Agenda and minutes

Apologies for absence were received from Councillors ID Carrington, M Hasan, Mrs M J Overton MBE and N H Pepper.

There were no declarations of interest at this point in the meeting.

RESOLVED

That the minutes of the meeting held on 6 November 2023 be agreed and signed by the Chairman as a correct record.

The notes of the site visit held on 29 November 2023 were received.

A report was received which invited the Committee to consider a potential reduction of the existing 40mph speed limit on Sea Road within Anderby village and extending westwards.  Investigations had indicated that this site may be considered a ‘Borderline Case’, as defined within the Council’s Speed Limit Policy.

The Programme Leader – Traffic introduced the report and shared a presentation which detailed the area under consideration.

On a motion proposed by Councillor I G Fleetwood and seconded by Councillor A M Hall it was:

RESOLVED (unanimous)

That the Committee supports the introduction of a 30mph speed limit as proposed, so that the necessary consultation process to bring it into effect may begin.

A report was received which invited the Committee to consider a request to reduce the existing 40mph speed limit on the A16 at Utterby to 30mph.  Investigations had indicated that a reduction in speed limit at this location may be considered as a ‘Borderline Case’, as defined within the Council’s Speed Limit Policy.

The Programme Manager – Traffic introduced the report and shared a presentation which detailed the area under consideration.

On a motion by Councillor A M Hall and seconded by Councillor P A Skinner, it was:

RESOLVED (unanimous)

That the Committee supports the introduction of the 30mph speed and that the necessary consultation process to bring it into effect be pursued.

A report was received which invited the Committee to consider objections to proposed waiting and loading restrictions at Drury Street, Metheringham.

The Programme Manager – Traffic introduced the report and shared a presentation which detailed the areas under consideration.  Four objections had been received which cited concerns that the restrictions would reduce space for residents to park, and that the restrictions would cause parked vehicles to become displaced causing obstruction to garages and access elsewhere on Drury Street.

On a motion by Councillor I G Fleetwood, seconded by Councillor A M Hall it was:

RESOLVED (unanimous)

That the objections be overruled so that the order as advertised may be introduced.

Consideration was given to a report which outlined a planning application by Manby BGE Ltd to construct a gas to grid anaerobic digester and fertiliser production facility comprising of nine digester/fermentation tanks; feedstock reception/straw processing and storage building; digestate separation and fertiliser production building; biogas upgrade plant; emergency gas flare; odour control and condensing unit; gas entry compound/unit other ancillary plant and equipment and underground pipeline connecting to National Grid at Land at Manby Airfield, off Manby Middlegate, Manby.

The Applications Manager introduced the report and shared a presentation which detailed the areas under consideration.  It was reported that objections had been received from the Parish Council and Lincolnshire Wildlife Trust.  102 representations from the public had been received.  It was also noted that a further representation had been received following the publication of the report and was detailed in the update to the Committee.  However, this did not raise any different concerns to those that had already been submitted.  It was noted that no objections from the Environment Agency had been received.

The Committee was advised that the main issues to be considered for this application were set out in the report and included location, landscape and visual impacts, noise and odour impacts, highways, flood risk, nature conservation and the historic environment.

The Applications Manager also reported that since the publication of the report, conversations had continued with the applicant regarding the wording of the conditions including minor changes to the phasing and timing of operations.  The applicant had also offered to secure a vehicle routing restriction which would limit HGV movements through Manby/Grimoldby and avoid movements during school pick up/drop off times.  The revised schedule of conditions was set out in the Committee update circulated to the Committee prior to the meeting.

Councillor Terrence Knowles, Chairman of Grimoldby and Manby Parish Council spoke as an objector to this application and made the following comments:

·       The officers’ report was very thorough and very detailed however assumptions had been made in the report which were in favour of the developer.

·       Page 43 of the report set out representations from residents and it was clear that they did not want any further industrialisation of Manby Airfield.

·       It was stated in the report, that this was a very large development and with regard to his villages, it was massive.

·       In relation to traffic movements, page 62 set out the details of the traffic survey.  This was carried out in December.  It was queried how Highways and the Council could accept a traffic survey for such a large development carried out in December.

·       On the B1200, which was a very busy and sometimes lethal road, the traffic quadrupled in the summer.  Grimoldby and Manby, were 4 miles from the coast and the traffic in the summer was horrendous.

·       It was commented that the traffic survey was very misleading.

·       Page 84 of the report commented on the concerns regarding traffic and mentioned 124 traffic movements.  It was felt that this was incorrect, this assumed  ...  view the full minutes text for item 61.

Consideration was given to a report which detailed an application for the change of use of redundant courier/transportation business to car dismantling business at The Old Ship Inn, Beck Bank, Gosberton Clough, Spalding.

The Applications Manager introduced the report and shared a presentation which detailed the areas under consideration.  It was highlighted that planning permission had previously been granted on 13 February 2023 for this same use and in granting permission, five pre-commencement conditions were imposed.  However, the development commenced prior to these pre-commencement conditions being fulfilled and as a result, it was considered by the Waste Planning Authority that the planning permission was lost.  The applicant had therefore submitted a fresh application that sought to re-establish this permission and largely reflected the application submitted previously with the exception that it now contained additional details to address the pre-commencement conditions that had been imposed previously.

Mr Kevin Adams addressed the Committee as an objector and made the following statement:

“I appreciate that noise is subjective and that residents who are out all day, or live in noisy households may not hear the operation as much but the report which seems to hold most influence with you, the committee, has been written by someone who has not spent last summer in our back garden.

After one has cut through the planning ‘speak’ which no doubt ticks all the boxes required to satisfy government directives, other than the operator adhering to stipulated timings and not working outside of them as was previously the case, very little will change for us, due to the nature of the work being undertaken.

Contrary to what has been written in the supporting document about this proposal being no more adverse that the previous operations and even that it is similar, in the four and a half years we have lived at our property we heard nothing from this site, until this business operated, unauthorised, for 8 months spanning the summer.  Our relative peace and quiet was replaced with the sound of smashing windscreens being dropped into a container, crashing metal, hammering, other impact tools and  reversing forklift.  The warning signal for a forklift is over 100 decibels and the centre of out garden is no more than 80m from the site.  The noise has at times been intolerable in its repetition, effectively removing the quiet enjoyment of our garden and grounds.

Whatever fanciful notion about noise containment are asserted I find it incredulous that such an operation could ever be given permission to operate in a residential area.  if it wasn’t noisy, I can assure you I would not be standing here setting out this objection today.

I very much doubt that anyone responsible for these planning policies would be happy for this type of operation to move into their village and whilst I appreciate that many pacifying solutions are being offered in the supporting document, you cannot escape the fact that the dismantling of cars, by the very nature of the description, is noisy.  You  ...  view the full minutes text for item 62.

The Committee received a supplementary report which set out the outcome of an appeal following the Council’s decision to refuse planning permission to Egdon Resources UK Ltd (the Appellant) application to undertake side track drilling operations, associated testing and long-term oil production.  Contrary to the Officers’ recommendation, the Planning & Regulation Committee refused the application, and the Appellant subsequently made an appeal against that decision to the Planning Inspectorate.

The appeal was determined by an appeal hearing on 11 October 2022 and having considered the arguments and representations made by the Appellant, the Council and Interested Parties at the hearing, the Planning Inspector decided to find in favour of the Appellant and grant Conditional Planning Permission.  A copy of the Inspector’s decision letter was attached at Appendix A to the report.

Members were provided with the opportunity to discuss the report and it was commented that it was a credit to the Committee that the grounds on which it refused the planning permission were more or less upheld by the Planning Inspectorate.  The only grounds on which it was granted permission was based on the need for the development.  One member commented that they had been informed that a statutory review into this decision was being launched, and it was queried what the County Council’s involvement in this would be.  Officers advised that they were not aware of any challenge that had been made.  The process to challenge any decision by the Planning Inspectorate was through judicial review, and this would need to be submitted within six weeks of the publication of the result.

RESOLVED

That the decision of the Planning Inspectorate be noted.

Consideration was given to a report which outlined the application for a 60 year Development Consent Order (DCO) by West Burton Solar Project for the construction, operation and maintenance of an energy solar park covering three separate land parcels covering approximately 760 ha that would produce 480MW of energy to be transferred to West Burton Sub Station via underground cable, on land to the north of Saxilby and south of Marton.  The Council was required to provide its comments on this application to the Examining Authority who, following a six month examination, would make a recommendation to the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero as to whether the Development Consent Order should be granted or not.

The Head of Planning introduced the report and shared a presentation which detailed the areas under consideration.  The Committee was advised that at the previous meeting, a report was brought seeking a delegation to the Head of Planning to submit the Local Impact Report (LIR), however, since that meeting, the Examining Authority had changed the deadline dates and now both the LIR and the Council’s written submission needed to be submitted by 7 December 2023. 

The Committee was advised that the recommendation within the report was that the county council objects to planning permission being granted for the reasons which were set out in detail in the report on page 172.  It was highlighted that some of the areas for concern included the following:

·       The negative impact on the landscape

·       Loss of Best and Most Versatile land

·       Negative impacts on users of public rights of way

·       Concerns in relation to identifying the amounts of archaeological artefacts in the area

·       Waste prevention

·       Concerns from a highways perspective/access

·       Secretary of State’s attention to be drawn to the fact that if the DCO was granted, there would be a need for appropriate community benefits.

Eve Browning, Project Development Manager, Island Green Power, addressed the Committee on behalf of the applicant and made the following statement:

“Hello, I would like to introduce myself, I am Eve Browning, Project Development Manager working for Island Green Power, who are the developer for the West Burton Solar Project, you may remember seeing me here recently to represent our other solar project NSIP development in this area, Cottam Solar Project. 

As I stated for Cottam, the project team of West Burton Solar Project have built a good working relationship with Lincolnshire County Council and its officers, and again would like to express my gratitude for this.

We are pleased to see and acknowledge the positives in the West Burton Local Impact report noted at paragraph 35 of the Committee report on page 170 such as the strong contribution towards net zero and significant biodiversity net gain.  There have also been some negatives identified and summarised within paragraph 36, and on these I make the following comments:

Landscape and visual – we continue dialogue with the Council on landscape and visual impacts, both standalone and cumulatively and have submitted additional  ...  view the full minutes text for item 65.