Agenda item

Temporary vehicular access off Cuxham Road for construction traffic (as amended/clarified by amended plans and additional information submitted 21 October 2022 and 27 January 2023).

The committee considered planning application P22/S1640/FUL for the temporary vehicular access off Cuxham Road for construction traffic (as amended/clarified by amended plans and additional information submitted 21 October 2022 and 27 January 2023), on land at Cuxham Road, Watlington.  

Consultations, representations, policy and guidance, and the site’s planning history were detailed in the officer’s report, which formed part of the agenda pack for the meeting. 

The planning officer introduced the report and highlighted that the applications were brought to the committee due to a call in by the former local ward member, Anna Badcock, when she was a district councillor.

The site itself covered two fields allocated for development in the Watlington Neighbourhood Development Plan and included the Watlington Edge Road which was considered essential to take traffic out of the town centre. The planning officer also noted that part of the road infrastructure would be delivered by the developers and the other part by Oxfordshire Country Council.

As the County Council would be delivering the roundabout that led directly onto the site, the planning officer highlighted that the two applications before the committee were for temporary access until the work on the roundabout was completed. She noted that application P22/S1640/FUL was for temporary access for construction traffic and that application P22/S1642/FUL was for temporary access to the show home/sale area and the first phase of development on Site B.

The planning officer highlighted to the committee that only the temporary access was in the application before the committee and not the construction traffic management plan and therefore that the committee should only consider the merits of the proposed temporary access for construction traffic. 

The planning officer also clarified condition 5 of P22/S1640/FUL and condition 6 of P22/S1642/FUL as they had been amended to read, ‘Temporary vehicle access shall be permanently stopped up by means of reinstatement of highway verge and bank and the proposed planting of which details shall be provided, at end of use’.

Overall, as there were no objections from technical consultees, and the approval had conditioned the completion of a Section 106 agreement attached to the outline permission, she recommended that the application be approved, and temporary permission be granted.  

Alice Kirkham, the agent representing the applicant, spoke in support of the application. 

The committee asked about the three-year time limits on the applications and if the end of the temporary permissions would be tied to the completion of the roundabout. In response, the planning officer confirmed that this was the case and that, as Oxfordshire County Council had expected to start the works on the roundabout in summer 2024 and for it to be completed within 18 months, even if there were slippage on the county council’s timeframe, the three-year temporary permission sought in these applications should be sufficient to cover that time.

Members enquired where the chalk stream was in relation to the site. The planning officer confirmed that it was on the opposite side of Cuxham Road to the current application before the committee and that the Environment Agency would be involved in the county council’s scheme to ensure the stream was not contaminated.

Overall, members could see no material planning reasons to refuse the granting of temporary access permission and so agreed to approve the application, subject to conditions. 

A motion, moved and seconded, to authorise the head of planning, in consultation with the chair of the Planning Committee, to grant the application was carried on being put to the vote. 

RESOLVED: to authorise the head of planning, in consultation with the chair of the Planning Committee, to grant planning application P22/S1640/FUL, subject to:

A)       The prior completion of a Deed of Variation to the Section 106 legal agreement attached to P19/S1928/O, and

B)       The following conditions:

           Standard:

1. Planning permission – temporary time limit

2. Development to be in accordance with approved plans

Compliance:

3. Vision splays to not be obstructed

Pre-commencement conditions:

4. Construction Environmental Management Plan to be approved

End of permission condition:

5. Temporary vehicle access shall be permanently stopped up by means of reinstatement of highway verge and bank and the proposed planting of which details shall be provided, at end of use