Agenda item

Report by the Director for Planning & Place (PN10)

The application proposes a new single storey three classroom teaching block, including withdrawal room, toilets, stores, ancillary rooms together with minor modifications to hard and soft landscaping and modified parking arrangements. The site lies in a conservation area and there would be a loss of school playing field. Various objections have been received including on these issues but also including the impact on the local highway network of additional associated vehicle movements. The application is considered against development plan policies and other material considerations and recommended for the grant of conditional planning permission subject to the completion first of a unilateral undertaking to secure the payment of a School Travel Plan monitoring fee.

Subject to the applicant first providing a Unilateral Undertaking for the payment of the School Travel Plan monitoring fee of £1240 it is RECOMMENDED that planning permission for R3.0114/18 be approved subject to conditions to be determined by the Director of Planning and Place, to include the following:

i.          Detailed compliance;

ii.         Permission to be implemented within three years;

iii.       Provision of a School Travel Plan prior to the first occupation of the development;

iv.       Provision of additional scooter and cycle parking;

v.         Submission, approval and implementation of a Construction Management Plan;

vi.       Provision of external lighting scheme;

vii.      Provision of bird boxes.

The Committee considered (PN10) an application for a new single storey three classroom teaching block, including withdrawal room, toilets, stores, ancillary rooms together with minor modifications to hard and soft landscaping and modified parking arrangements at Benson CE School.

Mary Hudson presented the report and referred to two emails received following publication of the report. In the first District Councillor Felix Bloomfield had referred to the Benson Neighbourhood Development Plan which acknowledged and supported the need for school expansion on sustainability grounds and to the strategic need for this school extension for the future education of the children of Benson and surrounding villages. He urged that the application be approved along with the transport management plan conditions to ease congestion on Oxford Road at peak times (at the beginning and end of the school day) and reinstate Oxford road as two-way at these times.

The second from Chris Hambleton of Frank Wise Associates the architects for the scheme explained the reasoning behind the current proposal and how during the design stage a number of options had been considered. The relatively compact layout of the existing school had been a defining factor which meant that a direct extension or building location closer to the existing school had not been deemed a feasible solution and realistically only allowed for some form of expansion either to the north or the east of the main building. Any extension of the school building eastwards would have a significant impact upon the existing teaching facilities with potential problems maintaining adequate daylight penetration and ventilation into existing classrooms. Also building an extension onto the existing school would likely cause considerable disruption to the operations of the school during the construction of the new building. The need to maintain safe routes into and around the existing school was paramount particularly during the construction process as was the need to secure access to play spaces. There were site constraints from both land ownership boundaries which did not allow sufficient space to expand north and the majority of the trees on the site being listed.

Bearing in mind the levels of new housing proposed for this area Councillor Matelot felt it imperative for this expansion to go ahead and therefore supported the recommendation.

Councillor Phillips agreed with the need for increased classroom space but had some reservations regarding the need to build on a conservation area and why construction work could not be carried out during school holidays and whether or not these issues could be explored further.

Councillor Webber expressed concern over the apparent disconnect between the property and education resource.

Councillor Mark Gray referred to recently agreed proposals for a 1000 new house build in Benson agreed to help secure a new bypass for the village. That would inevitably lead to an increased demand for school places and potentially require further development at the school and so he questioned why efforts had not been made to secure a new build school as part of the proposed housing. The current proposals for the school would remove 20% of an already small playing field space and while acknowledging the support of the local district councillor he pointed out that there were others who were very concerned that this proposal in its current form did not appear to secure the best deal for the school or the village. There were a number of questions which remained unanswered and he felt the best option would be to defer to explore all alternatives.

Mr Periam advised that deferral was an option. However, he pointed out that the Committee could not in his view consider matters which might or might not happen in the future and which were not pertinent to this application.

Councillor Sames, however, felt that the loss of 20% space was a material consideration and with regard to potential development at the school raised the issue of whether the school would be fit for purpose in the future. In his view whether the county was able to provide adequately for what was happening locally was a material consideration which the Committee needed to consider.

RESOLVED: (on a motion by Councillor Sames, seconded by Councillor Walker and carried by 12 votes to 0) to:

(a)          defer consideration of Application R3.0114/18 to enable further consideration of the following issues:

1)        could the building be an extension to the existing and so limiting the impact on the conservation area (and keeping the children dry…) and whether there was any scope for it to be located elsewhere within the school site anyway with less impact on the conservation area e.g. using the existing netball/hard play area;

2)        why the design of the building couldn’t be more reflective of the fact that it was in the conservation area rather than just a reflection of the existing, arguably poorly designed, main school building;

3)        whether additional development could be provided for by building upwards rather than outwards – strong foundations on any extension granted now to cater for any possible future additional requirement for additional accommodation with a second storey;

4)        investigate if there was any potential to obtain a replacement school site from housing developers undertaking a 1000 house development in the village;

5)        whether or not these proposals reflected NPPF guidelines in so far as planning policies and decisions should ensure that developments would function well and add to the overall quality of the area, not just in the short term but over the lifetime of the development;

(6)    cost of the development in the context of how it would compare with building a new school taking into account the income from selling the existing school site for development.

(b)          the architect and/or agent be asked to attend the meeting when this matter would to be reconsidered.