Question received from Councillor Webber-Jones to the Executive member for Planning:
“I would like to ask the Executive Lead for Planning to explain the position following the publication of LCC’s Cabinet report in December and the further Cabinet update in February concerning Barwell SUE and the S106 Agreement. Can he respond to the issues raised in the report which implies that the county council has not been engaged in the s106 agreement since 2013, and also confirm what steps have HBBC taken to secure a resolution to the planning application and section 106 agreement?”
Response from Councillor Bill:
“I would like to thank Councillor Webber-Jones for drawing attention to this most important matter.
The Barwell SUE has been in the adopted Hinckley & Bosworth Local Plan since 2009 and has been an essential part of the need to deliver new homes to meet the growing needs of this community in line with the requirement to demonstrate that we have a five year supply of building land. The scale of the proposed development makes delivery a complicated matter because of the wide range of landowners involved, as well as a wide range of organisations including the developers and the county council. The developers behind the scheme have taken a long time to finalise the legal documentation associated with the resolution to grant planning permission but throughout this time the borough council and county council have been working with the developers to finalise these details. We have engaged Homes England, the government’s national advisor on the delivery of homes, to bring any assistance it could to move this forward. We were informed by the developers in November that they had finalised the paperwork and the section 106 agreement could now be signed.
I must highlight that since the resolution to grant planning permission, the county council has been fully engaged in both the section 106 agreement and the planning permission. It came as a real surprise therefore to see the report that went to the county council’s Cabinet in December. A reader of that Cabinet report may be under the impression that the county council had not been involved in the section 106 for a number of years. I can reassure the Council that the county council has been working on the document up until 2019. To emphasise the point, the county council prepared some further changes to the document at the start of last year and continued to work with our officers on the planning permission details since then. There has been a series of meetings throughout last year where the Barwell SUE was under consideration by both the county council and Homes England as a priority site for attention. It is rather concerning that the county council did not realise when they drafted the latest document early last year that the two schemes for which they were seeking funding could not be delivered. Even more worrying was the suggestion from the county council that more investigations on highways were needed and that this could take 12 months.
I am also extremely concerned to read that the potential highway mitigation that the county council had identified was necessary can no longer be delivered. Having been closely involved with seeking improvements to Hinckley’s northern perimeter, in other words the A47, throughout this time I can report that it has always been my understanding that the proposed developments would fund the improvements needed to ensure the safe and efficient operation of this route in and out of the area.
We must now find a way forward and I can inform the Council that our officers recently convened an urgent meeting with the developers and the county council’s highways and education teams. They have put forward a pragmatic approach to enable the county council to reconsider the highway impacts, although it is likely that this will still take up to six months to finalise. We have also asked the county council to update all of their section 106 requirements to ensure that we are maximising the mitigation of this development on local infrastructure.”
Minutes:
Question received from Councillor Webber-Jones to the Executive member for Planning:
“I would like to ask the Executive Lead for Planning to explain the position following the publication of LCC’s Cabinet report in December and the further Cabinet update in February concerning Barwell SUE and the S106 Agreement. Can he respond to the issues raised in the report which implies that the county council has not been engaged in the s106 agreement since 2013, and also confirm what steps have HBBC taken to secure a resolution to the planning application and section 106 agreement?”
Response from Councillor Bill:
“I would like to thank Councillor Webber-Jones for drawing attention to this most important matter.
The Barwell SUE has been in the adopted Hinckley & Bosworth Local Plan since 2009 and has been an essential part of the need to deliver new homes to meet the growing needs of this community in line with the requirement to demonstrate that we have a five year supply of building land. The scale of the proposed development makes delivery a complicated matter because of the wide range of landowners involved, as well as a wide range of organisations including the developers and the county council. The developers behind the scheme have taken a long time to finalise the legal documentation associated with the resolution to grant planning permission but throughout this time the borough council and county council have been working with the developers to finalise these details. We have engaged Homes England, the government’s national advisor on the delivery of homes, to bring any assistance it could to move this forward. We were informed by the developers in November that they had finalised the paperwork and the section 106 agreement could now be signed.
I must highlight that since the resolution to grant planning permission, the county council has been fully engaged in both the section 106 agreement and the planning permission. It came as a real surprise therefore to see the report that went to the county council’s Cabinet in December. A reader of that Cabinet report may be under the impression that the county council had not been involved in the section 106 for a number of years. I can reassure the Council that the county council has been working on the document up until 2019. To emphasise the point, the county council prepared some further changes to the document at the start of last year and continued to work with our officers on the planning permission details since then. There has been a series of meetings throughout last year where the Barwell SUE was under consideration by both the county council and Homes England as a priority site for attention. It is rather concerning that the county council did not realise when they drafted the latest document early last year that the two schemes for which they were seeking funding could not be delivered. Even more worrying was the suggestion from the county council that more investigations on highways were needed and that this could take 12 months.
I am also extremely concerned to read that the potential highway mitigation that the county council had identified was necessary can no longer be delivered. Having been closely involved with seeking improvements to Hinckley’s northern perimeter, in other words the A47, throughout this time I can report that it has always been my understanding that the proposed developments would fund the improvements needed to ensure the safe and efficient operation of this route in and out of the area.
We must now find a way forward and I can inform the Council that our officers recently convened an urgent meeting with the developers and the county council’s highways and education teams. They have put forward a pragmatic approach to enable the county council to reconsider the highway impacts, although it is likely that this will still take up to six months to finalise. We have also asked the county council to update all of their section 106 requirements to ensure that we are maximising the mitigation of this development on local infrastructure.”
By way of supplementary question, Councillor Webber-Jones asked if that meant that no further highway improvements would take place. In response, Councillor Bill hoped that this was not the case and raised the point that six years ago as consultee on the SUE, the highways authority said the A47 required widening so that surely would not have changed now.