Minutes of Extraordinary Meeting of Bainbridge Parish Council held at Sycamore Close, Bainbridge, on Monday 7th August 2017 at 7.00 pm
The purpose of the meeting was to discuss the proposed development plans R/52/94Z, Land to the rear of the Rose & Crown Hotel, Bainbridge. Full planning permission for erection of 2 No two bedroom and 3 No. three bedroom local occupancy dwellings.
Present: Cllrs Brian Brown, Yvonne Peacock Derek Kettlewell, Darren perceivable and Thomas Tennant.
Members of the public
The meeting was reported on in Richmondshire Today
Members of the public were invited to address the Council between 7.00 and 7.30 pm at the discretion of the Council.
Discussions took place from members of the public and the points put forward to the council were as follows:-
Residents living near the proposed development, behind Homebrae Crescent, said building the houses would increase the risk of flooding, rob them of their privacy and cause parking problems.
Nick Temple-Heald of the residents’ group, Homebrae 2016, said the houses would be outside boundaries set by the national park authority’s local plan only last December, and although sold below market value they would would not, technically, be affordable homes. He stated they are local occupancy but that is not the same as affordable. If they were truly affordable I would be supporting it but they are not,” he said.
Mr Temple-Heald said the council had been given wrong information: exceptions to building outside the boundaries applied only to affordable houses, not local occupancy dwellings.
“I have every sympathy with people in the village who say they want to buy affordable houses to enable them to live and work here, but that’s not what these are. If they were, I would be asking for a rethink of the design, but I would support the application,” he said.
Other residents claimed there was a need for lower cost housing in a village where the number of holiday homes had more than doubled in the past 40 years, from 17 to 37, and market values had priced local people out of the market. They said that there is no property here for us to buy at a reasonable price. Everywhere in the dales is so expensive. This development would help us to stay here. Of course we want the flooding issue to be resolved, but we need to be able to afford to live and work here and we need houses to be occupied for more than just two months of the year.
The parish council meeting then commenced at 7.30pm
- Cllr Thomas Tennant offered his apologies as he was on holiday. His apology was accepted.
- Cllr Yvonne Peacock said that she was declaring an interest as she is a member of the YDNPA planning committee and as such was unable to put her views forward to form part of the Parish Councils decision. She said that she was only able to offer factual advice during the course of the meeting.
- R/52/94Z -Land to the rear of The Rose & Crown Hotel, Bainbridge
Full planning permission for erection of 2 No. two bedroom and 3 No. three bedroom local occupancy dwellings
The council discussed all the facts that had been presented by the members of the public to the meeting. Each councillor commented as follows :-
Councillor Darren Percival said he had been approached by three couples who would be interested in buying the houses. He himself had been able to buy his own council house at a discounted price some years ago.
“Having been in the position myself of not being able to afford a house at full market value, I can fully understand their need. I would be doing myself and my constituents a disservice if I did not support this application,” he said.
Councillor Derek Kettlewell said that it was not just young people but all those on low and middle incomes who could not afford to buy a house in the dales.
“If a local family wants a property now they cannot compete with people who are selling expensive properties in the south and buying up here. The only way we can get houses for local people is to build more,” he said.
Cllr Peacock presented a letter which she had received from Graeme Newton, of Hornblower Developments, it said the company had been through the pre-consultation process with the national park authority and had adhered to their advice. Mr Newton stated that two of the five houses had already been reserved.
Councillor Brian Brown, chairman, said the only question was whether the development would help or hinder the sustainability of the village. There was no detriment to the view of the village, as protesters had alleged, as the development would not be seen from the approach to Bainbridge in any direction.
“The site will not stick out like a sore thumb, it will merge well with the properties that are already there and we have to build a sustainable community,” he said.
The Parish Council resolved to unanimously support the application which will go before the national park authority’s planning committee, with the proviso that a full flood-risk assessment would be carried out.
The agreed wording presented to the YDNPA as the official response from Bainbridge Parish Council was as follows:
Dear Michelle Clowes – Principal Planning Officer
R/52/94Z
The matter of the Full Planning permission for erection of 2 No. Two bedroom and 3 No. three bedroom affordable dwellings on the land to the rear of the Rose and Crown Hotel, Bainbridge was considered by Bainbridge parish Council at an extraordinary meeting held on the 7th August 2017.
After a public forum the matter was debated by the council and it was unanimously resolved to fully support the application with a caveat that a full flood report for the area of the site and the associated drainage be carried out.
The material considerations in favour of the application are as follows
An Established need for low cost housing –
Bainbridge housing stock has changed significantly in the last 45 years.
45 years ago there were 17 holiday/second homes in the village.
Now there are 37 holiday/second homes.
The need for affordable/low cost housing has been established by letters and personal contact direct with Parish Councillors
Personal representation stating the need for affordable/low cost housing was made at the meeting held on the 7th August by both young and old –
The need has arisen due to open market prices, being extremely high, meaning that the existing housing stock has become unaffordable for local people on local average incomes.
Councillors wish to see a sustainable community with local people who have lived here for years (in some cases families have been in Bainbridge for hundreds of years) being able to remain living here in their own home. Providing affordable homes goes some way towards this.
The real incomes of farmers and those in employed in agriculture has substantially declined in the last few years to a point that open market housing is no longer affordable
Above all councillors felt that they wanted to be able to keep local people in the place where they want to be.
Exception site
Councillors felt that although the site is an exception site, it cannot be seen from the highway travelling from either direction, the plans have been substantially improved since the previous consultation and that the current proposals are more
sympathetic to the neighbouring properties.