Issue - meetings

3 public speakers

            Councillor Colin Humphris – Climping Parish Council

            Tracey Villa - Objector

Racheal Grimwood – Objector, statement read out by committee manager

Variation of condition following grant of CM/16/21/PL relating to Condition No 5 - opening hours. This application may affect the setting of a Listed Building.

The Planning Team Leader presented the report with updates. This was followed by three public speakers.

Members then took part in a full debate on the application where a number of points were raised and responded to by Officers, including:

·         What had changed since the original decision was made in July 2021

·         Noise concerns for those on the neighbouring boundary

            The Chair asked the Planning Team Leader to make comment on the opening hours of the other businesses in the vicinity. He confirmed that Maidenhead Aquatics and the Garden Centre had no restrictions in place specifically in relation to their opening hours. If they wished to open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, they could. The only business with opening hour restrictions was the Bald Kitchen. He went on to confirm that the ‘change’ was that the council now had an application requesting to extend the opening hours. They had been in operation for 3 months and there had been no complaints received in relation to noise levels and his recommendation to members was that it would be reasonable for them to approve this application.

·         One member stated that he did not believe that the additional 2 hours requested would have a dramatic detrimental impact, however engines idling when going through the Drive-thru was a concern for him. A significant number of members agreed with the same concern for idling engines. It was commented that idling engines would be unpleasant for neighbouring properties and environmentally unpleasant

·         There was support expressed for the resident of the cottage where it was stated that the council failed the resident, failed to ensure that there was a proper barrier between the site and the cottage and that the conditions originally imposed were imposed for a reason

·         It was commented that no formal complaints had been received in relation to noise levels and it was felt that this could be because the business had only been operating for 3 months    

The Interim Legal Services Manager provided advice to members regarding voting against the recommendation.

            It was then proposed by Councillor Bower that the extension of hours would increase the intensification of the site, to the detriment of neighbouring residents. There was no seconder for this proposal.

The Planning Team Leader then reminded members that they needed to be sure and clear when considering a refusal of this application as there had to be evidence to support this should this refusal be taken to appeal. Members needed to ensure that their refusal reasoning would be significant enough to withstand an appeal.

Further refusal suggestions were made by members of which none where seconded, but these included:

·         insignificant timeframe has been able to be monitored to  ...  view the full minutes text for item 699