May 2024 Minutes (Planning)
Belchford and Fulletby Parish Council
Minutes from Parish Council Meeting held on 8th May 2024 held at Belchford Village Hall.
Present in person: Councillors: I Goodall (IG), J Newby (JN), K Marris (KM), K Skalka (KS) Also present the clerk, Mrs K M Elliott.
The public forum began at 7.30pm
Public Forum: There was no public forum.
The Meeting began at 7.32pm:
1. Apologies for absence and reasons given – NS, MB, NB, PT & PM have sent apologies.
2. Declaration of interests and requests for dispensations - To receive declarations of interest in accordance with the Localism Act 2011 and to consider granting dispensation(s), as per written requests received by the proper officer, to councillors under section 22 of the Act. There were none.
3. Chairman’s remarks – There were none. IG will chair this meeting as PT has sent apologies.
4. Planning Matters:
a) To discuss and agree how this council should respond to planning applications. IG, we are not handling planning applications properly. We are better at meetings than when applications are received outside of meetings. IG shared some statistics about how many NDP’s in East Lindsey and all the work which has been invested into our NDP. We stand out as a small parish council who are producing an NDP and therefore we take planning seriously.
How do we currently deal with and respond to planning applications was discussed. Councillors agreed that we all need to know how each other has responded to each application in order to formulate our response. JN, we have always taken the lead with historic parish documents e.g. our parish appraisal and parish plan. Some responses from individual councillors are not helpful when formulating a response for the planning authority.
IG noted that no one has attended any training since at least 2018. IG has spoken with colleagues at ELDC and they may be able to provide a course for us to attend and the clerk is also chasing LALC to provide a suitable course.
Previously when paper plans were made available these were circulated for all to inspect, however now that digital copies are only available it is not always easy to see what is being proposed. We should walk past the proposed application site and applicants should be invited to attend a meeting if the time scale permits. Large or contentious applications will always be discussed at a meeting.
IG noted that the last 4 planning applications which we have been consulted upon, our responses have not been registered with ELDC despite the clerk logging them on the planning portal. How do we move forward, should we nominate a designated councillor who can coordinate responses for the clerk to submit. It was suggested that this is a suitable task for the vice chair to undertake. Having a google live document might be an option for allowing all councillors the opportunity to edit and add their comments. We should respond using terms that are appropriate such as support, support with reasons, object, and object with reasons
It was proposed, seconded, voted and resolved that on all future planning applications we will coordinate responses via the vice chair and that the clerk not only will respond via the planning portal but also using email and the link provided by ELDC.
b) S/013/0000613/24 Arromanches Villa, Belchford. This planning application was considered based on the above discussion and comments included concerns over loss of hedge and retention of as much hedge as possible, however the majority (7) of the parish council has expressed support for this application.
Our response to ELDC should be that the application maintains a diverse size of property within the village. We cannot use the terms of our NDP yet as it is not completed.
The deadline for this application is 10th May. The clerk will send a draft wording of the response tonight by email for councillors to review and will then at lunchtime tomorrow will send the response to ELDC.
The agenda for the parish council meeting next week will be amended to include an item to report on this evenings meeting.
5. The next parish council meeting will be held on Thursday 16th May 2024.
There being no further business the Meeting closed at 8.18 pm.