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Agenda, decisions and draft minutes

Venue: Virtual

Contact: Graham Warrington  Tel: 07393 001211; E-Mail:  graham.warrington@oxfordshire.gov.uk

Link: video link to meeting

Items
No. Item

1/21

Apologies for Absence and Temporary Appointments

Minutes:

 

 

Apology for Absence

 

 

Temporary Appointment

 

Councillor Dan Sames

Councillor Alan Thompson

 

 

Councillor Mike Fox-Davies

Councillor Liam Walker

 

 

2/21

Declarations of Interest - see guidance note opposite

Minutes:

6 – Serving of the Prohibition Order for the Review of the Mineral Planning Permission (ROMP) at Thrupp Farm and Thrupp Lane, Radley

 

Councillor Johnston advised that he was acquainted with Andrew Coker one of the speakers to this item and also a member of Radley parish Council. With regard to the former he did not consider his acquaintanceship with Mr Coker prejudiced his ability to consider this item and on the latter he was not representing Radley Parish Council. Therefore he intended participating in the debate and any voting thereon.

3/21

Minutes pdf icon PDF 387 KB

To approve the minutes of the meeting held on 19 October 2020 (PN3) and to receive information arising from them.

Minutes:

The minutes of the meeting held on 19 October 2020 were approved.

 

4/21

Petitions and Public Address

This Planning & Regulation Committee will be held virtually in order to conform with current guidelines regarding social distancing. To facilitate new arrangements during the current situation we are asking that requests to speak are sent to graham.warrington@oxfordshire.gov.uk no later than 9am Tuesday 2 March together with a written statement of your presentation. The statement can, however, be provided at a later date but no later than 9 am 2 working days before the meeting (Thursday 4 March). That statement is made available to members of the Committee to ensure that if there are connection issues preventing your participation in the meeting then your views can still be considered.

 

Where a meeting is held virtually and the addressee is unable to participate remotely their written submission will be accepted. Written submissions should be no longer than 1 A4 sheet.

 

Minutes:

 

 

Speaker

 

 

Item

 

Andrew Coker

Richard Dudding

Nick Dunn

 

 

) 6. Review of the Mineral Planning

) Permission (ROMP) at Thrupp

) Lane & Thrupp Farm, Radley

 

Dan Levy

Charlie Maynard

Nick Relph

Councillor Charles Mathew

 

Owen Jenkins

Matt Stopforth

 

 

)

) 7. Construction of a Park & Ride

) Car Park on land west of Cuckoo

) Lane and adjacent to the A40

) Eynsham

)

)

 

 

 

5/21

Serving of the Prohibition Order for the Review of the Mineral Planning Permission (ROMP) at Thrupp Farm and Thrupp Lane, Radley. pdf icon PDF 620 KB

Report by the Assistant Director for Strategic Infrastructure and Planning (PN6)

 

As resolved at the meeting of the Planning & Regulation Committee on 7 September 2020, the report provides an update on progress with regard to the work on the application and Environmental Statement for the review of conditions for the ROMP permission areas DD1 and DD2. The report also provides an update on the progress with planning application no. MW.0075/20 for processing plant, a conveyor and a Bailey Bridge for the removal of mineral extracted from part of the ROMP permission areas DD1 and DD2.  It is recommended that a further update report be provided to the meeting of the Planning & Regulation Committee on 19 July 2021.

 

It is RECOMMENDED that:

 

A)         The Planning & Regulation Committee’s previous conclusion from its meeting on 9 September 2019 (Minute 39/19) that mineral working on the Radley ROMP site has permanently ceased and that there is a duty to serve a Prohibition Order is not rescinded but that the service of the Prohibition Order is held in abeyance pending:

 

i)       the progression and determination of application no. MW.0075/20 for processing plant, a conveyor and a Bailey Bridge for the removal of mineral extracted from part of the ROMP permission areas DD1 and DD2; and

ii)     H. Tuckwell and Sons Ltd providing an update, accompanied by documentary evidence, on progress with regard to the work on the application and Environmental Statement for the review of conditions for the ROMP permission areas DD1 and DD2 to the meeting of the Planning and Regulation Committee on 19th July 2021.

 

B)         Officers are instructed to investigate whether it is possible to serve a partial Prohibition Order should it be concluded that mineral working has permanently ceased over part but not all of the ROMP permission areas DD1 and DD2

 

 

Additional documents:

Minutes:

The Committee considered a report (PN6) providing an update on progress with regard to the work on the application and Environmental Statement for the review of conditions for the ROMP permission areas DD1 and DD2. The report also provided an update on progress with planning application no. MW.0075/20 for a processing plant, conveyor and Bailey Bridge for the removal of mineral extracted from part of the ROMP permission areas DD1 and DD2 and also noted thata further update would be made to the Planning & Regulation Committee on 19 July 2021.

 

Officers presented the report.

 

Andrew Coker addressed the Committee both as local resident and on behalf of other families living at Thrupp and the owner of the nearby lake off Barton Lane, Steve Clarkson.

 

He asked the Committee to note some corrections namely that on the maps provided to the Committee the area of the proposed gravel extraction included  woodland in his ownership and Mr Clarkson’s land and lake. There was no gravel there as it that had already been removed and from their records that had been extracted in 1994.  Therefore, it wasn’t 21 years since extraction had ceased but 27.  That same date should be given for the extraction next to former lakes H and I, known locally as the Orchard Lake with gravelling ceasing in this area nearly 30 years ago.

 

Confusion and shifting time scales had been a characteristic of this planning blight. Whilst huge interest had been shown at times in extracting the gravel, none, apart from that in 1994, had been done and it had been a tactic to keep things ticking over whilst other sites were used.  The extraction at Sutton Wick kept being extended and then, when it looked like coming to an end, the Nyatt Field became a live issue again and residents had lived with that blight. Tuckwell plan to submit a ROMP application and EIA in spring-summer 2022 but what is there to stop that timescale slipping progressively, as every past timescale seemed to have done. He asked the Committee to hold the interested companies to a strict timetable and make them abide by it. 

 

He also asked that the company make a full disclosure of their plans as their piecemeal approach merely led to further confusion. Residents wished to know when extraction was planned to take place, how they intended to do that, what measures would be taken to protect them from noise and dust pollution and most importantly how long this was going to take and what would happen thereafter.

 

He pointed out that this year the Nyatt Field had flooded twice and higher than before with water in the field for over 4 weeks. If there had been an extraction hole, the water would still be there, needing to be pumped out, an extremely noisy operation for those of us living here.

 

A large area of woodland next to the River Thames had been removed since the Committee had met in September last year.  ...  view the full minutes text for item 5/21

6/21

Construction of a park & ride car park providing 850 car parking spaces, cycle spaces, motorcycle spaces, electric vehicle charging points, bus shelters, landscaping, external lighting, public open space, toilets, seating, fencing, habitat creation, drainage features, new access from Cuckoo Lane, new roundabout with access onto A40, an eastbound bus lane approximately 6.5km in length from the park & ride site to the A40 bridge over the Duke's Cut Canal, two sections of westbound bus lane (each approximately 500m in length), new shared use footway/cycleway, widening of Cassington New Bridge, junction improvements, new crossings, new footbridge alongside Cassington Halt Bridge, and associated works on Land West of Cuckoo Lane and Adjacent to the A40, Eynsham, West Oxfordshire OX29 4PU - Application R3.0057/19 pdf icon PDF 1004 KB

The report sets out the proposed development for which planning permission has been applied under application no. R3.0057/19 for the construction of a Park & Ride car park on land West of Cuckoo Lane and Adjacent to the A40, Eynsham. The report considers the application against the development plan and other material considerations including consultation responses and representations received and recommends that subject to conditions to be determined by the Assistant Director of Strategic Infrastructure and Planning and to no new material considerations arising during the open consultation period, that the application be approved.

 

Subject to the satisfaction of the Assistant Director of Strategic Infrastructure and Planning in consultation with the committee Chairman and Deputy Chairman that following the end of the current consultation period no new material considerations have arisen, it is RECOMMENDED that planning permission for R3.0057/19 be approved subject toconditions to be determined by the Assistant Director of Strategic Infrastructure and Planning, to include those set out in Annex 1 to the report.

 

 

 

 

Additional documents:

Minutes:

The Committee considered (PN7) a report setting an application for the construction of a Park & Ride car park on land West of Cuckoo Lane and adjacent to the A40, Eynsham.

 

Officers presented the report together with an update detailing a notification from the National Planning Case Work Unit at the Ministry for Housing, Communities and local Government that a request had been received to have the application called in for determination by the Secretary of State. The case officer at the Unit had advised that they would be unlikely make a decision on whether to call in the application until a decision had been made at local level and so officer advice to the Committee was to proceed with consideration of the application in the normal way.

 

Officers then responded to questions from:

 

Councillor Walker - access onto Cuckoo Lane and whether that would be one or two way would be a matter for the applicants to respond to. With regard to Horsemere Lane feasibility work was under way to determine the signal timing and layout of the junction at Cassington and would be taken into account as part of the closure of Horsemere Lane but the intention was that Horsemere lane would close.

 

Consensus was that it should be two-way.

 

Councillor Johnston – as the application was for works connected with the park and ride site and A40 the question whether or not this proposal compromised the future provision of a railway line between Witney and Oxford might be a matter for the applicants to respond to.

 

Councillor Handley – the application has been submitted with the expectation that it be determined as expeditiously as possible.

 

Dan Levy spoke as both a West Oxfordshire District Councillor for Eynsham Ward and also as the District Cycling Champion. Like most people, he encouraged use of public transport,and appreciated the thinking behind this scheme and while there were good things included in the plans he did not believe it should be approved.

 

The Park & Ride, dualling, bus lanes, etc, were designed pre-pandemic with no certainty what the levels of travelling and commuting into, for example, Oxford would be when things returned to some sort of normality.  The original modelling of traffic flows had been widely criticized because of a failure to accurately determine where cars were heading beyond Wolvercote.  However, even if it had been impeccable, it was certainly now outdated and it seemed unwise to use it as a basis for such a massive scheme.

 

Also, modelling had looked at A40 traffic rather than including the effect on other roads, such as the B4049, from traffic going to the Park and Ride nor the effect on traffic heading west on the A40, which was substantially worse than east.  

 

The County Council had agreed a motion, brought by Councillor Mathew, to explore the transport options within the A40 corridor which might include a railway and the railway minister had suggested that such a scheme was worth exploring so surely it would  ...  view the full minutes text for item 6/21