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Agenda and minutes

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Contact: Democratic Services Team 

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Items
No. Item

36.

Minutes : Item to follow pdf icon PDF 418 KB

To approve as a correct record the Minutes of the meetings of this Committee held on 19January 2022 and 26 January 2022.

Additional documents:

Minutes:

The Minutes of the meeting held on 19 January 2022 were approved as a true and correct record and signed by the Chairman, subject to the following amendments:

 

Councillor Bridgman said on page 16 the first question to Officers should be amended to note that it was he who had asked the question.

 

Councillor Linden said apologies for inability to attend the meeting had included him but it should be noted that he had attended remotely as Ward Member.

 

The Minutes of the meeting held on 26th January 2022 were approved as a true and correct record and signed by the Chairman.

37.

Declarations of Interest

To remind Members of the need to record the existence and nature of any personal, disclosable pecuniary or other registrable interests in items on the agenda, in accordance with the Members’ Code of Conduct.

Minutes:

Councillor Mayes advised he was a member of BONT, CPRE and knew the previous owners of the land at Hasenbach.

 

Councillor Bridgman said he knew at least one of the signers of the petition reasonably well and one of the objector’s very well.

 

38.

Schedule of Planning Applications

(Note: The Chairman, with the consent of the Committee, reserves the right to alter the order of business on this agenda based on public interest and participation in individual applications.)

38.(1)

Application No. & Parish: TPO/201/21/1046 Stratfield Mortimer pdf icon PDF 164 KB

Proposal:

Confirmation of Tree Preservation Order

Location:

Land at Hasenbach, The Bevers, Mortimer Common, Reading, RG7 3SP

Recommendation:

Tree Preservation Order No 201/21/1046 should be confirmed without amendments.

 

                                   

Additional documents:

Minutes:

The Committee considered a report (Agenda Item 4) concerning Planning Application TPO/201/21/1046 in respect of Stratfield Mortimer, Land at Hasenbach, The Bevers, Mortimer Common, Reading RG7 3SP.

The report proposed confirmation of a tree preservation order.

Jon Thomas, Tree Officer, introduced the report to Members which dealt with whether or not to confirm TPO/1046 which concerned a black pine tree at Hasenbach, The Bevers, Mortimer Common, Reading.  The Recommendation was TPO/201/21/1046 should be confirmed without amendments.

 

Members viewed slides which showed the site of the TPO which was within the Parish of Stratfield Mortimer, centrally located within Mortimer village.  The pine under this order was a significant tree when viewed from The Bevers and a skyline feature in views from other locations.  The tree was located close to the entrance of the site with quite a large stem.

 

The tree had been assessed using a scoring method called TEMPO which assessed whether or not a tree was suitable for a preservation order.  There were two elements to the scoring system; the amenity and expediency and in this case, because there was a known threat to the tree, it met the expediency test scoring 20 points.  Mr Thomas clarified that a score above 14 points definitely merited a TPO.  Other scoring matrices had been used to score the amenity and monetary value of the tree; Helliwell considered the landscape value of the tree and CAVAT dealt with replacement costs and looked at the age of the tree and how much it would cost to replace it like-for-like.  Mr Thomas had revised the CAVAT assessment based on the site visits to show that the tree stem had a diameter of approximately 70 centimetres which increased the CAVAT figure upwards to £37,000 as a replacement cost.

 

Councillor Bridgman raised a point of order stating that the pack detailed a final value replacement cost of £27,000 and the question to Officers was whether or not the Committee should allow the Council to bring fresh material to the application outside of the required five working days prior to hearing the application.  Sharon Armour advised that Planning Officers quite often submitted updated information after publication of the initial agenda which appeared to be the case in this instance.

 

Mr Thomas said that one of the principal objections appeared to be that the tree represented a significant risk in that it was dangerous.  Mr Thomas said based on site visits and information he had received, his opinion was that the tree did not represent a danger as it had no sign of disease and did not have significant structural defect.  Therefore Mr Thomas felt it was appropriate for the tree to have a TPO placed upon it.

 

Objector Representation

 

Mr Morris-Ashton in addressing the Committee, raised the following points:

 

·           He was speaking on behalf of a number of objectors and was an objector himself.

·           He would make two key submissions, firstly that confirmation of this order would be otherwise in accordance with  ...  view the full minutes text for item 38.(1)