Letter to the Planning Committee

TO:
Councillors on the Cardiff City Council Planning Committee

Dear Councillor,

APPLICATION NO. 07/1980/W
PROPOSED DEVELOPMENT OF 34 DWELLINGS ON LAND PRESENTLY OCCUPIED BY THE PANTMAWR INN, TYLA TEG, PANTMAWR, CARDIFF.

As Chairman of the Pantmawr Action Group I hope you do not mind me writing to you to explain that the Action Group have significant concerns over the accuracy of the Planning Officer’s Report on the above application and we feel the Members of the Planning Committee should have the full facts before they make any decision. We hope you will consider the following and also agree to a site visit to see the location for yourselves.

We have given the report considerable deliberation and spoken with other local Residents who have had access to copies. All are of the opinion that IT IS UNREASONABLY BIASED IN FAVOUR OF THE APPLICANT AND IGNORES OR BRUSHES ASIDE VALID OBJECTIONS OF 138 RESIDENTS FROM THIS ESTATE AND ELSEWHERE, INCLUDING THE LOCAL MP, ASSEMBLY MEMBER AND COUNCILLORS, as illustrated by the examples below. There are also factual errors and other matters in the Planning Officers report that the Action Group wishes to bring to the attention of the Planning Committee.

Example 1 - The proposed block of 23 apartments will be far more massive than any other building in the vicinity and, despite amendment, is still taller than the existing public house and the surrounding properties. Therefore we would argue there has been no “proper regard to the scale of the surrounding environment” as required by Policy 11 of the Council’s local plan.

To make the scale and massing of the apartment block acceptable to Planning Officers, the roof level was lowered in amended plans submitted on 18th February 2008. However, the headroom in the top floor apartments is now very low in places and it is conceded in 8.9 (48) of the report that a further application could be submitted to raise the height again. Any attempt to raise the roof height again would be an abuse of the planning system. It is considered that A CONDITION MUST BE PUT ON ANY PLANNING APPROVAL PROHIBITING FUTURE ALTERATION OF THE ROOF OF THE APARTMENT BLOCK to ensure the scale and massing is not increased to that currently unacceptable to the Planning Officers. A similar Condition has been suggested in 8.9(19) for the houses and should also be included.

Example 2 - Apartments and townhouses are urban-style developments and are out of character with the semi-rural nature of the estate and we consider they will therefore “adversely affect the aesthetic quality of the area”. The only relevant comment in the officers report to this objection at 8.9 (30) is that the “leafy” character of the area will be maintained by the landscaping!!! The recommended approval again is not considered to have “proper regard to the character of the surrounding environment” as required by Policy 11 of the Council’s local plan.

Example 3 - The existing residential units comprising Pantmawr Garden Village (as it is properly known) are characterised by high standards of privacy and spaciousness. Putting 23 apartments and 11 terraced townhouses on this 0.5ha site must be considered to be “overdevelopment and insensitive and inappropriate infilling” and not in accordance with Policy 30 of the Council’s local plan. NOWHERE IS THE OFFICER’S REASON FOR DENYING THIS OBJECTION SPECIFICALLY ADDRESSED.

Example 4 - There are only direct bus services to Rhiwbina Village, Whitchurch Village and the City Centre. One of the three services only runs three times a day and outside peak hours (not regularly as stated on the Officer’s report). So to visit the main supermarkets and to go to work at locations other than the above, people on the Estate need to use cars. As a result, occupants of most units, like other residents of this Estate, are likely to have more than one vehicle. THE AMOUNT OF PARKING PROVIDED BARELY COMPLIES WITH THE COUNCIL’S OWN GUIDELINES AND DOES NOT ADOPT A FLEXIBLE APPROACH TO CAR PARKING STANDARDS AS REQUIRED BY PLANNING POLICY GUIDANCE WALES (2002). Parking will inevitably spill out onto the surrounding narrow roads and make the currently difficult situation even worse. Surely Officers cannot believe that the £15,300 for three Bus Boarders (not even shelters) they have agreed to will have any influence on travel patterns!!

The windows of some existing properties will only be approximately a cricket pitch length away from windows of 3-storey proposed properties. Screens of trees proposed between them will cause unacceptable overshadowing.

There are many other examples of objections, too many to detail, which are either not addressed or claimed by the Officers’ Report to not in themselves constitute a reason for refusal of this application. BUT TAKEN TOGETHER THEY MUST HAVE A SIGNIFICANT INFLUENCE. There are also the following additional matters of material consideration.

At present the only the rainfall run-off entering the existing foul sewer system is that from the roof of the Pantmawr Inn. I have calculated that, during a very rare severe storm, the flow into the sewer from the Inn roof will only be equivalent to the flushing of 10 toilets or the emptying of 12 baths. This amount of flushing and/or emptying at the same time would seem to be likely on a daily basis given that 51 bathrooms and 11 cloakrooms are proposed without needing to include the water from 34 kitchens with washing machines and dishwashers. Therefore claims that “the proposed development will certainly offer a reduction in flows to the public combined sewerage system” must be called into question. We have been refused permission to see information supplied by the Applicant’s consultant to Welsh Water on which this statement is based.

A letter from the Council’s Highways Department in 2002 admits that the local roads are subsiding and cracking but that there is insufficient funding to undertake renewal work. Since then there have been complaints about the dangerous state of that part of Caer Wenallt leading to Tyla Teg and patching has been carried out. As a former member of the Institution of Highways and Transportation I am of the opinion that the road will not stand up to the Construction Traffic generated by the development and that THERE MUST BE A CONDITION IN ANY PLANNING APPROVAL THAT ROADS FROM PANTMAWR ROAD TO THE SITE ACCESS ARE RECONSTRUCTED ON COMPLETION OF WORKS.

In Policy 31 of the Local Plan there is a requirement for 2.43 hectares of recreational space (5 times the area of the site) per 1000 population (the population of the Pantmawr Estate). It states that the extent of the nature and need in the locality must also be taken into account. The following summarises the current extent of open space.

Item
Recommended
In Pantmawr
Equipped childrens play areas
0.3 ha
Only in the Pantmawr Inn grounds
Informal recreational open space
0.5 ha
Two sloping grassed areas among the houses on the estate amount to little over 0.1 hectare in total and are too small for much in the way of recreation. Most informal recreation for young people (Cycling & kicking footballs) takes place in the Pantmawr Inn car park
Formal recreational open space
1.6 ha
Nil.

We consider that ADEQUATE ON-SITE REPLACEMENT PUBLIC OPEN SPACE MUST BE INCLUDED AS A CONDITION OF THE PROPOSALS. It must be a condition of any approval that the contributions from developers of £25,352 towards community facilities and £31,928 towards open space in the locality must be spent within the area of the Pantmawr Estate to compensate for the loss of the present facilities and because all other open space is too far away to be readily usable.

To ensure the stated reasons for Conditions can be achieved, we consider the following items in Recommendation 1 should all be agreed BEFORE any Planning Approval is granted: Condition 3 (details of the junction between the proposed access road and the highway, Condition 8 (visibility splays to the entrance), Condition 9 (details of all roads and footpaths and surface water drainage) and Condition 13 (ground permeability tests).

We are of the opinion that details of the means of achieving the Attenuation Rate of 5 litres per second for land drainage run-off to the public surface water sewerage system must be agreed BEFORE Planning Permission is granted to ensure it is technically feasible.

The question of the future viability and status of the Pantmawr Inn is purely hypothetical and cannot be used as a valid reason for claiming that the site is redundant. The profitability of a Public House depends, like other businesses, largely on the capability of its management. There is overwhelming evidence that past difficulties were due to the withdrawal of the serving of food and bad management that allowed noise disturbance (admitted in the report) drunkenness and abusive language to be used. It is confirmed in the report that the tenant was being given “assistance” which obviously did not encourage him to improve matters. The owners are desperate to sell because they have made a widely publicised major financial loss. THE IMPORTANT ISSUE IS THAT THE PANTMAWR INN IS NOW BEING WELL MANAGED AND IS BUSY. It is being used by people from on and off the Estate who appreciate the present orderliness and its child- friendliness and have no desire for opening hours to be extended. The next nearest Public House to the Estate, The Deri Inn, is not a suitable alternative as it does not permit children under 14. THE TREATMENT OF THIS MATTER IS A CLEAR EXAMPLE OF THE BIAS IN THE OFFICERS REPORT IN THAT IT DETAILS THE APPLICANT’S ARGUMENTS AT LENGTH WITHOUT ADMITTING THE SUBSTANTIAL NUMBER OF REBUTTALS OF THESE ARGUMENTS FROM OBJECTORS.

THE RADYR ARMS CASE IS NOT AN APPROPRIATE PRECEDENT FOR GRANTING THIS APPLICATION BECAUSE PLANNING APPROVAL WAS ONLY GRANTED AFTER THE BUILDING WAS BURNED DOWN. Prior to that the Approvals to two applications were refused and the Planning Inspector turned down an Appeal on the grounds that “the loss of the public house would diminish the range of uses and social facilities in the local centre to the detriment of the character and general amenity of the wider residential area”. AGAIN, THE OFFICER’S REPORT ONLY GIVES HALF THE STORY.

Pantmawr is a community in itself rather isolated by its surroundings from both Rhiwbina and Whitchurch. It has just a single facility, the Pantmawr Inn, which serves as our Community centre in addition to being a Public House. It is used for community social events organised by our Residents Association and others, and family events both happy and sad. A “wake” is being held there as I write this. It is conceded in 8.2 of the Officers Report that a public house does have “community benefits”. Ours definitely has and the demolition of the Pantmawr Inn would rip the heart out of our Community.

We trust that this information will go some way to redressing the balance between the Officer’s report and the objections and enable the Members of the Planning Committee to reach a fair and equitable decision.

Yours faithfully


Hugh R Payne, B.Sc (Eng), C.Eng, MICE, FGS.
Chairman, Pantmawr Action Group.