Agenda item

Cabinet Member: Environment

Forward Plan Ref: 2018/006

Contact: Hugh Potter, Team Leader, Area Operations Hub Tel: (01865) 810228

Report by Director for Infrastructure Delivery (CA6).

The report considers the proposed provision of residents and visitors parking permits to Wingfield House, 2A Gathorne Road, Headington, Oxford, following the rescission of the previous decision by the Cabinet Member for Environment on 8 February 2018.

The Cabinet is RECOMMENDED not to approve the proposed changes to the CPZ Order as set out in the report.

Cabinet considered a report relating to the proposed provision of residents and visitors parking permits to Wingfield House, 2A Gathorne Road, Headington, Oxford, following the rescission of the previous decision by the Cabinet Member for Environment on 8 February 2018.

The Chairman referred to late representations Cabinet Members had received that morning. He invited Mr Philcox to address the points made to share them with the meeting and added that if necessary he would allow Mr Philcox additional time.

Julian Philcox, Director, JP Planning Ltd, spoke against the recommendation. He highlighted his email and attachments of 4^th May 2018 including a letter dated 4^th May), a parking stress survey (5^th February 2018) and the ‘Powergen’ Court of Appeal Case. He was concerned that no regard had been given to this material. The Powergen case was vital in considering whether it was possible to re-open a case determined by a planning inspector. The parking stress survey showed a significant underutilisation of parking. Mr Philcox referred to the decision of the planning inspector stating that the decision had been open to challenge but no such challenge had been made. There had been three opportunities to look at this decision during the planning decision process including the opportunity to appeal the inspector’s decision. Mr Philcox stressed the principle established by Powergen and the duty to co-operate. Nothing had materially changed since the decision and he called on Cabinet to make the difficult decision in the face of opposition to allow the changes to the CPZ order. He stated that there was capacity and that there would be no impact on parking stress or parking safety. He urged Cabinet not to ignore the Inspector’s decision and the principle of Powergen nor to rely on what he believed was flawed consultation.

Responding to questions from Councillor Constance, Mr Philcox clarified that the information had been submitted late as he and his client had not been notified of the consultation process, had only met with the case officer last week and had felt that they had to respond to the Cabinet report. On paragraph 34 of the report which was highlighted by Councillor Constance to illustrate that it was open to the cabinet member to make a separate decision Mr Philcox refuted this as he believed that the appeal inspector’s decision left no wriggle room.

Harold Grant, as the developer, builder and landlord of Wingfield House commented that he had sent fuller comments to Cabinet Members. He agreed with all that had been said by Mr Philcox and was of the view that the matter had not been dealt with for the best of all involved. No residents should have any concerns over the provision of basic needs for parking. The Council had a duty to be fair to all residents. This matter had already been determined by the Secretary of State through the planning process. The continuation of the consultation had been an attempt to justify the recommendation not to change the CPZ order. Mr Grant believed that the parking survey data was flawed and asked that the modest request that would not affect other residents be granted.

Responding to a question from Councillor Hudspeth Mr Grant indicated that he did now make prospective tenants aware that there was no parking and that it did cause a problem.

District Councillor Altaf-Khan, Councillor for Headington and Deputy Opposition Leader, Oxford City Council, highlighted that there was parking stress and spoke in favour of the recommendation. He noted that the CPZ area was very large and asked that this be reviewed.

Councillor Roz Smith, local councillor for Headington & Quarry, spoke in support of the recommendations commenting that the development had undertaken as a car free development.  She highlighted parking issues in the area and suggested that to amend the order would open the floodgates to similar requests that would cite this decision as a change of policy by the County Council. Responding to questions from Councillor Constance, Councillor Smith confirmed that with Access to Headington some parking spaces would be lost and that access for carers would be impacted.

Councillor John Sanders, Shadow Cabinet Member for Environment and local councillor for Cowley, spoke in support of the recommendation commenting that in his Division there were very many car free developments. Conditions for the development concerned were not disputed at the time and the appeal was an attempt to undermine the County Council’s parking policy. He was pleased that all three political parties were in agreement and believed it was essential that the change to the CPZ not be allowed.

Chanika Farmer, Principal Transport Engineer/Planner advised Cabinet that there had been a review of legal powers which confirmed that the Council was not obligated to follow the appeal decision. The decision made by the Cabinet Member in October 2017 was a decision open to Councillor Constance to take. However, as the decision was being taken afresh following its rescission in February 2018 consultation and surveys had been carried out. Ms Farmer explained that Mr Philcox and Mr Grant had been missed off the original consultation but that both had been given additional time to respond which they had done. In addition, she had met with them both last week. She did not believe that their record of that meeting in their letters to Cabinet were an accurate reflection of that meeting.

Councillor Constance detailed the additional time given to Mr Philcox and Mr Grant as part of the public consultation.  Ms Farmer confirmed that the parking surveys had followed the Lambeth methodology. At the request of Cabinet, Nick Graham, Director of Law & Governance responded to the points raised about the Powergen case. He did note that there had been a legal challenge to the earlier decision, made by Councillor Constance, but this had been found to be not unlawful. The judicial review made no reference to Powergen and the separate legal powers were set out in the report at paragraph 9 onwards. There was no new information today but there was further information and it was within Cabinet’s powers to make a separate and different decision. The decision of the court in the judicial review had upheld this principle. With regard to the Powergen case this concerned a separate set of regulations and there had been no reason for the refusal. The two cases were not analogous. As covered in the report it was wrong in law to suggest that the Council was bound by the decision of the Planning Inspector.

Councillor Constance in moving the recommendations emphasised the legal position and that the decision had been rescinded to get further information.

During discussion Councillor Hudspeth accepted that these decisions could be extremely contentious. The planning permission for Wingfield House had been granted based on a car free development and to change that could open the flood gates on other car free developments. He disagreed with the planning inspectors and in this case felt they had made a wrong decision.

RESOLVED:             (unanimously) not to approve the proposed changes to the CPZ Order as set out in the report.