Build 4 flats in Waxwell Road, Hullbridge – refused in line with officers recommendations
A strange one this. One of the ward councillors, Peter Robinson , brought this one to the committee. Officers were already recommending refusal, so presumably he wanted to allow it. But he had clearly changed his mind in the past few days, so there was no debate, and it was refused. Cllr Robinson left the meeting soon after (and didn’t stay for the Lower Road item)
Demolish 36 High Road, Rayleigh and build flats – refused in line with officers recommendations, plus at Cllr Keith Hudson’s suggestion, an extra reason was added regarding parkings spaces.
This was perhaps the main item of the night – the Victorian house hidden by some lovely trees in Rayleigh High Road. It is already converted into flats, but the applicants wanted to demolish and build 14 new apartments.
Officers were recommending refusal on the grounds of :-
– causing overlooking of a neighbouring garden
– adverse effect on a protected species of bat
– the tree survey wasn’t adequate
The speaker for the public on this was Steve Tellis, former Lib Dem Councillor , who spoke in depth on the application and asked councillors to look at council policy HP11, which dealt with flats.
Ward member Mavis Webster spoke next, and was clearly striving to find other reasons for refusal, without much luck. Various mentions were made of the extra traffic that would be caused by the extra flats (often by people who had unhesitatingly voted for 770 homes off Rawreth Lane recently!)
Very few councillors actually bring the council’s policy books with them but Ron Oatham is an exception , so that at least the Lib Dems could see what HP11 said. Chris Black then asked for HP11 to be displayed on the screen for Conservative councilors to see.
In the end ,after some extra debate, at Cllr Keith Hudson’s suggestion an extra reason was added regarding car parking standards.
Add some shelters at Stambridge Football Club – refused against officers recommendations.
Ward councillor Tracy Capon spoke against allowing this, and got support.
Allow a basement at a new bungalow in Lower Road Hockley – allowed against officers recommendations
Another odd one. The council had alreday given permission for bungalow in the green belt. But the builder/owner had found a whole load of burned, buried material under the site, which meant that it needed massive piling, or a basement. So the application being considered was for allowing a very large green belt basement. Officers were recommending refual , but the basement was supported by the only ward councillor present, Lesley Butcher, and she won the vote. (the only councillors voting against were Jackie Dillnutt and Jeremy Thomass)
Build 1 new bungalow in Eastern Road, Rayleigh – refused against officers recommendations
A simple application to build a bungalow in the garden of one of the most prestigious roads in Rayleigh. It was refused, after ward member Mavis Webster referred to a decision by an inspector to refuse something similar nearby.
Changing rooms and storage at football pitches by Old London Road Rawreth
– Ron Oatham moved deferral and this was seconded by Chris Black. We tried to explain that with other applications already in on this site, it would be better to deal with them all on one night after a site visit but we lost the vote. (the few councillors who voted for a deferral included Chris, Ron, Jackie and Peter and Mavis Webster) Chris then proposed a condition be added making this a temporary permission of 3 years . and this was then passed, despite officer resistance.
Dissapointing to hear Cllr Robinson coudn’t stay for the other local issues. I never got any form of response from him or his Hullbridge colleagues to my email 2 weeks ago about a similar thing. Maybe that’s telling me something?