Agenda item

(Councillor Ross Mackinnon declared a personal interest in Agenda Item 3(1) by virtue of the fact that he and his family lived nearby to the application site and often used the recreation ground and playground. As his interest was personal and not prejudicial or a disclosable pecuniary interest, he determined to remain to take part in the debate and vote on the matter.)

The Committee considered a report (Agenda Item 3(1)) concerning Planning Application 22/00535/FUL in respect of the erection of a temporary cafe (prefabricated unit).

Ms Alice Attwood (Senior Planning Officer) introduced the item and highlighted the key points.

In accordance with the Council’s Constitution, Mr Tim Ansell, (Burghfield) Parish Council representative, Ms Jenny Elmore and Ms Steph Awbery, objectors, Ms Kailee Godding, supporter, Mr Paul Lawrence and Mr Chris Greaves, applicants, and Mr Dominic Morse, agent, addressed the Committee on this application.

Parish Council Representation:

Councillor Tim Ansell, Chairman of Burghfield Parish Council, in addressing the Committee, raised the following points:

• Burghfield Common was the largest of the residential areas within the Parish of Burghfield with a population of approximately 6,000 people located halfway between Burghfield village and Mortimer.
• There were no pubs or cafes apart from a 30 cover charity café that operated two mornings a week from the wooden Methodist hall when they had enough volunteers.
• The recreation ground was at the centre of Burghfield Common and was the location for many varied activities.
• There was constant activity on the recreation ground with dozens of dog walkers before and after work and increasingly during the day as more people worked from home.
• The children's play area attracted many families especially after school, in addition to keep fit classes and other ad hoc activities.
• At weekends and during the week in the summer, Burghfield Football Club played games on the ground which attracted supporters locally and from across the country – it was an official FA ground and local derbies could attract in excess of 100 supporters.
• In addition to year-round use, in the summer there was a pop-up pub attracting over 100 customers on a Friday night plus their families. There was also a pop-up café.
• Annually there was Burghfest which attracted 2,000 people on each of the days it was held.
• The only events that caused parking problems were the football games as many of the participants and supporters were not local and consequently drove. 
• The aim of the proposed café was to provide somewhere for the residents of Burghfield Common to meet and socialise throughout the year on an ad hoc basis.
• Before Covid such a facility would have been viewed as serving young families and people who did not work but since Covid there had been a significant increase in the number of residents working from home and therefore missing out on social activities.
• Increasingly there were feelings of loneliness and isolation, and a big part of the reason the proposal had been moved forward was around caring about the mental health of parishioners due to the impact of people being increasingly isolated.
• The temporary nature of the café related to the time it would be on the recreation ground but it was not a temporary building. It would be purpose-built, the construction very similar to that of a number of classrooms at the local schools.   The plan was to establish whether there was a desire in the local community, to that which matched the interest on surveys, to have the café and whether it would be financially viable.
• The reason for the Parish Council setting a period of five years maximum was to provide two years of operation to establish the financial viability and then three years to go through design and obtain planning permission before construction of a new facility in keeping with the local environment.
• In the event of an emergency, customers inside the café would have access to running water, toilet facilities and food compared to other local buildings such as the library, adjacent pavilion and the village hall where no food was kept.
• In the event of an emergency, once the café was open, a procedure would need to be agreed on what would happen to the other users of the recreation ground in an emergency. The café users would often be a very small proportion of the total number of users of the site.
• To address the concern about how the café would impact the emergency plan, the café was aimed at the current users of the recreation ground including dog walkers who liked a coffee as they exercised their dogs; parents who wanted somewhere to sit protected from the elements while they watched their children in the play area and local residents who needed to get out of their house and meet with friends.  The impact of the café on the number of people on the recreation ground would be minimal.  This concern could be completely mitigated by closing the café during the times of the organised football games.  Each football game had a minimum of 30 people, plus supporters, at least half of whom were from outside of the local area and was more than the café could accommodate. 

Member Questions to the Parish Council:

Councillor Alan Law asked whether there was a bar and kitchen in the building adjacent to the proposed café. Councillor Ansell stated that the building referred to by Councillor Law accommodated the changing rooms and toilets, and was also where the pop-up pub operated from. There were no bar or pub facilities in the building. There was a small kitchen and drinks could be served to customers outside via a serving hatch.

Councillor Richard Somner asked how the survey/consultation had been conducted as there had been a mixed response.  Councillor Ansell said regular surveys had been carried out prior to Covid and one of the things that regularly came up was around increased rental space from the Parish Council available for people to rent.  The idea of a hub had also been suggested when it looked like the library would close. The other suggestion that was raised regularly was for a café and somewhere for people to meet.  In response to survey responses the Parish Council had refurbished the village hall and increased the amount of rooms that could be rented. A plan had also been negotiated with West Berkshire Council which avoided the closure of the library.  This had however, left the constant question regarding a café or somewhere people could meet because this remained the gap in the village.

Objector Representations:

Ms Elmore and Ms Awbery in addressing the Committee raised the following points:

• Ms Awbery stated that the location was not suitable and would put residents at risk.
• Residents were very concerned about the safety of deliveries and collections on a blind bend, where stopping was not permitted and there were double yellow lines. This forced people into the road close to the school, on bus routes and footpaths.
• The car park had height restriction barriers which large wide vehicles could not use and obstructed in and outgoing traffic.
• If dog walkers wished to use the café, dogs would have to be tied up outside next to the play area and there was concern that unsupervised children might approach the animals and possibly get bitten.
• The police had voiced their concern regarding safety and anti-social behaviour both from the crime prevention team and the policing team.
• The Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR) and Emergency Planning teams from the Atomic Weapons Establishment (AWE) considered the building construction not suitable to protect users of the plot inside the Detailed Emergency Planning Zone (DEPZ).
• The design of the café was not in keeping with the design of existing local buildings. The definition of temporary in the case of the application was not counted in weeks but in years, so therefore the development should be in-keeping with surrounding buildings.
• The proposed opening hours were excessively long and would impact on local houses.
• Measures for anti-social behaviour, littering and crime were insufficient for the kind of development proposed.
• Plans to allow local groups to use the development would increase nuisance to residents in the rural community.
• Based on the current use of the recreation ground, the car park was already insufficient. Parking issues would restrict people using the recreational ground for its intended purpose.
• The applicant had been refused an extra operating day per week at the pavilion on the grounds there was no demand, so there was no need for the kind of development proposed given that most people had now returned to their places of work.
• There were alternative options that could be explored including increasing the number of operating days per week at the underused pavilion or café services could be run out of the newly refurbished village hall. There were plenty of food retail and café’s already operating in very close proximity.
• The Parish Council was supposed to support and protect all residents but in the case of the current proposal they were pushing for a vanity project that was not justified and seemed to value revenue over social wellbeing. The Parish Council had no remit to build as they had failed to consult residents and favoured a development that put residents at risk.
• Members were asked to respect the rural community and reject the poorly thought through proposal.
• Ms Elmore explained that she managed an extensive investment portfolio including cafés and therefore had a lot of knowledge on the subject. Neither Officers nor the Applicant had given adequate consideration for waste, deliveries or the continued safe use of the highway.
• The logistics which involved seven days per week would have a massive impact.
• The Applicant had advised Highways that the waste management was the same as the existing pavilion but to Ms Elmore’s knowledge there was no waste management at the site currently. Bags were collected once a week and taken to the village hall.
• Providing permission for a commercial development on a protected village green had the capacity to set a precedent on other village greens within Burghfield, surrounding villages and further afield.
• There was no objection to a pub or a café in the village, the objection was to having these facilities on the village green.

Member Questions to the Objector:

Councillor Somner asked Ms Awbery to clarify her statement that there had been no consultation regarding the proposal with local residents.  Ms Awbery said most people in the village knew nothing about the proposal as most of the consultation had taken place at the May Fair event and a lot of the residents, especially the elderly, had not attended.  Ms Awbery said residents only became aware of the proposed café when it was featured in the local news magazine.

Councillor Ross Mackinnon asked Ms Awbery where she had got the information that deliveries would take place on the blind bend with double yellow lines as the Highways contribution in the report made no mention of this.  Ms Awbery stated that there were double yellows around the bend and the map provided by West Berkshire Council showed no waiting areas. Councillor Mackinnon further asked if Ms Awbery was saying that there were double yellows everywhere in the area referred to, making it impossible to make deliveries without being illegally parked.  Ms Awbery confirmed this was the case and described the area in detail. Councillor Mackinnon said he knew the area very well and was of the view that deliveries could take place without being on double yellow lines. The Chairman said this point could be pursued with the Highways Officer.

Supporter Representations:

Ms Kailee Godding in addressing the Committee raised the following points:

• A lot of early support had been given to the proposal for the temporary café before the scare mongering tactics of a small group of community members.  This had amounted to untrue and misleading information which had led to a large number of objections being made based on false claims, which had overshadowed genuine objections.
• The café at the Methodist Church, the pop-up pub, Burghfest and other events brought the community together. The annual May Fair in 2022 had been the biggest and busiest it had ever been. It demonstrated that people wanted places to go and that the village was reliant on community events to bring people together. 
• There were few places for villagers to meet regularly as most events were held as a one-off on an unreliable schedule.
• The neighbouring village of Mortimer had a smaller population but had a greater range of facilities, including a café.
• The proposed new café would be a valuable addition to the community as it would provide reliable and consistent opening times, and being located in the central location of the recreation ground would mean that families could walk to the park and visit a café at the same time.
• The recreation ground itself would not suffer material harm from the building as the proportion of the green affected would be small.
• Villagers had been asked numerous times what facilities they wanted. In the 2017 survey, 86% of the residents said they wanted a café in the hub facility being considered. In 2019, the Council reviewed the survey and asked for the top three project ideas for a proposed hub and the provision of a café was the highest scorer.
• Ms Godding stated that she had read the letter from the Emergency Planning Officer and had a number of observations. The letter stated that currently, anyone attending the recreation ground had no protection in the event of an incident. Ms Godding stated that according to the annual booklet residents were given, such an incident was extremely unlikely. It was felt that a temporary facility (that offered some protection) was better than no facility, in the unlikely event of an incident.
• The letter from the Emergency Planning Officer stated that the existing pavilion building could possibly support the café but that the buildings were not linked. Ms Godding asked therefore if the Council could consider linking them to meet the requirements of the Planning Officer and if planning be granted subject to that connection being made.
• The proposed building would be similar in design and construction to those used in the village for other purposes, such as the primary school. Ms Godding noted that that there were concerns raised that the café would not be safe in an emergency and queried if this meant that the same type of school buildings were also not safe.
• None of the consultative bodies had raised any concerns in relation to traffic, parking, noise or anti-social behaviour in relation to the application.
• The café would meet the needs of the majority of Burghfield residents and it was hoped the Committee would consider all genuine viewpoints and come to a resolution enabling the facility to go ahead.

Member Questions to the Supporters:

There were no questions raised by Members.

Agent/Applicant Representations:

Mr Paul Lawrence and Mr Chris Greaves (applicant) and Mr Dominic Morse (agent) in addressing the Committee raised the following points:

• Mr Morse reported that the structure was modular, constructed off-site and typical of modern methods ofconstruction. It was no different in its robustness and permanence than that ofbricks and mortar.  Many new houses and commercial buildings were constructed using the same technology as the proposed café and it was hoped this would allay the concerns of the previous speaker about the safety of school buildings. The only difference was that new houses had a decorative, cosmetic skin of brickwork that was applied to them.
• The building would meet strict comprehensive standards of the building regulations, no different from a new build house or commercial building. The building would be constructed using stringent air tightness standards and fully insulated with a standalone heating system. Windows would be fully sealed and double, if not triple glazed, and met the requirements of building regulations in terms of security, robustness and air tightness.
• The café was over 500 square feet inside and would readily accommodate 29 people with sufficient fresh water and toilet facilities.
• The café would be a robust building built to modern standards which would fully meet building regulation requirements and should not be considered any different from any other new build building.
• Mr Lawrenceprovided some background and history to the application. In 2016 West Berkshire Council had planned to close Burghfield Library and the Parish Council had looked for a financial, sustainable solution that would keep the library open and add some much needed additional rentable space and a café for the community to get together. The Parish Council had proposed a community hub to accommodate the library, provide additional rental space and a cafe.  In 2017 the Parish Council surveyed residents to understand the community's priorities and one of the top priorities was a community hub including café.
• During 2018, West Berkshire Council and Burghfield Parish Council worked together to enable the library to remain open in its current building at theWillink School, so negating the requirement for the library move. In 2019 the Parish Council surveyed the residents again and the top priority again for residents was a community hub including café. 
• In 2020, when the pandemic began, the village hall had needed to close and could not reopen under the new regulations without extensive refurbishment works.  The Parish Council took the opportunity to modernise the village hall and provide ventilation to meet the new regulations and provide some additional rental space.  During 2021, the Parish Council established that a low cost solution to test the viability was the best solution to enable the community café for the residents of Burghfield, which culminated in the application now before Committee.

Member Questions to the Agent/Applicant:

Councillor Tony Linden asked Mr Morse if the café would meet the same standards as a permanent building in the DEPZ as he noted that this was not the opinion of the Emergency Planning Officer. Mr Morse said the structure was fabricated in a factory to tight design standards much more rigorously than it would be in the rain and on site and would therefore be more airtight. The build quality and air tightness was important as with all new buildings and it would be as resistant as a new build house would be to any emergency situation. It would be a robust, modern construction that was insulated, ventilated and heated exactly the same as a new build house with the only difference being that it would be manufactured offsite.

Councillor Geoff Mayes asked Mr Morse if the foundations would be concrete and if they would be usable for a replacement vehicle in a replacement building in a few years’ time.  Mr Morse said it was likely it would either be built on strip foundations depending on ground conditions subject to structural survey or be built on pads depending on the ground conditions. This feature had not yet been determined but would be if planning consent was granted. Mr Morse confirmed that the foundations would be sufficient to support the structure. On the question of air tightness, which may be relevant when talking about the DEPZ and any possible contamination, Councillor Mayes asked Mr Morse if he would be happy with the provision of one toilet for up to 24 people who could be held in the facility for a few days. Mr Morse said he thought this would be fine for a period of up to 48 hours.

Councillor Mayes asked Mr Lawrence if the temporary proposal was an economic test as to the viability of the café before it was put into a permanent situation and Mr Lawrence replied that it was.

Ward Member Representation:

Councillor Graham Bridgman and Councillor Royce Longton in addressing the Committee raised the following points:

·         Councillor Bridgman explained that the DEPZ was based on a circle which was drawn from the centre of the AWE site in question and then the hedgehog of the DEPZ was drawn around it so as to incorporate communities and make sure communities were not split.  

·         The site fell outside of the circle, which was 3.16km. However, the site was in the DEPZ but outside the circle on which it was based and this was an important point to consider when one looked at other events that took place in Burghfield where people had no shelter at all.

·         These events included Burghfest which attracted a couple of thousand people; the infrequent pop-up pub with a few hundred people and the May Fair which had many hundreds of people over a weekend with no shelter at all. This proposal needed careful consideration but it was important to remember it was for 24 covers and given what had been said by the architect it was felt that 24 covers (if they were all there at the same time) could be accommodated in an emergency.

·         Councillor Longton voiced that Burghfield Common was a thriving rural community with an excellent community spirit which had many communal facilities but lacked a community space where residents could get together to socialise and discuss local affairs. The Methodist Church served coffee in the church hall but the facility was restricted in hours and a full-blown café, as proposed by the Parish Council, was much needed.

·         Whilst the café was proposed for the recreation ground, known locally as the village green, it would only occupy about 1.3% of the total area of the recreation ground. It would be built in a corner close to the existing changing rooms and provide much needed extra facilities. It would not destroy the village green to any significant extent. 

·         Objectors had claimed that residents had not been consulted, but as the Committee had heard, there had been widespread consultation with the community over the past five years.

·         The leaflets distributed by objectors stated that delivery vehicles to the café would park on the pavement on School Lane blocking traffic and forcing pedestrians onto the road on a blind bend. However, it was now proposed that the relatively few delivery vehicles would use the existing recreation ground car park with no direct access from School Lane.

·         Councillor Longton concluded that he felt it was an excellent proposal and if the DEPZ issue could be overcome he hoped it went ahead.

Member Questions to the Ward Member:

There were no questions raised by Members.

Member Questions to Officers

Councillor Law asked the Planning Officer whether the building could be considered a temporary building if foundations would be have to be dug for it.  Ms Attwood said the Agent had stated in the application that the proposal was for a temporary café (pre-fabricated unit), although this was not reflected in his earlier submission to the Committee. Planning did not normally get involved with the issue of foundations and if the Officer recommendation was overturned there would need to be a condition in place, which meant the land had to be returned to its original state within five years. If serious foundations were dug then the land would still need to be put back exactly as it was.

Councillor Law asked Ms Carolyn Richardson, Emergency Planning Lead, why the application should be refused on health and safety grounds given the number of other events and activities, including on the ground itself, which offered no shelter to attendees.  Ms Richardson said that when the detailed emergency planning zone was set it was initially on an area that had been set by AWE as the operator and called an urgent protection area. The application site was outside that area however, the DEPZ was set by the regulators and was bigger than the circle referred to by Councillor Bridgman.  The Office for Nuclear Regulation had required the Council to assure them that it could look after people within the DEPZ. When these planning applications came forward it was not just the Council that reviewed them, they were also reviewed by an off-site emergency planning group because responding to an AWE incident would involve the Council and approximately 27 other agencies. No details had been provided to emergency planning other than the proposal consisted of a prefabricated building and on that basis it was not deemed suitable.

Councillor Mackinnon referred to Ms Godding’s question about whether temporary school accommodation was safe if the proposed café, which was constructed in the same way, was not considered to be safe for 24 people. Ms Richardson said she did not know the full details about the construction of the school buildings but said the Emergency Planning Department worked with all schools with respect to what they would do should there be an AWE incident and they had to effectively go into lockdown. 

Councillor Linden referred to the Aldi application that was given permission and asked Ms Attwood what, in terms of the actual building, her opinion was and whether it was relevant in this case. Ms Attwood said the scale of the two applications were completely different but also the merits were completely different. The Aldi/Lidl building was a permanent building and in the case of the current proposal, due to the small size of the proposed café, it would not be acceptable to hold people for a 48 hour period. It was due to the size of the building as well as it not affording protection.

Councillor Linden asked Ms Richardson to comment on the statement by Mr Morse that the proposed building quality was much higher than the view of those consulted and also to comment on Councillor Bridgman’s comments about events that took place in the open air.  Ms Richardson said she was not an expert on building structures which was why UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) had been consulted. If more details had been known in advance then more concrete answers could be given but specialist advice had been given based on the wording of the application for a proposed prefabricated building.  With regard to open air events, Ms Richardson said that following the significant change in the detailed emergency planning zone in 2020, these would now be required to have emergency plans in place. Anything new that came forward always had to be looked at in a different light now because of the detailed emergency planning zone and the requirement on the Council to assure the regulators. Ms Attwood referred to the events taking place and explained that they would be using their PD rights under the temporary use. The sports pavilion itself also had conditions, which stated that the building should be used solely for the purposes ancillary to the use of the recreation ground. This limited the type of events that could take place in the sense that they would have to be ancillary to existing recreational use.

Councillor Somner raised the issue of existing caravans and mobile homes in the area, which whilst not commercial, were very much modular and in comparison to the proposed café building, were not as airtight or as contained. Ms Richardson said if any new applications came in for caravans and mobile homes the advice from the UKHSA would be to advise against them.

Councillor Somner referred to point 6.24 of the report in relation to licensing and asked Ms Attwood if she was aware of any licensing applications that were relevant to this proposal. Ms Attwood said she was not aware of any license applications currently but they would be viewed on their merits in line with the licensing legal framework. Councillor Somner raised a further query regarding the temporary timespan of the café over five years and asked if this was a standard Planning Officers would expect. Ms Attwood said that five years was the upper limit of what she would expect and if the issue was overturned Members were in a position to reduce that time.

Councillor Somner asked what sort of height barrier was currently in place on the site.  Ms Attwood did not know the actual height of the barrier however, on a site visit had noted that it was open.

Councillor Mayes noted that if people in the pop-up café were having a picnic on the green they would not be covered by the DEPZ rules. He asked what provision there was within the West Berkshire system for accommodating the people on the fairground and in the café if there was an incident declared by AWE Burghfield. Ms Richardson said if the pop-up pub was operating she would expect the people to be able to go inside one of the existing buildings. In focusing on this particular application, the problem with the proposed building was the size of it in that it was 79sqm for 24 people, albeit there could be less there at any one time. Taking into account all the furniture there was not a lot of room and there was the risk that further people would try to go undercover within the proposed building in the event of a radiation emergency. If an emergency happened with some of the events that took place, people would potentially have to be evacuated and moved to reception or rest centres depending on the situation.

Councillor Law asked Ms Attwood to define her use of the word ‘ancillary’ when describing the café as ancillary to the recreation ground. Ms Attwood said there was no legal definition for ancillary but it would normally be taken to mean anything you would do as a person that you could normally do within that normal use.  Ms Attwood clarified that if alcohol was to be served in the temporary café, there would need to be a license under a separate framework. The conditions proposed were for customer opening hours Monday to Friday 8am to 6pm, Saturdays 8am to 6pm and Sundays and Bank Holidays 9am to 2pm. Deliveries would be Monday to Friday 9.30am to 2pm, Saturdays 10am to 2pm and Sundays 10am to 1pm. 

Mr Mehdi Rezaie, Interim Development Control Manager, referred to the definition of ancillary which was captured under the Planning Act 2016; the Sustainable Planning Act 2009 and the Integrated Planning Act of 1997 and defined ancillary to mean ‘incidental to and necessarily associated with a high threshold of a use’. Previous case law established ancillary as being one which was subordinate to the principal use of the premise meaning that it must serve the purpose for the primary use and usually be of a smaller size and scale to the primary use but did not necessarily have to be small.  The dominant use determined the character of the planning use as a whole in accordance to the entire country planning use class order 87 as amended. 

Mr Rezaie referred to the comment made by Councillor Law in relation to changes to the structural foundation captured under section 55, and stated that this would be classed as development. A planning application would need to be made in that regard because it was operational works which required a builder's intervention, which would be a separate planning application in its own right.

Mr Rezaie drew Members’ attention to paragraph 6.47 of the report and the Office for Nuclear Regulations which suggested that, if approved, they would ask the Secretary of State to call-in the application under section 77 of the Town & Country Planning Act. They would have a period of 21 days, post notification of Committee approval, to  formally consider the application prior to potentially asking the Secretary of State to call-in the application. Mr Rezaie had looked at the provisions covered under the schedule 4 subsection of the MPO 2015 where there was a consultation direction, under the Town & Country Planning Act under subsection 5, subsection 1b which was the consultation direction of 2021, that gave provision for an application to be considered by the Secretary of State which also followed suit with the National Planning Policy Framework guidance notes for planning practitioners under paragraph 28, which prescribed that when considering the merits of an application, certain direction or weight was given to the Town & Country planning consultations direction of 2021. In the NPPF the direction to consult was reemphasised so the Secretary of State would technically exercise their powers under articles 18, subsection 4; articles 31 subsection 1; and articles 45 of the Town & Country Plan (the MPO).

Debate:

Councillor Mackinnon said that it seemed the proposal was an example of what was undoubtedly a well-meaning regulation but was being applied in such a blanket way that it might begin to fail the communities affected by it. Ms Richardson’s answers to many questions demonstrated she was working, quite properly, within regulations however some of the answers did not seem to get to the nub of what Members were asking.  Exceptions to regulations or exceptions to statutory counsels were possible and it was for the Committee to decide on balance whether going against the recommendation was justified in the circumstances. It seemed to Councillor Mackinnon that customers of the café were likely to be those who would already be present in the vicinity to a large extent. The lack of protection afforded by a temporary structure, even if it was accepted that it was not as good as a permanent structure, was better than nothing at all in his view, which was currently often the case.

If the Committee was to go along with the Officers’ recommendation, Councillor Mackinnon felt the community affected would be justifiably frustrated at that decision given the overall usage of the site which included football matches and beer festivals. Councillor Mackinnon noted if Members approved the application it would go to the ONR again to consider whether to call it into the Secretary of State. Overall, Councillor Mackinnon was leaning towards the benefits of the proposed café to the community, which would far outweigh what must be a minuscule risk in the event of an emergency. Councillor Mackinnon understood the point about the toilet facilities in the event of people having to remain in the building up to 48 hours and whilst 24 people with one toilet for 48 hours might be unpleasant, in the event of a nuclear emergency there would be other priorities. Highways’ Officers had made no objections on parking or traffic grounds and whilst not diminishing the recommendation to refuse on nuclear regulation grounds, Councillor Mackinnon felt in this case it might well be justified and proposed approval of the application. 

Councillor Somner agreed with Councillor Mackinnon’s overview of the situation and recognised the need of the community to get out and about, not just through the pandemic lockdown but in the current situation and how the proposed facility would add to the offer already given to residents in West Berkshire. It was clear what the Parish Council were trying to deliver to residents and whilst consultation from the ONR was not to be taken lightly, consideration had to be given to what residents wanted and needed. Councillor Somner stated that he was leaning towards approval, contrary to the officer recommendation for refusal.

Councillor Linden highlighted that five members of staff would also need to use the toilet facilities as well as 24 customers should the building be locked down for 48 hours, however, he agreed with the statements made by Councillors Mackinnon and Somner. The café’s and pop-up ventures were popular with the vibrant communities in Burghfield and the surrounding areas, particularly for those who wanted to meet up and socialise and did not want to have to drive somewhere in order to do so.  Councillor Linden’s view was to support a suitably worded recommendation to go against refusal of the application. 

Councillor Law said that, having read the report, he recognised that Members were not experts on nuclear regulations, or indeed all planning policy, but relied on the advice of Officers. If he were a layman he would be a bit confused and would lean towards listening to the advice of Officers and leaving it to the Applicants to challenge.  However, having heard that if approval were given there would be a second review and if supporting Officer’s recommendation meant an appeal by the Applicant, leading to the same direction, Councillor Law was interested to hear more about Councillor Linden's proposal for a suitably worded recommendation to go against refusal of the application.

The Chairman asked Ms Attwood to provide a list of conditions if Members were minded to approve the application and Ms Attwood ran through the suggested conditions.

Councillor Law said he wished to refine one item on the list of conditions provided and referred Members to paragraphs 6.7 and 6.8 of the report in respect to the cladding material being metal and not particularly attractive. The report went on to say that concerns with regards to materials being used could be overcome by the use of a pre-commencement condition and also stated it was considered that alterative cladding such as timber would make the building more appealing. Councillor Law said he agreed the current proposal was not an attractive proposition but would be happy to second Councillor Mackinnon’s proposal to approve the application if the building was clad in timber.

As Councillor Mackinnon had proposed approval of the application, the Chairman asked him for his views now that he had heard the list of conditions from Ms Attwood and the additional one from Councillor Law regarding timber cladding. Councillor Mackinnon said he was happy to propose approval of the application subject to the conditions stated, including the one suggested by Councillor Law.

Ms Attwood said that in relation to the schedule of materials condition it might be too restrictive to request timber. A pre-commencement condition was proposed so that the details would come to Officers who would be able to view it against policies CS14 and CS19 and ensure the most suitable materials were used. Councillor Law did not wish to deviate from the condition enforcing the use of timber cladding as it was noted that this had been recommended by Officers in the report as being more appealing, which he was in agreement with. 

Councillor Linden raised a concern around the issue of fire safety with the use of timber cladding.

Councillor Somner agreed with the points about the use of timber and fire safety, and felt the use of Officer’s determination pre-commencement would be beneficial in order to allow the option of brickwork, as outlined by the architect, which might also address some of the ONR issues.

The Chairman asked Mr Rezaie to comment specifically on the issue of cladding and anything else he wished to add before proceeding to a vote. Mr Rezaie said a prescribed condition for the use of timber cladding could be done but it would probably be easier for Officers to gauge the design given the pre-commencement as they would then have a palette of materials and or its visual appearance put before them for consideration. In addition, the issue would be put to the Conservation Area Design Officer who could comment on what their opinion was as opposed to just Planning Officers. The Chairman asked Mr Rezaie if there could be an Informative against the use of metal as it had been made clear that Members were not keen on the use of metal in the construction. Mr Rezaie said it could be outlined that the preference was that metal was not used in the construction of the café. Mr Rezaie highlighted however, that he had been led to believe during the meeting that part of the reason for the design and materials proposed, was on financial grounds or the potential viability of the application. In response to this, Mr Rezaie said there had not been a viability assessment or feasibility assessment carried out, which would need to be provided if later challenged. In his view Officers stood in good stead to put the request in for materials as requested.   

The Chairman invited the Committee to vote on the proposal by Councillor Mackinnon, seconded by Councillor Law and at the vote the motion was carried.

RESOLVED that the Service Director - Development and Regulation be authorised to grant planning permission subject to the following conditions:

Draft Conditions