph please your questions thank you ch um hello everybody and please accept my apologies for lateness um why don’t we start with the social housing element um if I may and I’ll direct this question um I think actually I think it’ll be open because I’d like to hear planning officers perspective on this as well as the developers um just going back to the original figure and that’s obviously quite contested sometimes how much social housing was originally on the estate but the GLA um did do a report in 2008 um which gave a figure of 1,458 uh social homes and I believe the latest figure produced by you guys of what you planning to repr provide is 1,100 93 across the whole scheme so obviously that is quite a significant loss there um looking at about 265 less social homes than we’re originally on the site um and the concern is that if you’re not replacing them the ones that you’re knocking down in each phase I mean the planning officers report does mentioned that it’s reasonable to assume there’ll be others provided at later phases but that’s not something with seen so far so my concern is that we’re going to end up having quite a large deficit of social housing um and one thing we have to consider is this isn’t just any major development this is a development on a council estate that was all social housing um so I’d like to understand you know how that’s been Justified really um and why we should assume that this social housing is going to be putting at a later phase when there’s absolutely nothing so far to suggest that that’s going to happen and indeed um the GLA did comment I think on the previous phase that we cannot take a portfolio approach to WB down we have to see it in the round um and that’s really important because this was all social housing majority other than what was bought under the right to buy um I think we at the very least we need to replace what was there so maybe over to officers first for their thoughts sorry it was a bit of a long question yeah so um yeah terms of the the question like in terms of like if you’re happy to do so I’ve got a question to ask about like because obviously when we have plan officers we have to look at affordable housing in the round as a blend of text of 10 years so that for us that includes Shar ownership and yeah so I wasn’t even talking using my microphone then this point on the numbers of social units is key and I know it’s a part of the whole process we just need to be really clear as to how many we’re getting I’ve heard we’re losing I’ve heard we’re gaining you know it may be on which part of this development we’re talking about but this is a key point we need to hear because that’s what we’re interested in in the number of social homes and I know there’s others and backing up but the taking away the deficit what’s the deficit is that correct that’s what we need to be clear about tonight please okay council’s regeneration team yeah um we’ve got all our officers here someone else that it’s it’s okay um done the math done the can talk about these units thanks I mean I think if you want ask questions about the overall overarching strategy including future phes I think that’s probably a question that the regen housing regen te would be part it would be better place to answer probably than planning officers what we’re trying to pin down is our level of contentment we’ve heard is social housing and social housing units and the numbers we are demolishing buildings we are building buildings what is the percentage or numbers of units of social housing in this appreciate this may be a whatever part compared to the overall but we don’t want to hear what we’re hearing is deficit what we’re hearing is less that’s not what we want to hear we need to understand that this is an improvement of social housing provision that’s the big picture that’s the Top Line can someone please be clear on that so from the the wood down regeneration sorry can you hear me can you hear me now yeah so from the wood we down regeneration team’s point of view there were two core commitments at the start of this regeneration scheme one was to rehouse all of the existing residents who were there at the start of the scheme and the other was to deliver 41.7% affordable by the end of the Regeneration so this phase contributes both of those um commitments um the developer will be able to provide further information on the floor space but the units that are being provided are larger than those that were there before and there is a different mix so the reason there are different numbers about what was there at the start and what is being there at the end is there are different ways of cutting the same set of numbers which makes it more complicated but those two core objectives were what was there at the start and what will be delivered by the end of the re generation I mean it would be good to be clear about the figures do you have an overall figure for what was there well the GL give the figure is 1458 anyway and the Barkley figure that’s published is 1193 so I understand what you’re saying that in terms of the inside of the homes might be a bit bigger but it is still a reduction in social housing and even just this phase alone is a reduction isn’t it because there’s currently 144 and there’s going to be 90 is that right right I’m going to wait in um so on face La you are correct there are 144 existing social rented homes and we will replace them with 90 social rented homes and we’ll be really clear about phase four and what’s on the table tonight and What needs be determined um those 90 uh sorry the 144 are sort of under sized existing units the floor space equivalent is being rovided so the the unit number is different but the floor space is equivalent and that’s important because that meets policy h8 of the GLA so under the the London plan policy h8 we are meeting that policy by replacing the floor space of social rented homes the other Nuance to that is that the um homes in phase four are one two three four and five bedroom homes and they’re also built to park Morris plus 10% so they are much bigger than the homes that are being taken away so we have to we have to under the terms of the development agreement um build to a a housing need survey that tells us the people that need rehousing on W we down sorry so we’ve been asked to provide a specific mix which has quite large three four and five bedroom homes and so it yes it does seem like there’s less overall units but they are meeting the need and they are meeting the policy does that make sense alose just to add on to that so um we are delivering 90 social rented homes but we’re also delivering 132 shared ownership homes those shared ownership homes are ones and two-bedroom homes so that they look like there’s more of those than the social rented but on a floor space analysis they’re similar but because they’re cut up into smaller slices you end up with more shared ownership homes but they are um sort of equivalent on a habitable RM basis that helps and a flb basis any it’s the same top I mean this this is it’s going to be the big one for us yeah so we might as well just um Che this a bit more I mean maybe just check with planning offices is that actually planning policy compliant then because we asked for 50% affordable housing and if that 60% should be social even if we weren’t replacing social homes that seems a lot less to me and it also seems in terms of family sized that the majority of the social rent is actually two bedroom there is some that’s bigger but not you know four bedrooms you’ve got seven the shared ownership there’s nothing bigger than than two and I’d say that’s because no one can afford it because it’s really not affordable it might the category but it’s not it’s not really affordable is it for people in hne so would you say it was planning policy compliant what’s being offered in terms of the affordable housing um in terms of the I’d have to refer you back to the officer’s report where I’ve set that out in full in terms of whether or not it’s policy compliant and I think that’s quite clear from that that no it’s not policy compliant subject to viability concerns and in terms of the registered provid is available and we’ll take it willing to take on those units and it meets them meets their needs so I feel I’ve set that out quite clearly in the report so that’s in that’s in 6.4 and particularly 6.41 onwards you got that is it okay yeah okay thank you very much yeah know that’s good um Council Desmond yeah so we uh we visited the site and saw you there I think you made us a cup of tea so I think we’ll have to declare an interest um and it was a pleasure to see the ambient of the success uh but we are obviously very concerned about social housing the bar has immense social housing need so and I was doing some analysis last week affordable rents are designated 80% approximately Market rents and I’m afraid that makes it unaffordable for many people so of the social housing what number of those in phase four are intended to be at Social rents which are generally literally affordable to people here um the makeup is 90 social rent and those social rent are for existing residents that already live on woodw down so they are rehousing people that live on wood down and then the 132 are Shar ownership shared ownership you said that the 32 of shared ownership and are they going to be staircase or is there a particular percentage of shared ownership that you’ve determin the vs as I as I understand you can staircase out um 100% but that’s over to Notting Hill Genesis we also asked for the ones and two bedroom homes rather than the bigger three beding hes that’s why that makes it okay and of these we’ve discussed so it’s clear 90% the 90r going to be you know acceptable to people um are there any going to be at this notional affordable rent then oh uh we don’t have any affordable rent on W we down because it’s a state regeneration we are required to rovide homes for the existing social rental people that there so it’s just a straight social rented to social rented that makes sense okay and finally with the 132 which the large number of shared ownership um the proportion of the property that they’re renting how will the rent be determined for that I’m going to answer honestly I know but I have noty Hill Genesis over there if is that something you can help with Anthony well I can’t if I say that’s okay so yeah and also um it’s just people on that a quick all right I’m sorry I’ll repeat the question um there’s going to be 132 units in phase four which are shared ownership and this could be 25% 50% or whatever what I want to know is how you will calculate the rent that will be paid the proportion that is rented I’m sorry you’re not using your microphone so we can’t I thought I thought that might be the case do you want to come up and um find a find a microphone and um repeat the the interesting figures there so just to clarify the rent on retained Equity so it’s part of the property someone doesn’t buy rent is capped 2.75% on the retained Equity obviously current mortgage rates are typically in excess 5% so someone buying a 25% share in a shared own property would be playing um say five plus% on the bit they deutches and a much reduced rent on the part they do not it’s approximately 50% less then effectively the market rate is there any Assurance when people sign up for these shared Equity uh properties that these rent levels will be retained at those relatively attractive rates that’s right it is it is a cap so it is retained unless someone decides to obviously St casing is is a ibility obviously we expect most of our customers probably wouldn’t do that in the current climate obviously position on interest rates has changed significantly in the last 12 months would say okay thank you C Ley thank you chair um well wishing to sorry as loud as I can okay not wishing to be a flip sorry um it seems to me that so we we’re in the Realms of Creative Accounting here where less Pier to me unless appears to be more when it comes to Social and we’re down to 180% understand the explanation but difficult to come the terms of that but one thing is one thing is indisputably clear is that um the council is fiercly supportive building family siiz homes I can see here on the the tablet that’s been on page 34 there only 3 and a half% of the 18% is going are going to be size of three bedrooms and on the intermediate and shared ownership zero just wonder why that is why why is the mix so G family size H we’ve got here um for example a social one bedroom 23 two bedroom 40 but found size three more very very restricted very not not being delivered I’m just why the council’s policy is to support family siiz children bedro this three bedrooms and more we’re actually not doing more to ensure that we’re getting a fair fair mix thank you again no sound yeah we just want to work out who might try and answer that question um just because I thought we had kind of gone through the night unit a social rent to have the family and it’s just the shared ownership was one and two beds I’ll give it I’ll give it a go if you want so um in terms of the shared ownership uh there is a recognition in the council’s policy that uh one and two bedroom you would like to have one two and three bedroom homes but there is a recognition in the policy that within hacky um because of the Nuance of how you buy um shared ownership homes and the elig eligibility criteria about how much you can earn versus um the you you have to earn a there’s a very small window of earnings that you can be in to pick the box for a three-bedroom home and there’s recognition in in the policy that makes it very difficult to deliver and then sell on three bedroom homes in Hy so at the time we were putting the housing mix together um there was an acceptance with uh there was an ask from noing Hill Genesis to not provide um the three-bedroom homes because they would have difficulty selling them um with the restrictions that come with that and we had that discussion with the planning officers and and that was accepted in terms of one and two Bing homes because you know it doesn’t actually matter to me as a developer I I don’t sell them so it was specifically an ask from um the RSL and it was something we discussed with the planning officers at the time so it was a sort of an Ask we were the conduit for the ask for for the RSL um in terms of social rent we work off of a um housing needs survey so the the regen team along with the housing colleagues do um housing need survey of the residents are going to move into phase 4 um their housing size and requirements are taken into consideration um you have a very generous split household policy at Woody down which allows um large uh families to um take the opportunity in the Regeneration to um opt for smaller homes so for example if you have a family of four and you have adult children you can um opt to have a four one bedom homes but that is then taken into the the blend that we provide for social rented so it might seem a bit peculiar or slightly odd odds we or policy but we work within the housing needs survey that we’re asked to do um we have um no Genesis requiring uh their their Nuance because of just of how um it’s set up it makes it very difficult and uh in the private side we have one two and three becking hopes I hope that helps sorry I waffled a bit okay thank you councel poter thanks chair I just wanted to delve the deficit of um the affordable homes a little bit more in on page 51 and 6.4 tell I know this has been mentioned but I just wanted to to to kind of come back and just get a bit more information um officers suggest in their report that the adoption of a more flexible approach in the um you know the preferred housing mix is considered acceptable in in the circumstances of this case particularly due to the fact that it’s not unreasonable to expect that a more policy compliant mix can be achieved in the overall deliv so I suppose I want to come to both offices and to Barkley homes to outline how you would bridge that deficit given the evidence has been so far that we have a you know a compounding deficit why do you think the circumstances the economic circumstances are lik to be different in the next phases to enable you to deliver um you know a more compliant housing mix so I think that’s what you know we are finding a bit incredulous I’ll take that one um yeah so from an officer’s perspective um like it it appears much easier within a larger outline whether there more scope to be policy compliant than on a site like this which is a bit more constrained so like you like in terms of phases 5 to8 which we understand coming forward as an outline application like that the nature of it being a much bigger site means that we can actually look at it how you provide that in a much more different way with it being an outline rather than a full application we can kind of set those parameters quite early on in in the application before it comes forward as reserved matters later on um so could I just ask what you know in Phase five six seven what a what is the preferred housing mix going to be given the fact there is this deficit now we’re talking seven 20 30 or you know I mean I’m presuming you must have some I ideas for those phases if you think that it could be made up as an officer I’d always want it to be policy compliant if at all possible unless material party considerations that indicate otherwise but yeah our starting point would always be we would want a policy compliance scheme c n sorry just as a followup on that um so if your starting point is for to be policy compliant obviously you know that that’s great but we are talking about kind of a built-up deficit with the previous phases so would the starting point not be policy compliance making and making up that deficit or is is making up that deficit not something that comes into your considerations when that was setting out that in the beginning we would have to consider that application in its own right when it comes in like okay so so there there’s no way of attaching kind of the this of the agreed ambition to make up the deficit in in those sort of early conversations it has to be kind of policy compliance as a starting point there is in in this situation in terms of it like in terms of this scheme it does like the over and woodbr down scheme does have a what a principal development agreement with the council that’s out with planning that’s separate planning but that’s got overage Clauses in that mean that they have to reinvest profits from earlier phases back into the later phases of wood down but that’s not a planning consideration we would expect we would expect it to be policy compliant subject to all those caveats that are in National policy councelor Desmond uh have we got one of the legal officers here today it’s like 12 Angry Men stand up and be counted well 12 Angry women uh I wanted to ask in relation to the objections we’ve received uh about the road what uh influence or Powers we have with tfl I was at a meeting some 12 or maybe longer years ago with the late councelor Morin Middleton when she um particularly pointed out the importance of the changes that that the objetives have reflected upon so what cognizance are we able to take in making a decision right I’ll have to refer you back to the planning officer who hopefully within the report would have highlighted whether or not what’s been said regarding the um TF issue is a substantial material consideration do we have a transport officer in we do online okay I mean do you want to hear about the road yeah are you there you above oh there you are I am here thank you so much um it’s it’s um a bit of a tricky question because um seven sister Road obviously forms part of the um strategic Road networks are part of the trrn um and there is an uh there is a working group that’s been uh in place for a number of years years um they there was a bit of a a gap in how regularly they met but um it’s more frequent um fairly recently um so yeah tfl um the street scene sort of colleagues hi was in transport colleagues as well as um colleagues from Berkeley holes do sit on that panel so it’s an ongoing um project if you like and they’re working through the different um elements of the complexities of seven siss road so so um tfl have um done some modeling fairly recently um and they’re looking at the Junctions which are obviously um you know uh very um constrained I should say um kind of um too capacity in some in some ways as well um but they’re currently doing the modeling and then once that’s been assessed there’ll be a way forwards but Hackney Council as well as like I said um T and Berkeley home work um work together on that okay that’s very helpful but I’d like to recommend that this committee does commend the idea of the very Boulevard former councelor Vincent stops referred to when we all get close to the age of popping our clogs we want to feel that we’ve done something that’s worthwhile and creating a Boulevard along Seven Sisters Road strikes me as something eminently worth while so even though we can’t make a decision that would in any way override tfl as the road authority I do think it should be something that we actually recommend if I had a planning wants to come in thank you councelor Desmond I think I’m right in saying that um the Seven Sisters Road was discussed and considered as part of the phase three would be down and the section 106 agreement was secured as part of that so um that was the place for to have that discussion and we’ve already secured the section 106 agreement for that which includes the financial contribution I could just get my offices to confirm that yeah thanks James um thanks Natalie um yes I I should have added um that the the proposal for a Boulevard scheme so where we go from the current six Lanes of carriageway to four lanes the um reduction of the overall width of the carriageways uh reducing the severance The Greening um and so forth um I.E Boulevard is still the current proposal and our preferred option and that’s something that’s been discussed with tfl um and as Natalie says the uh contribution um was I think probably the correct term is unlocked as part of phase three um I believe is about around 10 million pound um including indexation over the years and um that represents a contribution for the the the whole development not just phase three but it was unlocked um as as part of um the permission for phase three and that’s been secured so could I ask you nle whether it would be appropriate given that this was really more suited to phase three if we could note that this is still our preference within the context of this phase four decision making process we got the applicant who wish to answer your question question councilor just going to dive in um uh fully endorse counselor stops of EX counselor stops in um advocating the improvements of seven cister Road I sit on that Steering group along with Council uh and and tfl and yes the money was secured through phase three but it was also secured through previous phases as well contributions have always been in included um but I’m very passionate about upholding the tree line Boulevard and the um improvements to the Public Public realm they are what I fight for in every meeting that we go to um and there is a restriction in section 106 on phase three that means that um Hackney Council and ourselves need to be in agreement over the design of the uh Works to Seven Sisters Road and I personally won’t endorse anything that doesn’t do that so there is um protection from the sort of council and and developers Barkley homes to make sure that the um sentiment that it was originally signed up to is is continued so just so everyone in here knows that that is written into the the phase three section 106 agreement ccil Joseph thank you chair yeah obviously was a little bit late so I missed some of what the obor said but I do think um it’s noteworthy that this is the first phase that woodco have come along to object to um so I just wondered if um Jeff or whoever wants to speak from woodco could maybe tell us a little bit more about your work with Barkley um because you were just mentioning collaborative work in there so I understand that there is a partnership agreement in place and I just wondered you know your dispute or your concern about this F has that been raised through those mechanisms the round table and so on um and how’s that gone for you thank you yes um thank you um on the partnership agreement and many of the issues we have over um phase four stem from the partnership agreement which was signed by all the partners involved in this uh generation uh at its very start and that promised a balanced and integrated community and that is for us been our guiding principle and the reason we have ask questions and ask for conditions to be made in phase four is because we think that Fe for breaks that promise of a balanced and integrated community both in the building of the uh Podium U which will be as we have said a uh gated community and in the breakdown of social homes and indeed and the collapse of um the uh affordable home for shared ownership which as I said before not in Hill Genesis has produced a document which has shown that the uh shared ownership homes would not be uh a sustainable offer for those earning an average London wage so I think these promises apart and also the issues and service charges have if you like s relations between wood Co and and uh Barkley hommes um and I personally one time went to the United States to speak of the virtues of the partnership which we had built and woodb down um we would I would not do that now because I believe we have been given too many andwood believes we have been given too many promises that have not been kept and too many issues have been avoided and the Boost which Jamie said that this is a community L generation which we indeed and we were very pleased at Barkley Holmes got that prize for that it is no longer a community lad regeneration any questions and the counselers councel um it was on I guess the broad topic of of the quality of the accommodation so there’s various bits of the report that sort of highlight um sort of issues with the the actual units potential issues of the actual units themselves I think um was touched on by the objectiv uh it’s raised by the Des panel particularly around the uh sort of single aspect dual aspect issue um I think I think the phrase that used somewhere in the report is that the sort of dual aspect by a technicality um and I just kind of wanted to hear a bit more um on how how that decision was come to obviously there’s issues with overheating and ventilation associated with single aspect dwellings um I think that’s something that’s been flagged as being an issue with the pre some of the previous stages of the wood Beed and regeneration of this issue of overheating I’m just sort of concerned that we’re sort of being aware of those problems we of building them in and and I’m just curious what’s being done to address that just want to say for the guy at the back I don’t want to get into a debate um you know it’s not a a debate we need a clear question so not you um councelor Naros so I’m not minded to call you unless we have a specific question or unless your applicant says this the answer is going to be responded by you it’s as I said we don’t take um um input from the floor and that’s specifically directed by the applicant or the objector so I’m just saying I’m not going to call you and can we have an answer to councelor narcos his question please right I’m going to try and talk to the the issue of single aspect dual aspect and uh what’s being proposed here in terms of those things um the kind of jeel aspect which we sort of Imagine as being pure jeel aspect is where the front of the house faes one way and the back faces another Direction you have a very clear front and back which is good for cross ventilation and sunlight coming from different directions that requires your block to be quite shallow um and what is proposed here is a repeating a pattern which has been established in earlier phases of deeper blocks which have um a core on the north side of the block which takes up an area of that North North facing aspect which is you know the not ideal aspect and flats coming off of that um core um so that yeah that that that allows a greater density of housing to be provided what’s being provided here um in in the layout layout you can see is that the blocks have been stepped out and stepped back to create Corners so that a lot of the flats have Corner dual aspect so that allows a good amount of cross ventilation across the corner it allows two aspects in different directions there are also a couple um not a couple a number of true jeal aspect units um throughout the height of the building which have frontages to Seven Sisters Road and to the Courtyard um there are a number of Triple aspect units on the corners there are a couple which have not you know a slightly worse kind of corner Jewel aspect where a little bit of the flat projects forwards to allow some room Rooms To Face different directions but overall I think um looking at each of these flat types they all um um conform to um I believe the gla’s definition of what dual aspect should be which is you know there should be a certain depth and distance between the the windows and I think um yeah for a dense development like this you know you have to go for that sort of approach otherwise you have very shallow buildings and much lower density and fewer units Council Joseph thank you chair um sorry to hop back and forth but if I could just go back to the obor’s response to my question about collaborative working I’m just wondering maybe the legal officer or planning officers can advise it sounds like the collaborative working that was going on between the developer the residents broke down this partnership agreement wasn’t enforced can you tell me why not you know why why are we at a stage where it’s come to planning but the the residence committee don’t want don’t want it to be passed sure can I just say something I’m not quite sure if that question is a material consideration or relevant to tonight’s um well it depends if it’s legally enforcable because there was an agreement I understand in place for for wood code to work with the developer was it not a legal agreement then go sure um Council Joseph it I don’t know the kind of legal basis of that agreement or the kind of full detail of the dispute between woodco and Barkley homes but what we have to do is determine the planning application on the merits of the proposal and the kind of that’s not that’s not part of the proposal the kind of working Arrangements um so it’s not something that can be taken into consideration as part of the determination of the planning application okay folks I’m going to ask the question because I’m chair now going through this looking at the papers there isn’t enough here to press the big red button there not enough to say no but what I am Sur surprised about with this application is the lack of permeability it it’s a one big massive block that has taken away pathways through a very big area and I’m surprised in our planning terms that we have agreed that um I get that so I hear that Podium Guardian is a good solution um and I’ve heard objections and read objections to it um the question I do want to ask is is it was it deemed absolutely not possible for that Podium to not be a Podium we’ve got lots of examples where podiums do not work um why do we have to have can someone justify why a Podium and not an Open Garden that’s accessible with permeability um how important was the car parking to be facilitated in its way and have you been to Podium car parking because it’s dismal um even in the still schemes so it’s um I’m just going to have a moan because I I do not see how we can build in permeability to a massive block but can you please give me some reassurance that a PO the podium Guardian Garden is the way and it could not be an on theground publicly through accessible given it just seems to be an excuse for for facilitating uh car parking can I hear that oh do you want to just jump in on that one chair just to have the point that Council selin raised as to why you know we can dig down further to accommodate some of the service of the C parking and that that’s a kind of a different way because there’s either flat or actually going down so that it would still be flat and car park and be in a in a basement situation and they all lifted up so yes well it adds to your to your question why you know why the podium and why why the car parking underneath and could that not all go down and I’ll answer if that’s my name is Martin kefir I’m the architect for the scheme and I’m gonna take it in two pieces the first is about the wider permeability in and around this site um we are also Architects leading the the master plan with phases 5 to eight and that has always been a big consideration in development of this plot and The Wider aims for what woodw down is trying to achieve breaking down Seven Sisters Road through the boulevard through new Crossing places that’s being delivered or achieved through um what’s called Green fingers which work from New River on the top of the site through to the existing reservoirs on the south this scheme very much works with that principle um there are two green green fingers which cross um the uh the plot one on essentially each end now that is tied to the proposals for crossing of Seven Sisters Road there are three existing Crossings on Seven Sisters Road um at basically the the um major Junctions part of the wider proposals for that street is to introduce intermediate ones a c between uh Woodbury down and manah house and one on the other side this uh the scheme that’s in front of you aligns with that so the Muse area which is a landscaped space um on the west of the site will align with the proposal to cross Seven Sisters and that’s really important in considering where people are coming from and going to in terms of permeability it’s not necessarily the case that there are desire lines crossing this site um through the center of it um so that that’s the kind of wider point about how it sits within the context of Woody down in terms of the uh the podium itself and whether or not uh why it is osed as a single level deck with the gardens above rather than a sunken Courtyard we we did at design stage review uh many options for how we would approach this the the underlying need here is really driven by the relocation of parking which is uncommon in other schemes it’s a particular requirement that would be down because of the a protections on existing residents and there are that takes up a significant quantity of the parking uh the the podium area that you see in front of you in addition to bikes bins and all the service aspects one of the things that using podiums creates is that it it does enhance the street scape around it because it takes those elements away from the public facing parts of the buildings so in terms of what you see on the street you’re seeing homes you’re seeing entrances you’re not seeing areas of deadened facades with um extensive bin stores and car parking we have considered um what the impacts of providing a basement on this scheme and there’s two primary reasons why we wouldn’t take that approach first is to do with um carbon and the inherent carbon with digging a basement is significant the con um Concrete Construction approach um uses a lot of embodied carbon in a time when we’re trying to minimize the the embodied carbon within the development and the second is simply on costs it’s um frankly unviable in this this location that was an explanation okay any other comments welcome left right councel and cross um ju just sort of coming off off the conversation about the podium obviously that that’s the kind of the main bit of sort of at least semi-public space you know it’s not that it’s not fully accessible to the public beyond the residents around it um was there any consideration of how perhaps that could be made into more of a public space because I think the other ones uh kind of green spaces I highlighted are the the pcket park which I think um I can’t remember which which part of the report is talks about the concerns that that be you know could potentially be a space Frant social behavior because it’s not surrounded by particularly active Frontage um and there’s also play area I think there was concerned that it would be you know too too windy to be properly utilized I’m just sort of concerned that be beyond that semi-public bit in the middle um the other sort of public spaces and green spaces aren’t going to be particularly well used so is there anything that could be done to make that sort of central bit more public so my name is Sean tickle I’m planning um at the moment the the access to the the podium is there for all tenant all residents of the blogs so it’s social EV intermediate and uh the market units have got access to it um making the access to public access will be will be very difficult just in terms of the management and the service charges that would impact on all of the all of the residents in the blocks including the affordable residents as well so it’s very difficult to do that but it’s not impossible and we would you know at times be willing to look at that but actually we felt that actually in here we’ve delivering a very large public square at one end of the site which is going to be the the heart of Woody down uh it’s really it’s replacing the Rose Garden which is much loved but it’s actually going to be a fantastic space where there’s going to be lots of different events very sort of public and very used space at the other end we have a sort of muse space which is a softer space but that’s also public space as well and the the space in the middle uh is is the podium will be a fantastic space for the residents it will be set safe it will be secure they’ll be usable and it will be increased the biodiversity that gain of this scheme by significant amount so we’re not saying it’s not impossible but we do feel that in this particular situation it’s better that we have um semi-public access to that Podium and public access to the other high quality spaces Council poter um just wanted to ask questions about the um design and the massing on Seven Sisters Road I think it was described as slabby by one of my counselor colleagues just a kind of continuous approach but also the concern that I think has been raised about you know you know the um Flats may be being used for kind of rental um because they’re not attractive places to live so I just like to know your your comments on that and answer those yeah those concerns I will let Martin defend the slabby comment and I’ll pick up on the um any point and also I suppose I’d also like to know how that design along that stretch fits in with the other designs that are all already there and how you know it you know it kind of complements that what have you learned from those other bits that actually doing differently in this bit so a bit more you know um D thought on sure that massing please I’m just going to I’m going to start by explaining something slightly different but it will I hope explain how we came about to this through the evolution of the scheme here one of the things that was really important to the way that we are thinking about this site is making sure that the environmental conditions are good on the site in terms of noise in terms of um daylight in terms of wind conditions the the scheme evolved in this way to make sure that in terms of Acoustics and um daylight particularly um there was really good penetration uh sunlight penetration into the the site and the public areas and they are protected from Seven Sisters road which isn’t noisy and busy environment what that leads us towards was a more broken form on the South Side so on woodb woodb down um the buildings are more individual with big gap between them that allows sunlight between them and into those public spaces and further um the residents that are facing south and the northern uh the buildings on seven sists Road um so that that’s just a little bit of background to where we go and why we lead ourselves towards placing a more consistent block on Seven Sisters road that block also has a significant acoustic impact as in it’s blocking noise from the road to all of the residents that face the gardens and towards the South um in terms of Seven Sisters Road itself we tree retention has always been a significant aspect and setting the buildings back behind uh existing mature trees in order to um provide that Boulevard type approach has been a big uh big impact of the design um so we do have generous frontes at the front on leading onto facing onto Seven Sisters Which pull the buildings back can create more um width onto the street than you are seeing perhaps in phase three um The Heights are um individually set so it is a series of four buildings but they’re not expressed as a single block they are in if you look at the elevation there are individual points of height which um then are have lower shoulder blocks between them and that is designed to provide a a kind of regular and rhythm to the street and the buildings that look out and it also comes back to the points made earlier about um Jewel aspect and providing apartments that look up and down Seven Sisters Road not just straight out onto it you can see in the the images on the screen there so while it is a continuous block and to do some of the environmental concerns we’ve uh we’ve talked about it is not expressed as such it’s it’s taken as a series of four buildings with link Ling blocks between them to to break down that overall scale do you mind if I ask councelor Selman if that addresses her concerns I can’t see on the screen councelor Salon said to go to another meeting okay want me to answer yes councel young if you don’t mind that’s okay chair yep do you mean just on the massing or do you mean on the podium was on the massing yeah on the massing no we are concerned about the massing and we are concerned about the you know it being a kind of solid front across um we also concerned in the light of how phase three has turned out that phase three is very close um to the edge bearing in mind Seven Sisters Road hasn’t been narrowed yet and who knows what will happen with that um so it does feel very blocky uh and obviously we absolutely take on board that you know this is partly about protecting people from from a very busy road which is why what happens round at the back is so important which is why the podium question is so key thank you um Council um Joseph thank you chair I mean if we could just maybe go back to the podium briefly um I remember councilor Sone was telling us that like the smaller versions haven’t worked very well well they’re not used by residents um and some of the um objectors in the report have said um I think Hy Society said a Podium is very hard to landscape um you know it’s not going to have much light so things probably won’t grow there’ll be a lot of gray space I mean why do you think people have expressing those concerns oh I I can’t presume to know why they think that the area will be dark um we’ve taken a lot of care to make sure that the landscaping area as Martin’s just described um there are breaks in the southern facade to allow daylight and sunlight into that Podium area um the podium on phase 4 is um a large Podium and it’s there for all the residents on um phase four to use um and that’s all all 10 years to to use it once um we we appreciate the feedback that we’ve had which is uh podiums um on other um phases are not always used but um that’s the podium here has been designed with that feedback and Mark is behind me um want to help out with this how you m bit hello it’s Mark Bell from fabric Landscape Architects um just to the point on um light um breaking in there so the podium design that you see before you is predicated on the accessibility to that light the play areas are coincide with the southern light that will break through the buildings for the middle central part of the day um the uh growing spaces also coincide with those um in terms of I mean I can’t speak to the criticisms of other parts of the scheme we weren’t involved in those but um I don’t think there is many podiums like this on the scheme that offer such integral part of the community building program such as the play such as the the community growing um I think this will offer a lot more in terms of imunity in comparison to some of those others simply by it the generosity of of size that’s in there I’ve had the offer that Peter our design team wants to come in okay yes um although I’m not sure exactly what question I’m answering now but po podiums again across the the the scheme Across The Wider would we down Redevelopment we’re moving from um this incredibly permeable publicly accessible landscape with buildings in it which was a sort of 1960s um approach to housing to something which is more London like in that it it’s it has very clearly defined good quality Public public spaces which are very clearly public and it has um so so Spring Park the new parks have been created across the various phases these are um this is where the the public space is being focused all the play the Landscaping The Greenery and semi-private spaces being carved out of or or being added to the mix of types of open space so earlier phases have all got their semi-private shared amenity spaces which are sort of secure places for children to go and play in um where residents within that block have a sense of sort of ownership of that space where the public can’t wander through and this is another example of that um there you know there are other ways to do it does you know does it have to be on a Podium there are lots of reasons why it’s on a Podium um burying in a basement you know all these uses that this big development has generated all the storage requirements Cycles um car parking plant various uses of ground if they were sunk into the basement some of those issues would still exist which would you know about the depth that plants could you know put their Roots down because it would just be a deck but it would be sunk um if it was a smaller development you could put all those uses towards the edge of the perimeter and the the central bit could be a green green space which trees could put their Roots right down into but because it’s such a big development there’s such a lot of things generated that need to be accommodated at that level they have to go somewhere and um one of the other issues raised over over by the objectives was glimpses of Green’s face um which is one of the nice things about wood we down at the moment you know you can always see through towards um these sort of more semi- privati sort of areas you can see the trees and the greenery and this will be lifted up if you sort of look at what’s around the inside of this scheme at the moment there are only two places on on Woodbury down where if you sunk it down to um ground level that you would be able to see into that Garden you know you’ve got the LI hopefully a library on this side a full active Frontage on Seven Sisters Road lots of active Frontage all the way around the rest of it so you would get maybe two glimpses in but Roots through I don’t know if like the architect said Roots through need to go from somewhere people want to they need to go to where you want to go and the routs through have been put on the north on the East and the west side because those are where you those follow the longer distance routes through the estate uh which are where people want to go which follow the chain of green spaces through the estate that have been set up I think I’ve said too much now and I’ve I’m rambling I’ll stop no that was appreciated thank you councelor pter please um I just wanted to pick up Council Young’s points about the um the heating unit the her her concerns about the heating unit and also the alternatives to cycle parking which I think I remember reading of report was about two tier Cycles I mean Council young you may correct me on that do you do you mind just saying what your concerns are and then we can get the the responses from officers and Arley homes yes of course um so on the cycle parking oh that’s gone echoing on the cycle parking the concern is that cycle parking the two-tier cycle parking but also the cycle parking um under the podium hasn’t worked in other phases Ah that’s better um the cycle parking hasn’t worked in other phases so wood Co members in fact I think Jeff who’s here lives in one of the phases where the Cy parking at ground level really isn’t working because it’s cycle parking hidden behind a you know kind of wall and a a frontage and it’s used as uh it’s used as a Dumping Ground it’s sometimes used for homeless people to sleep in it’s used for broken bikes and it’s used for fly tipping what it absolutely is not used for is bikes and the people who do have bikes families have have bikes actually carry their bikes upstairs and put them in the corridors outside their homes so what we see in the previous phases is yes we should provide cycle parking but we need to think about how we see it done well in Tower Court we W we’re worried that do more of the same here is going to um lead to the same problems here um what was the other question sorry you wanted might me to clarify on about the heating system okay so we are concerned that the heating system won’t be adequate for the number of homes so um I am not a technical heating expert and um I’m sure the developer will be able to explain this better and The Architects but um there is gas heating and that that’s also going to be boosted by air source heat pumps um we’re worried that the previous phases the heating’s gone through planning gone whizzing through planning everybody said it’s going to be fine it hasn’t been fine and it hasn’t been adequate for the number of homes and imp particular some of the homes at the tops of some of those buildings just the heating doesn’t actually get there so we we’re a bit concerned that you know how good is this heating system and will it um will it provide for the number of homes it needs to provide for number one and number two um are we doing as much as we could to make it as environmentally sustainable as it could be good to get answer from both um the developer and officers if that’s okay just to start with on the heating system um so the the heating system for the estate is an Statewide strategy um as part of that strategy uh what’s called an energy center is being built in phase three um how heating is providing is a rapidly evolving um field the technology is developing quite fast so when this scheme was originally consented the wi master plan it was designed on the basis of a a gas uh C HP system since that things have moved on and there has been applied and approved a low carbon transition plan which um proposes the replacement of those gas chps is now redundant technology uh with a modern air source um heat pump approach uh phase four is a key part of that so the energy center is a is in phase three which is on the the top right of the diagram that you can see on screen um two buildings on phase four will have um air source heat pumps on them uh they are the two that are closest to the square so the the building C and building A4 um that’s there so they can supply the low carbon heat from those positions back to the um the energy center and then it will be distributed around the estate the what’s proposed to face four will is proposed to the the size of the S he spumps have been sized to cater from more than just phase 4 they will cater for future phases as well and there is capacity here for expansion if needed that’s been considered in the way the buildings have been developed um overall this is part of our um work to work towards net zero in terms of um the energy usage of the buildings which we are cheing so just to come in on on bikes as well um there is actually a number of conditions which have been applied um on the um on the committee report um 816 is bike storage and it gives all the details of full details of secure accessible and bike storage um the bike storage has been designed in accordance with your uh working with your transport offices in accordance with the London plan requirements and there are a range of different types of bikes that are provided um there there’s a condition requiring changing facilities for the commercial and the community facilities there’s also a condition on visitor bikes parking so there’s controls and um methods of making sure that the bike parking is used for bike parking it isn’t um poorly maintained and it will be continued throughout the the life of this development quite a comprehensive answer on the heat pump yeah I mean you okay would still want your officers to respond well I suppose I’ve just interest on a little bit more on feedback that it hasn’t worked out so well and how you know you’re kind of addressing that I mean I know you did I hear the answer fully sorry did you address the point where coun young said you know the existing setup isn’t working as was planned what I heard was what you intend and the overall but I didn’t hear about you know the gaps in performance um I did hear what council young says I’m not aware that it’s not working so that is new news honestly um I’m not having feedback that it isn’t but if if it isn’t I’m happy to to take that away and and look at it but there shouldn’t be a reason why it doesn’t work with the technology that’s in place but if that’s in previous phases that’s something we’ll look at but it’s not unnown to me I’m afraid um but just sounds likeit of case work okay do you mind if I just because um Council selman’s come back in the room and got a hand up do you mind if I we go and ask what she wants to comment on councelor S you apologies it was just on on the heating unit point I think probably I I dropped out so I might have missed bits of it but I think that what C young is referring to is that when in the previous phases when they first went in there were a series of kind of glitches and issues that we had to deal with so for example some of the ventilation in Birchwood um the problems of this heat exchange type systems um some of which have now been addressed although there’s still an issue with how hot the corridors are the the general point is because my understanding this is slightly different technology is the concern of when you’ve got new technology going in that there’s you know whether that is properly tested people properly know and I think that’s why there’s some sort of skepticism or doubt or concerns on the part of residents is how do we trust this when it’s it’s fairly new it’s designed by professional people and that’s all I can really say how about your energy man then go tell us that it’s going to be fantastic if I can work the microphone um yeah it’s it definitely isn’t an issue of the sizing of the plant of which there will be sufficient capacity and is on all the earlier phases as well uh addressing the point about the reliability of a new technology um the heat pumps themselves are not new applying them on residential heat networks is but there should be comfort from the fact that it’s it’s a well-proven technology in addition to that as a backup the boilers a very known technology are sized for the full Peak demand as well so from plant sizing perspective there’s definitely not a problem um issues of a lack of heat on previous phases again I do not know any detail of the site specifics here but I would uh posit a guess that it’s more related to uh needing some uh maintenance for a fault which you could get with any system whether it’s a heat Network or an individual boiler for instance does that answer all the question yeah that’s fine I mean also as counselors we know that we walk through a lot of corridors that are really overheated and I think so there’s there’s two sides of either the heating doesn’t work or it’s a massive waste of energy and the corridors are just a massively massively hot so it’s kind of having that regulation you want to come in on hot ch yeah I did want to come in on hot because I was in one of um the wri down blocks a couple of weeks ago um with the local counselors and actually the heat was oppressive and it was quite a chilly day so this is one just around the corner from the community center I believe it’s um a social block what I noticed was there weren’t any windows in the communal areas so I think that made the problem worse because people couldn’t get any ventilation I mean when we knocked on people’s door they were answering in vests and little shorts and they were saying you know it’s all right when it’s cold but in the summer this is really very hot it was so hot that I would have actually been quite concerned for the very young or very olderly in that block so are you aware of those issues and how are you going to avoid overheating in this phase because that I mean that was quite shocking actually how hot that block was um and I’m aware that in the design there doesn’t seem to be any shading um you know in terms of things like um shutters that could be put on the outside of the building I don’t know I’m guessing relatively inexpensively but you know as the summers are getting hotter especially that big tall building that’s going to have a lot of sun beating down on it so how are you going to cope with the the opposite I guess of what’s just been discussed overheating thank you uh yeah taking them sorry taking them in turn um the temperature that the heat Network in this phase will operate at is significantly lower than earlier phases uh which will significantly reduce the heat losses to the communal areas the overheating statement forms part of the application covers the overall strategy for the corridors and the dwellings and shows compliance with policy and uh part over with the building regulations as well partly from that partly from um inclusion of ventilation systems within the corridors as well as the dwellings uh specifically shading there is some from the balconies that are provided uh and that forms part of the overall well compliance strategy can I know I’ve been asking quite a few questions um I just wanted to comment further comments on the Wind but um I know you talked about the fact that all the homogenous massing well not quite homogenous but all the massing was an attempt to kind of deal with that um so we good to have comments on on that I just put all mine together and then I’m done okay um I noticed that the design review panel um wanted to come back and do um further comments again were they showed the res um revised proposals um to comment on and lastly I not on the Su sustainability feedback in 61.9 um it is noted that a number of opportunities that which would have considerably lowered both embodied and operational carbon Footprints have not been IM implemented sorry um and it there says that this design cannot be considered exemp exemplary as a result but but off but officers asked ask you to follow certain practices to improve this in future so I wondered whether you’re taking those on board and whether you are planning in phases five five or not to kind of provide um yeah to follow those practices so three there wind um being more exemplary on the sustainability front and further involvement of the design and review panel and then I’m done um so on on wind um the the process on this scheme has been um quite detailed quite detailed very detailed um we’ve done three uh rounds of um computer based analysis of the wind and two rounds of wind tunnel testing um the wind tunnel is the most accurate way available to us to predict um the the impacts of the the development um around on its surroundings and on the key spaces the scheme has evolved through that process so there are a number of items that were um considered to reduce what was showing up in early testing um as potential issues and that’s being refined through the process they include things like the the bottom of the tower which contains a 3 meter wide canopy around it you tall buildings do tend to catch the wind at levels and you get downdrafts off of them that 3 meter canopy is there to disperse the wind as it comes around particularly on the um Southwest side because that’s the um the the direction of wind that we predominantly deal with in the UK um that’s shown to be very successful and in terms of it its impacts on the the Central Square particularly um we’ve also looked at separation distances between the buildings um and its surroundings to make sure that there is no funneling um of wind which is a has shown up to be an issue locally the if you look through the documentation in the Wind Tunnel test they they test the um existing condition and the proposed condition um one after the other to see what are the conditions and does it show up any issues and does that compare to how does that compare to what the the impacts the development has one thing to know and certainly in terms of the feedback we’ve had through woodco that the environment to the two existing Towers to the southeast is windy um and there are particular points of the Year where that has caused issues that is replicated in our testing so they they do something called a safety exceedence test which is uh where it shows up particularly strong gusts of wind and are they causing issues around the base of the building and there were three points around around the corner of residence Tower which were shown to have safety exceedences this scheme in its proposed condition reduces the wind at those conditions to um it takes the safety exceedance away that’s not to say those locations won’t still occasionally suffer from wind it’s the nature of the the existing buildings the other thing to say is about the the square itself which is uh and the public spaces which are a major consideration here because we want to make sure these are usable in the summer and pleasant places for people to um to be that will contribute to the The Wider estate um you’ll see there’s there’s two tests done for um one in the summer condition and one in the um actually the spring where you’ve got windier condition throughout the summer we are achieving sitting conditions through that square so it is suitable to have people sitting out comfortably on tables whether it be at cafes lining the square or using the seat and that is the the lowest level of wind that is um designated in What’s called the lon pum quality area um you do get slightly um it moves to standing conditions in the winter which is slightly windier but that is a a fact of the um the environment and that’s that’s not un unusual so the the key thing is that throughout the summer conditions uh where we’re expecting this to be um a really well-used space we’ve got ideal conditions for its use Quick very quickly on design review there were three design review uh meetings uh January and October 2021 and July 2022 the last one uh there were there were there was a range of comments made on layouts overall design massing and um and also there was previously a second taller building on the site which was in the top top northeast corner um which the panel recommended was dropped down and that is was dropped down to its current height but in answer to your other question the panel didn’t see the scheme again um to see how their comments had been taken into account after that last one was about um following the recommendations that officers made to improve yeah your sustainability um what they suggest is uh closer alignment with best practice for the future pH phases uh for instance AB absolute metrics such as en energy use intensity and space heating demand calculated through predictive model modeling to be used as a baseline Etc I think that particular paragraph recognizes that the proposals for this scheme are compliant with the energy sustainability policies um which is obviously very good news um just to pick one out the carbon performance policy requirement is 35% reduction whereas we’re at 53% going well beyond uh the minimum getting uh to zero carbon as well um the recommendations around future phases obviously it’s it’s taken on board but um don’t alter the the phase four um strategy just councelor Joseph oh chair can we go to officer sorry to just feedback on that can you hear me yes you can I can hear myself um just to clarify the applicant has been strongly encouraged through both um player application and planning application stages to embrace best practice and we suggested to increase their sample of uh tested residential unit for the energy modeling and also using predictive modeling to make accurate estimates of their energy use intensity on spacing demand instead they have decided to Target compliance with both a London plan and hne local plan so that’s where we left is it right if I do three I’ll be quick I’ll be quick if they if they’re your last three okay there’ll be my last there we go that thank you chair um right so one of them is on amenities obviously this is a big uplift in the population and I think we discussed this at the pre-application um stage that you know there were a few concerns is there actually adequate provision for people moving into the area um we mentioned things like dentists Health Centers nurseries I know there’s a library but there’s there’s a question mark around that um I mean I actually I’d quite like to bring in if I may the the local counselors because I can see councelor Young’s nodding and they’ve got a good idea of what the population in the area need if that’s okay chair could I direct that to councelor Young can I speak so young if you want to talk about um GP services that kind of thing sure um so we are concerned about um GP Services locally uh this site is right next to the John Scott Health Center the first ever Health Center in the country um NHS Health Center in the country um which you know isn’t big enough doesn’t have sufficient provision for the growing population we think but obviously that’s a part of the the planning assessment that have been carried out um the this space that we would love to be a library is absolutely dependent upon finding funding to run a library not to build it but to run it and so lots of people today have said it would won’t it be great to have a library we would love a library would Co would love a library um but we don’t know whether that will happen um that if that was a public space or sort of publicly funded space it could also deliver other services so for example there could be Health Services a range of Health Services could be delivered from that space But that very very much depends on what that space you know ends up being used for and that feeds very closely into the wider ground floor strategy which I think hasn’t really been talked about yet today so you might want to think about an ask about the ground floor strategy and how that’s developed where it’s got to so far and and you know really whether it’s going to adequately provide for the community could that be on answered yeah so in terms of healthcare we are getting a 560,000 contribution towards Primary Healthcare in the area like in terms of the application we can only ask for the we can only ask the applicant in planning terms for a contribution towards the need that’s created by this proposal so in relation to like phase four that is very much just for phase four has to effectively wash its own face um we are working with the NHS yes in terms of looking at later phases but that’s not for this application um in terms of like other contributions towards local infrastructure that those are set out in the in the in the report in terms of the financial contributions that we’re getting like it is very much it’s about this application what this application is required and like what is required in relation to making sure that this application can effectively mitigate for itself um in terms of this I think you had a second question can you just repeat that please yeah oh in terms of Library sorry there’s library and then there’s yeah in terms of Library the flexibility is there within the planning application for that to be a library or an F1 use um in terms of like that’s for if the council or a service provider can take it on and that like that’s for further detail in terms of the legal agreement um about how that come potentially comes forward you um to my next one um we have touched on it but the overlooking um at 6.63 I think the report says um it’s quite sort of tightly arranged um the objective sort of say 8 meters apart in some places so the the concern about overlooking really people be able to really section report did you say that was it sorry um 6613 I think um that’s what I wrote down yeah when I when I looked at the scheme in terms of there are some areas where I think I’ve gone into specifically where those are um where I’ve required where I’ve got an additional condition in the list of conditions at the end the report where I think that there’s actual like distance that need to be mitigated for those like potentially those could be in terms of obscured um obscured separations or balconies or obscur glazing and like I’ll have to refer back to the actual condition that I put in the report but yeah I do think there are issues where if constructed as it is there would be an overlooking issue but I’ve appended a condition that I think is appropriate to deal with that issue and the applicant would need to deal with that as part of their post like should permission be granted and that condition appended to the decision notice thank you yeah um just another quick one that’s on the profits which are mentioned in the report um this was at 6.42 um so there’s a blanket profit rate mentioned that Barkley wanted of 20% um which has sort of been negotiated down to 17 a half I understand I just wondered um have we reviewed profits on the previous phases thanks do you want me to help I can I can come in on this so yeah thanks to the question so the the program as a whole has oper operated on an overage basis so where there’s been profits beyond the development agreement in previous phases overage then comes into subsequent phases which will apply here and it’s also recommended to apply onwards from here so there’s a recommended section on6 obligation that relates to overage and carrying that over into future phases hopefully to answer the question I think so but do we do we know that the profits haven’t been um what’s the word they haven’t made more profits than they than than that in previous phases is are we like is it being checked or that is that is something that um the regen team would be dealing with but my understanding is that yeah absolutely it’s something that’s monitored do you want me to help it’s part of the development agreement and um part of the development agreement apps our profit um and in doing so the Regeneration team have a sort of open book and get to to view all everything we spend everything we make um um basically our profit is capped and then anything that we make over and above that is ring fenced to help deliver future unviable phases um so that uh profit was helped to deliver phase three and it will be reinvested it to deliver phase four which on its own is not viable thank you any other questions from the committee otherwise I am minded to move to the vote because I think we have fly investigated the the the the headings of concern you okay with that committee so um the recommendation please where we to Grant conditional Planning Commission subject to completion of a legal agreement and referral to the mayor of London those in favor please show are you in favor of the application councelor nor course all right okay so the recommendation the offer recommendation is to Grant conditional Planning Commission subject to completion of a legal agreement and referral to the mayor of London those in favor please share are we saying it’s one person one councelor I will vote in favor to this those against that’s councelor Potter and councelor narros and abstaining you can’t vote Council Le you obain so would the votes against well I’m still yeah we have four we have two counselors for and two counselors against so we’re tied hang on excuse chair the legal officer sorry um my understanding was that this the chair that has the cting vot thank you for clarifying yeah I count us twice essentially yeah so it’s three two against one abstention yeah car vote casting vote that’s carried thank you we going to have a comfort break five minutes yeah is that good enough time for everyone to um move to either if you’re not needed for number one I’m sure you”ll be very glad you can go number two can you line up I’m going for comak e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e chair is quite in this room uh the meeting cross from us has finished possibly open these two doors to a circulation a bit of natural venting that sounds um very sensible please open the doors that window open yep that’s fine okay can you go with it do you need to talk to Maria or are we recording do we need to start we’re still recording we have I’m sure everyone’s really enjoying that you enjoyed that online Comfort break right okay let’s have um is everyone ready moving to agenda item six the West Reservoir Center um we’ve got the planning case officer Lawrence akel if you could introduce please thank you chair evening everyone um there’s just a couple of items on the addendum to to raise so there’s a correction to condition 13 to replace reference to dwelling with Cafe building and that’s in relation to uh cycle parking condition uh we also received one additional consultation response um and that was from an existing objector uh called the New River new renewal campaign and they reiterated uh the following issues uh impact on trees and impact on Wildlife uh these objections have been raised prior to the publication of the report and therefore been considered as part of the assessment okay so the application site relates to the West Reservoir Center and land around the West Reservoir the West Reservoir Center is a Leisure Center that provides facilities for water sports Open Water swimming a cafe and event space the application site Falls within the stok UN Reservoir fil beds and New River Conservation Area it’s partly designated as a site of importance for nature conservation and as Metropolitan open land the New River path which runs to the north of the reservoir is designated as local open space and a green Corridor due south of the site is the former waterboard pumping station engine house and ancillary building which are both grade two star listed buildings here’s an aerial view of the site with the West Reservoir Center in the middle uh in the foreground to the left hand side is the uh the former waterboard uh Engine House grade two star listed buildings uh to the right in the foreground are houses along alaton Road and Queen Elizabeth’s walk which uh have Gardens that back onto the site uh in terms of the application this proposes an upgrade to the rest Reservoir Center facilities including a new Cafe building external changing facilities two pedestrian Bridges a new footpath along the Eastern Bank to provide access to facilitate a new public open space creation of of an introduction to Open Water swimming area new and repaired areas of fencing and substantial soft Landscaping measures including read bed planting along the Eastern Bank here’s some site photos uh from within the site so the top left is from the Eastern Bank looking northwards and the top right is from the Eastern Bank looking towards the properties on Allon Road the bottom left is looking north towards where the location of the external changing rooms would be and the bottom right is looking back towards the the West Reservoir Center to where the the cafe and external changing rooms would be located uh here’s some site photos um uh of the the existing step access bridge to the south of the site and on the right hand side is the location of where the new North foot Bridge would be located crossing over to Woodbury down H the applicant in considering the location of the new and replacement Bridges both locations were selected to achieve accessible access routes in gently sloped areas with no steps while also minimizing the impact on existing trees and vegitation here’s a proposed plan of the cafe building in external changing facilities to the east of the West Reservoir building and also the introduction to Open Water swimming area here’s a assumed in version of the of the external changing facilities and the the cafe building here’s elevations of the proposed Cafe building and external changing rooms uh the proposed Cafe building and out of changing facilities would be relatively lowline structures relating in depth and width to the existing built form on the site here’s some more elevations uh this is elevation of the uh the northern foot Bridge um the foot path along the Eastern Bank would be open in daylight hours between 7:00 a.m. and 9 p.m and closed by gates at both ends of the New Path the new open space would be subject to an operational man M plan and this design incorporates a security feature to allow uh the gates to be closed and and accessed uh to to prevent access outside of those hours this is uh the design of the replacement Southern foot bridge that would replace the existing and this would provide uh step access uh so in terms of landscaping The Proposal include subst substantial level of soft Landscaping measures including the planting of native mixed uh mixed species hedging along the eastern boundary Reed bed planting and trees throughout the site it’s quite small in detail but there is a a hedging proposed along the the eastern boundary to the rear of properties along Allison Road and Queen Elizabeth W so this is also quite small um but this is to show the distance of the the proposed foot path along the Eastern Bank to the rear Gardens of properties along Allon Road and Queen Elizabeth walk so the minimum distance is around 28 m to the the rear of Gardens and the minimum distance to the closest building is is 41 M so in terms of uh the the uh proposed Bridges um locations uh the proposal would require the partial removal of two groups of trees in order to facilitate the Development Group G6 which is partially removed to facilitate the southern foot bridge is of moderate retention value which is category B2 and group G1 partially removed toate the provision of new fencing F towards the northern foot bridge is of low retention value category C2 here are some proposed visuals of the development and uh overall The Proposal would provide significant public benefits of significant weight in support of the development it would enhance the provision and quality of existing outdoor recreation facility create access to additional areas of public open space provide improved access to existing areas of open space and the Burrow’s network of green infrastructure to those who require ramp or compliance step-free access in addition The Proposal would include substantial software escaping measures improvements around the site that would enhance the setting of the Metropolitan open land it would preserve the character and appearance of the conservation area and nearby listed buildings and would result in a net gain in biodiversity thank you any questions well before that um we’ve got so we’ve got Dan Epstein and Henny bont can I just ask one clarification sorry I’m Dan Epstein oh right normally um would you mind kind of sitting at the front just because other people can see you better the camera particularly if you could come to the front yeah please thank you chair so can we ask just one clarification because it’s quite important the path he just said that the path is 27 I think it was 20 odd meters from the nearest Back Garden are you intending not to use not to provide access to the rest of the Green Space if people only going to be on the path because if not that is not true if it is then that’s great do you want to just carry on with your sounds like stat and he will answer you answer at the question sure sure yeah yeah so that’s you that and he’ll answer that and you want to carry on with your objection that’d be great thank you um okay so I will we represent 60 homes 200 people on the Allon uh Road and Queen Elizabeth W WhatsApp footpath group we’ve got 80 messages this evening I won’t read them all out um but as a group we question whether the vision um to balance accessibility inclusivity rights of privacy for everyone has been properly considered um anyy do you want to yes is that working yeah um I’m here to speak if you press um off for the one that’s got red yeah yeah and then you press yours because it helps press press the the okay thank you very much um I’m heny Bowmont I’m here to speak for vable residents who don’t have a voice um Dan we gonna go am I go first oh okay yeah um who don’t have a voice so the residents of the care home at 61 Queen Elizabeth walk and other learning disabled residents and and autistic people affected by this planning application so I’m here to talk on their behalf so the residents of the care home are directly affected they are at 61 they are autistic and learning disabled residents and they are primarily in the home they don’t go out and they are very overlooked because of the LIE of the land you can’t really see it in those pictures the garden the bank is much higher than the gardens so in effect it’s like giving someone permission to stand on your back wall for for them um and the manager deep deeply concerned how this development will affect their privacy security and peace of mind um uh going out for people who are autistic and have learning dis dis disabilities can be traumatic and uncomfortably public and speaking from personal experience home should provide privacy but this planning is I’ve just said like a giving mission to stand on the Garden Wall um nothing in this plan addresses the vulnerability of this community um you you this the guys um who doing the planning said that the W it was the same with the East Reservoir East uh residents were deeply concerned but the difference is that East Reservoir is shut at 4:30 and shut on bank holidays as well and the plans for this is to open we haven’t been given a time when it will open until and they’re saying that’s why it’s really successful because the residents are really happy with it but we’re not happy with the planned proposals thank you okay in addition to the vulnerable people living in the care home and actually there’s a number of other people with disabilities there are also 15 tented homes with Orthodox Jews they’ve written in they often pray in the back garden they’re harassed frequently in the street there are security guards who walk up and down so they’ve also got some real um grievances about or real uh concerns about the whole scheme also page 17 of the daz you know which looks at kind of the views completely fails they all the all the images are perpendicular it completely fails to sort of demonstrate what the views into the gardens look like we proposed to provide a collage of views taken by different um households but we weren’t allowed to show it this evening unfortunately apart from that there’s also been 50 over 50 robberies um along the road almost all from back Gardens including we been burgled lots of bicycles Etc opening up the route would increase the risk and make it much easier for would be burglers to see if people are out there are words about strengthening fencing but absolutely no details we think there needs to be a proper crime advisor should who should advise on how to actually make our homes and the reservoir secure because it gets broken into all the time you know particularly given the vulnerability issues and it should follow secure by Design principles we also think that it should be open as Henny said between 9 and 4:30 um biodiversity the paa says the reservoir provides the reservoirs both provide remarkable Haven for wildlife in section 2.9 it says that the survey was limited has limited value because it was carried out just after the area was known brilliant management there I thought um but there you there are a number of very ke ecologists along the street the community regularly sees damp flies dragonfli Skippers spag beetles corn flour over 80% of the of the birds that have been cited in the EPA have been spotted by local people and all of the bats the real biodiversity value derives from it being largely undisturbed by people there’s a thriving ecosystem the strategy doesn’t take into account the impact bringing people onto the site will have um but there’s also I know that it’s been put in recently a sort of talk about a management plan but it’s really unusual practice not to sort stipulate what that management and M long-term management and maintenance plan is that completely determines whether this will be by diverse rich or not you know and in addition where is the budget for that so the tenants would really like to understand how as I said the Green Space would be used a couple of other points swimmers um there’s over 50,000 people use the swimming it’s really understood I was a a lifeguard um you had five minutes I’m going to ask one of the the committee members to ask you a question about the swimmers what’s the other heading got uh and sustainability okay so on on swimmers 50,000 people I’m I’m not ask I’m asking to stop because you’ve had you five minutes you’ve had more than five minutes so on sustainability and swimming what we tend to do let’s ask you a question about it and then brilliant yeah that’s can you we like try we try and maintain our rules yeah of course applicant yeah um Ian Holland Ian speak for five minutes thank you thank you chair yes I’m Ian Holland I’m head of leisure parks and green spaces at the council um the West Reservoir Center is located adjacent to 23 Acres of water in a 30 Acre Site and along with West Reservoir itself is one of the most significant Leisure and natural resources in Hackney and I would argue in a London it provides both adults and children with the opportunity to take part in a variety of water sports and Open Water swimming surrounded by Green Space and nature which for a large part is currently inaccessible to the general public the project seeks to increase the accessibility of West Reservoir as well as upgrading some of the elements of the West Reservoir Center itself the improvements are significant opportunity to deliver inclusive facilities that enable more people to experience the site as an En London bar many of our residents have no private Gardens so it’s important to give residents as much access to Green space and blue space and opportunities for physical activity as possible W Reservoir is currently well used however the center itself is in need of refurbishment and modernization as a number of competing uses for The Limited space have grown over the years we also want to attract new users to the space including those who may not ever have used such a facility before and in order to accomplish this we are proposing to produce the following a new accessible Green Space for local residents and visitors new bridge allowing people to circulate around the East Bank of the resir for the first time a new accessible Bridge across R New River as you’ve heard it currently has steps and is inaccessible a new Cafe New indoor and outdoor changing with showers new enclosed water space that will allow new swimmers to get comfortable without outdoor swimming for the first time because it is quite daunting for people to come Open Water swimming at West reswell for the first time enhanced habitats for wildlife including re beds and trees improvements and refurbishment to the building to better accommodate a range of users and more accessible walking and cycling route um around New River paath and more cycle parking a significant amount of the work and consultation involving the local communities taken place in relation to the Improvement project over the past few years the consultation started in 2018 to engage local residents Community groups and existing site users to gather ideas and suggestions of how the site could be improved proposed Improvement plans were produced based on these initial ideas and feedback and further consultation took place in April 2023 this consultation involved three public droping sessions a targeted session with Open Water swimmers a targeted session with alaton Road and Queen Elizabeth walk residents a session with wood down Community organization who you’ve heard from for tonight a session with the friends of wbam local leaflet drops and web-based consultation material almost 800 responses were received to the consultation with the key findings being the majority responds either absolutely loved or liked the proposals relating to both the improvements to West Reservoir Center and the green and blue space surrounding it since the consultation ended there’s been further engagement with interested parties external communal changing has been added following comments from current Open Water swimmers we’ve also agreed changes to the layout of the internal changeing rims in further representations from the same users following a number of meetings with residents from alaton Road and Queen Elizabeth walk we have agreed to implement additional pting HED RS fencing improvements and the screening along the eastern boundary to help better screen some residents Gardens the original location of the pro proposed path has also been M moved further away from the neighboring properties after the initial consultation feedback to summarize the area around West Road is currently undergoing significant change as you’ve heard tonight with the major regeneration of the Woodby down estate these improvements have not so far reached West Reservoir however which remains partially isolated from the local community opening up the reservoir represents a significant opportunity to enable more people to experience the site we think the plans that have been developed in partnership with the local community Through extensive consultation are hugely exciting they will increase use of West Reser Reservoir Center by the local community and provide an opportunity for the local community to access en Joy currently inaccessible Green Space the Planning Commission is granted tonight we look forward to transforming the space over the next year thank you chair thank you open up to members of the committee councilor pter I must declare that I’m also a swimmer at West Reservoir so I’ll start off with that um in terms of Interest um I just wondered in terms of you the hours that were mentioned in terms of between s and 9 can you talk a bit about that just justify that in relation to what um happens at the East Reservoir and also you know you you you’ve obviously talked a lot to the residents along these bound boundaries be good to hear from you about you know these suggested improvements to screening to to help your privacy and how you think that’s going to work but maybe the hours and first if that’s that’s okay in yeah I can pick that up can spotter so in terms of the hours that are outlined um in the officers report they are the maximum hours for the operation of um West Reservoir and they comply essentially with the summer hours and the operational hours of West Reservoir Center obviously those hours change through the year um and essentially it’s during Day hours that gate and that route will be open so much shorter during the winter and then obviously the maximum hours during the summer period okay thank you yeah I mean on the hours honestly having people wander by at 700 in the morning and then after really people get home we just think is really unacceptable it works the the hours on the East Reservoir work there are good reasons why those work you know the impact on us is going to be really um very significant and we don’t feel that we’ve been on the fencing um and we think that actually it’s all a little bit SLA Das when we walked AC um the this when we walked the path uh with with with the parks team the you know we were told we they were doing this a favor which was not great but having said that it was like really obvious we pointed out all sorts of places is where people regularly break in every weekend there are people having parties and all the rest of it there hasn’t been a proper survey of the security issues along there there hasn’t been a proper understanding ahead of the planning of the vulnerabilities and of the break-ins and of the other issues that we sort of face we can I’m sure come to a kind of proper um solution but it requires a proper security advisor to help us actually take the right measures we’re not experts they’re obviously not experts so some proper approach needs to be taken in line with secure by Design you’re making all sorts of families much more vulnerable we appreciate the additional offense but we actually think it it all needs to be done in in a very different way yeah there’s two things firstly I think Dan’s made some very important points people have to feel safe in their homes everyone’s home should be their Castle even though we can’t all live in Windsor Castle so I think it would be a good idea if we could get a crime prevention officer just to look at the provisions you’re intending to make would you be willing to do that Ian to reassure the community um that would be subject to our decision tonight that’s point one the second thing is I’m concerned to read although it may not be purely a planning consideration that there’s a petition of some 2,300 people were worried about the existing Cafe um could the contract I don’t know what the arrangement is with the existing Cafe uh but could the contractor not be given a chance to operate in the new cafe or why are so many people signing this petition I’ll pick up the cafe Point first councelor Desmond um that’s not a planning matter I would suggest um and there a management issue but the C operator the existing Cafe will have the opportunity to Tender um for the operation of the new Cafe ultimately they have the ample opportunity to to bid for that um operation and it’s a standard route we apply in all our parks and green spaces and GL apply in all their Leisure centers in terms of Cafe concessions in terms of secure by Design I would suggest that we have made quite significant um additions to the plan um in terms of planting um increasing the height of the hedges we were planting so there will be more immediate screening for the properties um I would also I suppose note that this is Metropolitan open land um and as such and planning officers will will you know tell me whether I’m correct or not we don’t need Planning Commission to open up Metropolitan open land to Public Access and I would argue that the benefits are significant to opening up a new public Green Space to The Wider Community as was evidenced in the public consultation where the plans were heavily supported by the local community and existing West Reservoir users um as well so I would say we’ve we’ve gone we’ve listened to the concerns of the residents we will continue to listen to the concerns of the residents we’ve put additional planting along the fence line we’ve agreed additional fencing um and we’ve also agreed to put more mature Hedge planting in to provide immediate screening um for the small number of Gardens that are directly impacted um by the work and we move the path further back um as well so I would say we we we’ve gone above and beyond in terms of the original plans listening to the concerns of residents and I would remind members and I would remind the committee that this is Metropol it’s an open land yes counc cter just to go to um the obor in terms of you had some additional comments from the swimmers and also the um on the sus sustainability um angle I think thank thank you very much the the real jewel in the crown of this place isn’t the Green Space there’s lots of green space in the area we’ve lived there for many years the real jewel is the 50,000 people who swim in the water it’s one of the best Open Water swimming places in in the country actually um you are in grave danger of putting paths path within 10 m less than 10 m as you can see it up there of the Waterway there are three reasons and I and they largely come from firstly lewd and you know nasty Behavior actually people sort of shouting from the the the path at women particularly you know who are swimming the the the the response in the planning application said that that wasn’t an issue from the dock but that completely misunderstands the position at the dock there are lots of swimmers there are um lifeguards and there are lots of people so it’s self- policed it doesn’t happen we’ve already seen during lockdown there were lots of people swimming when people walk along there they Chuck stuff at swimmers often they were kind of rude you had all sorts of abusive language if you have just a few minor incidents you’re going to ruin the best swimming facility in the country that is a much bigger prize than the walking you know we tried to make that point it hasn’t listen to the second thing that it says on page 55 of the planning report is that members um of the public jump into the water causing G GL lifeguards to have to extract everybody including um I think goes including offender it then takes about half an hour this there’s 12 people every 10 minutes using that place it 50 people in the swimming pool at one time 30 minutes you can completely then backlog everything but the real problem is that a path 10 m less than 10 M from the water allows people to Simply slip in and they can slip in behind the reads because you can’t see people on the bank if you’ve got the reads when you’re in a canoe and that’s the people who are life so you’re going to create another issue for yourself and then access to the um so those are the those are real real problems and we’re really worried that you’re going to have a problem sorry sorry Hamstead and all those other yeah you just see go they all and they all keep people away they keep people away from the immediate swimmers it’s kind of it’s really really obvious and then on sustainability you know I read your sustainability report I was the head of sustainability for the London Olympics I’ve been doing sustainability for many years I can’t I don’t remember sort of seeing such a poor sustainability report this is a real Landmark project this is a council project the counc have declared a climate emergency you can’t even meet your own carbon standards you then say something about solar that you’re going to reuse the solar that’s already there on the for the cafe you you’re going to up you’re going to you’re already going to be using more energy within rightly because you’re going to get more use out of the main building and then you want to ption some of that solar to the C it doesn’t add up frankly there’s plenty more you could do with solar we also run solar uh Stokey energy solar this there is it’s it’s really quite woeful and it’s really quite surprising from a council you would put forward a proposal that doesn’t meet your own standards can I say can I add something about swimming about swimmers yes you asked a question about swimmers um just I think one of the main problems of swimmers is the price point I mean if it wants to be more accessible and op up to more swimmers then something needs to be done about making it cheaper so finally the question the question we really have to ask is there was never an option about putting the path on the west side I tried to show a photograph that is another photograph of gardens which I think is in the thing I tried to show a photograph from Berkeley homes showing Runners on the west side we also took a number of photographs I I tried to share if you put the the path on the west side and I know it doesn’t go direct to the cafe but it goes directly to the climbing wallold and to other places you would end up not having a a conflict with a resident not having a conflict with swimmers having a much more interesting walk actually a more direct walk and it would take people off a very fast path now that cyclist use along wood be down and take them up onto the green onto that green route it just seems weird not that you haven’t chosen that but it was never even an option the options were about where you wanted to bridge the consultation was about where you wanted to bridge it wasn’t about you know fundamental issues there were no real presentations about Alternatives if you ask somebody would you like ice cream there say yes that’s what it was like the consultation okay thank you um any other question I’ve got a question about the changing facilities um just in that the new outside changing facilities just going to say it’s just very male female and kind of like the big Hall things um so it’s all kind of bit open and no privacy um I’m just going to say from personal experience I really like London field liido because it’s all private cubicles and everyone’s got their own space and it doesn’t matter who or what or maybe um parent and child but everyone has privacy and you don’t seem to have lockers and it’s outside so I’m taking it’s not heated and anyway these are really hardy people because they want to go swimming outside so they like being outside and being in the cold anyway so it was just the the the changing room facilities seemed kind of old school school room whereas London Fields Li is really good they’re just having absolute Open Access but good size individual private cubicles I just wondered why you didn’t go for that idea I suppose just coming back on on some of those points and the and the changing as well um I suppose I would remind the committee that the majority of Open Water swimmers and the majority of respondents to the consultation like to love the proposals and I think that’s quite important to capture in terms of changing um camp web we’ve tried to create a balance so we’ve listened to existing users so there is male and female external and there is male and female group change but there is also cubical opportunity within the village change area so we’ve tried to create a balance changing opportunities and I think that it was just cubical it was a cubical opportunity so it wasn’t just male and it wasn’t just female and it wasn’t just open bonds hey everybody we’re changing you know we actually can build in it’s just that I’m surprised that there isn’t any on the outside provision when you when you’re building it and it’s new it seemed like fairly easy to stick a few cubicles on the outside as well that was a direct response to the feedback from existing Open Water swimmers around the outdoor change and the indoor group change which they wanted to create that Community um fuel that they have in the existing facility but also we put the cubicles in so there is that choice and I think the changing provision as part of the development is quite important because the purpose of this scheme or one of the purpos of the scheme is to try and make the facility more attractive to more people and the current arrangements for changing aren’t necessarily attracted to everyone which is either changing outside on the pontoon or changing in one individual space so this gives people an opportunity to choose the type of changing they want there’s three different types of changing and there’s shower provision in all of those different changing options that’s what I wanted to check okay um Le thank you chair um can I just ask the objectors whether they are in any way persuaded by the council’s um offer to heighten security height and stop overlooking uh by the measures that they they proposed it comes back actually to at one level to my first question which is what is the intention for the grass and between the path and the edge of the bank because if you’re if you’re allowed to access it have picnics in it Etc you look straight over into bedrooms bathrooms and you know and and Gardens and and into so if you keep people back onto that path but we think that creates an issue with the swimming but that’s another you know you can deal with that elsewh if people are not allowed off that path and people are and there’s actually a maintenance um and a management security provision to keep people off it then yeah you’re 27 meters away and you’ve got the and you’ve got the Hedge it doesn’t deal with people breaking in so that also you know that fence has been a problem for quite a while that also needs to be dealt with can the officers talk about impact on um neighboring properties please sorry what uh with regards to security or yeah just impact uh so in effect um as mentioned uh the opening up of that space in itself wouldn’t require planning permission um it’s it’s basically the right of whoever’s in control of that land to open it up so um so from a planning perspective it’s it’s difficult to say that it would be unreasonable in terms of its impact because it can happen now without this application coming forward um in terms of the plan that was shown on the on on this um presentation that was showing from the the path um I’ll just go back to it um that’s just to highlight kind of where the majority of people would be using that along that path there aren’t any restrictions as as part of the submission to restrict the the use of the rest of that that land but there is additional soft Landscaping measures that are proposed um in terms of security um it’s difficult for us to say with any certainty that opening this up would increase security risk over and above the existing site uh obviously it would be used more so it could be argued that it would prevent more crime from natural surveillance and from the use of that area um similar to to the objetive in terms of the the other side of of the reservoir it’s kind of self- policing uh so there’s kind of from our perspective there’s no reason why this wouldn’t self- police itself in that regard in terms of LW behavior that people might conduct in in along that path we can’t really Prejudice to say that the the scheme would result in that um it’s improving Security in terms of fencing um and uh yeah it’s from a planning perspective it’s it’s it’s very difficult for us given what can be done without the new plan planning permission to to say that it would result in unacceptable loss of privacy and security issues but if you have people walking all over that you’re going to lose by stop stop thank you um the whole site is secured so we’ve got Gates and it is locked at night you are putting in landscaping you putting in more trees and bushes along the way um okay any more questions from the committee then I’m happy to move it to the vote those in favor of this application I will have to read this don’t I uh recommenders committee resolved to Grant clanning permission subject to conditions and completion of legal agreement those in favor please show against abstentions one abstention thank you that’s carried all right so can we move to item the next item please agenda item seven 53 North Church Road the committee has seen this one before it’s the proposal for installation of photo retak panels yeah yeah no no I remember them my moment it’s your moment so can have a quick change please so chair for item seven we have no registered objectors those speaking we have Council a warer and Mr Bernard tolins if I pronounce that correctly Council Walker Mr tolkin architect oh thank you uh councelor Walker um actually technically Mr talkk you kind of we normally have the applicants kind of in the middle um it would be easy to pick you up on the camera for the camera purpose if you could Bo in the the front middle section please thank you um although I mean obviously you’re the architect that supports the vels and councelor Walker you’re supporting the installation of the vot Exel so effectively it’s against the officer’s recommendation which is still against the installation of the votex cells lots of double negatives but I’m sure we can get through this yeah um and um the head of planning wishes to did make a statement before the sorry chair just to be clear then um sorry I try not label the point too much so is it okay for councelor Walker and the architect to sit together or is that going to create any issues I think so I just wanted to make sure before we start and I’m slightly looking over at the legal officer as well I just want to be clear that is okay councelor Walker and the architect to sit together I understood that they’re both speaking in support but I understand that’s not it’s a bit obscure sorry I’m I’m trying not to hold things up I’m trying not sorry okay then I’ll I’ll shut up sorry planning wants to kick off before the officer starts thank you chair yeah just a few words of introduction for me which hopefully will explain um the application um and the report so members may recall that at December’s planning committee meeting a majority of members voted against the recommendation to refuse these applications a motion to defer the application to seek a retrofit plan from the applicant was proposed by councelor Young And seconded by coun necross and voted for by members so although members voted against the recommendation to refuse the applications at the December meeting there was no vote on approving the application so there’s been no decision made on the acceptability of the proposals the purpose of the retrofit plan is to provide details to enable the council to fully understand the sustainability benefits of the proposals and whether there are less harmful ways to achieve the same benefit a retrofit plan has now been submitted by the applicant and the planning officer will now present the officer’s assessment of this it will then be for members to decide based on an assessment of the harm to the designated Heritage asset including both the conservation area and listed building weighed up with the sustainability benefits whether the proposal is acceptable or not the recommendation put forward this evening has been informed by an assessment of professional officers having regard to legislation planning policy and guidance this includes the council’s Heritage expert and sustainability expert both of whom are in the chamber this evening to answer questions thank you can you hear me excellent uh good evening chair good evening members item seven relates to a planning and listed building application for the installation of solar panels on the side and rear roof slopes of a dwelling house this application has been brought to back to committee after it was deferred at the December committee when Council has requested the submission and assessment of a retrofit plan uh the the application site relates to a grade two listed Building located to the south of North Church Road within the deovir conservation area here you can see the application site outlined in red each house in this group is a two is two stories with a four height basement and is two windows wide they are constructed of stuer with low pitched hip slate rules they are statutory listed they’re statutory listed as nationally important examples of housing from this period in a plan state they are listed in their own right but there is considerable group value with the composition and uniformity of properties moreover North Church Road is not is also notable for its consistency and high quality architecture from here we can see the rear site showing the hipped roof above the main dwelling house and the flat roof above the rear Outrigger it is clear that the properties on North Church Road and indeed in The Wider Dev deoa Conservation Area do not feature any solar panels on their pitched RS The Proposal will Ben will install a total of 10 solar panels five to the rear roof slope and five to the side roof slope both of these roof slopes are visible from the public realm as illustrated by the uh photos on the following slides the proposed solar PV array will deliver a total of 3,600 kilowatt hours per year to cover the household’s annual consumption of 3,578 kwatt kilowatt hours per year it is worth not that the five EV panels placed on the east facing roof slope will generate 50% less electricity than the ones installed on the south facing roof slopes this is not surprising as Southern orientation typically benefits from more solar radiation than East orientation in the northern hemisphere the proposed panels would stand proud of the roof scope roof scape by 15 cm and their Framing and smooth reflective surface would make um would make the stand out as modern and in Congress and unsympathetic additions to the original roofscape of the listed building furthermore the large large area of solar panels would partially obscure the historic roof slates of the roof representing a reduction in the quality of materials the five PV panels proposed on the east roof Stope be visually prominent when walking east to west down North Church Road it should be noted that rarely do you experience buildings directly face on but in longer views and so the significance needs to be understood within this context also five PV panels on the south faing roof slope are visible at the rear from the Jason properties and Deacon Muse after the December 2023 committee meeting historic England issued further guidance on the 25th of March 2024 on the installation of solar panels to the listed building to listed buildings stating if the installation harm harm significant alternative options should be considered some Heritage assets will not be suitable for PV installations for instance listed buildings where the only practical location for panels is a prop roof slope this further affirms the assessment made by officers in December 20123 committee report where the installation of PV panels to the east fac inside elevation is considered to result in harm to the significance of the pair of semi- detached Villas and the overall group value of neighbor Andes the roof slopes remain not largely in Altered and therefore any alteration needs to be considered sensitively to ensure that the elements that are special and of national importance remain so following the December committee meeting the applicant has was asked to provide a ref plan which demonstrated the NG hierarchy in the London plan had been followed by prioritizing a fabric first appro fabric first approach and outlining any harm to the listed building caused by potential works the RIT plan provided by the applicant was used by the energy has used the energy performance certificate EPC approach which balances carbon saving methods such as insulation and renewable energy installations against the cost to implement these measures the retrofit plan explored a range of measures to improve the Energy Efficiency of the dwelling house but concluded that the proposal to install solar panels on the side and rear roof slapes was the approach which saved the most carbon and was the most cost effective as to be expected it showed the Energy Efficiency of the solar panels on the south faing Ro stopes were more efficient um than the solar panels on the east facing roof slope and the total energy produced by all solar panels would be sufficient to cover the households annual energy consumption that changed change okay the r plan provided was not sufficient to offset the concerns of officers on the grounds of the energy performance certificate approach used by the r plan does not consider the impact of these measures on the historic character of the building this is in spite of clear guidance provided following the December committee that this should be the primary consideration the RIT plan demonstrates that there have been some fabric improvements in the line with the London plan energy hierarchy however this includes replacement toble glazing Windows which do not benefit from listed building or planning consent and are therefore subject to investigation by the planning enforcement team the methodology adopted by the applicant concludes that on the basis of cost carbon savings solar pan panel solar panels are the most appropriate measure without considering the harm caused by this measure to the great to listed building The Wider group of listed buildings and the conservation area that the site forms a part of officers have proposed an alternative measure however the abric refus to agree to this alternative as part of the discussions relating to the retrofit plan officer propos an alteration in in order to lower the level of harm to the listed building and the surrounding area must improving the renewable electricity generation on site this involved relocating the five solars on the side east facing roof slope to the south facing flat roof above the rear Outrigger this was considered to be a less visually prominent location where the position of the solar panels will result in a lower level of harm to the significance of the Heritage building as the views from the front are of higher significance as shown on the illustration analysis of the submitted draw which suggest that at least three PV panels could would be installed on the sou facing Outrigger based on the figures provided by the applicant this would also have the potential to generate enough electricity to exceed the households yearly electric electricity consumption the additional electricity generator can be stored in an on-site battery for future private use or sold to the national grid for the appropriate schemes and contribute towards the national decarbonization effort deliver an additional public benefits it is worth noting that the alternative approach not only reduces the harm to the existing build inut is more efficient with eight PV panels delivering more electricity than the applicants proposal which requires two more solar panels council is under statutary duties contained of section 16 66 and 72 of the planning listed building and conservation areas act 1990 to Grant permission only to applications which preserve or enhance listed buildings their settings and conservation areas in this case based on legislation historic England guidance uh National regional and local plan policy and local precedence there is harm to the significance of the listed building and that of the wider Conservation Area this harm is assessed to be less than substantial which in turn requires the public benefit of the proposal to be to outweigh the harm it is the view of officers it’s the officer view that whilst there is a small public benefit in securing renewable energy to the property this can be achieved in alternative ways which would mitigate the harm this is in line with the mppf paragraph 2011 which states local planning authorities should Max should identify and assess the particular significance of any Heritage assets that may be affected by a proposal taking account of the available evidence and any necessary expertise they should take this into account when considering the impact of a proposal on a Heritage asset to avoid or minimize any conflict between the Heritage assets conservation and any aspect of the proposal and as such there are insufficient public benefits to outweigh the harm offic officers uh believe that on balance the proposal is harmful to the special character of the listed building the group of listed buildings and the conservation area as insufficient public benefit has been identified to outway this offices therefore recommend that the plan application and the listed building consent be refused thank you chair thank you now we have um Vernard toins the architect you can talk for five minutes and we’ got the um councelor for the area councelor walko who who gets five minutes because he’s a counselor too so I mean um Mr tolkin do you want to talk about the application yes thank you chair um Step gross and Vicky Chapman apologize for not being here tonight because they had previous commitment so they asked me to speak on their behalf I’m indeed the architect who made the application for them so to come back to the discussion of December 2023 on the solar panels we I understand that the issue that remains for determination is whether any meas other measures should have been taken or should be taken before installing solar panels if you recall at the meeting the subcommittee examined at length the issue of visibility of damage to the fabric which is addressed in our D DNA and in short assessed the question of form versus benefit so the subcommittee accepted then in a vote that installing panels on the the south and east side of the roof did not create an unacceptable harm and voted on that but before giving the green light on the installation and I I fully respect that move the subcommittee wished to satisfy to be satisfi that there were no other retrofit measures that ought to be adopted before the solar panels are installed and that’s the question so what do we do to inform that decision is uh you know ask for retrofit plan and that’s what you receive on pages 202 to 207 of the documents today so what is this retrofit plan the client appointed a um independent retrofit coordinator who came to visit the house and looked at if you want a condition survey looking at every item of the building the walls the windows the the insulation in the roof and uh look at the existing measures looks of course at first at the limitation of a listed building because you can’t do just anything with a listed building we all we all like that anyway and then makes recommendation on what can be done for instance they look at are there any urgent repairs um what what else could could be done in terms of the walls um and yes they look at Cost because cost is part of the reality of of of work um in short you have an assessment of the fabric the energy and the cost yes it’s not a PhD on insulation it’s not a PhD in what should be done but we’re talking here about putting 10 panels on a house and reducing carbon emissions So the plan shows that all reasonable fabric measures have been taken are a couple really minor one and that the solar panels are indeed the single most effective new measure next measure so what is it in terms of benefits one of the councilors asked what are we talking about and I think that’s what triggered the request for the retrofit well it’s simple it wasn’t the slide over there 3,500 roughly we have 3415 kilow hour so it covers a really large majority of the energy use as demonstrated by by the the presentation a minute ago and a reduction of carbon emission of about 1.5 ton a year that reduction of CO2 emission is one of the key goals of us all in acne but also Beyond and it translate in an EPC rating 61d to 73c I don’t particularly value the EPC to be honest and and I like the more scientific approach but in this case there is only so much you can do any methodology would come the same result the report therefore recommends installation of the solar panels so I I’ll remain short uh I think alternatives um were not discussed in a meaningful way before this meeting I think the subject was settled in terms of harm and visual harm and damage in in December and the question is are we meeting a meaningful contribution to the CO2 remission by this operation all my clients doing that they applied in no November 22 they modified the application to uh in April 23 um they came to the committee in December 23 they’re now in front of the committee in 2024 and we would like the committee to Grant this application thank you chair thank you um Council wer do you wish to say something thank you chair and to the committee for inviting me um to represent tonight um the committee will be aware that Council Bon gave a representation I think the last meeting in December and our position hasn’t changed and the recommendation to reject this application is disappointing well I know that from the planning um perspective the arguments put forward are in line with current legal requirements and planning policy it feels that the recommendations set out don’t take a balanced perspective that that both takes into account our responsibility to our climate goals and achieving sustainability and of course our respons our um responsibility to current planning policy I’m aware that the retrofit plan was carried out at the committee’s request and Bernard sort of talked talked about the outcomes from that um the report concluded that PB panels are the most appropriate measure to take forward however I do fully appreciate that this issue falls under National legislation and that under Heritage laws and the explicit need for the president of of a Heritage building like this one there are legal requirements that have to be upheld but I believe that this has been um fully carried out and applied throughout this application process and there has been no evidence to suggest that this has been contravened in any way what I do want to briefly speak about tonight though is how as a counil we are ensuring that we are doing everything we can to align our planning policy to our CL climate action plan which is directly relevant to this application why why am I talking about the climate action plan well it clearly sets out um in the strategy that that we are committed as a council to um put forward new guidance on achieving retrofit and refur refurbishment in conservation areas together we must encourage and support or organizations and residents across Hackney to to prioritize planned investment in climate mitigation and adaption deboa has a significant Conservation Area with a wide variety of housing stock many of the residents who live in this area of DEA are very live to our climate goals they support our ambitious plans as a council and they want to actively play their part to support our road map to net Z by 2030 the residents that I’m representing this evening are an example of how as a council we should be working in Partnership to find Active Solutions to Heritage assets and homes rather than make it more difficult to be part of finding solutions to achieving our goals the these are also residents that are personally investing in their home to um personally deliver on decarbonization at no cost to the council I think that the committee would agree that flexibility and adaptability is what is needed to be applied in this case as a council while I appreciate that as a planning Authority there is a whole framework of of legal requirements that we have to apply to any such application in the Heritage area we need to be playing an active part in putting forth solutions to support local residents 21% of our Burrows emissions are coming from buildings including Residential Properties Berard talked about the benefits of this application so so I won’t go into any more more details about that now but my fear is that if the officer’s recommendation to reject this application is upheld firstly we set a negative negative precedent and send a negative message message as a council that we are not serious about our role to to ad apt and to change to reach our climate goals secondly we negate our commitment to ensure that residents should and need to play an active role in achieving our decarbonization goals and thirdly this is the right thing to do I understand that the climate action plan is not a statutory plan and and and can’t override any legal requirements however it is my view having having been to the property and spoken at length residents in their efforts to conform with with requirements the recommendations set out show a lack of flexibility and unwillingness to adapt in light of the council’s wider commitments finally can I draw your attention to paragraph 3.5 of the officers report which I think is Page 160 where the report talks about and I quote The Limited public benefits of providing a a a sustainable source of power can you wind up Council sorry say again can you wind up yes I’m I’m winding up now given this administration’s policies on the climate emergency I’m concerned about such a statement being made in this report I fear that many committee members may not have noticed this but I think it deserves attention should we all be committed to ensuring that policies are aligned to our climate Ambitions going forward thank you very much um committee coun um Council walk I think we all share share your so I think we all share your you know climate you know Ambitions and I’m sure the um planning officers do too my question is um it appears that planning officers come up with a suggestion of um the solar panels being positioned on the out um rigor 2 and not on the east port which which would exceed the uh you know the capacity but also still meet the Heritage um concern so I’m concerned that the applicant didn’t engage with officers on this I mean that would then meet the am Ambitions of our climate agenda but also keep within the Heritage um restrictions so I don’t know whether you could that please um there are several aspects to to to this obviously um the discussion didn’t happen during the normal plan process so despite what it says in the report here I’m afraid it didn’t because I should have been conted this discussion these slides could have been shown to me um a year ago that would have been actually very useful but but if you look at the plan you actually can see there is a passage between the two buildings and the three panels that are in in vertical position would have to be at either 15 degrees or 30 deg to be at which means they are above the parabit that you can see from the street and from the street you would have actually a much stronger view of the the back of the solar panel then you would do in The Proposal that was originally made with the 10 panels and thirdly it reduces the amount of panels that you can put in the house which it so it it was calculated our figures are a bit different they come from the Solar Company um but the amount of energy is is reduced so I think I think the argument of the less of lack of visibility is definitely not there uh you can go in the garden you would see them everybody else from the garden and that was the Prime argument for the first refusal we got so coming back now with a change of design at the committee I’m afraid I I find that objectionable okay Council Desmond let’s just work our way around uh well as you know the last meeting in December I made it clear that because the particular View and perspective from the street isn’t greatly impinged or in any way uh reduced I had no problem with this given the climate emergency uh I wanted to ask the legal officer though if we uh support the application and go against the officer’s recommendations would that in any way create a precedent because I have to say that if the property were in a different position and it were clearly visible and it were significantly detrimental I might have a different view except that one well I would want to remind members tonight is that the law requires that any decision you take should be made in accordance with the development plan unless there is a material consideration also you will need to be you will need to be prepared to explain in for your planning reasons for not agreeing with the officer’s recommendation which should be set in the context of the development plan or the mtpf and other relevant policies um if you decide to go against the officer’s recommendation there is a chance of an appeal um the decision that you make tonight the D has been um observed um and there are also possibility of Prov costs against the council so these are it’s quite serious and you need to take it well Pi off of what you’re going to do tonight that’s the main thing councel Naros thank you you indicated um so had a couple of questions the first one was uh I’d be interested to hear the officer’s response to the um the points about the alternative plans that were raised by by the architect um just to get your your perspective on how the conversation was done and and and the sort of the claims about it being potentially more visible and more harmful from from various views of the property um and then my other question was around the um the the retrofit plan or sort of report that was done I was just wondering what what engagement um officers had with the applicant about what that might look like if there was prefered approaches because obviously the report says they took an approach which I feel like you would have preferred a different one um and I just remember what engagement there was before that report was produced I’ll touch upon your first one regarding what Bernard just said I think we I disagree about the impact on the views mic sorry I think it would be our view that putting them on the Outrigger would lower the impact and lower the harm I appreciate if you looked directly on straight on these buildings you would catch a glimpse of the top of a solar panel but it’s our assessment that that little Glimpse on the Outrigger down a kind of fairly narrow gap between two listed buildings is a lower level of harm compared to seeing them on the hip side roof particularly when we shouldn’t really just consider these in isolation these are a group of four semi- detached fillers so it’s how you appreciate that hip roof on all of them and if the minute you start adding additions to one It kind of breaks that uniformity up and causes that level of harm and the way we’ve approached it is that it’s kind of a higher level of harm on your principal facade are you what you see from the front which in this case is the front of the building with the most orate Stucker work and that side hi roof but on the back we appreciate there’s been more variance and more change the Outriggers are less consistent there by having the solar panels on the Outrigger it reduces that level of harm and that’s really what we want and I appreciate it’s taking us a long time to get to this compromise and quite a convoluted process but I feel that we’ve got a potential compromise in there that meets a similar kind of need in terms of energy but also so does what we’re kind of here for which is reduce harm to both the listed buildings and the conservation area and then with regard to the retrofit plan we I mean the issue is there isn’t kind of clear guidance on how a retroit plan works for a listed building so we created an idea about using and Louise and I created a um a strategy based on the London plan energy hierarchy I your fabric first demonstrating your bu is in a really good condition and go through your quick kind of easy wins I fabric first and eventually ending up at Renewables which is how we ended up we also within this time we’ve also had that new guidance from historic England come out suggesting that we don’t put solar panels on your kind of principal facades necessarily and look at finding less harmful ways which is what kind of prompted that kind of second stab at how can we reduce harm within this proposal while also allowing us to kind of adapt to the climate emergency we’re very aware that I don’t want to refuse everything I’d much rather be able to find a compromise where we can have ways for and we have a lot of examples of listed buildings in Hanley with solar panels even our own town hall the great two Starley Empire we’re not inflexible on it it’s and we get a situation where we can preserve or reduce the level of harm while also Meeting those needs oh sorry okay off you okay sorry everyone wants to talk um I just wanted to add up on what um our conservation officer just mentioned I totally share sorry can you hear me better I totally share the concern of the applicant about tackling our climate emergency I agree that our planning policy should totally align as much as possible with the climate action plan that hne published last year in this respect the alet reduced harm proposal we suggested the delivers more electricity on site that’s based on the figures that the applicant provided so what we’ve done is like nothing new we’ve just used the data that we got given and we made an estimate of what could be delivered if we were to put thep panels on the Outrigger self facing roof to the point on decarbonization but also like the concern of limiting carbon emissions not only this proposal delivers more operational carbon savings because we are delivering more electricity on site but also by adding less panels on site you also reduce the embodied carbon and that’s something that shouldn’t be well overlooked let’s play it this way so this is why we think the alternate reduced home potential just takes both both boxes of enhanced sustainability but also reducing the harm to the existing building thank you um just to add to our legal officers response to councelor Desmond’s question um just to point out that should members decide that permission should be granted and whilst each application is assessed on its merits the principle of development on a visible side roof of a listed building would have been established so following this any future application could cite this example as justifications or such proposals counc poter I just wondered whether you had any thoughts um B about the use of eepc for you know to you know examine the potential for R retrofit and whether in your view you think that’s a thorough approach to establish what is the most appropriate kind of set of measures to take I I do have thoughts about PC Etc what you’re looking at is um what’s what’s the difference between more academic science and what a tool that people can use to actually make decisions um I’m I’ve done a passive house nine years ago in Hackney I used a phbp I know how much in detail you can analyze a building and and and it’s worth it particularly when you do a new building I would even say it’s probably worth it when you do a retrofit but you know you can’t ask everybody in Britain to go through phpp and do a full deep retr it for their house the applicant here has done everything everybody understands is they L double glazing in they did in 2009 or even before um you know we are we are here ask putting the bar way too high for a problem that is actually minor I’m I’m I fully understand the importance of listed buildings I work on listed buildings in many Burrows and I just think here we are we have blown up this problem Beyond it’s the necessity to be honest that’s that’s my my my view as a if you look at the figures nothing will change do a phpp with it nothing will change it would be it will cover the electricity bill it will reduce carbon emission and that’s our goal and I wish everybody in Britain could do that and had the same resilience to be honest okay committee um the officers have drawn our attention to the listed building guidance which is that um such phot um so should not be put on a listed building if the only place is a prominent roof slope and that is the part that I will take up as a point of uh difference here the reason that it’s declined is that because of the listed building it would be a visually obtrusive and in congruous form to development now I went and I stood there in the road I wanted to check out for myself I building um and taking on your point councelor Desmond about precedent because obviously we want to support our heritage and absolutely but it’s a very high roof and I believe that this roof is on the side and I can’t see it from the street that’s my statement of Truth and I do not believe it is a prominent roof slope in the application of guidance I think it’s one on the side that anyone walking down that street would not have a visually obtrusive and in congruous form of development brought to their attention by this installation um listening to the case at the last committee meeting I still believe that the benefits outweigh the harm a phrase I’ve heard many times in this committee room benefits outweigh the har I think the applicant bent over backwards to give us an assurance that they will and look after and protect this house in a way that even when the the technology changes in the future they’ll be able to take it off and replace the asset as original they gave us that Assurance at the last meeting so if we are going to do a proper application this is not a prominent roof slope I went around the back I looked at the back as well you can’t see it from a car park the street scene and the impact right field it’s it’s very clearly it’s it’s it’s not visible it’s not obtrusive it’s not a correct application of of um planning guidance I have asked if if it is rejected as it was at the last committee that we have alternative words to work out that we support the application as it stands because I believe that those arguments have been made but that that is there and councilor Desmond to your point it does not set a precedent because they would have to argue on the listed buildings yeah and the prominent roof spcs and this one doesn’t click that box in that application councelor Ley thank you chair um I was just looking at the latest edition of the guidance and um the word prominent and sort me that’s the that’s the key element here I think um I wasn’t persuaded then in December I’m not persuaded now that the placement of s pal is prominent at all in fact I’m I’m not quite sure that I think the opposite might very well be true that placement of the out solar panels on the Outrigger may have more of impact then it’s such a high building I know people walking you know walking on the street I’m going to Crane the next to see whether there’s a solar panel up there or not and you know as I said I wasn’t persuaded and I don’t think I was alone I wasn’t persuaded then and I’m not persuaded now yeah sure I mean I think they have made their point and we’ve had the the guidance highlighted to us prominence okay yeah because I think that is the point here that we can have different views on what is prominent can I just make one final point just to point out to yourselves that any decision that members will be making tonight must be substantiated by reasons based on the relevant planning policy legislation policy statements which must be agreed by committee prominent roof slope difficult to conf to define necessarily but I think in this case you do appreciate North Church Road but it’s quite a wide road so when you do walk down there you do get these views of your hip roof the fact that where we’re standing where this photograph is taken is on the road close to it what we’ve got is let’s say a three L let’s say three space for three cars to be parked on the road and a really wide pavement so you do appreciate that hipped Gable I would argue from my Prof professional opinion that that roof slope would be a prominent roof slope on this listed building you are of course welcome to disagree with me but I think with historic englands guidance we should also focus on the fact that we said where it’s harmful to the significance we should look at alternative Provisions which is what we’ve done as part of this application here can I just add a quick point also what we want to highlight there is in line with historic England guidance we have an alternative that would medicate the home beside this the um the applicant proposal is putting PV panels on the East facade which is not the best orientation we all know is sou facad the alternate proposal in in addition to reduce harm also make the most of the self orentation and therefore delivers more electricity on site and therefore more public benefit I also make an addition to that addition um in regards to of the addition of the solar panels to the side roof though he got you have to bear in mind that they will project about by about 15 cmet from Ro slope and they will be made from a different material from the traditional R slope so they will stand out more um when compared the surrounding roof slopes as well so that will increase their visual prominence right just in terms of process then because the recommendation as in The Proposal you don’t recommendation summary yeah I appreciate Bernard you felt that perhaps didn’t have enough communication with the planers as you stated OB I didn’t ask the planet whether that was the case but if for instance the committee supports the officer’s recommendation do you think the client would want to go back and have have a discussion with the planning about perhaps considering the the alternative suggestion they have come up with that will meet the kind of climate targets that you are trying trying to meet what’s strange about the question is that we got a first refusal we got a second refusal well recommendation for refusal we’re debating it now the visib of the panel I’ve got drawings actually because we did look into it uh when I heard about this alternative the first thing I do because I’m an architect I just go and pedal to find out what what it does it would be more visible I’m I’m a bit dismayed to hear that the view is less important than the other one it seems to be that we’re we’re hammering on a very you know would what would my client do I don’t want to pronounce myself on on his behalf he’s he’s uh he’s spent a year and a half and and money to to get to get this application in uh we had you know it’s supported by hne um I would rather not respond on his behalf afraid but um I I can I can understand the question and a desire for compromise because we we respect both sides of the argument U I think unfortunately it’s more a matter of decision um and and um I think it’s more a matter of decision than trying to find a compromise also has the committee really the right to ask for an alternative design you know in the Pro in a normal process when you don’t have your design and the planning Officer says no you’re you’re you’re you’re not there for renegotiation so I’m not sure what we should be doing here I think for me is decision time thank you very much sorry just a final quick question um because I I can’t quite remember whether we discussed it in the December meeting this alternative uh less harmful proposal we we didn’t get that in December did we that’s been developed in light of the historic England guidance about less sful proposals again thank you all right so if we go to vote I think we’ bashed out what we want to get to the recommendation from the officers is to refuse planning permission so those that support the officer’s recommendation to refuse planning permission for and we’ just think that the original application yeah as it stood side and back those in in favor of the officer’s recommendation please show two and those against three right moving on from Ben then I did ask for an alternative form of Words which was to agree sorry chair can I just say that the procedure is that you must then put forward an alternative motion must be seconded so for the alternative motion so do we we get a form of Words which is the alternative motion which is that we support the original application as it stood did ask that for the officers that that was so that of with the legal conditions to be attached because it’s not just we agree with whatever the usual wording behind it is so the resolution um moved by Council Ley he is moving the resolution that we support the original application do you want to Second it when you say the original application is that the one that we discussed in December yeah yes I I’ll second that and the planning reasons for doing to approve the application what’s the wording approve the application that’s the resolution and the planning reasons for doing so the the reasons are that we uh do not the benefits outweigh the harm and that it complies with the listed building guidance because it is not in our view a permanent roof SLP do you want a couple of minutes to flush out with the officer don’t think there’s anything else sorry if I can step in so the process is and sorry there is a process and we will have to have a a short um adjournment in a minute but the process is is is that a member voting against the original recommendation needs to put forward an alternative motion so as you’ve just suggested that can be to approve the application so just for the minutes we do need to know which member has put that forward and if that’s um seconded I believe we had councelor Levy agreed to move in and councelor Desmond seconded it Leia and Council Desman will be jointly in the Tower of London from tonight thank you councilors um and the planning reasons that you’ve suggested is that the sustainability benefits outweigh the harm um so if we could just it’s in compliance with the list of building guidance well let’s let’s just then just take a short adjournment to consider that and come back with a recommendation and some you’ll need some conditions as well we can just take a short adjournment please okay just for the benefit of everybody in the room didn’t hear that and also watching online we are going to take a short adjournment um while we flesh out the wording okay thank you e e e e J you want to J through the new resolution and the conditions that we would normally stick to everything so as there two applications there’s two sets of conditions one’s free for the plan application and threee for the listed building application so the first free for the plan application you have the two standard ones which are development hereby permitted shall be only be carried out deleted strictly in accordance with the submitted plans hereby approved any subsequent approval of details and then the reason for that is to ensure that development Accords with the plans that we are approving and then the second condition is development H by perit must be G no later than the expiration of three years beginning from the date of this permission that’s the standard condition that’s attached to all plan applications the third one is in the event that the solar PV panel and Sol f equipment hereby approved is no longer in operational use all equipment shall be removed from the roof of its six months so it cease to function and the building fabric shall be made good using the original building fabric removed to facilitate the development and the reason for that is to preserve the historic Fabric and again this is something that’s fairly standard for um listed uh buildings or for solar pan installation installations and then the policies are the Committees are the conditions sorry are basically the same for the listed building application this time it does make reference to the listed building regulation instead so again should we Carri out in accordance with plans uh shall be good no later than three years Experia date and then um once the um equipment is no longer an operational use it shall be removed and The Works made good uh and then there’s so there’s an additional condition for the um listed building as well all new works and works of making good to be ret so all new works and works of making good to retain fabric whether internal or external shall be finished to match the original work with regards to the methods used and to material Dimensions composition form color finish and profile and in the case of case work in the case of brick work face Bond and poin in and then in addition to that we also have a informative that we’d like to like to attach again this is in relation to that point we raised in that presentation about the uh the Double glazed windows we don’t believe that they have plan permission they’ve been installed unlawfully which this is currently been investigated by enforcement we just want to attach an informative making it clear that this permission relates to the solar panels Nova works just so there’s no potential argument that we’ve conveyed permission upon those works because they are technically shown on the plan so those are the yeah fre conditions for the planning four conditions for the listed building consent thank you okay wasn’t quite sure about the last condition didn’t sound quite standard but it’s just about the original application with the usual conditions as suitable for um Heritage asset yeah so like for like look up the building all that kind of stuff yeah the issue of double glazing completely separate yeah so we need to move to the vote the officers so to accept the recommendation with those conditions which just are standard conditions so that’s what we just wanted to do yeah legal sorry chair um just want to be clear about this so what um members have done tonight is that they’ve granted for planning permission and they’ve provided the reasons for doing so and that they’ve also granted listed building consent okay thank you yes the planning permission because that there are the two headings yeah so it is that it is granting the permission and it is that list of building consent is given for the court yes thank but yes look in the recommendations when you get the full Planning Commission then you get the list of building consent it’s kind of like two things as part of the original resolution sorry it’s was just a clarification so so we’re now we’re now voting to before we voted to reject the recommendations now we’re voting to grant them planning permission with all of those conditions with the so we did the vote which was to reject the offices one the proposal is that we accept and Grant the permission but the usual conditions have to be agreed as well so and there’s two headings so that they can do the work but Grant at list a building consent at the same time y those in favor of the um of the installation of vexels as the original um application with those conditions those in favor please show is it just two those against yeah plus me it’ll be plus me against two so I swing it again what a night huh there we go thank you is that all good thank you very much okay it’s quite um late can we do a quick change over we’re going to do this we’re going to do 36 for M Street yeah we got one we got another agenda item please pay attention excuse check is Mike tonin in the room M you are mik so if you can sit in the middle please thank you it’s like this all the time okay so it’s agenda item 8364 M Street um you needing this one as well okay crack on please okay just uh referring to uh another change in the addendum uh so condition 22 has been amended just to include the words other than areas of roof specified as roof Terrace on the approved drawings this is just to avoid confusion between um what areas of flat roof on the building could be used as terce in which ones are just for maintenance um and also uh the appendix is to include the appeal decision uh that related to the previous application at the site uh so the application site relates to a three-story building and a joining single story retail unit located on the Eastern side of the narrow Way section of May Street the application site also includes the part Single part two story structures to the rear re of the main building in the rear Courtyard area the existing buildings on site comprise two retail units at ground floor level with ancillary retail space at ground and first floor level to the rear the Upper Floor levels within the main building contain four one bed Flats uh the application s is located within the Clapton Square Conservation Area an archaeological priority area the Hackney Central major town center and M Street primary shopping Frontage it’s approximately 50 m uh well approximately 50 m due south of the site is the Old Tower of the former Church of St Augustine which is a grade one listed building uh here’s an area of the aerial view of the site showing uh the application site in relation to St Augustine’s Tower and M Street the narrow way this is looking East uh so the application proposes the construction of a part two and part four story building uh to the rear of number 364 to create four new retail units at ground floor level and five residential units above following the demolition of the existing extensions Redevelopment would also create a public Courtyard area to the rear access via newly created passage to the north of 364 uh the application also includes alterations to number 364 mer stre involving internal reconfiguration and relocation of access to existing residential units construction of a mansard roof extension window and Shop front alterations The Proposal would result in the loss of a small single story retail unit fronting mer Street at Ground Flor level to facilitate access to the remodeled retail space to the rear of the site here’s some photos of the site so uh the top left is uh the front elevation facing a 364 facing onto M Street the narrow way the little pink shop on the left is the retail unit that would be demolished to provide access to the rear of the site in the courtyard area on the right hand side is uh views from the grounds of St Augustine’s Church Tower uh looking towards the rear of the site and the bottom left is a photo of the site within the protocol Square development to the rear of the application site uh here are some photos from Wild’s house which is the closest block of in the prodical Square development site to the rear uh the first photo is taken from the uh the top floor of that site and the one on the right is taken from the first floor uh here are some photos from within the site um the top left is from the roof of the building on the towards the south of the site looking towards St Augustine’s Tower uh the photo of the right is looking down towards mer Street and the the single story retail unit that would be demolished to provide the access route the bottom left photo is is just one of many photos provided showing the general condition of the the existing ancillary retail space uh to the rear of the buildings uh here’s a proposed front elevation showing the mansard roof extension and the shop front alterations and windows on the left hand side of the of the main building you can see that uh there the space that would be used for the access here’s a contextual elevation in relation to the site and St Augustine’s Tower uh here’s a proposed South elevation showing the the rear Courtyard building in relation to the buildings that face directly onto M Street narrow way here’s from the opposite side showing the section of the rear qu building and the uh altered side elevation of 364 mer street from the north uh here’s a side section representation showing the development in relation to Wild’s house uh to the rear of the site here’s an inner Courtyard elevation looking West from uh to the rear of uh 364 M Street here’s looking the opposite direction towards the the front elevation of the inner Courtyard building here’s a proposed rear elevation um The View that would be had from the prodal square development site to the rear here the proposed ground floor plans showing the proposed retail units cycle storage and and bin storage on Upper Floor levels You’ got Flats on on the Upper Floor levels of the rear building and to the main building at 364 and then more Flats on the Upper Floor levels of that and more Flats on the Upper Floor level so uh the application follows on from a previous application for the demolition of info extensions to create a courtyard and mixed use development providing a part two and part five-story building to create five R retail units at ground floor level and six additional residential units on the upper floors this application was appealed on the grounds of non-determination and dismissed in January of this year the appeal inspector upheld one reason for refusal in relation to the impact of the development on the character and appearance of the conservation area and the setting of the grade one listed Tower the inspector noted as per the objection raised by historic England at the time that the new building would exceed the height of the buildings on the principal historic thoroughfare on M Street in a way that would disrupt the hierarchy of the townscape the inspector therefore concluded that the development would cause less of substantial harm to the significance of the conservation area and the grade one listed building the current application has been amended by reducing the rear Courtyard building by one story so here are some comparison drawings between the the scheme that was dismissed at appeal at the top and the newly proposed scheme and this is the rear elevation of the appeal scheme and the new scheme at the bottom and here is another comparison drawing between the prop uh the appeal scheme at the top showing the height of the the rear Courtyard building and the scheme at the bottom which is the current proposal so in terms of Heritage impacts it’s important to note that historic England uh support the proposal in terms of the potential Heritage impact on St Augustine’s Tower uh this images to show the site in relation to St Augustine’s Tower which is as I say due south of the site 50 m uh the applicant that’s provided a an overlay drawing this is quite light in terms of uh how visible it is but it it basically shows the difference between the existing uh overlay with the red hashed line on top of the proposed section and similarly the proposed uh development with an overlay of the existing height of the of the existing uh structures on site here are some composed visuals um of the development when viewed from Street narrow way this uh this is a proposed visual of the site when viewed from St a Austine Tower uh the grounds uh on the right hand side the building on the right hand side is Wild’s house and the building next to it in kind of in the middle of the image is the mockup of the proposed uh building re Courtyard building and here is a proposed visual of the internal Courtyard area looking towards St Augustine’s Tower uh so overall The Proposal would provide significant public benefits in support of the development as it would involve the provision of additional housing an enhanced retail floor space in a sustainable location the provision of good quality public publicly accessible space opening of new public views towards St Augustine’s Tower improvements to the character of appearance of the area through the removal of unsympathetic existing development the uh amended proposal would preserve the character and appearance of the conservation area and the setting of the St Augustine Tower The Proposal also now includes an affordable housing contribution of 120,000 where this wasn’t opposed previously so uh in all the application overcomes the one reason for refusal that was upheld by the appeal inspector and now provides a uh more robust uh public benefit in terms of the uh affordable housing provision and the recommendation is to Grant per Mission subject to conditions and uh legal agreement thank you thank you I’ve got two um objectors listed so that’s John P and Dominic Smith you okay to share your five minutes okay well please put your mic on chair thank I just before I said I’ve got a slight difficulty which is entirely of my own making um and that I present I put my presentation together based on a sheet of um pictures images uh but I um I had a word and I should have done this yesterday so um should I try and verbalize it or or or do you think one talk us through talk us through what what it is that you’re trying to show us please okay well good evening and thank you for this opportunity I’m I’m speaking for um the residents of um wild house which is not Gustin block as shown on the on the drawing um which sits um which is one of the buildings that’s enclosed this tight backland site you’ve got May Street frontages dispensary lane and then the two two of The Prodigal Square buildings wilds and Blackburn um it’s a very tight urbanized area the gaping hole in this report is that the core relevant policy of this Council that relates to this Conservation Area isn’t even mentioned in the report and that policy has been applied a few plots north of this one where a three-story building was refused because it was too close to Blackburn house it’s since came back been approved and now built that is your policy as built as applied and it’s not even mentioned and I think the report’s disingenuous to say that the um the one reason that the last appeal was um refused uh because he said this in his final paragraph notwithstanding the development plan there are significant material considerations related to the identified harm to Clapton Square Conservation Area and to the grade one this the tower the policy that you’ve applied from your own policies is that these backland extensions and buildings should be one story lower than the frontage building that’s your policy what we have here in paragraph 631 is it’s okay if it’s the same height as its neighboring buildings that’s not your policy secondly this backland building I is the only point of contention with us is simply too big to be so close to where we live if 382 Mayor Street same applicant was judged too close to 11.3 to Blackburn housee why is 9.3 of a four story building okay for us and Dominic will want to say more and finally it sets a very dangerous precedent because there a number of other undeveloped plots in this tight backland area and if they if they are developed out at four stories because of tonight that would have a very material impact on Blackburn house as you thought three stories would be earlier so we request that you defer this application for three purposes the first is for a member site visit because you cannot appreciate the difference of one story until you stand in Wild’s house and you look at dispensary Lane which has got a three-story version and a four-story version the difference of one story in this tight backland area is profound secondly to instruct officers to apply the correct policy and thirdly to resolve the outstanding inconsistencies in the drawing you want a four five story appeal that’s not a reason to say oh well four stories is fine thank you sure thank you um I will just touch on the effect on daylight and sunlight um the proposed buildings too high and it will cause substantial harm on many residents right to light which the applicant’s own report says will mean that Flats in W’s house will no longer comply with accessible living standards as defined by the independent PR um a few quick points um the there’s been no further daylight and sunlight report on the previous one why has that not been uh updated why is there not been another daylight and sunlight report uh the lack of it means that we can that the assumptions in the new in the actual recommendation application are based on at best guess work and at worst deliber deliberately misleading oisc when they say that there may be some minor reduction in the religional right to light that’s absurd given the building’s proximity and when development is in direct conflict with the council’s policy LP2 three further quick questions why has summer sunlight hours been excluded from the sunlight Windows test we can only assume it would mean the proposed development not only failed the BR sunlight to Windows test as it does at the moment but was also so far beyond the P It could only be refused why does the study provided not calculative effects of trees on daylight as the applications report right State the BR guide states that trees should sometimes be taken into account I I’ll stop there I’ve got one other point so there’s the trees and then uh the report notes that where room layouts are not known for Flats the daylight distribution test has not been undertaken while no effort was made to contact any residents to find out the layouts of those Flats so they could take those tests thank you very much um for you got five minutes between the two of you share I’ve only got one person listed Mr tonin to speak yeah you got five minutes then hello okay my name is Mike tonin from ton um we’re a small architectural practice uh we’re a role model RBA practice we one of only nine in the country and um in We performed in um 2002 and we’ve received 23 RB Awards since then so we’re a small we’re the most highly awarded small practice in the country and we I just want to assure you that we work with um listed buildings all the time we’ve recently just got a planning application to redesign grma square and all the buildings in it we’re working in yorkminster on two two buildings um right next to the Minster incredibly sensitive sites um and those will be finished in September and when we finish that our next important project is going to be this one and we’ve been working with Clockwork Pharmacy Group for over a decade and we’ve delivered award-winning work with them in a Georgian listed building and there a building in Brentwood and I just want to assure you of our intent to make this development um as good as it can possibly be um when we started this project back in 2016 whil house didn’t exist um it’s quite uh um strange that now the complaints are coming from a building that wasn’t there when we started to look at it but what I’d like to kind of point out is when we looked at this site we I have a PhD in placemaking and um when we look at a site was really important for us to go back into what a place is and what it was and what it could be in the future and this this site was always a courtyard um and that courtyard was rather like a pattern where it would be a Coaching Station with accommodation above and that accommodation would always be around the edge and the sleeping rooms would be towards the back so we took this sort of simple historical model and it wouldn’t be any different in height to what we’re proposing now and actually the building we’re making is actually lower than Wild’s house so we feel that um what we’ve done is actually sort of taking that historical model and then there’s a few other factors in terms of placemaking here one of them was when we first made the scheme we make a courtyard and we had a prea with the council and a conservation officer suggested we should actually make a hole so that we could see um C Augustine’s Tower and actually we thought that was a splendid idea so we embraced it and we also made a tower in our own development more prominent so that when you look down the alleyway you could actually see that Tower so there was a relationship between St Augustine’s Tower the Old Tower and ours for new tower and that new tower then leads to the circulation to the flats which is always facing inwards to the courtyard and the bedrooms are always up a back and um the courtyard we want to be a kind of sociable space we want it to be a space where young businesses like the bag shop that’s there now that wants to move into the courtyard later um Can can flour it’s a sort of starting point for small businesses and um and so we think this Courtyard is a sort of sociable space it’s it’s an important kind of medieval kind of quality space off the High Street of a narrow way so taking forward the character of what’s there and just amplifying it I me in terms of the layout of the flas um we’ve already taken on board an awful lot of points and worked with the council and um we we’ve taken the windows in the rear elevation and we’ve kind of set them in and set them back so they don’t look directly at Wild’s house which we have to remember wasn’t there when we started and um they so they look away from it so we we’ve done all we can to kind of um faap that and what we also done is we’ve made the kind of facade darker to kind of replicate the darker character of us surrounding building and yet we’ve kept the courtyard lighter to make the courtyard a light and bright space that’s an inviting space to bring people off the High Street and then the third thing is when we found an image um which I should probably show you um uh we we found this one one image of um uh of Hackney back in the um uh Georgian times where a balloon used to rise up um you can see the image here so this shows mermaid Courtyard show mer mermaid Pub it shows the tower and it shows a balloon and so the Bloon became an idea for us that the window would represent the kind of Bloon so at the tower you see there’s a round window window at the top and the windows get larger the tower is kind of replicating the tower that you see there and um in a way we fill the place making we’re going to take this image and we’re going to make it um a very large artwork which is exactly this on the wall so that it’ll be kind of public attraction in itself so we want this to be a courtyard B and it draws people in and amplifies the character of the narrow way thank you thank you got my microphone on um let’s just go to uh counc Lei thank you um OB perhaps clarify the obor’s quite aerous comments that um what we have for us is not policy compliant perap officer can comment on that in design purposes is that I think that’s what you mentioned first and then I can go on there there was mention of um of buildings being one story lower but I think in the report that references rear extensions so we do have guidance about rear extensions being subservient and lower obviously this development isn’t an extension it’s a backland sort of new development there is some there’s a gap between uh the buildings on M Street and this building um and the key issue um as stated is that the the height was the issue before it was a total of five stories the one one story reduction is in keeping with the context in terms of the height of other buildings and the scale um and I think just some other things to mention um you know we’ve been saying a four story building if you look at this visual the principal masses fre stories um which again is in sort of keeping with the immediate context and then you have a setback with extension so that’s quite generously setback so it’s a part three part four story building um that’s in keeping with the sort of immediate context the character of this part of the conservation area um and and yeah so the the previous sort of concern was with the height that was where the objection came from from um from the council and from historic England and with this reduced height we’ve now got SC from historic England so that’s key issue in terms of height and prominence has been addressed I I was just uh going to mention because you you said non-compliance and didn’t specify area but I the objective did mention uh daylight uh sunlight as well and uh there is a daylight sunlight that has assessment has been submitted which does show that there would be uh non-compliance with the building research establishments guidelines but uh from our perspective there is a decision that’s been made by the Secretary of State in terms of the appeal decision uh the the inspector considered that it’s acceptable that scheme acceptable in relation to Daylight sunlight matters even though there were some areas of non-compliance it would be limited um and this scheme is now lesser in scale than what was previously proposed so uh we have to consider the inspector’s comments and decision as a material consideration and um and have taken taken heed from them Council dis so this is a very important location in the heart of Street where there’s a well-known Town Hall um what I want to know because uh it’s very important that the visual amenity especially with the tower in the background is not in any way uh diminished uh are you going to use London Stock bricks or sort of bricks are you going to use that make it look good if we give permission on the on the outside we’re going to use a dark brick as requested so that it matches Wild’s house on the inside we use like to use a lighter brick in the tradition of kind of working Courtyards that always use lighter bricks to to reflect more light around okay that sounds reasonable and if you go ahead with that particular uh on that particular basis uh do you believe that will be complementary to the existing uh setup or will it because sometimes we’re alleged to support things that are pasti I believe that things have to be complimentary where possible and where appropriate yeah I feel in a way the the the darker outside is you know black fries are called black fries because they wore a white white robe that they put a black coat over and that’s what we’re doing here we’re putting a dark coat onto a lighter building to make the courtyard brighter I don’t think using a darker brick in the courtyard would be a good idea any other questions from the committee councelor noos um yeah it was just another materials question um I think one of the concerns that was raised in the report was about the material for the uh the the extension that faces onto mer stre at the top um I think it described it as being silver um I think the images it looks a lot darker and I was just wondering if we could clarify what material that was and what color it would be so originally we had a silver um corrugated material on the top floor of the extension here but I think we would turn that into a white corrugated material Ren being silver to make it less modern um just there’s a comment from offices about whether white is acceptable I’ve not seen many many white extensions and of that style I I’ll let our design also come back to that but just to also reiterate that uh a condition would be included to ensure that the submission of materials would be provided so we’d have control over over those details was just going to say exactly the same point the conditions there so that we see the materials it’s really important that we do see them um if we get a material in that’s sort of too white or we don’t think’s going to be in keeping and then we’ll have discussions with the architect to get something that’s more appropriate have um I just want to um sorry I missed it did we deal with the concern about the distance um eight you talked about um previously been rejected at 11 point something was I right and then it it’s now 98 sorry you can clarify chair if I can clarify the um the scheme you rejected in applying your policy to a story lower than the front AG the reason so it was a three-story building that’s been approved and built just a few plots up the road at 382 May Street was refused the first time because it was too close primarily it’s now been built out at 11.3 um this B proposal is a four story building at 9.3 now that may not sound a lot this is a very tight Urban context which is why I urge the members to come and have a look for yourselves to see the difference in that distance between the buildings and in the height because it’s graphic because it’s there to see have the officers um do with that point please thank you um so each case is is looked at on it and assessed on its own individual merits um I can only really refer to the previous appeal decision in relation to this application site uh the building proposed is no closer than what was proposed previously it was taller previously and the appeal inspector considered it to be to have an acceptable impact in amenity terms so uh again that is a material consideration uh where it’s been considered acceptable and now it’s reduced in scale so um we also consider it to be acceptable is that clear so that the parameters have been blessed by the appealed process so open if was appealed it’s within the parameters as already challenged and found yeah okay I feel quite happy with that see any other questions should move to the vote and so the proposal is recommendation uh the committee res to Grant Planning Commission subject to conditions completion section 106 legal agreement those in favor please show that’s everybody thank you all right thank you committee thank you officers yeah um no I think we do have delegated reports just in yes chair delegated decisions last one delated it’s there we go other um delegated decisions they offer noting are you to happy to note them I mean please cast your eye over them and bring them to you know see if there’s anything that you don’t like please just get in touch and that is oh I and also there’s no any other business that I consider urgent oh let’s no there isn’t so um with that please sorry sorry there’s there’s the next meeting to note which is the 3D of July correct thank you and with that that it’s the end of the meeting thank you look at that thanks Mario and also