Agenda item

Proposal:       Use of Land for touring holiday/tourism caravan site and erection of utility block (Resubmission).

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(The site was viewed by the Site Viewing Working Party)

Proposal: Use of land for touring holiday/tourism caravan site and erection of utility block (resubmission)

The Committee considered the written report and recommendation of the Head of Planning to grant permission.

The Committee received supplementary information, circulated prior to the meeting, which gave details on the proposed time limits for caravans visiting the site.

During the meeting, the Committee was advised that recommendation had been amended to exclude condition 6, which duplicated details included in Condition 5.

The Committee was addressed by Mr Oliver, the applicant’s agent, who supported the application for the following reasons:

(1)             in view of the extant enforcement notice, his client had to review the future of the site and considered that this proposal was the most appropriate use for the area as it would be a low-key operation which complied with the Council’s tourism policies;

(2)             entry to the site would be managed to minimise the disturbance to neighbouring properties; and

(3)             alterations to the access to the site would make it more accessible.          

Mr Oliver drew the Committee’s attention to the fact that the site plan wrongly included land belonging to Mandai within the red line.

In response to questions raised by members of the Committee, the Mr Oliver advised that:

(1)          it was proposed that the owner would be present in the morning to guide caravan owners onto the site. Access arrangements for access when the owner was not at the site were to be finalised.

In response to questions from members of the Committee, the officers advised that:

(a)             there were eight objectors from the surrounding area;

(b)             the proposed access could accommodate the proposed caravans;

(c)             the site would be used by touring caravans. If permitted, a condition would restrict a caravan from using the site for longer than 4 weeks in a 12-month period;           

(d)             as far as the Council was aware, the site would be used for leisure purposes;

(e)             the enforcement notice was not affected by this proposal; if permission was granted, the owners were still required to comply with the notice;

(f)              it the Committee was minded to grant permission, an informative could be attached to the permission advising that the permeable surface materials would be preferable; and

(g)             it was not unusual for the Council to grant a permission subject the approval of certain details at a later date.

The Committee discussed this application in detail together with the views raised by the deputees. Although one member of the Committee expressed support for the application, the majority of the Committee considered that the proposal would have: a detrimental impact on rural character and visual amenity of the area and represented an undesirable development in a rural area.

RESOLVED that Application APP/18/00207 be refused for the following reason:

1            The proposal represents the undesirable addition of a touring holiday/tourism caravan site in a non-urban area, for which there is no overriding justification, and which would adversely affect the character and appearance of the countryside. It is therefore contrary to policies CS9 and CS17 of the Havant Borough Local Plan (Core Strategy) 2011, policy AL2 of the Havant Borough Publication Local Plan (Allocations) and the National Planning Policy Framework 2012’