Agenda item

The application was for approval of reserved matters for the Southern Suitable Alternative Natural Green Space (SANGS) and SANGS Link (Phases 5a,5b and 5c) pursuant to condition 4 (reserved matters, access, layout, scale, appearance and landscaping) and the submission of partial details to comply with conditions 16 (detailed ecological management strategy and management plan), 29 (tree retention and protection plans), 32 (hard and soft landscaping) and 33 (landscape management plan) of planning permission ref: 12/05046 dated 4^th April 2021 (as amended) and Schedule 5 Part 2 (Provision of SANG land) of the Section 106 agreement dated 17^th April 2014 as varied.

The Committee was informed that a security gate located on an access road onto Brunswick Road in the vicinity of the Officers Mess in Pirbright had recently been unlocked and was being used by the army to travel between Pirbright Barracks and Deepcut training areas.  The security gate, which was located within the boundaries of Guildford Borough Council’s area, had originally been locked in the 1980s and it had never been envisaged that the route would be used for anything other than emergency access between the two army installations.  The gate’s location fell outside the envelope of the original hybrid planning application and this combined with the road’s intended purpose meant that when the application had originally been developed there had never been any assessment made of the impacts of traffic coming into the Mindenhurst development from the east.  Consequently, no conditions had been placed on the gate’s use at the time the hybrid application had been considered.  The situation was expected to be further compounded by to the extensive development that was taking place, and was planned, in the Pirbright area. 

In an effort to address the situation, a condition requiring the installation of a lockable barrier on the access road prior to the first use of any part of the Southern SANG and SANG link had been included in the application.  Notwithstanding this, it took an average of two years for SANG to be provided from receipt of planning approval and this left the area vulnerable to traffic using the access road in the interim.  Discussions with the Defence Infrastructure Organisation (DIO) over the use of the road had, to date, been unproductive and no resolution had been reached.

It was recognised that deferring the application would impact on the delivery of the SANG and this would in turn have implications for the delivery of the Mindenhurst development.  However it was considered imperative that the situation was resolved before the development progressed much further.

The recommendation to defer the application to enable further discussions to take place with the DIO over the concerns of residents, officers and the Committee with regard to the use of the access road from Pirbright Barracks, was proposed by Councillor Helen Whitcroft, seconded by Councillor Edward Hawkins and put to the vote and carried unanimously.

RESOLVED that application 22/0233 be deferred to enable discussions with the DIO over a permanent solution to the gates use to be concluded.