Agenda and minutes

Venue: Council Chamber, Blue, Pink & Green, Arun Civic Centre, Maltravers Road, Littlehampton, BN17 5LF. View directions

Contact: Andrew Bishop (Ext. 37984) 

Items
No. Item

527.

Declarations of interest

Members and Officers are reminded to make any declarations of pecuniary, personal and/or prejudicial interests that they may have in relation to items on this agenda and are reminded that they should re-declare their interest before consideration of the item or as soon as the interest becomes apparent.

 

Members and officer should make their declaration by stating :

a) the application they have the interest in

b) whether it is a pecuniary, personal and/or prejudicial

c) the nature of the interest

d) if it is a prejudicial or pecuniary interest, whether they will be exercising their right to speak to the application

 

Minutes:

No Declarations of Interest were made.

528.

Minutes pdf icon PDF 172 KB

To approve as a correct record the Minutes of the meeting held on 24 November 2021.

Minutes:

The Minutes of the meeting held on 24 November 2021 were approved by the Committee and signed by the Chair.

529.

Items not on the agenda which the Chairman of the meeting is of the opinion should be considered as a matter of urgency by reason of special circumstances

Minutes:

The Chair confirmed that there were no urgent items.

530.

Fitzalan Link Road, Littlehampton pdf icon PDF 167 KB

The acoustic fence was granted permission under permission LU/234/16/RES at Arun’s Development Control Committee on 17 October 2017. This report invites the Committee to consider whether they wish to investigate options around amending/withdrawing the permissions granted and follows the decision of the Committee on 18 May 2021 to commission an independent report to undertake a review of previous decisions and provide advice on possible actions available to the Council.

Additional documents:

Minutes:

4 Public Speakers

Cllr Jill Long – Littlehampton Town Council

West Sussex County Council

Tracy Lynch – Objector

David Willis – Objector

 

The Chair began the item by drawing Members’ attention to particular paragraphs in the Advice Note from Town Legal – 3.33 [‘ADC would need to be very careful to ensure that it did not fetter its discretion in terms of its responsibility for independent decision-making as local planning authority.’] and 3.34 [‘ADC must ensure that the decision-making is legally robust.’] – and asked Members that whatever decision was reached, given the money already spent, to consider whether it would be a reasonable and proportionate response in addressing the issues before the Committee.

 

Upon the invitation of the Chair, the Group Head of Planning presented his report which invited the Committee to consider whether they wished to investigate options around amending and/or withdrawing the permissions granted at Development Control Committee on 18 October 2017 (LU/234/16/RES) for the acoustic fence on the Fitzalan Link Road in Littlehampton, following the decision of Planning Committee on 18 May 2021 [Minute 577] to commission an independent report to undertake a review of previous decisions and provide advice on possible actions available to the Council. The report and accompanying advice confirmed that there was a legal process that could be followed as well as a technical alternative if an alternative was sought by the Committee, and that a difference in surface material or speed limit would not result in any significant difference in noise from the road. The longer term options in paragraph 1.15 of the report were further outlined, as were the needs for more information on the potential operational costs for the works and further details around legal processes, compensation, indemnities and warranties before any works could be started.

 

This was followed by 4 Public Speakers. In response to these statements, the Group Head of Planning clarified that adoption and transfer of the road to West Sussex County Council would be 12 months from the date of the road opening, that West Sussex County Council had an agreement with Persimmon Homes for a seven-year period after adoption to cover any indemnity that might arise from compensation claims and any changes to the barrier would require that Arun District Council entered into a similar agreement with West Sussex County Council, the speed limit and the possibility of it being reduced being an issue for West Sussex County Council as the Highways Authority, and the requirement for a future planning application in order to regularise whatever course of action was decided upon by Members.

 

After the Chair had outlined the four recommendations of the report, Members took part in a full debate on the item where a number of points were raised, including:

·       the height of the barrier being reduced to 2.5m, and support for this in principle but also a need to ensure residents were in support of the Council taking that position when balanced with the costs to residents as  ...  view the full minutes text for item 530.