Agenda and minutes

NOTED

1.         The Chairman welcomed all attendees to the meeting and confirmed the timetable of the meeting as set out on the agenda front page.

2.         The Legal Services representative read a statement regarding conduct and order of the meeting, and confirmed that neither the Planning Committee nor the Planning Department had been involved in statements reported in the press in advance of the consideration of this matter by this committee.

Apologies for absence were received from Councillors Chamberlain, Hurer, McCannah and Simon. Apologies for absence were also received from David Burrowes MP and Nick De Bois MP due to parliamentary business.

There were no declarations of interest.

NOTED

1.         An introduction and update from Aled Richards, Head of Development Management, including the following:

a.  Confirmation of the three locations involved in the flood alleviation scheme, the planning history and background, and the differences between the current scheme and the previous application granted in 2005.

b.  Proposals and key planning issues at the three locations (Enfield Golf Course, N21; Montagu Road, Edmonton; and Bury Street West) were described.

c.  Details of the duration of the proposed works and vehicle movements and access routes.

d.  Receipt of a 205 signature petition in support of the scheme.

e.  Receipt of a 95 signature petition from Grange Park residents and Cheyne Walk Open Space users group in objection to the scheme.

f.  Receipt of 86 letters of objection from residents, and since the publication of the report receipt of a further 29 letters of objection. The 21 letters received between 2 November and 9 November had been emailed to all Members of the Planning Committee including hard copies made available to all Members; the further 8 letters received today had been emailed to the committee members and tabled in hard copy to be read in advance of the meeting.

g.  Receipt of a further 2 letters of support from residents since the publication of the report also emailed and copied to the committee members.

h.  The key issues raised were summarised.

i.  The local planning authority had taken all representations and statutory consultees’ responses into consideration and found no sustainable reason why the application should be refused. The officers’ recommendation was therefore that planning permission be granted subject to conditions.

j.  Receipt of a letter from David Burrowes MP, which had been copied to all committee members, and was read out in full.

k.  Amendment of Condition 20, with the agreement of the applicant, in respect of hours of delivery of construction and demolition materials, for the reason of safeguarding of residential amenity and minimising conflict with drop off and pick up from local schools.

2.         The deputation of Mr David Haywood, on behalf of Enfield Golf Club, in objection to the officers’ recommendation, including:

a.  Enfield Golf Club was mindful of flooding in Edmonton and prevention of its recurrence, but was anxious about the long term future of the club if the course became prone to more flooding when the bund was in place and felt that the Environment Agency (EA) had not yet adequately addressed their concerns.

b.  Serving the whole borough fairly should mean taking all communities into account and not providing improvements for one group at the expense of another.

c.  The club did not accept all contentions were fully reported in the officers’ report.

d.  The proposal was very complicated and technical, and it had been a problem getting advice.

e.  The club was open to the whole local community, and had a thriving junior section.

f.  A lot of research had gone into the original EA proposal, which it believed would  ...  view the full minutes text for item 417.