RheDIn gweithio i allan i'i dynol gyda'r dymreithio gyda'r ddweud o holl yn wirthyn nhw'n meddwl ar y llifoedd sydd wedi'u llиков sydd wedi'u llifoedd y gallwn Hyffordd. RheDIn gweithio gyda'r ddweud yma, Henry Batchelor, mae'r cyfeirgynig unig wedi'u meddwl i'r cyfeirgynig gyda'r chi'n lleodraethawr Cyfeirgynig. Cymru'n gyfer hynny, ac hefyd yn ni'n fnug a yma i'r llezi i'r llei. Gwlad yma fel byddwn yn ll neighbourhood hwnnw y dweud i ddiwrddio cyd-feyddwyr i ddin,車 i'r bywch gweithgofaint yma yn ddod hynny, boeddiwn i gaelSaerth. Dw i'n ddechrau i'n ddod hyn yn y ddysgu'r hynny'n hyd weithio bod gweithwyrbarthol rydych chi'n ffordd ar yr ystyried? Reidio'n datblygedd. Roedd hynny'n ddod hynny yn ddod hynny'n ddod hynny. You like to make your way up to the top table? While councillor Fhane is getting ready, I'm going to run through a few brief housekeeping announcements. Firstly, can everyone in the room note that everything on your desk, including your laptop screen is likely to be broadcast at some point? The camera follows the microphone after it is switched on, so councillors and officers are requested to wait a couple of seconds before speaking to allow the camera to catch up with the mic. If the fire alarm sounds at any point, please do leave the chamber and make your way down the stairs. Do not use the lift. The safe assembly point is next to the marketing suite, halfway along the business park. Can those participating in the meeting via the live stream indicate you wish to speak via the chat column? Please do not use the chat column for any other purpose other than registering to speak. Please make sure your device is fully charged and that you switch your microphone off unless you're invited to do so. Otherwise, please ensure you've switched off or silenced any other devices you have so that they do not interrupt proceedings. As requested yesterday by email, please use a headset if possible when speaking and hold the microphone close to your mouth. When you're invited to address the meeting, please make sure your microphone is switched on and after you've finished addressing the meeting, please make sure your microphone is switched off. Members in the room, please note that if we do need to vote on any item, we should do so via the microphones in front of us. Only those members present in the chamber can vote or propose or second motions. Committee members present in the chamber, we're now going to do a roll call, so I will invite each of you to introduce yourselves. After I call your name, please switch on your mic, wait a couple of seconds and introduce yourselves. So as mentioned earlier, my name is Councillor Henry Batchelor and one of the members for Linton and I am the regular Vice-Chair of this committee. I would now ask Councillor Peter Fane to introduce himself. Peter Fane, shelf award. Thank you very much. Councillor Dr Martin Cahn. Martin Cahn. This is an infant in an orchard park ward. Thank you. Councillor Joe's Hales. Councillor Joe's Hales Melbourne Ward. Thank you. Councillor Jeff Harvey. Councillor Jeff Harvey, I'm the member for Borsham Ward. Thank you. Councillor Dr Timmy Hawkins. Mike. Good morning everyone. Timmy Hawkins, Member for Caledricot Ward. Thank you very much. Councillor Judith Rippeth. Good morning. Councillor Judith Rippeth, Member for Melton and Water Beach Ward. Thank you. Councillor Deborah Roberts. Good morning Chairman. Good morning everybody. I'm Deborah Roberts and I'm the District Councillor for the Foxton Ward. Thank you very much. Councillor Heather Williams please. Morning all. Heather Williams and I represent the Mordans Ward. Thank you and Councillor Dr Richard Williams. Morning Chair. I'm Richard Williams, I'm the Member for the Whittlesford Ward. Thank you. Last but not least, Councillor Eileen Wilson please. Good morning. Eileen Wilson, Member for Cottenham Ward. Thank you very much. So the meeting is core eight so we can proceed. We also have two officers supporting us in the room. To my left we have Stephen Kelly who's the Joint Director of Planning. Stephen, if you'd like to introduce yourself. Good morning everyone. Yes, Director of Planning. I might have a tea for the officers. Thank you very much. And we have supporting us from a legal standpoint Mr Stephen Reed. Morning Chair, morning Members. Thank you very much. And we also have joining us online our Democratic Services Officer who'll be clarking the meeting today. Lawrence Damari-Hulman. Lawrence. Good morning everyone. Yep, Lawrence Damari-Hulman, Democratic Services Officer. Thank you very much. Members, if at any point you need to leave the meeting do indicate that so it can be recorded in the minutes please. We'll be breaking regularly as possible given where we are in the agenda. If any member feels they need a break sooner do just put your hand up and I'll do my best to accommodate. Okay, Members, we should have the main agenda pack. Sorry, Councillor Roberts please. Thank you very much Chairman. As we're expecting probably that this is going to be a long meeting can I have your permission not to wear my mask during the meeting because my lungs are a bit winter, winter affected at the moment. I've brought my inhaler so if I start coughing I'll do something about it but it's a long time probably and I won't be able to keep up with it. I will wear them when I go out of the room and in the building. Thank you. That's fine, thank you. I'd rather no one kills over during the meeting that's absolutely fine. Members, you should all have the main thick agenda pack that would be sent out but also a number of supplements which I believe Lauren has just handed out hard copies of. Do all Members have all the relevant bits of documentation? Councillor Hales, are you shaking your head? No. Do we have any more paper copies of the supplements for Councillor Hales? No Chairman, we can get more copies printed out. Lawrence if you're listening would it be possible to print some out and bring them for Councillor Hales please? Yes Chair, I will get on that right away for you. Thank you very much. Members, before we start the meeting given the extraordinary nature of the two applications we're looking at today I would like to formalise the structure of the meeting and also given the fact that there is a lot of public interest in this I would also like to initially propose a motion regarding public speakers given the fact we usually only have one public speaker but as I said this is a very sensitive application so I feel it's probably more appropriate if we allow every member of public that has registered to speak that chance to speak I think that is the best way forward so that is a proposal I would like to make to the committee to see if that's agreeable. If someone likes to second that Councillor Roberts. Members are we all in agreement for that? Great, thank you very much. Also members in terms of trying to formalise a structure for today again I would like to make a proposal that we structure it in this way so we have the officers introduction of the report first of all which we roughly around 20 minutes will then at that point have questions of clarity for the planning officer and then also any supporting officers that we have with us i.e. drainage environment agency etc we then go to public speakers and after that we then go to the debate which members I think you may have seen from an e-mail a couple of days ago has been grouped for ease so we grouped into four different groupings in the report it will be sections one and two then three then four five six and finally seven to ten again that is just for ease of trying to run the meeting in a fluid way so again I would like to make that proposal I didn't know if anyone would like to second that Councillor Hawkins Members are we generally in agreement for that? Agreed, thank you very much. Okay we'll move on to the agenda then so we start with item two, Apologies for Absence please Lawrence. Yes Chair, only Apology for Absence today is from the usual chair Councillor Pippa Halings and Councillor Joes Hales has kindly stepped in to substitute in her stead. Great, thank you very much and welcome Councillor Hales. Agender item three, Declarations of Interest Members does anyone have any declarations of interest they wish to declare at this point? I don't see any but of course if anyone becomes aware of any please do raise that during the meeting. Okay Members we're about to move into the substantive items on the agenda we start with item number four which is on page one of our agenda it's an application for North Stofaise 3A Wellington Road, Long Stanton, Cambridshire the proposal is four amongst other things four thousand homes, two primary schools a local centre, community retail and associated services food, drink, community leisure residential use is another accommodation and a raft of other things which would take me too long to read so I will skip over that the applicant is Holmes England we have a raft of key material considerations in front of us the reason it is in front of us today is because the proposal is a very large scale development and it's of strategic importance to the district the presenting officer is Mr Paul Ricketts but before I invite Paul to introduce the report I believe Mr Kelly would like to say a few words before we jump in Thank you chair and I'll be very brief it was really just to highlight the availability to members today of technical resources that are not in the room including from my planning team Mr Ricketts, Mr Huntingdon and Miss Brown and Miss Kelly the environment agency highways officers, the education service the lead local flood authority the sustainability officer and the housing officer are available to you online we're also joined by the councils that legal advisers obviously used to read but also our adviser from Dentons in respect of planning with all matters Thank you chair, with that I'll hand over to Mr Ricketts Thank you very much, Paul, good morning Good morning chair Good morning members of the planning committee and ladies and gentlemen, I've got to set back so I don't mind the screen Before you start actually, could I just make a request to councillors handling Mr Ian Rawls would you mind switching your cameras off please we'd just like to see Mr Ricketts at this stage Ian Rawls, are you able to switch off your camera please Nothing personal, we'd just like to see the presenting officer Thank you very much, sorry Paul, back over to you All right, now lovely, okay so I'm going to open up my screen and hopefully have a powerpoint on here Let's see what we've got, yeah here we are Is that coming up for people? Yes, we can see All right, excellent, okay Now, thank you chair, you've already and so Stephen set up the what the application is for and how it's going to be structured there are a few things that I will be saying just really to set the scene in terms of the proposal I won't read out the full description of proposal as you say, it's rather lengthy is an application that's been subject to environmental impact assessment and that environmental statement has been assessed thoroughly by officers involved with third party and statutory consultees regarding these matters and this is just an ear or photo showing the the rest of the site of phase 3A Phase 3A, I'm just going to go through some of the site description and surroundings, I won't read the entire thing but nonetheless it's a site that comprises 210 hectares of land that mostly consists of the southern part of the former Ocantyn earfield and barracks and the proposed access routes the proposed access route, which is referred to as the southern access road east connects the south east next end of the application site to Dry Drayton Road the phase 3A application site is largely bound to the north by north so phase 2 to the east by the Cambridge to guide the busway and to the south by the village of Ocantyn and to the west by arable farmland sorry for the second sorry chair, is it possible for the cursor to be changed and indicate exactly what it is referring to please I think if you can activate the laser pointer feature that will be handy for us can you see my cursor at all? we can, it's not hugely clear if you could change to, there is a laser pointer function now you're reaching my, I think I'm going to get some assistance here I'm going to get some assistance I see there's technical support coming so yes, technical support we'll give you a second current slide, lovely right click pointer options much better, thank you very much ok thank you very much so we're on my now we have here in terms of the key elements of the site we've got Longstanton here the village here Military Lake in here which is going to be retained with a centre around it the Ocantyn just here and phase 2 is just here ok, where am I now I need to now go to the next slide sorry can you see that now so it's generally flat a land occupied by the former military airfield and a mixture of open grass land, arable land and fields interspersed with woodland belts and groups of trees and small water courses the lake known as the military pond is located in the south-west part of the site the north stale phase 2 access road known as southern access road traverses approximately north south across the south-western part of phase 3a ok that's the east road the west road sorry part of the former airfield perimeter road within phase 3a is currently used as a haul road as part of phase 2 let's get phase 2, it's in here all I want to do now is just go to the description of the proposal can I get the sorry about this, I'll try to get rid of the laser now so I can get back to the printer sorry about this, I'm just trying to navigate through these different screens I think it's easier for take it off the slideshow to be honest yeah if you could please yeah ok so I've gone through just a brief description of the of the application site this application completes the main site of so I'm going to go now to the description of proposal the planning application also completes the main site of Ockentham barracks which was originally identified in the north south era action plan and early development plan documents the application proposes a further 4,000 dwellings which would total 9,000 dwellings being delivered on the main form of barracks site a further one sorry the applicant is the master developer upon phase 3b which is subject to a later report in this same agenda it is considered that proposal comprises a sustainable development having regard to paragraph 11 of the national planning policy framework and is therefore recommended subject to necessary safeguarding conditions and the prize signing of the section 106 agreement the application proposed up to 4,000 homes in a mix to be agreed with the range of additional works and facilities being proposed to support the creation of a new town the additional works include the creation of a local centre and mixed used employment zone which support the town centre in phase 2 the secondary mixed use zones are located around the perimeter of the local centre along a central boulevard up to the military lake and the other anticipated key activity nodes the total potential capacity for these uses at ground floor in the secondary zones is approximately 13,000 square metres two primary schools are proposed both the three forms of entry and with the appropriate level of sports pitches the approximate locations of the proposed schools are shown on the parameter plans will just go to the parameter plans as long as I can navigate to this other screen yeah there it is yeah sorry just going through the plans yeah won't this space it's a narrow case okay okay thank you alright thanks so we've got two just one for you the location of the primary schools um yeah detailed sighting and design would be determined in conjunction with the county council's own planning processes included in the proposals would be 67 hectares of open space broken down as follows outdoor sport outdoor sport 13.5 hectares formal children's play space just over 4 hectares other children's play space just under 4.5 hectares allotment and community orchards just over 4 hectares and informal open space 41 hectares included within the normal sorry included in the informal open space our proposal to retain the military lake I'm using that too that's my money that's my transcript to see yeah sorry included in the informal open space our proposal to retain the military lake in the lake and include a new lake capable of supporting outdoor swimming on the position of the former runway initially named as the runway lake the total area of these lakes and water bodies is estimated at just over 3 hectares three buildings are proposed to support the views of formal open space for sport and recreation north and sport hub change in social facilities a western sport hub storage and toilet facility and the northern sport hub change in facility to the south a new link road is proposed known as the southern access road east we'll just come to here between the application site to the south of oklinton which would also connect to the southern access road west the proposals are set out in three parameter plans building heights movement and access open space and land use land use is one that you're seeing right now then you've got movement and access and then you have building heights the application is accompanied by the following supporting information which is listed in paragraph 37 of the main reports I won't be reading through that the design access statement and development principles seek to establish the overall principles underpinning the proposed development whilst allowing sufficient flexibility to enable the subsequent reserve matters application to respond to the detailed considerations associated with each element of the proposals this allows the general disposition of land uses across the site, layer of routes and infrastructure and key development parameters such as building heights to be assessed and determined at the outline application stage within the site there are four cantilevered pillboxes which are grade 2 listed these world war 2 pillboxes are present on periphery of the former ear field which occupies much of phase 3a the southern northern narrow portion of the site includes oklinton brick which flows to this part of the site in a northeasterly direction the village of oklinton is located south of phase 3a and is separated from the site by a tree cover on the hedros around the site periphery beyond this towards the south west liars farmland and the A14 the A14 is a key strategic road and joins the M11 motorway two kilometers further to the south oklinton business park is adjacent to the south eastern site boundary lands to the eastern northeaster phase 3a is bound by the Cambridge guided busway beyond which liars farmland, Beckbrooke is located to the east of the guided busway phase 2 is located to the north of phase 3a and this ear includes a number of vacant buildings associated with the former oklinton barracks together with graze land and fellow land awaiting redevelopment of water tower and apple farmland further to the northeast land to the west of 3a boarded by the B1050 sorry B1050 which runs in north south direction and connects with the A14 approximately 500 metres south of the site and electricity substation is located adjacent to the B1050 and 40 metres away from the site bar farm and cottages are located approximately 400 metres north of the site boundary adjacent to the B1050 the village of Longstanton board is a northern section of phase 3a as well as phase 2 are the heritage assets in the area include the village pump all saints church and St Michael's church and the manner together with the important village setting between Longstanton all saints and Longstanton St Michael's in oklinton parkland setting of Wetic Hall is an important heritage asset Longstanton and Oklinton also contain conservation areas to the links between Rampton Drift and Longstanton to the south west to Rampton in the northeast the right of way this right of way crosses the temperature guide busway via that grades crossing and also links Rampton Tiston and a footpath running adjacent to Cotlandam load the byway routes through this phase 2 site and is currently closed due to construction of the primary road and secondary school but it's due to reopen in spring 2022 a sheared footway cycleway crosses over the guide bus route to the south at Westwick this cycleway forms part of the national cycle network route 51 Sleeter Cymru to the south and Huntington by over and Swavesy sorry to the north there's a public byway which routes south of Longstanton and runs south towards Bar Hill this does not provide a crossing over the A14 a byway links byway link to the north west via bridleway routes along Overroad and Rampa Road acts as Swavesy and the Oose Valley way to the north west the eastern section of Rampa Road from the Overroad junction towards Utternstrove is marked as part of a long distance footpath where there is no provision for pedestrians section one the principle of development is established through paragraph 11 of the National Planning Policy Framework which addresses the issue of presumption in favour of sustainable development and decision making it seeks to ensure the promotion and delivery of sustainable development which covers economic, social and environmental objectives the application proposal is required to meet the up-to-date development plan policy of the era which in this instance is the SCDC local plan and the NAAP relevant policies for the local plan is S6 the development strategy is 2031 which states that major site allocations within south Cymru to local development framework 2007 to 2010 together with the e-reaction plan for Northisto except as amended by Policy SS5 are carried forward as part of the development plan to 2031 or until such time as the developments are complete Policy SS5 is a Northisto extension which states that the reserve land identified in the Northisto e-reaction plan is allocated as an extension to the site of the new town of Northisto it will help provide the 10,000 homes allocated in the e-reaction plan at an appropriate density and design and will not increase the overall number of homes NAAP policy NS1 division for Northisto sets out that Northisto will be a sustainable and vibrant new community that is inclusive and diverse with its own distinctive local identity which is found on best practice urban design principles drawing on the traditions of fenn edge market towns which encourages the high quality traditions and innovation that are characteristic of the Cambridge sub region NAAP policy NS2 the development principle sets out to deliver the 10,000 homes and other uses in a distinctive tank character well NAAP policy NS3 the site for Northisto defines the boundaries of the site the site is an established part of the development plan and the council's growth strategy and has been for a number of years it is noted that third party comments have been received relating to the principle of development and seeking the reconsideration of the allocation and its return to previous master plans which are based on lower numbers of housing to deliver Northisto the current proposal is however consistent with the adopted local plan and the current Northisto ear reaction plan the proposals are seen by office to be in accordance with local plan policies are set out above and as such the principle of development is considered to be acceptable the three submitted parameter parameter plans are based upon the following topics movement and access, open space and land use and building heights its purpose is the purpose for this mission is to detail the key elements of the development proposals and to show how they respond to the environmental constraints of the site and the assessment of the site set out in the environmental statement local plan policy NH1 conservation ear and green separation at Longston, at Longston the state's ears of countryside with the conservation ear at Longston will form part of the green separation between Longston and Northisto other relevant policies are NS4 NS12 NS13 and NS25 Objective C2A of the NAAP to create an appropriate setting for the new town minimising any adverse visual or landscape impact on the surrounding area including the setting and character of the surrounding settlements in particular the closest villages of Longston Okington and Westwick and the conservation areas as well as more distant neighbours at Rampton, Willingham over and Barhill The applicants submitted a design and access statement in support of the application proposals it sets out an illustrative master plan and landscape strategy and establishes a framework of key design principles and is intended for formal endorsements part of the outline consent the key defining principles of the design for phase 3A are as follows A. Reflecting sites history by using alignment of the main airfield runway and historical route such as Mill Road to structure the master plan Muck in the site with key gateways and open spaces creating a strong sense of transition and arrival into the town and towards the town centre in phase 2 C. Creating confident development edges that achieve a clear distinction between countryside and town D. Retaining appropriate landscape green space between the new development and existing settlement edge of Okington E. Retaining the ridge and furrow landscape within Longstanton Conservation Era Facilitated local distinctive buildings and landscape with a sense of place and character that is recognisable from the local context G. Establish a network of green and blue routes and spaces which draws the wider landscape through the development Safeguard the existing tree belts creates formal and informal spaces for recreation encouraged biodiversity and enabled sustainable drainage H. Introduce to the local centre with the neighbourhood park, shops, community facilities and employment in the most accessible and visible location complemented the town centre in phase 2 I. Creating distinct character areas and variation building forms, heights and densities across this large site J. Incorporating significant existing views and vistas and creating new ones K. Arranging housing to create strong frontages and positive overlooking of streets and open spaces L. Creating a highly permeable movement network which integrates phase 3A with the rest of the town and surrounding area promotes active and sustainable travel choices walking, cycling, public transport M. Promoting innovation, flexibility in car parking provision to accommodate future changes in travel patterns and car ownership and N. Establishing a robust but flexible framework to enable the development to mitigate and adapt to climate change to the location, form, orientation and design of buildings and spaces Heter phase 3A in the overall north side development is its relationship to Longstanton and seeks to reflect the principles established with phases 1 and 2 outline permissions and the requirements of North Salt Air Action Plan policies NS4 and NS13 In particular it seeks to ensure that historic landscapes are protected, that uses are open land uses that protect privacy and amenity with views of St Michael's Church maintained Continue the principles that were established in phase 2 The Longstanton Ridge and Furrow Fields which lie at the northern edge of phase 3A will be protected. This will enhance the views of St Michael's Church from the site. Jason to this will be near sports pitches which will be adjacent to the western primary school sorry to the site of western primary school Alongside Longstanton Road the existing tree belt will be maintained and enhanced On the basis of this evaluation it is considered that the relationship of the development with the Longstanton Conservation Area and St Michael's Church are considered to be acceptable in accordance with the relevant policies NS4 and NS13 of the North Salt Air Action Plan In regards to relationship to Okington this is based on green separation defined by tree groups to shield views but also through a green corridor which will aid the sense of openness The use of active open spaces outlined as supporting and retaining a separate identity of Okington while ensuring that routes and access are created by the facilities and services in the new town Aspirations for greater separation are paid as a result Paul, sorry to interrupt Paul I mean we do have this verbatim in our reports I think we should assume that we have read the report there is no need to read it out word full term I appreciate the enthusiasm but I think assume that we have read it but if there is any other highlights in any of the other sections I think it would be good to draw our attention to it to save yourself more than anyone at the time of reading it I think you can assume that we have read the report OK, I think what I'll do then is moving away in the sense in terms of the section that we were talking about as key is going through that first section then I don't think there is, if we've read it and we've accepted it key things in terms of transport is that we've had to look at the detailed transport assessment and seeing that in terms of its impact they are acceptable there's been concern I think in terms of the I think there's a trigger in the southern axis road east in terms of and the junction with Dry Drayton sorry Dry Drayton Road Let's go through this Yes, and it's the concern that Oakins and Parrish Council had guarding the previous scheme which had a project junction to the southern axis road The detailed design of this junction is still under way and opportunities are optimised which in choices of motorists so as to avoid local roads is still to be explored In either event properties of popular villas on Dry Drayton Road to South Oganton would be affected by a new road layout Gertran Parrish Council has also commented on the nomenclature of the SAR The name relates to the geographical relationship to the application site with the approved southern axis road west further to the west The SAR will be smaller in scale likely to be a single carriage road with cycling infrastructure and other associated works It is considered that this would create an easier and more convenient route to Cambridge than travelling through the villages of Oakins and Gertran The TA sets out sorry the transport assessment sets out measures to discourage traffic travelling through Oakins and there is also a trigger in terms of occupation for dwellings prior to this road being looked at and designed some like 3000 dwellings and that could be some like 10-15 years it could be that when we review this matter it is something that may not be necessary in the long run and this is what we are hoping for in terms of modal shifts The delivery of this SAR will be secured by planning condition 17 southern axis road east Just going to go through Yeah, based upon an assessment of the submitted environmental statement and transport assessment and associated proposed mitigation measures and taking all other comments into account it is considered that the developments provide the appropriate provision to encourage future residents to use modal transport other than the car and subject to monitoring will satisfactorily mitigate the impact of the development on the surrounding villages in accordance with the NPPF and policy T12 of the local plan I am going to fly through the employment assessment as we said it is something that the members have had a chance to read through key thing on the employment is that this is about job numbers rather than just a land provision we are talking about 20 hectares of employment land but really this is about how many jobs that we can create and deliver in accordance with NAP policy NS8 and D4 The affordable housing is a local centre that will be provided which will identify the number and scale of local centres across North Soe and the role these play in the wider town that is policy NAP policy NS6 The proposal for local centre are considered to contribute towards meeting the aims and objectives of NAP policy NS6 and delivering a local centre close to local busway with reasonable walking distance for local residents which will meet day-to-day needs of local residents for convenience shopping and service provision will also act as a focus for small-scale local employment complemented by the provision of outdoor space and appropriate design principles the local centre should also assist in supporting community development activities across 3A As regard housing delivery the scheme will deliver a mix of units and provide 40% affordable housing. The mixes to be agreed will be at a density of 40 dwellings per hectare overall and meets the policy requirements of housing mix and the different kinds of housing that we will require. Policy H9 requires at least 30% of the dwellings to be 1-2 bedrooms 30% at least to be 3 bedrooms and at least 30% to be over 4 bedrooms That's the market housing mix for market homes There's a 10% flexibility allowance included in any of these categories taken account of local circumstances There will be housing provision for older people and a housing delivery statement will be provided as part of the scheme The affordable housing statement seeks to deliver 40% and that's 50% affordable rent, 20% shared ownership 10% to discount market sale and 20% rent to buy. These 10 years fall within the definition of affordable housing as defined in the national planning policy framework that's been accepted by the council's joint housing development officer The proposed affordable housing provision will meet the policy target of 40% affordable housing and has an agreed mix of housing tenures in accordance with policy H10, 1A and 1B of the local plan All the internal and external space standards are accepted to meet the council's adopted standards I'm just going to go through now to the key element which is the conclusion of the scheme Sorry everyone that's trying to summarise It's rather linty scheme Just to reiterate we do have a lot of the information you're reading out in front of us word for word so if there's any highlights for any particular sections you want to draw our attention to I think that will be a lot more time saving Sorry Sorry again I think Mr Kelly wants to come in Thank you chair I think to assist the committee really and I'm conscious that we've got public speakers here so we'll want to comment perhaps if I could just hopefully move things on for your benefit Clearly what Mr Ricketts has done has outlined the principles of the development the guiding design principles that are set out in the report which he has referred to and reinforced the point around the 40% affordable housing and the housing mix I think the report we've walked through the three parameter plans that form the cornerstone of the planning commission and what the report does is highlight the key elements in those plans around the current one that you can see on the screen is the scale but the movement framework and Mr Ricketts has referred to the relationship with the southern access road east but also the existing and indeed nearing completion access road west which is currently the main and considered to be likely the main source of access into the site has also highlighted the interplay with the phase two development immediately adjacent and started to summarise some of the infrastructure facilities that are associated with it I think where the report obviously goes to and members will be familiar with this is on top of what the proposal is there are a number of substantive material considerations which are summarised at the beginning which Mr Ricketts hasn't had a chance yet to cover but which in the interest of brevity perhaps I can just walk you through for your benefit and clearly you can see clarifications through the questions they've asked what the report does draw your attention to is the environmental assessment and the associated technical appraisals that have been done and we have today the transport team from the county council who have been closely involved in that but more significantly and particularly having regard to the concerns addressed by a number of residents and in the representations and I'm sure some of the representations you'll hear today are the environmental consequences that have been explored and the environmental issues that have been explored as part of the application itself those elements are covered and forgive me a second I'll just refer you to the they start being addressed in the assessment on page section 7 and boil down towards concerns that are highlighted not only about conventional this is page 69 sorry not only the conventional concerns associated with construction and the impacts on that you will all be familiar with around the construction activity and the impact upon local residents through noise dust and odour etc but more specifically and the heritage but more specifically the concerns around the sensitivities to drainage the management of water including the implications for groundwater which the late representations but also the representations that you have received in the packs and concerns about the wider demands that the development will make on for example water abstraction across Greater Cambridge and water quality now what we have sought to try and do and and to assist you I'm just trying to find the page reference number but what we've sought to try and do is to draw those threads together for you in the assessment of the planning balance which takes place on page 114 and members simply your role having considered and I'm sure you're familiar with the report but having considered the elements of compliance with the development plan that Mr Ricketts and the report have highlighted but also the environmental and physical consequences of the development what the report seeks to do on page 114 onwards is start to play in the balancing exercise which is an important part of the pros and cons one could say but important part of weighing up the overall merits of this application having regard to the development plan and the wide range of material considerations that the report highlights Chair, I think that's probably I'm conscious of wanting to hear from public speakers and from members in terms of clarification but I hope that's helpful to you That's very helpful, thank you for that Stephen Members, as we agreed at the start we now have an opportunity to ask any questions of clarification for either the case officers or equally any of the consultees that we have online joining us today so members obviously if something does come to us later on in the debate as you can ask it then but if there's any questions of clarification at this point now it would be a good chance to ask so I have one straight away from Councillor Heather Williams please Thank you Chair a few questions initially just about the affordable housing what contribution this gives us on the whole of Northstow because it's obviously come in parcels so I just want to know where our figures are there The other thing and looking at the consultation paragraph 95 issues being raised about housing heights is there anything in what's been put forward that would be considered out of policy There's numerous objections but one in particular is one from Gertran Parish Council about access the Southern Access Road if we could just have perhaps some support on why where that conflict is and what's been proposed by themselves at a viewpoint on that I think that's all I've got for now Chair there may be more throughout the day We've got three questions there one on the percentage of social housing over the entirety of Northstow if we include this application today a question around housing heights and concerns raised there and then all certain clarity on one of the parish council's comments on the Southern Access Road I'm not sure who wants to take those I think Mr Kelly is volunteering Thank you Chair if I perhaps just deal with the question about affordable housing in the first instance just for your information the affordable housing levels are obviously quoted in a report and are 40% on this phase of development and the previous phase too also delivered 40% but as part of the government's initiative there was a substantial portion of starter homes as part of that in accordance with the guidance at the time phase one provides 20% affordable housing and the exploration of the justification for that through viability took place at that time what that means in numbers terms is phase one should be delivering 300 or so affordable units phase two 1,400 affordable units and a consequence of the size of phase three taken together with phase 3B I should say is in the order of 2,000 units so 3,700 units across the 10,000 units in north Stowe are at this stage and visage to be affordable and by my O level maths that equates to around 37% I think the question around building heights and so on I think the report does cover the issue about the sensitivity of the relationship with Oakington particularly and the stair casing down from three to two stories in the parameter plan which Mr Rickers might be able to display there are elements within the site in the indicative parameter plan around particularly the proximity to the military lake which is suggested to be up to seven stories in height reflecting the kind of fundamental important role of that amenity but also that feature will play for residents in phase three I think if I could ask someone from the county highways department to comment in relation to the access road issue that would probably assist you better than me commenting Thank you, do we have someone from highways? Mr Tuttle? Yes, I'm here Good to see you, yes we can hear you quite faint I don't know if you can lean any closer in Is that better? Yes, that's better, thank you very much Did you hear the question around the southern access route? Yes, the southern access route Yes, so the southern access route is intended to take traffic away from the B1040 because we know that the 1040 junction with the A14 may at some point reach its capacity so it gives another outlet for the north stone development traffic to come on to the Drydoateon Road and then on to the 1307 so that's its intended purpose to avoid congestion at the Barhill interchange Now I understand that the Gertan Parish Council query is that they think that maybe some of the traffic will go north into Oakington turn right and then come into Gertan and come into Cambridge through the village of Gertan and on to the Huntington Road As a measure to prevent this happening we don't think it will happen because the distribution we've looked at doesn't indicate that that will be the case but just in case there was some problems we have a pot of money for traffic calming measures or traffic management I don't like to call it traffic calming but actually deter traffic from doing that should it be found that traffic does start to move through the villages rather than on the main routes as intended Councillor William Jones, come back Thank you I think we're all familiar with traffic calming but you say traffic management could I sort of understand because what you mean by that because there's no point in having the money if you can't actually do something that's useful thinking of a dinner with people's characters here and they're going to, by essence, want to take the shortest route that's your natural instinct just wondering how you manage that and deter them from that while also not making it difficult for people that need to use that area That's precisely the reason why I didn't want to call it traffic calming because whenever people mention traffic calming everyone always has the vision of humps in the road which I know aren't popular with residents of villages because when larger vehicles go over them they tend to make a noise it would be environmental enhancements so it might be sort of horizontal sort of deflections the type sort of give way not barriers but the give way systems that you see in some villages rather than traffic humps reductions in speed limit and basically maybe some slight sort of narrowing of roads just to make it clear that this is a village environment and not a through route and we've worked on some of these schemes before and we've implemented them in other places and they do work but I didn't want anyone to get an impression we were just going to bolt humps to the road it's going to be something more holistic than that it's going to be something more fluid Okay, thank you Jess Sorry, a question from Councillor Roberts Thank you Chairman I don't want to take up a lot of time at this particular time of the meeting because we've got a lot to get through but there's a couple of things that strike me immediately that I'm concerned about The first one is at page 29 paragraph 140 about the strategy about phasing out fossil fuels in a year's time and then it talks about the most appropriate technology unlikely to be I mean it seems here that we're getting rid of all the things that work and they're talking about things vaguely that may or may not work and I told them to my understanding and we've got a heat pump in our garden and it doesn't work in the winter and so these people are going to be frozen stiff as they say up north and I just think it's a bit light in detail of exactly how this scheme is going to be heated and really a bit unfair to people because even an air sourced heat pump is a great deal of money and then secondly to go on to page 116 I'm so disappointed at the lack of real strength there about the environmental impacts it doesn't seem to focus at all on the concerns that we've all been getting over the last few days from either parish councils or individuals or groups and it just seems to say well everything in the garden is going to be rosy and there's no identification here of the things that people have been sending us about their concerns about the impact just talks about how it will look basically well I want to know how it's going to function you know the information we've been receiving basically says that there are since north star since 2015 there's been a much decline in the chalkstream systems and the ponds there and people are very concerned and yet there's not that I can see there's nothing here that gives me any information or satisfaction that it's actually even been thought about Okay so I think two questions of clarity there the first was a bit more detail on how the scheme will be heated which relates to page 29 and a second question of clarity around the functionality of some of the environmental impact suggestions I'm not sure who would like to take that Mr Kelly Chair perhaps if I just if I start and colleagues might assist and perhaps if I deal with the second point first which relates to the issue around the chalkstreams I should prefer obviously members will have seen in the update sheet an additional seven representations that highlight concerns about that we've also received since that representations from Mr Colin Hayes Claire Driver, Helen Older and Mary Cooper that make fundamentally the same concerns as Councillor Roberts has drawn attention to I'm sorry if you feel that the report doesn't properly cover that point the text should highlight but perhaps draw out further the way in which the planning authority has approached this issue we have as I think Councillor Roberts has acknowledged consulted the statutory agencies about this and because the site is within the development plan so it's a long standing site allocation the environment agency and others have recognised that the project has not objected on the basis of the issue of outground water supplies now some of the comments have questioned whether or not the local planning authority should have gone further and in fact the planning authority have and you will be aware of the work that we have been doing we employed stand tech to look at water supply issues associated with the new local plan but that work also included both substantial engagement with the social authority with Cambridge Water, Anglin Water and Water Resources East and the feedback from the water companies and indeed from Anglin Water and others was that the future growth of Cambridge or Greater Cambridge can be appropriately accommodated. The stand tech report that accompanied the local plan evidence base had regard to and forecast not only future growth in potential demand but also the series of mitigation measures both short and long term that could be put in place to avoid the concerns that people have highlighted around continuing growth in abstraction and environmental consequences and indeed trying to think about ways in which current abstraction levels could be more effectively managed now some of those measures that they saw in the long term you may have heard about in terms of future new water supplies in Fenzredewa that Anglin Water are currently promoting some of the shorter term measures included the effects of for example increased water metering currently Greater Cambridge only has about 70% which has been shown to reduce levels of consumption but also management and leakage control behavior change some of the things such as the policies that we have but also the conditions that we put into this planning permission to reduce from 140 or so litres per day per person down to 110 and a strategy to try and deliver that but also what is termed bulk water transfer which is about connections to for example new trunk water transfer systems that will currently but go past Cambridge heading south to on the east and west sides of south Cambridge which are deemed to be capable of providing something to fill in between for example the new reservoir coming forward in the mid to late 2030s and the growing demands that are associated with growth so I'm sorry that the report perhaps didn't go into as much detail as the work that has been going on by the councils with the water providers but I want people to be assured that certainly the concerns that residents have expressed about abstraction are most definitely not being treated flippantly but they are being dealt with at an appropriate strategic level rather than a side by side basis and on this point I just want to finish with the government's guidance on how water supply, wastewater and water quality should be approached in terms of planning applications that guidance from the department of levelling up and housing and communities from the 22nd of July 2019 makes clear that planning for necessary water supply would normally be addressed through strategic policies which can be reflected in water companies water resources management plans and we've been pushing into those water resource management work to try and exact that. It says water supply is therefore unlikely to be a consideration for most planning applications with exceptions that might include large developments and importantly not identified in plans and obviously North Stove has been identified in plans for a number of years, significant works that are required to connect water supply and where a plan requires enhanced efficiency as part of the strategy. Now we have under conditions in the permission or in the recommendation seek to deliver enhanced efficiency. Sorry that's a long answer. Thank you. Just quickly if I may come back and I'm not criticising the planning department here actually but I am very concerned about what I think I've just heard is to be that the people who are supplying the water are just doing a general all over plan they've got this strategy for development but it's not going to be focused on particular plans well I'm sorry I'm here this morning to focus exactly on a particular plan and I don't think that they the water people are doing us any service here because I think there is every likelihood that there will be serious problems and they'll dump the problem on you because they'll say that you're good. Just to respond to that I think the as I said the consultations that have taken place for example with the environmental agency have encouraged us to engage with Cambridge Water and we have done that. I think at this point in the process obviously the contribution that North Stove will make is significant on one level but it's not significant in the overall needs of Greater Cambridge which have to be dealt with at a strategic level and indeed at a level even above South Cambridge so this is a kind of a regional issue which is why we've spent so much focus on working with Water Resources East about the next Water Resources Management Plan which will inform the investment programmes of Cambridge Water and Angliam Water to try and address those concerns. Questions of clarity. We're back to Richard, Councillor Richard Williams please. Thank you very much. I've got three questions obviously it's a long application I'll have more to say but just to start us off. So on three points. Firstly in terms of housing density we're told paragraph 317 that the average density here is 45dph. Could we be told what the density or the average density would therefore be across the whole site of North Stove? We've got figures for this particular phase but I'd be interested to know what that will mean for the development overall. One very specific question on foul water and here I'm on paragraph 484 paragraph 484 references the drainage boards continuing concerns and then goes on to talk about Utton's Drove. Now I may be missing something but the only representation from a drainage board I could find in this pack was from the Old West drainage board which didn't refer to Utton's Drove talked about Reynolds Drain. Now there is an objection in the second application we're looking for looking at today from the Swavesy drainage board which refers to Utton's Drove but I'd welcome a bit of clarification on which drainage board we're talking about in 484 and exactly what the nature of the concerns were because as I say I couldn't find any drainage board representations relevant to Utton's Drove in the pack. And then on the water point obviously we'll say a lot more about this and what was discussed which was partly what I was going to talk about but just on a point of clarity the Arcadis groundwater note that's on the website and that was provided I think in August 2021 that suggests that the final water table on the site will be about two to three metres lower than it currently is. Now are those figures that the planning service accepts and recognises is that what you expect and I'll probably come back to this later in debate but in terms of condition 39 which talks about monitoring groundwater it doesn't actually set out for us any detail on what the minimum levels of water would be it all seems to be left to a drainage strategy to be agreed. So I think there's a bit of advance notice this is perhaps more a point for debate I'm not really happy to leave it with that condition in such a vague way and us having no idea as to what the actual limits the maximum and minimum will be but for the time being I just like clarity on those figures and are the figures in the Arcadis report what you're accepting and expecting from this development. Thank you. There are three questions there the question on the figures in the Arcadis report questions around the housing density across all of Northstone not just this phase we're looking at today and clarity around the representations from the drainage board that is referenced in the report. Mr Kelly are you going to attempt those? I shan't on all of them I think Councillor Williams if we can come back and because we'll need to go in just confirm the densities across the development we will certainly aim to give you those during the course of the meeting in terms of the clarification about the drainage board perhaps I can ask one of my colleagues whether they can clarify the nature of that comment I suspect it's referring to the Swavesy IDVs concerns which form part of phase 3B as you rightly identified but perhaps a colleague can comment. In respect to the point about groundwater levels the planning authority hasn't challenged the conclusions of the note it's got no reason to do so but I'm sure we'll discuss that as you've highlighted further in the course of the meeting and I'm very conscious that I suspect some of other comments will be made about that so we do sensible chair to perhaps defer that to the discussion at that time subject to obviously my view that we I think we recognise the work in that technical note and the consultants, Arcadis are also I think potentially available to comment if that was the committee's request to clarify their work, thank you I think that would be useful indeed but in the meantime if we could have one of our officers who's online joining us just to clarify the question around the representations from the drainage boards that have been referenced please I'm not sure who that would be precisely but Thank you council that's well thank you chairman I've been asked to comment on this the IDB did not object to 3a they made an objection to 3b so in 3a it was referred to in the wider context but their objection was to 3b and not 3a and the IDB the IDB down as a speaker for 3b Okay was that did that turn on to your question council it's the internal drainage board I think was being referenced Potentially so there is no objection then to from the swavy drainage board about relevant to up and stroke it because it's not going to up and stroke the position the far water is going to up and stroke perhaps Mr Island from the environment agency might be able to help out with up and stroke but my understanding is that the IDB are not objecting to 3a and the far water going to up and stroke they're objecting to 3b and the additional far water going from 3b to up and stroke but if Mr Island is is on the call he might be able to help out morning Mr Island hopefully you can clarify this for us certainly thank you chair and thanks Mike as well just wanted to check you can hear me we can answer you thank you thank you yes in relation to up and stroke itself we've been in liaison with members of your committee and also Anglin Water and Swaves the IDB over the last few years now this relates to concerns from the IDB about increased levels of far water flow being directed to up and stroke and not so much in terms of a water quality issue but more relating to potential for increased flood risk downstream from the discharge point of the water recycling centre itself so it is something that we are aware of and as I say we are in negotiations and liaising with Anglin Water about the future use of it it currently it has drove the water recycling centre currently has a permit to discharge however Anglin Water are seeking to do improvements to the works itself to increase the capacity and as part of that they will require a revision to the permit from ourselves which they will receive which they have to discharge itself as part of a previous land drainage solution which some members may be familiar with there was modelling carried out which identified a specific flow rate which the downstream receiving watercourse would be capable to accommodate without risk of flooding and it is our understanding that the initial application for the changing the permit for the discharge from the water recycling centre there's two scenarios being investigated one which will be looking at that maximum discharge which is possible to accommodate within the watercourse itself and then a slightly lower one as well there's still at the pre-application stage in terms of the discussion about the permit for those changes so we are in liaison with them but initially it's still anticipated that the water would be able to be accommodated in terms of the discharge of the treated water would be able to be accommodated within the watercourse based upon the previous land drainage solution now as part of the revision of the permit itself we will also be requiring angling water to undertake an updated flood risk assessment so we have we're reassured that that will be the case that there will be no increase in flood risk from Mutton's Drove itself Adam thank you for that I hope that's partially at least answered the question and as you said we can come back in the debate if we need to touch on this topic again yes thank you chair I am a bit perplexed as to why there would be an objection to an application for a thousand houses but not an application to an objection for a thousand houses but maybe we'll come back to that thank you thank you point noted councillor Hawkins please thank you chair I will stay on the issue of the groundwater councillor Williams has actually asked the main question for my concern is a game paragraph for it 5 where it is acknowledged that the watering needs careful management given the potential for disruption to existing water movement patterns how is this going to be managed and what happens if the water movement underground is disrupted Steven or perhaps one of our officers online might be the best place to answer if I can just touch upon that obviously I think someone has already referred to it there are proposed conditions and indeed the addendum report seeks a slight modification to condition 39 around groundwater management recognising there has been some work done already which has been referred to in terms of the technical note but recognising the need for monitoring of the development through the construction phase and through those dewatering activities that may be required as part of the development chair as I said there are the applicants consultants are on available perhaps to consider this further because I'm conscious that perhaps also some of the speakers may want wish to raise similar points so I wouldn't propose to draw them in at this stage if that's acceptable to wouldn't yourselves wouldn't Chairman can I suggest that actually pulling them in after the public speakers might be better because then we'll have a more picture complete I would have thought Indeed I think this is a point for our officers to ask any questions of clarity of so if after the public speaking in the debate or actually when the applicant themselves addresses us we can perhaps ask questions of their consultants then Council Peter Fane Thank you chair Yes my question rather follows up the question from Councillor Roberts earlier on we have I suspect it may be a question for the environment agency very helpful to have Mr Arlandon available to us the environment agency response is a paragraph 158 and 159 no objection subject to conditions and I think the points in 158 already in relation to Utton's Drove and so on have already been dealt with in respect of water supply the response deals mainly with the question of who will be responsible for that whereas of course the key question that may emerge is is there enough and is that on a sustainable basis now that is dealt with in more detail paragraph 610 which is on page 105 so we understand that Cambridge Water has confirmed it has adequate water resources to serve the proposed development but it does go on to say there is insufficient capacity in the current infrastructure and therefore we are rather dependent on reinforcement to that the final paragraph of that section paragraph 613 on page 106 officers are therefore satisfied that sufficient available resources will be available in the longer term to serve the site and that the availability of water is not a constraint for development I think the concern must be is the sustainable availability of water a constraint for development now I take on board the points that our director Mr Kelly made earlier about the need to address this through strategic policies particularly as this is covered in the local plan but I think I follow Councillor Roberts in saying that when we are faced with an application for 5,000 houses even one approved in the local plan we need to seek reassurances on these points whether from the environment agency or from officers I think it's probably a question for the environment agency I'd imagine and I see Mr Islands jumping back in sorry yes sorry I should await the invitation first but I think Mr Kelly was correct in terms of yes his initial summary as just referred to as well it is correct that the water resource management plans that are prepared by water companies are much more strategic as opposed to a singular site and also long term they relate to the housing numbers as a whole within the local plans I would have said water catchment area but it is much further afield as strategic water supplies are being are being developed again as alluded to earlier with the the trunk networks for wider water transfer and that's across East Anglia as a whole so in terms of the sustainability based upon the water resource management plans and the current scales of development across East Anglia then yes that is still considered to be sustainable and part of that is relates to the required condition or the proposed condition 31 which related to the 110 litres per day design from design of properties for the for the water usage so with that yes with that management of the design we know we can't change people's habits in terms of their own personal use of it but that is yes with the design code we're confident that current water supply is able to to be met for the needs of the development itself and I'll just elude also that was mentioned towards also demand management which is led through Anglia water themselves a lot of that will be relating to metering and efficiency measures and promotion of that to their actual customers I can't speak too much I can't speak for Anglia water themselves but no in terms of the sustainable supply then yes that is considered appropriate at this moment in time and as I say with more strategic solutions also being being planned across East Anglia as a whole that's fine thank you we have too much speakers Councillor Cahn and then Williams again Martha there's two concerns first of all I'd like to know some information about the actual ground conditions on the site it's lying on gawk clay and yet we're talking about ground rule the gawk clay is basically very impermeable so I'm presuming there must be superficial deposits and I'd be interested to know what sort of what the superficial deposits are and what sort of capacity for groundwater how deep they are because obviously if they're very thin the site is going to be very susceptible for all the groundwater to be building up after a long period of time and excessive discharge of water on to the outside now I'm not aware of what that situation is I just would like to know if somebody's got information on that and so we know what the actual likely risk is secondly in terms of the I accept that you can supply water in the current situation but it appears to me that the long term supply of our portable water to the site depends upon the achievement of the strategic water plan not just the fact there's water a strategic plan in place and we know that this will clearly involve quite major investments for the region now that may not proceed as fast as we expect and I'm wondering whether consideration has been given to phasing or having review points during the actual development of the site which is going to be developing over many years to check that actually the supply is predicted will actually be coming on to the site I think that will be useful information I want to know whether that has been considered OK thank you so two questions there are one on some clarity around the current ground conditions of the site and two around whether any consideration will be given to phasing of the site again not sure who wants to take either of those questions Can I just suggest in terms of the ground conditions there is actually a sly an image that might be helpful in exploring that now obviously I'm not sure that we have that in our current presentation but perhaps we can bring that forward as part of the into the debate because I think it's an important point to be helpful for clarity in respect to the supply point I think the scale of the interventions that are associated with addressing the abstraction challenges it becomes quite difficult to assign that to a particular development or a particular site reasonably in planning terms because obviously the demand is a consequence and in fact the abstraction on the chalk aquifer is a consequence of the whole of the great Cambridge area and parts of Huntingdonshire and in terms of the reasonableness particularly of a proposal within the development plan of preventing the progression of that I'm not sure that's appropriate but the environment agency might wish to comment because obviously associated with the abstraction is a requirement for licensing from the environment agency to maintain or indeed change abstraction levels and those licenses are reviewed and associated with the environment agency's clear position of seeking to try and manage down current abstraction levels so I don't know whether Adam Ireland can comment but the concerns about continuing to draw substantial quantities a way is something that and the consequences for the chalk streams and the special environment in that area is something that it may will be helpful for the EA to comment on because they oversee that environment Let's see if they can Adam are you still there? Hello I'm a bit limited as to what I can say relating to this at this moment it's time Stephen Gell is correct in terms of the license capping for abstraction and we are currently going through a review of abstractions across the whole of East Anglia and as part of that we have indicated to the abstractors both private abstractors also water companies as well of the intention for a certain capping levels now these will be specific to each individual abstraction the reason I can't go into that a lot further is it's part of a judicial review at this moment in time in terms of our process what we've undertaken so there is a legal process being carried out at this moment in time but yes that is it's obviously our role and duty to ensure those abstractions are managed so both the use and supply of water to commercial and also ensuring that there is no detriment to the environment but I'm quite limited unfortunately as to what I'm allowed to say at this moment in time That's fine I understand the belladdon but I think you've answered as best you can so thank you for that I just wanted to comment that I understand why you feel that one particular element is difficult to regard the need for a review but the problem is here that we have a number of large developments over the next few years water beach camborn norso which cumulatively will have a big effect and for each of them the same situation will apply individually it's difficult to justify and I want to know if there's any solution to this problem because obviously it's going to be a concern I think Mr Kelly's he gave permission to order these when they were stuck unless we have some means of review during the presentation I think Mr Kelly wants to come back on that One of the things that in the widest study indeed it's referenced even in the recent publication from Water Resources East and I've touched upon it is this effectively short, medium and long term responses to the challenges that the area faces what the Water Resources East work highlights is that in fact recognising there is a right to be provided with water enshrined in the legislation for developers there are nevertheless and Adam has referred to issues about further abstraction the Water Resources East work and the conversations that we've had with Cambridge Water Anglun Water and Water Resources East suggest that in the medium term there are potential interim bulk transfer options that exist both from planned infrastructure to the west of South Cambridge and indeed from the east of South Cambridge that can deliver between 2 and 3 million litres I think of additional capacity per day now obviously in a dispersed pattern so if you're trying to service individual villages that might be difficult for sites like Northstow those bulk water transfer potential options may be options that form part of an interim strategy but they're not part of, we won't know for sure about that until the Water Resources East Final Water Resource Management Plan is published late in 2023 but the program and the delivery of Northstow is as you're fully aware a kind of long term program of delivering implementation and I suspect coupled with the environment agency's obligations about further abstraction or the issue of abstraction a very clear stated desire of everybody to reduce levels of abstraction from the short streams those projects are feasible in technical terms and are the subject of the Water Resources Planning that is ongoing at this moment in time such that we wouldn't point towards a need to cap on the growth of Northstow which as I said is within the development plan process as an existing commitment but as we go forward with the local plan I don't need to remind members of the statements that we've already been quite clear about in terms of further additional growth beyond the development plan framework at the moment Chair, I'm sorry to just jump in if I can, just to help me go on on the first question the site, not my area professional expertise but it's River Terrace deposits overlying the clay is the sort of geological situation in the area Okay, thank you for that clarity and finally Councillor Heather Williams please Thank you chair first of all a plea from us to members and officers that are working with the paper free version our page numbers aren't the same as yours on the paper so if we could use paragraph numbers because or at least give me a few minutes to find the page that would be grand, thank you on something a bit more substantive I just wanted to clarify whether I heard correctly about the Swayze internal drainage board because on paragraph 184 I've got the Swayze drainage board object and then and Swayze on 130 their parish council objects supporting the internal drainage board and it's probably my hearing it's quite difficult with the screen and everything I thought I heard somebody say that the internal drainage board had objected to the second application not the first but this suggests to me that they have objected to this application as well as the other even if they've not requested to speak on this one thank you chair and on Utlandsdrove sorry the other one before I forget because many of us have heard about Utlandsdrove and Utlandsdrove and Utlandsdrove and Utlandsdrove and Utlandsdrove and Utlandsdrove because many of us have heard about Utlandsdrove from councillor Ellington particularly councillor Hawkins will be familiar with Utlandsdrove I'm sure does this take into account the calculations that have been made about Cambridge West going there as well because I think that's important the dates because I know there was a change in the way Cambridge West was going to be going and now it is going to Utlandsdrove I believe not Patworth so making sure that the responses we've got here are post that decision thank you chair thank you very much might be better if we invite Mike Huntington into answer at least the first one so Mike some clarity on the IDB comments on this application not the next one and whether they are either not raising any objections or they are raising objections absolutely clarity on that would be handy thank you chair mind stunning is the IDB sorry the IDB are one of the speakers about this application but mind stunning is it's the objection to 3B because 3A was always factored into the Utlandsdrove works but I think the best is to hear it from the IDB when they comment on the application I've also got a plan that you asked earlier on that councillor Richard Williams asked for or councillor Martin Karnas for in relation to the River Terrace deposits should I share this on the screen yes if you can quickly I'm not a geologist but this plan is the area red line is the area of phase 3A and you can see in faint hang on we can't see your screen you're not sharing your screen oh I've got a red line round it we can't see it in the room oh okay that's strange chair this actually seems to be issue on our end as opposed to on Mike's end can I just try to quickly resolve this for us yes okay sorry councillor Williams do you want to come back on the IDB point while that's going on yeah no I think it's on the online version but the way the bookmarking and everything works it's showing part of phase 3B in as 3A so I think my question chair while we're waiting do you mind if I make some suggestions hang on let it finish it might be a technical issue on how this is presented on the online like I say we do sometimes get different numbers and things but they can confirm it again with what I've got on this version Mike I'm not sure if you heard that I think it might be a discrepancy between the way the reports presented on the online version as it is in paper so I think just for absolute clarity some clarity around the comments from the IDB on this application I appreciate they are speaking down to speak as well but if we could if you could for absolute clarity help us with that that would be useful Mike lots of people jumping in Lawrence sorry did you want to say something earlier oh here he is run into the room Mike I think we lost you just after you started speaking when you were responding to Councillor Williams on the drainage board so again sorry to rehash all this if you wouldn't mind very briefly going over for clarity and I think actually whilst we in the interim there was a concern raised from Councillor Williams that the online version of the agenda doesn't marry up necessarily with the paper version so if you could just give us a couple of sentences saying if the IDB has commented in one way or the other in support so the IDB have not objected to 3a but they have objected to 3b okay that's fine thank you Mike okay one final speaker Councillor Wilson please thank you chair I'm going to ask something not about water or drainage on page 71 paragraphs 402 403 refer to the it's the the strategic environmental management plan which includes arrangements for construction vehicles now this refers to requiring the construction vehicles to use the O14 and the B1050 but as I'd like to know whether any further research has been done or whether there's any further intelligence about the provenance or the destinations of these construction vehicles and what happens after they've got onto the O14 in particular what concerns me there's a gravel pit at Water Beach where gravel is extracted and spoiled and soil from construction sites is returned to backfill the land that's where the gravel's been dug out and I would like to know whether any thoughts have been given to requiring those construction vehicles to actually use the A10 and not go through the intervening villages because they could quite easily get on the A14 and then cut a corner to get to instead of using the A10 and I'm sure there are other places that these construction vehicles are going to and coming from and whether the routes that they could be taken should be set out so that they avoid the small villages in between thank you probably best to direct that one to our colleague from the highways department if he's still with us hi good morning can you hear me okay yes we can hear and see you fine did you manage to pick up that question in full there I did yes very interesting question raised not considered that before but definitely can consider that as part of the camp so the construction environment management plan when that comes in as a condition then I'll look at that in some more detail and make sure that they they definitely specify the A14 around Cambridge and not joining the A14 at the very last moment having gone through all the villages thank you appreciate the brevity, do you want to come back councillor Wilson I'd like to come back on that I was thinking more this is just an example that the construction vehicle would join the A14 at around Dry Drayton and go along the A14 but then cut back through Okington and cotton them to have a quick route through to Water Beach and what I would what I was suggesting is that they should be required to go along to the A10 at Milton and then use the A10 to go to Water Beach and this is just an example I don't know what other destinations or provenances the construction vehicles will be using other routes I think Mr Kelly might be coming back on that but just a thumbs up from Tamer sorry it's just to say that the technology and the kind of solutions that are being looked at not just for this site but for other major sites about vehicle routing are is fair to say evolving so historically we've just had published routes and so on but certainly vehicle monitoring and the ability to monitor individual vehicles and not only their origin but how they get to their destination is something that I suspect working with the county highways team similar projects of this scale is something that we will evolve we recognise the problem of it's not just where they come into the site but the distance in between and it's something that as Tamer has highlighted I think he's going to be an important part of the construction environmental management plan process recognising that technology for example GPS tracking of individual vehicles and so on is something that is now available let alone by the time construction starts on a project like phase 3a in event of permission is granted ok thank you for the response there members no more questions of clarification for officers members I'm going to break us there before we go into the public speaking element of the application the time now is quarter to 12 we come back in 10 minutes so 5 to 12 in our seats ready to start and then we'll go straight into the public speaking thank you very much ok thank you members we're live again now so welcome back everyone to this meeting of south camps district council we're still on item could we've quiet please thank you we're still on the first item of the agenda which is north stone item 3a and we're about to go into the public speaking element of the meeting the first public speaker is a Mr Keith Wilderspin from the swavesy internal drainage board Mr Wilderspin welcome obviously quite timely given the discussions we've just been having so I'm not sure if you've been to the committee before but you have 3 minutes to address the committee at which point if you wouldn't mind staying in your seat in case any questions of clarification for you so whenever you're ready please thank you gentlemen before I start my statement could I clear up some of this business that was going on before the adjournment swavesy hang on if you give us your statement first then I'm sure there'll be some questions of clarity for you at the end no but this isn't a question of clarity it's a question of whether swavesy IDB has objected to 3a and 3b we have objected to 3a I have the letter here and I have Andrew Thompson's letter back to our drainage engineer with his comments on our comments and we have had an objection in whenever you're ready please my statement then north stone 3a 3d water is to be discharged to the swavesy drain system this is a drainage channel susceptible to flooding and is tied locked at times of flood periods of up to four weeks four weeks to cater for the increased fall water flows from Canbour 950 north stone phases 1,2 and 3a's 10,000 houses a total of approximately 11,000 houses a scheme called the LDS has been installed over the last 10 years this has a design capacity to receive the 239 litres of second flow modelled that was needed subsequent to this and without agreement from the EA Anglia and Ward to have more than taken up this capacity with plans to add approximately the 6,000 houses from Canbour and West and Bourne airfield this all was originally planned and stated in their statements at the time to go to Parkless Water Recycling Centre in a letter from the EA to Anglion Water 19 April 2021 copied to Chris Carter and myself among others we share the concerns of SWEIBSY Parish Council and the IDB relating to discharge being directed to Art and Strove from additional development other than those previously agreed through the LDS this leaves big questions beyond 2027 with seemingly no strategic plan or urgency to establish what infrastructure options there may be that do not increase flood risk or cause environmental harm to SWEIBSY please note that we will not be delivering any future LDS or similar the flooding experience in this part of the great ooze catchment this winter just demonstrates how important an issue this is and with climate change and such ambitious house growth plans there are unlikely to be many if any solutions that will be simple to deliver and quick to expedite we will be sharing this letter with other interested parties unquote this obviously will increase the problems of flooding to SWEIBSY catchment therefore the IDB objects to North Stoke 3A and 3B until such time as the over capacity discharges to SWEIBSY drain with its serious consequences to SWEIBSY are addressed thank you Chairman thank you very much for that members are there any questions of clarity for Mr Wilderspin councillor Heather Williams thank you you made a quote from a letter I didn't catch who you said the letter was from the letter was from the EA to Anglian Water that was only part of the letter I'll have the letter to hand if it's any help to the committee any further questions of clarification Mr Wilderspin councillor Roberts please thank you Chairman and through you Chairman good morning sir can you tell me that in layman's terms I do often wish that councillor Mason was here can you tell me in layman's terms what do you feel would be the effect if this application was to go through with things as they stand currently the consent that the LDS was designed for as Adam Ireland said was 239 litres a second this was designed to cater for the things I've mentioned if well because the Camborn West and Bourn airfield are now going to be discharged into that system it will be it will seriously impact on the pump that we have installed at Wedd's Old Sluice to pump sewage water out it will seriously impact on that's ability to cope and keep the drains down to a reasonable level that they the level that they would have been at if this extra sewage charge hadn't been discharged it's a bit like Armageddon coming isn't it Honestly the situation ongoing with what is going to happen we have Northstone and Camborn and we as I understand it we now have Northstone Camborn is the likely place for any further expansion still if this all goes to the up and straight sewage treatment works we are in big big trouble and believe me what's happening at Swayvesy or likely to happen at Swayvesy keeps me awake a lot more times than my business or my private life does Thank you very much Thank you very much I actually had a similar question to Councillor Robert so I won't go over that again but could you just if you could just tell us or give us a bit more clarity on the situation at Uton's Drobe now is your case that it's now basically at or over capacity without anything additional At the moment it's not over capacity at the moment the Anglian War to have a a licence to discharge 122 litres a second they have on their own admission this spring exceeded that already this 122 litres has been an increase from the 40 litres a second that was that they had before the building that's taken place at the moment so that extra 80 litres a second has just come from the 950 at Cambron which has been finished and I don't know if the 1500 have been finished on phase 1 of north stone but that has put that extra capacity into that system and they only have another 100 or so litres to go 120 litres, sorry Thank you for that Councillor Griffith please Thank you, I think you said this I just don't want to I want to check I didn't miss here so you said there's big questions beyond 2027 so basically from what you're saying next five years is kind of okay but from that point on you think it will be over capacity and not able to cope am I correct? That is exactly what we think Okay thank you that's very clear Thank you very much members no further questions or clarification from Mr Will to spin so we say thank you very much for taking the time to address us and we'll move on to our next public speaker which is Mr Daniel Fulton from Fus lane consortium Mr Fulton Thank you chair I think the committee has sort of lost track of what's happening here today there were 34 pages of updates sent at 8 o'clock yesterday evening and one of those pages on NXD it indicates that there have been further conditions proposed and have been accepted by the applicant these conditions have not been provided to this committee it also says that in accordance with the report recommendation the final wording to be agreed and consultation with the chair will be delegated to officers what you're being asked to do today is to grant planning permission without approving any finalized wording of the conditions and as you know when it comes to implementation the conditions are absolutely everything all you're actually approving today in theory are the plans submitted and the description of the development I've been coming to these meetings for four years I have never seen anything close to the development of this scale being approved by this committee with no specific wording of conditions if Mr Clark could go ahead and play the video there's a Councillor Conn just a moment ago hit on one of the key issues and this is the actual geology of the site and the fact that we have localized groundwater impacts that have not been addressed in the officers report and I've submitted a brief video this is from the National Charity the Aquifer Alliance a talk given by nationally recognized sustainable drainage expert Joe Bradley on the 19th of December and if we could go ahead and play this video it summarizes the concerns in Longstown Lawrence do we have a video yes the video is ready and waiting do I have your permission to share it go ahead very much bear with me one second can you see this on the screen now we can hopefully the sound works as well sorry Lawrence we can't hear the sound what you will need to do is stop sharing there's a little tick box on the top right hand corner that says include computer sound and that will get the sound of the video to work thank you very much Aaron I see that I'm just getting to that now let's try again please let me know if this is all working still no sound I'm afraid my tie would it be proper to ask Mr Fulton if the sound is necessary or will the subtitles suffice we do have subtitles the sound is necessary gentlemen sorry could you just repeat that for me it is necessary there's a request for the sound if possible yes okay please bear with me and I will do my best to get this sorted as soon as possible actually Lawrence my friend I can actually get there it's a slight issue with the headphones that we have as well I will just pop it in now from the start up in Longstown and I picked this up in the press it was on Twitter I think we're there if you want to start the video again Lawrence or Aaron whoever's got control so this is a development called North Stowe and they did masses of de-watering for the residential development big residential development and all the funds dried up in Longstown and I picked this up in the press it was on Twitter and it was on Facebook and LinkedIn and something like that it's so easy to do by mistake I can't imagine they did it on purpose but the impact of that for Longstown is enormous not only is it aesthetically not very nice to have rivers and ponds that put no water in them this was in the summer and you imagine you're a terrestrial mammal living in that local area there is nothing for you to drink anywhere because all the springs and all the rivers and all the streams have dried up so that's it that's curtains for all terrestrial mammals unless local people are putting water out reliably every day and we should be ashamed of ourselves as a species I don't mean you personally because that's just it's awful that we allow things like that to happen and that was an accident it wasn't nature that did that that was an accident of ours so on the 30th of November a group together with a group of pond owners in Longstanton met with Stephen Kelly to discuss our concerns about the loss of groundwater from the River Terrace deposit aquifer we asked Mr Kelly to give us data on what has happened to the groundwater level since March of last year we also asked for borehole data that we know for a fact is in the possession of Homes England that they have refused to turn over to the local planning authority and Mr Kelly refused to ask for it we want to see the data we have our ponds in Longstanton have no water and Mr Kelly did nothing to address that this is ecocide I'm not sure that you appreciate this this is not something that will be fixed if it is not fixed when planning permission is granted for 3a and 3b this is what our ponds look like in the summers in Longstanton Fuselin consortium has an entire library of these images they are available for free for free public use for any candidate for council do you want your picture on a flyer next to the picture of one of our destroyed ponds this is what this council is doing please this doesn't need to turn into a political knife fight we're all good people here the council is not ready to grant planning permission on this you have to defer it there's no question about it you have to defer this application you're not ready to approve it thank you members do you have any questions of clarification if any questions of clarification for Mr Fulton I don't think so thank you very much for your time this morning okay next speaker we have I think we saw him earlier online Mr Ian Rawls Cambridge friends of the earth are you with us Mr Rawls hello everybody hello councillors and officers hello you're very quiet Mr Rawls there's not many people say that to me is that better yes that's better oh great thank you so as with the other speakers three minutes to address the committee then they may have some questions for you at the end so if you stay on the line for us so with regards to both phases of the development Cambridge friends of the earth would like to raise a few issues start with we'd question which members of the electorate decided that the thousands of new houses for sale are needed or wanted in the region how many of these will be available for genuine social rent as opposed to the more rather nebulous affordable housing category how likely is it that the proposed development will significantly reduce south camp's district council's council housing waiting list moving on to slightly more environmental issues if you like we also strongly question the glide over overall assumptions suggested in the national policy planning framework and given form by the region's growth agenda that growth in quotes is inevitably a good thing for the region and question new benefits from this the rising tide may well lift our votes but that seems everyone can afford a boat on a more practical level there's no mention in the local plan of realistic ways to provide the necessary water for the planned quantities of new housing development such as this development on the 1st of July 2021 DEFRA announced that chalk streams will be given enhanced environmental protection and published the environmental agency document titled water suggest areas final classification 2021 which included on page 6 the supply areas of Cambridge water and Anglin water are areas of serious water stress additionally according to appendix 3 of this report Cambridge water needs to reduce abstraction by 22 million litres of water per day from current levels or from levels current at the 1st of July 2021 Anglin water needs to reduce abstraction by 189 million litres per day from levels current at the 1st of July 2021 surely given these facts water stress and shortage in itself should hold any further development we see that whilst consideration of this application is taking place now the consultation for the regional water plan is not due until the summer of this year perhaps councils in greater Cambridge region I hope that no one notices small detail what the sound of cans being kicked down the road which has the potential to slow down the development jugnaught after all greater Cambridge planning seem to have chosen to exclude any mention of environmental harm from DEFRA's report for north-state development greater Cambridge planning has not sought the water company's assurance that it can meet the needs of growth without causing deterioration this seems to have said to have gone out of its way to obfuscitate fundamental water supply issues this is glaring water shortage can be sold by proposals such as pumping water from also water stress north Lincolnshire or building reservoirs in the fence whether we vulnerable to salt water intrusion and flooding as climate change advances is fantasy greenwash at the highest order and that these plans are big enough and bold enough to distract you the decision makers from having to address the fundamental issues surrounding this development for further months and perhaps years approaching this issue literally from the other end that appears to be precious little attention have had the resulting sewage we dealt with decades of underinvestment in water treatment infrastructure by privatised utilities that have left the system unable to cope with current levels of sewage leading to far too frequent discharges when to seek to create sewage into the river cab and yet further pressure has been put on this ramshackle system by ever increasing demand from further development Friends of the Earth therefore councillors to recognise the proposed development in north-stow will cause further unacceptable deterioration of the Cannes Valley chalk streams and endanger the Cam herself We ask you to reject this development on the grounds of unacceptable and unprecedented environmental harm Thank you very much Thank you very much Mr Rawls If you would mind holding on in case there are any questions from councillors for you One from councillor Roberts please Good morning I think we all know that the organisation that you stand for and speaking on behalf of has done a great deal of good over maybe 50 or so years in particular when you've got to worldwide attention the deficits in how we treat the world I wonder can you just tell me I'm sure that you've read the mission statement of this council What do you think of its mission statement that the environment is at the heart of this council and that we are green to our roots I think there's a great word and I'm sure many of the if not all of the members of the council would go along with that unfortunately it does seem that pressures from outside or maybe financial pressures are forcing the council in directions that it's not entirely happy with maybe I suspect there are very good people on the council I mean you yourself have made some very good statements in this meeting regarding water supply issues I think outside pressures are maybe having a malign influence should we say on the decisions made by this council Thank you, any further questions of clarity please Councillor Hawkins Thank you chair and through you Thank you for your presentation Are you aware of the water resources east's consultation that's ongoing and are you going to be taking part in that We are aware of it and we will be making a contribution at some point Okay, I'm aware that this consultation is the plans for the water supply companies to actually provide the water that they are legally lawfully obliged to provide to all the public users and agriculture and all that We appreciate that but they're also legally obliged at the moment they seem to be failing in that task to a large degree. We will contribute to the consultation but as is the way with such devices should we say consultations they're often a way of brushing over fundamental issues as we said piping water from elsewhere in the country is not a solution it will be coming from already water stressed areas I mean throughout history mankind has moved to where fundamental resources like water and agricultural land are we seem to be trying to bring the water to where we are and this is in a very rich area, a very wealthy area that's perfectly capable of looking after itself financially it doesn't need further growth it doesn't need investment there are other areas of the country far more in need of investment investment and hope basically I was from Wolverhampton originally and I went through there on the train recently and it's devastated that place needs investment it's like I say it's perfectly capable of looking after itself and it's just development seems to be attracted here it's like a honeypot obviously investment money breeds money and we all seem to be suffering from that I hesitate to use the word greed I think the point's been made but if there's a question of clarity around what he's been saying thank you very much there are no further questions of clarifications so Mr Rawls we thank you for your time this morning thank you for the opportunity and we will move to our final public speaker and I believe he's in the room with us this is Monica ooh the jock home is that right? yeah, jock maybe Monica if that's okay it is in my list for objectives we have parish councils as separate sections so don't worry we haven't forgotten about you Monica as with the others three minutes please and then if you hold on for any questions of clarity okay some of what I plan to say has just been covered by Ian I'd just like to also feedback on what I've heard this morning this concept of presumption in favour of sustainable development this is clearly patently not a sustainable development and I think everybody knows here that we don't have enough water I was absolutely incredulous at what I just heard from Adam Arlen from the environment agency he clearly hasn't read the literature that has come from the environment agency in August 2020 they said any increase in use within existing licence volumes will increase pressure on a system that is already failing environmental targets it's already failing right this isn't going to tip it over it's already being tipped over many water bodies in 2020 did not have the flow required to support the ecology evidence of the pond in Longstanton, low flows too much algae in the water everything is just collapsing and they also recommended that the council the planning authority should seek the water company's assurance that it can meet the needs of growth without causing deterioration I've been unable to find any evidence that the planning authority did that in fact it would appear that everything possible was done to avoid scrutiny so they came up with a clever little plan Anglion water would supply Cambridge water would abstract that way Anglion water needs to be consulted Cambridge water doesn't so of course Anglion water say oh it's absolutely fine we've got no problems with supply Cambridge water do the abstraction and it seems that they're getting away with it but on the first of July last summer on the first of July the Secretary of State for DEFRA accepted environmental agency advice and determined that both Cambridge water and Anglion water are now areas of serious water stress and chalk streams on top of that were given enhanced protection and based on this new information in order for our rivers to be sustainable in order for our rivers to be just sustainable Cambridge water needs to cut abstraction by 22 million litres of water per day and Anglion water by 189 million litres per day in the meantime we are just adding more tabs constantly adding more tabs we are doing nothing to cut abstraction and I would also argue that this new classification basically would invalidate any responses received prior to the first of July last year from environmental groups and water companies to the consultation on this application because it means abstraction licenses are now out of date and they need to be rewritten and in fact that is happening licenses needs to be reduced the license quantities and I'd like everybody just to think about what is at stake here right this is the reality what is at stake here Cambridge without the can so my question is finally I just very quickly did the planning authority seek assurance from Cambridge water who they know is bulk supplying Anglion water and they certainly know now that it could meet the needs of growth without causing deterioration and in view of their needs to make sustainability reductions following this new information from DEFRA on the first of July and if so can we see it how are they going to supply and reduce abstraction by 22 million litres per day to save the can Thank you very much for that Members any questions of clarification for our speaker Councillor Hawkins please Thank you chair and for you Thank you Monica for your presentation you asked if the authority sought assurance from Cambridge water and I think the answer is in paragraph 610 on page 105 Yes it did and Cambridge water has confirmed that it has adequate water resources to serve the proposed nostal development Can I ask if they have answered that question Are you aware of that paragraph I wasn't aware of that but I would like to know when they sent that response was it after the first of July I think that might be a question someone might like to ask in the debate potentially If there's no further questions of clarification for our speaker we thank you very much for your time this afternoon and we'll move on to our next speaker who is I believe an agent of the applicants Mr Michael Bottomley-Tibboards who's joining us virtually Michael good afternoon Hello good afternoon Okay Michael it's the same as the other speakers three minutes to address the committee with any comments you want to give them and then if you hold on for any questions of clarification please Okay thank you very much So thank you for the opportunity to speak today I'm a planning consultant for Tibboards representing Homes England Homes England are a non-departmental public body sponsored by the department for levelling up housing and communities Homes England's role is to accelerate the delivery of housing across England to ensure that more people have access to better homes in the right places this means as a public sector master developer Homes England is seeking to deliver north stone in the public interest The design for north stone phase three has been in development since early 2018 and we have engaged extensively with the community council counter council and other statutory consorties We have arranged three rounds of public consultation and held 17 pre-application meetings and workshops prior to the application submission in April 2020 We have continued to engage and refine the proposals over the last 18 months and the result of the scheme that meets or exceeds policy requirements and is of very high quality The application has been accompanied by a full environmental impact assessment Water extraction permits for phase two have all been secured from Cambridge Water and the environment agency has confirmed that it has satisfied the suitable consent and permissions that are in place for the development The proposals are based on a master plan that will deliver a vibrant 21st century settlement with strong local identity The master plan aims to promote sustainable transport creating a highly permeable movement network which integrates phase three A with the rest of the town and surrounding area as well as promoting active and sustainable travel choices such as walking, cycling and public transport Homes England is committed to ensuring that North Australia is a balanced and sustainable community and recognises that an approximate mix of homes is crucial an appropriate mix of homes is crucial to that objective 40% of the dwellings on the site will be affordable housing containing a variety of affordable tenure types to meet local needs Throughout the design process for phase three A there has been a commitment to ensure that healthy new town principles are applied to all aspects of North Australia's development and to ensure that the new town is a positive lifestyle choice Over one third of phase three A is open space in green infrastructure retaining groups of trees and other landscape features including lakes and users that are characters drivers in new neighbourhoods To support these measures the section of six package includes a community infrastructure contribution of £68.5 million The technical team who worked on the proposals are on hand to answer any questions you have including Janis Hughes the technical, environmental and transport matters an expert on drainage and water matters Dean Harris the planning manager for Homes England Philip Harker, the infrastructure lead for Homes England and Katya Silla, the urban designer and master planner Thank you very much Thank you very much Michael and if you could hold on a second in case any questions of clarity for yourself starting with councillor Roberts and then Richard Williams please Good morning If it is still morning No, on beyond Gosh it sounds like utopia doesn't it However you must be aware of what the conversation has been this morning the debate has been and the great concerns for people at the sharp end especially the drainage board people What have we got to say about the problems related to the chalk streams the ponds the permeability of the land etc please So I'll pass that question over to Janis Hughes Thank you Mike So I want to speak on behalf of our technical teams and draw your attention first of all in terms of the groundwater issues and the concerns over the ponds in Longstanton So we submitted a technical note in August 2021 to explain further what the drainage strategy includes and what the impacts are likely to be on groundwater So firstly to explain that the reason why we are predicting a reduction in groundwater levels is because once developed the site will allow less infiltration so we've taken a very much worse case assumption that in the surface water drainage strategy that there will be limited infiltration and that will go into the surface drainage network however as the development builds out we'll be under condition and looking for all opportunities to enable that infiltration so the assessment is first of all very much a worse case that was set out in the EIA chapter as well on ground conditions and hydrogeology and summarised in that groundwater note and there was a question earlier about the nature of the ground conditions and do I have the chair's permission to share a diagram from the groundwater note would that be acceptable? Which question is this in response to? So this is regarding the issues around groundwater and our response to that is that acceptable to explain? If it is helpful please do My apologies I think it froze there So in terms of the groundwater conditions we have provided diagrams which show a cross section of how the site drains and within those figures we give you an indication of what the clay and the river terrace deposits are so in various cross sections you can see that the site is Cambridge clay overlained with river terrace deposits in locations the section which goes between phase 2 and phase 1 and the Oakington end of the site what you can actually see is that the river terrace deposits are in the middle and affected by groundwater changes but actually because the clay is on either side there is no actual flow between what's going on on phase 3a and phases 2 so just to draw your attention that the note that we prepared explains that the direction of flows of groundwater are such that there isn't really an interaction with what's going on in Longstanton and the flow actually goes two-thirds towards the northeast side and into the Beck Brook through the attenuation ponds that have been constructed on the other third towards the Oakington area so Sorry, can I just quickly interrupt Chairman, can I ask it's just been noted or stated that the note, what note are we talking about here and also I'd like to ask as well you're not answering my question about, I think you said at the start of your presentation, you were talking very quickly about you'd been doing a survey following on the problem of Longstanton ponds being empty and you haven't actually told us why they are empty Sorry In terms of why they are empty, there's been an HR Wallingford report that looks separately at that, that's related to what's gone on in North Stowe phase 1, that report does not make reference to phase 2 or 3, the phase 3a site conditions are different nonetheless Homes England will be committed to monitoring the situation so the construction management will enable that situation to be monitored as it goes on and also since the time of that work, the EA now require a licence for dewatering so there are many, there are controls in place to ensure that that can be controlled going forward and the site conditions are different Okay, thank you I think that's answered the question as best as can be Question of clarity please from Heather Williams Thank you So my question was about on the affordable housing so we've heard that there's 40% on this application but over the whole site when you factor in all the phases we're not at 40% overall I'm just wondering whether it's something that would be considered by yourselves I know we can't ask for more than 40% but whether if balance sheets allowed you would actually release more houses to make it 40% overall as you're in a different position to many developers and have that flexibility Thank you I'll pass that over to Dean Harris Hi, I'm Dean Harris, hello councillors Just a point of clarification in phase 2 we're providing 50% affordable housing so across north stove the affordable housing provision is in excess of 40%, it's 41% of north stove as a whole so we're meeting policy in relation to phase 3 and half the affordable housing is to be affordable rent which meets policy requirements so that's the proposal, thank you Thank you chair, I think members may know why I asked the question and yeah, thank you Thank you very much, and councillor Richard Williams please Thank you very much chair It was useful to share that one of the speakers shared that report because that's exactly what I'm looking at here so I'll assume from that that the applicants do accept that we're looking at a reduction in the water table of 2-3 metres because that's what those figures are, those diagrams that we were just shown indicate I would also think of a question of clarity or make the point, this report does not say that these indicated final water tables are the worst-case scenario it says these figures show the anticipated reduction in groundwater in the area of the site which is a very different thing so I don't think it shows the worst-case scenario that's not the way that it's raised it talks about anticipated and then a final point it was just stated that the Kingfish-upon system is different but in the phase 3 report from HR Wallingford the first thing it says is that the Kingfish-upon is situated in hydraulic continuity with the underline river of a terraced deposit Aquifer and that's exactly what we're talking about here so we know that what happened to Kingfish-upon was not intended to come back in the phase 1 reports nobody thought this was going to happen and now we're being told that actually even though there's going to be a 2-3 metre reduction further in the river terraced deposit that won't affect the streams at Oakington I find that difficult to accept I don't know if anyone wants to come back and I don't think there's a question there but if anyone does want to come back there's an opportunity for a clarification yes it is also river terraced deposits on phase 3a but the clay sort of interrupts those so it's not a continuous drainage system the drainage flow within phase 3a is going to that point to the north and northeast and the south okay thank you for that with that there's no more question sorry one more question of clarification from Councillor Hawkins please thank you my concern is about the construction management plan and having had to convene meetings with those who were building out phase 1 to resolve issues of construction there is going through over willing on routes that they were not supposed to according to the management plan that was in place how do you propose to ensure in this case that the construction is actually keep to the management plan once it's been agreed and it should not be going through our villages Michael a question around the enforcement of the construction management plan anyone can they hear us on if you can hear apologies chair I'll just make one quick point just a statement of fact which is phase 1 isn't a homes England development I suspect a number of members know that in terms of the the routing we're happy to look at this by condition and work with councillors district council to get this right going forward as part of the construction environmental management plan to be conditioned I don't know if Janice shoes has anything to add to that I think it's worth noting as well that phase 3a has access from the southern axis road west your carriageway so it's a different situation and phase 1 has to be served from the existing roads so alongside what's happening with phase 2 at present that's fine I think you've answered thank you as a comeback from councillor Hawkins I'm very concerned because it's not just your construction vehicles it's your suppliers as well and it was the suppliers who were actually causing serious problems for phase 1 so whatever it is you would have to be responsible for that and make sure that it works thank you don't need to respond to that thank you ok we thank you very much everyone who's contributed to that we're going to move on to our next set of public speakers now which are representatives from local parish councils first on my list I have is councillor Dan Dillamair Lyon who's representing Longstanton parish council would you like to take the seat please and you'll probably hear this a lot now but as usual three minutes to present to the committee at which point there may likely be some questions for you at the end thank you chair before I start I'd just like to mention that I'm joined by a remotely by one of our other members of the parish council Andy Wichely one I'll present will cover both the 3A and 3B phases unfortunately I can't stay with you after this presentation I'll have to leave I will try and reach on remotely I want to reach my destination but councillor Wichely can fill in anything in the meanwhile if you have any questions ok that's great thank you ok so before we go too much further I'd assume that everybody's familiar with this famous document and I did ask for it to be circulated to you beforehand because it's a very important part of the decision making process I'd like to thank Mr Ricketts for his presentation where he mentioned the environmental impact assessment and a number of you have questions just for clarity would you mind just stating which document it is we can't all see oh sorry yes ok that's the HR1 input report ok thank you so that's the two phases of the report ok that's clear thank you thank you so yeah Mr Ricketts mentioned the environmental impact assessment and stated that that have been reviewed by all I think you've probably proven to yourselves this morning in the debate that you've had that there is doubt over the nature of the environmental impact assessment and whether or not it holds true for today if we look at the impact on Longstanton you've seen some video you've seen some pictures worse than the pictures tell I've speaking with residents yesterday where they've had to have tons and tons of material shipped in because their garden is sinking the house is disappearing we have a section 106 application in for funds to contribute to solving our very real impact of that in the parish council in that our village institute building is collapsing due to subsidence and the cracks in it you can actually put your hand in so they're not small and insignificant and this has all happened since the dewatering has started for phase one so we would suggest that based on the material and based on the HR Wallingford report that there is doubts to be cast over the basis of the scientific decisions that are being made and the recommendations that are being provided here and it was worth a point of note that the environment agency have made no mention in any of their material about any of the available data that shows that there are things going on here that have not been factored in so from the point of view of the parish of Longstanton it's a very real effect that we feel and I'm sure that my colleagues from North Stowe will tell you more about this from their point of view and from Okington the Kingfisher pond is just one part of it please do not focus on the Kingfisher pond although the report says it on the front it's about a much bigger structure that provides our community provides our water and affects us massively and you've mentioned a farm land around we have farmers with no water in their wells that they can draw where they have a license to draw it they can't draw it to water their crops and run their businesses so from my point of view I'll keep it very brief and sum up if you're going to make a decision I would expect it to be based on believable and credible scientific information I think we've called that into doubt today we would ask that that scientific basis is reviewed set correctly and decisions and plans are made on that I know this report suggests that there should be more work done I'm pleased to see that we have some engagement going on and I know that Stephen Kelly has been involved in that as well to look at what has happened it probably is accidental you don't design things like this to happen but we need to get to the bottom of what is happening there so if you're going to make a decision and you're going to move to approve the development we would ask that there would be conditions put in place that there is a fully understood costed and importantly funded plan to remediate the damage that's been done with the work from foot excuse me from phase one and that that is done on a basis of no impact to the further development in terms of section 106 contribution and community facilities it's all too easy to spend a fortune on these things and then take that out of the cost of the development that is taking place and in addition Mr Fulton mentioned monitoring we'd ask that in the spirit of transparency that monitoring is installed to keep tabs on what's going on with the water levels as this development progresses we're very focused on today we've heard about 2027 and beyond where water becomes a challenge it's obviously a point of such contention that we need to have data available and transparency of that data to allow us all to see what's happening as the development on North Stoke continues thank you thank you very much for that before we go to questions of clarity one thing I should have asked at the beginning was can I just confirm you got permission from Longstowns and Parrish Council to represent their views here today correct I'll do it good thank you very much have to cover that off of course Councillor Roberts please chairman through you chairman good afternoon sir can you just remind me again you're talking about some properties and including your own Parrish building I think can you just explain again to me what people are now having to to deal with and I've more people got concerns about their properties and when did this really start showing its face thank you certainly so the ponds are obviously a very obvious visual indicator and that's been present for well pretty much months after the dewatering first started and it's been a constantly deteriorating situation it obviously takes time for things like the drying of the land to take effect in substance to take effect but certainly we've had notable subsidence in the village institute for two years it may even be three kept COVID makes things a little bit haziest to exactly when we were there when we weren't but certainly talking to residents in and around the village they have seen the effects building ever since the development work started on north stone so it's not something that's happened recently it's been a progressive thing you're welcome thank you very much I don't think there's any please thank you chair have there been any engineering reports done on these buildings to connect the problems people have experienced in the dewatering I'm not aware of those at this point no however the buildings do all sit on top of the structure thank you thank you very much there's any further questions for yourself so we'll move members to our next public speaker who's a representative of north stone town council council Richard Owen who believes joining us online council Owen yes hello can you hear me okay yes we can hear and see you fine thank you for joining us today as we've got the speakers as close to the three minute markers you can and then if you would hold on for any questions of clarity at the end and before you kick off do you have the permission of your town council to represent them today I do good thank you very much so whenever you're ready please thank you very much thank you chair I'm Richard Owen town mayor of north stone and thanks very much for the opportunity to speak today the north stone town council broadly supports the application for phase 3a however this support is subject to strict planning conditions which must be imposed to manage the impact of development on surrounding villages current and future north stone residents and the environment the first and most critical of these as we've already heard many times today is around hydrology in groundwater independent studies and our own analysis based on publicly available data has shown that water levels in the gravel scene which runs under north stone phase 1 and long stanton have been badly affected by earlier phases of development in north stone this has resulted in many water features and ponds drying out with lots of habitats as we've just seen as well as structural damage to buildings and as noted just now by councillor Delamailon phase 3a sits on that same gravel seam furt