Agenda item

Report by Director for Planning & Place (PN7).

This is an application to amend a condition on an existing planning consent for an asphalt plant at Appleford Depot. The condition states that operations should take place between 6am and 6pm Mondays to Sundays and operations outside of these hours must be subject to prior notification and approval from the Minerals Planning Authority. The applicant has applied to amend the condition so that 24 hour working can take place on 180 days each calendar year with no need to obtain advance approval. The applicant has stated that the current condition wording is not practical because working outside of core hours is often required at short notice to supply asphalt for overnight road works.

There has been no objection from the District Council or the Environmental Health Officer. The site is located some distance from the nearest residential dwellings and a noise report submitted with the application concludes that noise limits will be within acceptable levels. However, there has been an objection from Sutton Courtenay Parish Council.

The report concludes that the proposed amended condition would be in accordance with development plan policy, subject to acceptable details of external lighting being provided.  

Subject to consideration of the further information with regard to the detailed external lighting proposals, it is RECOMMENDED that planning permission for application MW.0109/17 be approved subject to the conditions set out in Annex 2 to the report PN7 as amended by Annex 1 also to that report.

The Committee considered an application to amend a condition to an existing planning consent for an asphalt plant at Appleford Depot. That condition stipulated that operations should only take place between 6am and 6pm Mondays to Sundays and that anything outside of those hours must be subject to prior notification and approval from the Minerals Planning Authority. The amendment now applied for would allow 24 hour working on 180 days each calendar year thereby obviating the need to obtain advance approval. The applicant had stated that the current condition was not practical because of the requirement to work outside the core hours, often at short notice, in order to supply asphalt for overnight road works.

Mary Thompson presented the report together with details of a lighting plan submitted by the applicant since the report’s publication. That had required an additional condition to be added to the officer recommendation as set out in the published addenda.

Councillor Webber referred to high levels of development in this area which in addition to local operations also included Didcot B and Milton Park. All of this had a high cumulative impact on the area and with this particular application, seeking to increase a current 10% limit for work outside core hours to 6 months out of each year that could only increase and it seemed to local residents that operators were not taking these pressures into consideration. That was apparent by a lack of early and meaningful engagement with the local liaison committee which was being bypassed with regard to such applications with operators appearing to ride roughshod over the views of the local community. He felt it was imperative that there should be worthwhile dialogue with operators at the earliest opportunity regarding these applications. With regard to this application he accepted that there were would be emergency situations when material was required but could see little justification for this level of increase.

Councillor Phillips expressed concern regarding potential noise levels and supported calls for greater involvement on the part of operators with the local community.

Ms Thompson confirmed that night time working had been going on for some years with no specific complaints received which related to this specific operation although complaints had been received regarding train movements in the area but that was a separate issue.

Mr Periam confirmed that engagement by operators at a local liaison committee could not be secured by condition but suggested an informative could be added to any permission to that effect.

Councillor Johnston agreed that operators needed to be reminded that realistic and early engagement with local communities was in their own interests.

Councillor Fox-Davies asked whether it was feasible to seek a figure between the current 10% and 180 days in order to mitigate any environmental impact.

Mr Periam advised that it wasn’t possible on the information received to conclude that an increase to 180 days was unreasonable and therefore hard to justify why that figure should be restricted.  There had been no previous limits and the 180 day request had been based on a need for greater flexibility in order to meet demand.

Mr Mytton advised that conditions could be imposed as long as they did not  materially change the application but would need to be justified.

Replying to Councillor Thompson Ms Thompson confirmed that proposed conditions would require records to be kept and made available on request. Also it seemed reasonable to assume that more working at night would reduce daily movements.

Responding to Councillor Roberts Mr Periam confirmed that If complaints were received regarding noise then monitoring would be carried out.  That would be done without giving the operator prior notice but it was unlikely that any monitoring would be carried out over a period of a week at any one time.

RESOLVED: (on a motion by Councillor Reynolds, seconded by Councillor Phillips and carried by 12 votes to 0, Councillor Webber recorded as having abstained) that amended application MW.0109/17 be approved subject to:

(a)           conditions set out in Annex 2 to the report PN7, as amended by Annex 1 also to that report;

(b)        an additional condition for the submission and approval of a detailed lighting plan;

(c)        an additional informative advising the applicant to ensure that future planning proposals at this site were discussed with the local liaison group at an early stage.