On Wednesday East Cambs District Council Planning Committee considered the planning application for the second phase of the Linden Homes development at the top of Mepal Road in Sutton. The application is an outline planning application for a further 173 homes along with the provision of land for community facilities (sports pitches and burial ground) and open space. It is also proposed that the developer will make financial contributions to enable the expansion of the village primary school as well as secondary school contributions to address the extra demands at Witchford Village College. The application was originally submitted in December 2019 and has therefore taken around 18 months to come to the planning committee.

The application is an outline application which means that it does not include details of the landscaping, scale, layout of roads and buildings nor their appearance. All of the details will be covered in one or more further applications, known as reserved matters. The council’s planning committee agreed to approve the application subject to the signing of a section 106 agreement, an extensive list of conditions and further negotiations to agree the off-site highway mitigation measures. It is likely these will take a few months to resolve. Linden Homes (Vistry) will then have two years to submit a further application to address the reserved matters.

Residents will have seen many housing developments going ahead in East Cambridgeshire in recent years. What is different about this application is that it has had to comply with the policies in Sutton Neighbourhood Plan, and in particular policy NP4. At one time proposals had been suggested to cram as many as 427 homes on the site to the north of the village which was once part of the old RAF Mepal airfield. The policy NP4 however limits the size of the development to approximately 250 homes and the phase 2 application is for 173 homes, taking the full development to exactly 250 homes including the 77 homes already approved in phase 1.

Policy NP4 also requires the developer to provide additional community facilities to accompany the housing development. There are specific criteria to bring forward a new village green, all weather pitch and sports pitches located adjacent to the existing facilities next to the Pavilion and Brooklands Centre, along with a new on-site burial ground. The planning application proposes to add additional sports pitches next to the existing pitches which are heavily used at the weekend. Rather than provide a new all weather pitch, it is proposed that the developer provides significant funds to upgrade the existing MUGA (Multi-Use Games Area). A burial ground is proposed, mostly likely in the north-west corner of the site. This will provide a new burial ground for the parish council to use once the existing facility next to the Glebe runs out of space.

There is a requirement that 30% of the 173 new homes meet the affordable homes criteria, which should mean an additional 52 affordable homes adding to those in the first phase of the development. Policy NP4 also states the whole development should be phased in step with the expansion of local infrastructure, particularly schools and health facilities with particular attention to the expansion of the capacity of the village primary school. It is proposed that the developer will make a financial contribution for Primary Education of £2,273,775, as part of a total amount for education contributions of £3,179,322. Some developer funds (CIL) have also previously been earmarked to help with expanding Priors Field surgery.

The parish council and district councillors have been broadly supportive of the plans especially because Linden Homes have sought to meet the requirements set out in the Neighbourhood Plan. I attended the Planning Committee meeting to confirm my broad support and to raise some specific concerns. The government has chosen not to extend the legislation that allows councils to meet virtually and for meetings to be available on YouTube. Instead, to comply with COVID-19 restrictions, the meeting had to be held face to face but with social distancing. This meant a large sports hall at The Hive had to be hired because the council’s own meeting rooms were too small.

The biggest concern your local councillors and a number of local residents have is the possibility of flooding caused by surface water run-off from the site. I explained to the meeting that there had been flooding incidents affecting some residents who live in homes close to the phase one site and particular concerns with the height of the land being raised. A number of conditions related to surface water drainage are included in the planning approval.

I raised the need for negotiations regarding the availability of the new community facilities to happen before Reserved Matters are submitted, because we don’t want to wait until the whole development is complete, but want villagers to have earlier access to the new facilities. I also raised the need for a more significant biodiversity gain from the development to be agreed. Currently the improvement is very small and I am sure it should be possible to get further gains.

Finally I flagged a couple of concerns which are expected to be considered in more detail when a Reserved Matters application is made. The first is to take adequate steps to address traffic noise from the A142 such that homes in the north east corner of the site are still able to open windows to get adequate ventilation, a requirement that has become more important with COVID-19. The second was that the homes proposed in the south-west corner of the site are moved further away from properties in Stirling Way and St. Andrews Close. The developer confirmed these concerns would be considered.

If everything goes to plan, in a few months’ time the outline planning application will officially be approved. After that a Reserved Matters application can be expected to be submitted. We will publicise this when it is available to give villagers an opportunity to review the detailed plans and to make comments.

The officer’s report to the planning committee meeting is available here.

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