Agenda item

Report of the Head of Development Management – Community Development Services

The Head of Development Management – Community Development Services sought determination of a planning application for erection of 5 No. dwellings at 459A Scalby Road, Scalby, Scarborough, North Yorkshire, YO12 6UA on behalf of Mr Andrew Winters.

Updating their report, the planning officer advised that the applicant had decided to withdraw the associated outline application for a residential development on the adjacent site to the rear of 459A Scalby Road (to have been considered as the next item on the agenda), but this did not impact on the decision making process nor the report for this application, save that officers were now proposing the following amended reasons for refusal as circulated at the meeting:

‘Local Plan Policy HC3: Affordable Housing and the subtext (6.48) makes it clear that planning permission should be refused for development that makes no or inadequate contribution to affordable housing where provision could reasonably be made; where the scale of development (in terms of site area and/or number of units is manipulated to fall below the threshold requiring provision of on-site affordable housing; and, that sub-division of a site and submission of individual planning applications will be challenged.

The wider development site, including adjoining land to the east which is in the same ownership as the application site, was initially sub-divided into two separate adjoining planning application sites which were been submitted simultaneously. In the opinion of the Local Planning Authority, there is no clear and justified reason as to why the land has not been submitted as one entity. There are no technical reasons, including drainage, flood risk, ecology/biodiversity, or highways safety that indicates why the sub-division has occurred. Following publication of the recommendation of refusal for the application site and adjoining land, the associated outline application was withdrawn at a late stage in the decision-making process.

Consequently, the proposed scale of development falls under the threshold to provide affordable housing units (10+), however the Local Planning Authority deems that the application site should contribute to affordable housing provision taking into account the adjacent development site (Planning application Reference ZF24/01622/OL – up to 18 dwellings which was recently withdrawn). No affordable housing provision is proposed on this Full application site (5 dwellings), with the previous stated intention to provide the full 30% affordable housing provision on the Outline part of the site, despite this being described in the submission as being for speculative development that is likely to be sold as land with planning permission for housing. This would have imposed a significantly increased and disproportionate requirement on the area of the outline application site to provide affordable housing which may have made development of that site unviable and, therefore, threaten the delivery of both affordable and market housing. The density of the application site also falls significantly below the expected 30 dwellings per hectare, conflicting with Local Plan Policy DEC3 which states that proposals should make efficient use of land. The density of development should be in keeping with the character of the local area, with a general density level per hectare being used as a benchmark. The development falls significantly below this benchmark with no justification that the chosen density is appropriate. It is considered that this is also a consequence of sub-dividing the wider site which prevents it being development in a more efficient manner and contrary to policy DEC 3 of the Scarborough Borough Local Plan which requires proposals to make efficient use of land.

In the opinion of the Local Planning Authority, this artificial, unnecessary and deliberate subdivision of the land constitutes site manipulation to avoid making any provision for affordable housing, therefore circumventing the affordable housing requirement. As such, the proposal conflicts with Local Plan Policies HC, HC3, DEC 3 and the guidance within the Affordable Housing SPD.’

During consideration of the application, the Committee discussed the following issues:

·       The artificial manipulation and subdivision of the site to attempt to circumvent the affordable housing requirement

·       The low density of the proposed development which did not make efficient use of land

·       The harm to wildlife on the site already caused by its clearance

Member expressed support for the proposed amended reasons for refusal.

The decision:

That planning permission be REFUSED for the amended reasons as set out above.

Voting record:

A vote was taken and the motion was declared carried unanimously.