An apology for absence was received from Cllr Tony Rice and Cllr Jordan Meade attended as his substitute.

The minutes of the meeting held on Wednesday, 18 May 2022 were signed by the Chair.

To declare any interest members may have in the items contained on this agenda.   When declaring an interest a member must state what their interest is.  Any declared interest will fall into one of the following categories:

A Disclosable Pecuniary Interest which has been or should have been declared to the Monitoring Officer, and in respect of which the member must leave the chamber for the whole of the item in question;

An Other Significant Interest under the Code of Conduct and in respect of which the member must leave the chamber for the whole of the item in question unless exercising the right of public speaking extended to the general public;

A voluntary announcement of another interest not falling into the above categories, made for reasons of transparency.

No declarations of interest were made.

Resolved that application 20210453 be DELEGATED to the Service Manger (Planning) in consultation with the Chair and Vice Chair (Planning Committee) to grant permission subject to:

·       Agreeing planning conditions.

·       Completion of a legal agreement under s106 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 to deliver mitigation needed to make the development acceptable in planning terms.

The Committee considered planning application 20210453 in relation to the Former Cinema Site, 11 King Street, Gravesend

The application was for the repair, restoration, extension and repurposing of 11-12 King

Street to provide a residents' workhub at ground floor level and 6 flats above along with the construction of a new part 6, part 7 storey building to the rear to contain 42 flats creating 48 flats in total together with car and cycle parking, refuse and recycling storage and private and communal amenity spaces.

The Senior Planner introduced the application to the Committee and highlighted key points from the report.

The Senior Planner stated this application was originally considered at the Planning Committee meeting of the 27 October 2021. At that meeting Members had concerns regarding the bulk and massing of the proposal and how it would be an overbearing structure. The application was deferred for one cycle to allow a Site Inspection to take place on Saturday 13 November 2021. Following this Site Inspection and prior to the Planning Committee held on 24 November 2021, revised plans were received from the applicant at their discretion. Due to the timing of the submission, there was insufficient time to review all the amendments and for the information to be re-consulted on. Also, none of the supporting documents were revised or updated at this point. As such Members resolved to defer the application to allow the amended plans to be assessed, for further negotiations to take place, consultations to be undertaken, the supporting information to be revised accordingly, including a revised viability appraisal.

Full revised plans and documents including a viability appraisal were received from the

agent in March 2022, these plans and documents were not informed by negotiations

between the agent and planning officers. The revised plans and documents reduce the

height of the western half of the building by two stepped storeys so that the overall height

of the building would now be 7 storeys instead of 9.

This has also resulted in a reduction in the number of overall units proposed in the

development from 53 to 48. Full re-consultation and publicity had been carried out and

consideration of these revised plans and documents is set out further in the report.

The Committee were informed that the recommendation from Planning Officers was that application 20210453 be delegated to the Service Manager (Planning) for the application to be refused Planning Permission, for the following reasons:

1.     The proposed new six to seven storey building by virtue of its height, scale, bulk, massing and design would be an overly dominant form of development which would not respect the scale and built form of Brewhouse Yard and its immediate surroundings but on the contrary would completely overwhelm it appearing as an extremely overbearing addition and would also appear as an incongruous addition in wider townscape views at odds with the prominent features of Gravesend’s historic roofscape principally several church spires. As such this proposal would have a harmful impact on the  ...  view the full minutes text for item 11a

A copy of the schedule has been placed in the democracy web library and also in the Reception, Civic Centre: -

Document library - Gravesham Borough Council

A schedule showing applications determined by the Director (Environment) under delegated powers had been published on the Council’s website.

The Committee acknowledged that this was the last meeting for Chris Wakeford - Committee Services Officer (Scrutiny) who was leaving the Council to take up a new post.

Members thanked the Committee Services Officer (Scrutiny) for all his good work during his time at the Council and wished him well in his new role.