Agenda item

Rochester South and Horsted

Construction of office building with associated parking for use by Kent, Surrey and Sussex Air Ambulance Trust. 

Discussion:

The Head of Planning outlined the planning application and advised that since despatch of the agenda, the applicant and the agent had supplied a written response to the objections received. Copies of these letters were appended to the supplementary agenda advice sheet.

In addition, three additional letters of objection had been received, one of which was from an existing objector in response to the applicants/agents letters referred to above and a copy of this was also appended to the supplementary agenda advice sheet.

He also advised that three additional comments had been received in support of the application.

The Head of Planning confirmed that these late representations did not raise any additional issues that had not already been taken into consideration in undertaking an assessment of the planning application and did not affect the overall conclusions in the report.

The Head of Planning advised the Committee that the planning application was for the construction of an office building with associated parking for use by the Kent, Surrey and Sussex Air Ambulance Trust’s administrative and charity fundraising staff and visiting pilots and crew. Dependent upon the number of staff on site, should parking area prove to be insufficient, staff would be required to use the overspill car park on site.

He advised that there were 5 existing helipads within the Rochester Airport site, all of which had been in place for many years and were already used by the Air Ambulance. Use of the helipads by the Air Ambulance did not require planning permission and did not form part of this planning application. It was stressed that the Trust’s Air Ambulance helicopters would continue to be based at Redhill Aerodrome and all shifts would commence and complete at Redhill. However, the Trust’s helicopters would routinely deploy to Rochester Airport either to replenish in between responding to incidents or to await further emergency tasking.

The Head of Planning drew attention to various section of the report including the aeronautical assessment, the comments from Highways England and those sections relating to contamination and archaeology.

In addition, he advised that having assessed whether an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) was required, the screening opinion had confirmed that an EIA was not required for this planning application.

The Committee discussed the application and in doing so, had regard to the need to focus on the current proposal submitted by the applicant and the fact that this was an isolated application and was not linked to other applications relating to the use of Rochester Airport.

The Head of Planning informed the Committee that he had been notified by the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) that one of the objectors had asked for this planning application to be called in and therefore if the Committee was minded to approve this application, it would not be possible to issue the planning permission until such time that a response was received from the DCLG.

Decision:

The application is approved subject to conditions 1 – 18 as set out in the report for the reasons stated in the report. Permission not be issued until the Council hears from the DCLG whether or not the planning permission is to be called in.