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Councillor Chapman (in respect of his Chairmanship of the Dedham Vale and Stour Valley Project Joint Advisory Committee) declared a non-pecuniary interest in this item pursuant to the provisions of Meetings General Procedure Rule 7(5).
The Committee considered a report by the Head of Commercial Services giving details of the urban design principles set out in the review of the Master Plan for the Northern Gateway.
Simon Cairns, Major Development and Projects Manager, presented the report and, together with Lois Bowser, Project Manager, responded to Councillors’ questions. Simon explained that the Master Plan had been prepared four years ago and endorsed by the Local Plan Committee for public consultation in June 2014. Since then there had been significant change with road and facility development taking place, and further developments had been submitted as planning applications whilst the Local Plan had been reviewed and was currently out to consultation until mid-September 2016. There was therefore a need to update and review the Master Plan to ensure it was fit for purpose, conformed to the policy framework and reflected responses received to the public consultation carried out between July and October 2014. The intention behind the Master Plan was to help coordinate the development of the Colchester Northern Gateway area so that in design terms it created a strong sense of place and an attractive destination. It was always intended that, wherever practical, new development should follow the urban design principles it set out.
Gillespies, an international landscape, planning and urban design consultancy, were commissioned by the Council to prepare a public realm strategy for the whole of the Northern Gateway with the aim of providing a parkland and informal recreation setting for the formal sports facilities on the northern side of the A12 and for the commercial leisure and employment uses on the southern side. This strategy was in draft form and in order to complete this work it was important to have an up-to-date Master Plan. In May 2016 Gillespies had been appointed to undertake this task, working alongside the Council’s appointed transport consultants for the Northern Gateway, JMP, as well as the ecology and arboricultural consultants, leisure consultants and architects as appropriate. They had also engaged with key developers, including Turnstone, whose planning applications for a range of leisure-related uses on the plot adjoining the east of the football stadium was currently under consideration. The proposals accorded broadly with principles contained in the National Planning Policy Framework, the Local Plan Preferred Options and the ideas expressed in the draft Myland and Braiswick Neighbourhood Plan. The intention was to create a place of regional importance whilst acknowledging local community needs and aspirations.
The draft Master Plan Review had five principal components:
• The central spine comprising the Leisure Promenade and The Boulevard;
• The Circus: a central crossing point of the Boulevard over the Northern Approach Road;
• The A12 crossing point and principal access into the gateway;
• Parkland for informal recreation around the principal sports areas on the northern side and
• Strong urban form with frontages creating focal points for views, landmarks and nodes for public art.
Robert Johnstone addressed the Committee pursuant to the provisions of Meetings General Procedure Rule 5(3). He referred to paragraph 75 of the National Planning Policy Framework which provided for the protection and enhancement of public rights of way and for Local Authorities to seek opportunities to extend the public rights of way network. He also referred to the need for the Definitive Map of Public Rights of Way to be publicly available and he was concerned that it was not yet accessible electronically. He was concerned that these provisions were not being used by the Council in its assessment of planning applications. He also referred to the need for the Essex County Council Guidance on Public Rights of Way which had been adopted as Supplementary planning Guidance to be made publicly available.
The Place Strategy Manager confirmed the successful partnership work which had been undertaken in relation to the Green Orbital Route and that she had recently attended a meeting looking to improve rights of way within a specific site. As such she was confident that the inclusion of rights of way implications within the assessment of planning applications would be better moving forward. In order to address the issue of public availability of documents, she confirmed that it would be possible, with the Committee’s consent, to incorporate the additional documents referred to by Mr Johnstone within the Local Development Scheme. Accordingly, in the interests of accuracy, the Chairman, on behalf of the Committee, consented to these additions being made to the Local Development Scheme.
In discussion, Members of the Committee commented, in particular, in relation to:
• The amount of land to be allocated for open space following the development of the land currently occupied by Colchester Rugby Club, which had been previously identified in the Myland Neighbourhood Plan as being 11 acres / 4.6 hectares;
• Concern regarding the implications of the Northern Gateway development for the residents of Stanway who were supportive of the planning application for Tollgate Village and the confusion experienced by these residents who remained unclear as to why the development at Tollgate had been refused planning permission despite considerable support from local residents;
• The illustrations of the area to be known as the Boulevard gave the impression of a High Street whilst the illustration of an outdoor cinema screen, both of which could be deemed to be in direct competition with the Town Centre, which had been material considerations considered to be reasons to refuse the Tollgate Village application;
• Concern regarding the expansion of Colchester north of the A12, the line of this major trunk road having not hitherto been breached by development;
• The need for adequate weight to be given to the Myland Neighbourhood Plan within the review of the Northern Gateway Masterplan;
• Concern that some of the content of the Masterplan requires more considered thought and a more visionary approach
• Concern regarding development also breaching the Boxted Parish boundary which was likely to lead to adverse noise nuisance for the village;
• The Masterplan contained a number of typographical and factual errors which needed to be corrected such as references to local villages as through routes to Sudbury and Ipswich, Langham Road being wrongly identified as a bus route; Boxted being referred to as Boxford as well as footpaths being incorrectly illustrated crossing farmland and incorrectly located access points to the Country Park;
• The costs associated with the Masterplan document were questioned and the need for the inaccuracies in the textual content to be corrected and for alternative illustrations to be sought;
• Acknowledgement that the Masterplan was attempting to show an indicative , yet ambitious, view for the area which was hoped would be attractive for young people, in particular;
• An indication of from where the funding for the development was being sourced;
• The potential impact of the development on volumes of traffic, parking problems and the safety of the traffic network;
• Concerns regarding the location of theses sporting facilities all on the north side of the town which would be inaccessible for many residents such as those who lived in East and West Mersea and also the impact of the proposals on the Council’s sporting facilities based at leisure World;
• The need for the Park and Ride hours and days of operation to be extended and for consideration to be given to attracting more users to the scheme to increase visitor numbers to the town centre;
• Reference also to the addition of a lorry / Heavy Goods Vehicle parking facility for the north of the town and whether it would be possible to use the area adjacent to the BP petrol filling station next to the Park and Ride car park;
• The potential for light pollution from the Northern gateway to cause nuisance issues for residents.
In the light of the representations made the Major Development and Projects Manager and the Project Manager gave detailed comments in relation to the following issues:
• The document enclosed with the report was a review of the Masterplan and, as such, referred to details within the original plan which may now be subject to updating and also the Masterplan was a high level document meaning that diagrams were indicative and aspirational in nature;
• The Tollgate Village application was for a retail let scheme whereas for the Northern Gateway development, which benefitted from an extant outline planning permission, any retail elements were ancillary to other predominantly leisure uses;
• The images within the document were intended to illustrate place making and to be indicative only; as such, some may have been misleading in terms of their depiction of streets and shops, however there was no intention to imply that retail development at the Northern Gateway would be acceptable;
• Expansion north of the A12 had been required to meet the need for a replacement location for Colchester Rugby Club as well as the plans to extend the range of indoor sporting choices for residents;
• Discussions had taken place with various sporting governing bodies which had led to proposals to work with key sports to deliver extra capacity for the rugby club, an indoor cricket centre and other indoor/courts users together with a cycling and potential BMX track;
• It was explained that the budget for the review of the Masterplan was £7,000 which was considered to be particularly low and covered a review of the existing document rather than new ideas and may therefore explain why certain inaccuracies had been identified;
• The comments regarding inaccuracies and poorly thought out illustrations were acknowledged and, as such, would be taken on board and reconsidered prior to publication of a final version, but overall the content in terms of the extant planning permission, the employment focus and the new sports elements accurately reflected the current status of the Northern Gateway;
• The vision for the Northern Gateway would require a significant level of funding and appropriate resources were actively being pursued from sporting governing bodies, European Union funds, bids to the Local Enterprise Partnership to deliver improvements to broadband locally;
• A full Transport plan would need to be included at the point when a planning application was submitted and the intention was to seek a pedestrian priority arrangement in the area to be known as the Boulevard whilst progress was being made in discussions with Essex County Council regarding possible use of the Park and Ride car parking facilities on some Saturday afternoons and Sundays;
• The sporting focus at the Northern Gateway was intended to be for sports clubs whilst the activities at Colchester Leisure World were generally more attractive to individual sporting users, the intention for each to complement the other rather than compete with the other.
RESOLVED, subject to appropriate changes being made to the illustrations, plans, maps, photographs and text to address the various concerns and inaccuracies identified by the Committee members, that -
(a) The urban design principles set out in the proposed Masterplan Review for the Northern Gateway be endorsed through adoption of the Masterplan as guidance;
(b) The review of the Masterplan forming the urban design framework and then become a material consideration in the consideration of planning proposals in the Northern Gateway Area be agreed;
(c) Possible further amendments to the Masterplan may be required at a later date following the conclusion of the current Local Plan preferred options process and, following any significant amendment, the bringing back of Masterplan to the Committee for approval, be noted.