Agenda item

P1013.21 - HARRIS ACADEMY RAINHAM, LAMBS LANE SOUTH

Report and appendix attached.

Minutes:

 

The report brought before the Committee on 6 January 2022 sought planning permission for the erection of a part two and part three storey building to provide a new sixth form building, with associated access and parking, following demolition of the existing swimming pool. At the 6 January 2022 meeting, Members resolved to defer the application, for further details to be provided with regards to 4 key areas. Therefore the purpose of this report was to provide the Committee with responses to those questions. The responses where summarised from the report as follows:

 

1)    The Sixth Form Travel Plan set out a range of measures to encourage staff and students to use sustainable modes of transport to travel to and from the Sixth Form college. Travel Plan measures sought to encourage a modal shift in travel away from the private car. The Travel Plan measure sought to address 2 principle issues: students being dropped off/picked up by car and staff travelling to the college by car. No students would be permitted to drive themselves to school as a requirement of entry to the Sixth Form and various measures were set out in the report.

 

2)    The proposals were publicly funded by the Department for Education and as such it was mandatory that it was entirely compliant with the specification created by the Department for Education (DfE) and the school specific brief and bespoke schedule of accommodation, all documentation created by the DfE to ensure that all of their developments were designed to be compliant with their own standards. The scheme had been developed by the Design Team in close collaboration with the DfE and the developed design had been validated by both the Operator School (Harris Rainham 6th Form) and the DfE’s Technical Advisors as having met all relevant standards. With respect to the need for the Sixth Form College, the Council’s Assistant Director of the Education had further confirmed that the proposal for a new 400 place sixth form college at Harris Academy was much required as the South Area of the Borough was the only area without a sixth form in any of the secondary schools. As such the proposals would ensure that the needs of Havering pupils in this local area could be met, while helping to drive up quality & standards.

 

3)    Further information was provided by the applicant with respect to public transport and was considered that the proposed Sixth Form was accessed by 4 bus services with good levels of frequency during the peak periods. The predicted demand generated by the Sixth Form was expected to be accommodated within the existing capacity without impact. The overall low impact indicated that bus enhancement measures associated with this proposal were not necessary. This view was also confirmed by TfL who confirmed that the proposed development would not result in an adverse impact on the bus network.In terms of highways safety, the Council’s highways officers have confirmed that, currently, the Council were in the process of undertaking a review of all the parking around all the junctions in the Borough. However, this undertaking amounted to significant work and that the funding for the works was yet to be finalised.

 

4)    The evidence with respect to the highways information and analysis in the Transport Assessment indicates that there did not appear to be significant on street parking problems in the area. Furthermore, through the Travel Plan measures and disciplinary procedure, the proposed academy should not trigger the need to provide additional off street parking spaces. However, in order to provide assurance to the council, the applicant would agree to a mechanism through the s106 that if the identified measures failed to resolve an on-street parking issue from staff / students to increase on-site parking provision. The Sixth Form would carry out a Staff Travel Survey annually as part of the monitoring strategy proposed within the Travel Plan. The survey would seek to identify the proportion of staff (employed at the Sixth Form only) that travel by car and park on-street. The Academy would be working closely with the Travel Plan Co-ordinator, the Local Authority and local stakeholders in implementing and monitoring the Travel Plan on an annual basis to ensure all parties’ issues were successfully managed and mitigating measures would need to be secured through the s106 legal agreement.

With its agreement Councillor David Durant addressed the Committee and raised concerns over parking and its effects on surrounding residents, the travel plan, and further highway contributions.

 

Members made comments and had conversations around concerns over parking restriction implementation, contractual parking conditions for staff, student parking sanctions, actual number of parking spaces in the surrounding area, and additional bus stops outside the college. Monitoring the situation gave some assurances and it was suggested that the applicant apply for planning permission to develop further space surrounding the school for parking.

 

Officers explained that there was no further planning permission sought for an additional car park because the applicant believed parking would not be a problem. However, this could be looked into further and officers would reflect on whether to advise the applicant to apply for further planning permission for parking.

 

Members also recognised that there were some positive travel development that this would bring to the area and were not against approval of planning permission to build the college. They felt they had a responsibility to surrounding residents to question the wider impacts and specifically parking.

 

Officers gave further assurances that the conditions in the document were enforceable and that any potential problematic areas would be monitored and could be reviewed if/when required.

 

The Committee considered the report and RESOLVED to GRANT PLANNING PERMISSION as recommended and

1.    subject to recommendation (so conditions and Section 106 Agreement);

2.    on condition 11, a routing agreement was to be put in place for construction vehicles to prevent them using Wennington Road; 

3.    following that, legal would progress the application to GLA Stage 2.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Supporting documents: