Looking at a Housing Allocation and its Planning History
The Pembrokeshire County Council (PCC) Local Development Plan Review (LDP2) has now reached the consultation period for the DRAFT plan that will be submitted to the Welsh Assembly for ratification.
This plan can be downloaded and viewed at: https://www.pembrokeshire.gov.uk/local-development-plan-review/deposit
Two plots for housing allocation on the new draft plan are on either side of the Pembroke Road (aka Long Wall aka Top Road), just east of the Pembroke Dock Cricket Club. These are illustrated in the map extract below.
The very pale green areas have been designated as Green Wedge land - intended to maintain a separation between Pembroke Dock and the next settlement, Pembroke. The grey stippled areas is land where the extraction of below ground minerals should be considered before any development can take place. The Green Wedge designated land has, apparently, greater protection from development than the land allocated for potential mineral extraction. I was told this by a member of the LDP team over the telephone.
I will now look at the planning history of the housing allocation HSG/096/00272.
An outline planning application was made on 8 August 2012, (Planning Reference 12/0405/PA) and this was passed, with conditions on 19 August 2014.
The application was made by Mr & Mrs Scourfield of THE FARM HOUSE, Hill Farm, Hill Farm Park, Pembroke Dock, SA72 6QZ.
The case officer at PCC was Peter Sedgwick and the agent acting for Mr and Mrs Scourfield was Pembroke Design Ltd (H/West) of 5-7, Picton Place, Haverfordwest, Pembrokeshire.
In August 2017 Mr P Scoufield applied for the approval of the reserved matters set out in the outline planning permission above (ref.12/0405/PA residential development), referring to appearance, landscaping, layout and scale of the development. This application was approved with further conditions and items of information on 22 February 2018. This application can be viewed here: 17/0446/PA. It is (perhaps) interesting to note that the agant and the case officer for the application had changed.
By later in the year, the property, with the planning permission as outlined above, had been sold to Ateb (A housing association) - [It has been pointed out to me by Marcel Lavel that Ateb is NOT a housing association per se. See https://www.atebgroup.co.uk/ ; Ed. 20 March 2020]. They put in an application for a non-material amendment to the planning permission on 30 October 2018 (Planning Reference: 18/0772/NM ). This altered many areas of the planning for the site, which were in summary,
- Non-Material Amendment to reserved matters approval ref. 17/0446/PA (residential development in conjunction with outline planning permission ref. 12/0405/PA) to allow for changes to house type layout and siting, reduced footprints, changes to materials and finishes, porch re-design, addition of photovoltaics, change to turning head road No.3 and adjustments at end of road No.5, changes to gardens of flats, garden shed size and location and removal of water butts
This was unconditionally passed on 14 December 2018. The previous day another condition of the original outline permission was met (Planning Reference 18/0801/DC ):
- Discharge of condition 15 (hydraulic modelling assessment) of outline planning permission ref. 12/0405/PA (residential development).
However, the time remaining for commencing work within the conditions of the original planning application was by now beginning to run short. In early October 2019 permission was sought to amend the condition relating to the way in which the Landscape and Ecological Management Plan (LEMP) for the site would be implemented. Ateb sought to have the the plan implemented in a phased way, which would allow them to commence meaningful work on the site before the 22 February 2020 - after which all permissions would lapse. (Planning Reference: 19/0654/NM)
PCC seemingly reluctantly agreed and unconditional permission to phase the LEMP was granted by the end of October 2019.
Ateb was also struggling to get all the reserved matters from the original application cleared before the planning permission ran out on on 22 February 2020. The made an application (Planning Reference :19/0805/DC) to resolve these reserved matters on 11 November 2019, but these were only partially accepted by PCC on 11 February 2020. The most visible requirement was the moving of the 30 m.p.h. limit signs further east along the Pembroke Road.
The full list of conditions and whether they had been met on 11 February 2020 is:
Were the signs moved? Perhaps you can tell me?
Anyway, by 22 February, in a rather rushed manner, traffic lights were erected and the "Long Wall" had an entrance to the site knocked through it and machinery stood on the site awaiting further instructions...... Did they make the deadline of 22 February? I haven't enquired.
The LDP2 map for Pembroke Dock (here) shows Green Wedge land mostly to the south of the cricket club and along the northern banks of the Pembroke River as far as Jacob's Pill, but not further west towards Pennar Point
The grey mottled area denotes land that has buried hard rock mineral deposits - in this case probably limestone. The significance of this is that the option of exploring and extracting these deposits has to be studied and possibly exploited BEFORE development of the land for other purposes can be considered. Of course the council and any prospective developer of this land could quickly come to an agreement that the deposits are not worth exploiting and so development could be the next option. There is a great deal of land so marked either side of Pembroke Road and also at Pennar Point. Background information about mineral extraction and reserves can be down loaded here.
It is my belief that this land should be marked as Green Wedge in order to maintain the historical separation of Pembroke and Pembroke Dock as well as preserving the northern banks of the Pembroke River from further development.
The designation of Green Wedge land seems to offer greater protection to a site than designation as a site of hard rock deposit that might be exploited.
Ateb was also struggling to get all the reserved matters from the original application cleared before the planning permission ran out on on 22 February 2020. The made an application (Planning Reference :19/0805/DC) to resolve these reserved matters on 11 November 2019, but these were only partially accepted by PCC on 11 February 2020. The most visible requirement was the moving of the 30 m.p.h. limit signs further east along the Pembroke Road.
The full list of conditions and whether they had been met on 11 February 2020 is:
Condition 8: The submitted information is acceptable and sufficient to partially discharge this condition. This condition cannot be fully discharged as the condition requires that the development be implemented in accordance with the approved details before the first occupation of any dwelling or in accordance with a programme to be first agreed in writing by the local planning authority.
Condition 13: The submitted information is acceptable and sufficient to partially discharge this condition. This condition cannot be fully discharged as the condition requires the road signs to be relocated in accordance with the approved details before any works are started on the site.
Condition 16: The submitted information is acceptable and sufficient to partially discharge this condition. This condition cannot be fully discharged as the condition requires that the development be carried out in accordance with the approved details
I can confirm that the following planning condition has been fully discharged:
Condition 22: The submitted information is acceptable and sufficient to fully discharge this condition.
I can confirm that the following planning condition has not been discharged:
Condition 17: No information has been provided in relation to this condition. It would be premature to discharge this condition at this time as it requires the foul sewerage infrastructure works required by the hydraulic modelling assessment to have been completed and approved by Dwr Cymru Welsh Water and the Local Planning Authority to be informed in writing of its completion. Therefore this condition is not discharged.
Were the signs moved? Perhaps you can tell me?
Anyway, by 22 February, in a rather rushed manner, traffic lights were erected and the "Long Wall" had an entrance to the site knocked through it and machinery stood on the site awaiting further instructions...... Did they make the deadline of 22 February? I haven't enquired.
A Note About Green Wedge:
The notion of maintaining a Green Wedge between two settlements is intended to ensure that the settlements do not coalesce, but maintain some countryside between them. PCC have produced a useful guide to the Green Wedge that can be downloaded here. A key to the shading and colours used on the plan can be downloaded here.The LDP2 map for Pembroke Dock (here) shows Green Wedge land mostly to the south of the cricket club and along the northern banks of the Pembroke River as far as Jacob's Pill, but not further west towards Pennar Point
The grey mottled area denotes land that has buried hard rock mineral deposits - in this case probably limestone. The significance of this is that the option of exploring and extracting these deposits has to be studied and possibly exploited BEFORE development of the land for other purposes can be considered. Of course the council and any prospective developer of this land could quickly come to an agreement that the deposits are not worth exploiting and so development could be the next option. There is a great deal of land so marked either side of Pembroke Road and also at Pennar Point. Background information about mineral extraction and reserves can be down loaded here.
It is my belief that this land should be marked as Green Wedge in order to maintain the historical separation of Pembroke and Pembroke Dock as well as preserving the northern banks of the Pembroke River from further development.
The designation of Green Wedge land seems to offer greater protection to a site than designation as a site of hard rock deposit that might be exploited.
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