No apologies were received

There were no disclosures of interest.

The minutes of the meeting held on 7 September 2015 to be submitted and signed.

Copies of the minutes of this meeting are usually available seven working days following the meeting.

(All minutes are available on the Council’s website.)

The minutes of the meeting held on 7 September 2015 were submitted and signed.

The Cabinet may wish to consider whether there are any items on which there is general agreement which could be considered now, to enable discussion to focus on those items where the Cabinet sees a need for further debate.

Councillor Bell spoke on behalf of the Labour Group.

A petition has been received in the following terms:

“Please sign this petition if you agree that Kings Avenue should be full day (8am to 6:30pm Monday to Saturday) parking control zone”

At the time of publication of the agenda the petition contained 71 signatures.

A petition, containing 71 signatures from Watford residents, had been received in the following terms:

“Please sign this petition if you agree that Kings Avenue should be Full day (8am to 6.30pm Monday to Saturday) parking control zone”

Mr Naveed Iftikhar attended the meeting and was invited to present his petition to Cabinet.

Mr Iftikhar stated that the road was very narrow for parking and currently only had match day parking restrictions.  It was very difficult to find a parking space at night.  He thought that other zones were less congested.  He had received a letter from the Council saying that there had been a vote against full zone hours in his road.  However, the majority of people wanted a fully controlled zone.

The Mayor responded that people would say different things on the door step when presented with a petition.  People signed petitions because they did not want to upset their neighbour.  However, petitions did raise concerns.  The Mayor had asked for the letter to be sent to residents following the consultation as there had been roads which were in favour of going into a controlled parking zone.  As a result of the letter there had been the petition which was now before Cabinet, and other roads had been in touch with the Council and their local councillors wanting to be part of the zone.

Parking was a difficult issue and the Council had to do what was best for the majority of residents.  The Mayor had spoken to officers and local councillors, including Councillor Dhindsa who was present at the meeting, and had decided to put a temporary hold on the three roads that were due to go out for statutory consultation for extended hours.  The Council was going to write again to properties in zone M/N which had rejected the proposal for full hours at the last consultation.  This would include Kings Avenue.  The letter would state that this was residents’ last chance to have their say on being included or excluded from the extended hours proposal.  If the response was yes from these roads then the Council would look to add them to the three that were already proposed to be included in the scheme for full hours.  If the response was no then they would remain match day only controlled parking.  The Mayor encouraged Mr Iftikhar to approach his neighbours and ask them to respond to the letter.

In response to questions from Councillor Bell, the Mayor said that the timeline would be as soon as possible for the letters to go out to residents and officers had stated this could happen within the next three weeks.  There would be no need for further use of consultants, it would just be the council contacting residents again.  The name of the zone could be discussed with officers.

In response to the petitioner the Mayor explained that three weeks should be sufficient for residents to reply.  Once this further consultation had been carried out there would  ...  view the full minutes text for item 22.

Report of Head of Regeneration and Development

A report was received from the Head of Regeneration and Development regarding an additional policy on tall buildings.  This was necessary as there had been a significant increase in the pre-application discussions for tall buildings.  The current planning policy needed to be strengthened to prevent inappropriate tall building development.

Councillor Sharpe introduced the report and stated that the policy had emerged from approaches by developers.  These approaches were understandable as there was a need for more housing but Watford was a compact Borough.  There were some tall buildings already within Watford such as the YMCA and the Meriden tower blocks.  It was important for the Council to be clear where tall buildings were acceptable or not acceptable.

Appendix A to the report included a general policy.  This was what the Council wanted to see when considering applications for tall buildings.  There would also be a supplementary planning document produced.  This would be quite descriptive and prescriptive.  There was a supplementary planning policy as part of the 2000 District Plan but now it needed to be updated to respond to changing times.  The draft would be available for consultation.

The Mayor explained there had been a policy on no tall buildings in the town centre.  As a result there had been no hotels so it had been necessary to make some adjustments.  The Mayor felt that this approach was the right one and thanked the Planning Policy Advisory Group and the members who had attended the tall buildings workshop.

From the report the Mayor favoured the Merton approach in their local plan.  New legislation from the government meant that brownfield site developers would not need planning permission.  In the District Plan any area which had been identified as a housing site would have an assumption of planning permission so developers could start building.  Brownfield sites in Watford were at risk of inappropriate development so the council needed to have the policy in place.

The Planning Policy Section Head informed Cabinet that work was progressing as fast as possible.  Currently they were considering views by looking at a model and using photographic techniques.  Some 3D work had been commissioned to look at blocks of buildings.  A workshop had been arranged with Design South East to include officers and councillors. 

In response to a question from the Mayor the Planning Policy Section Head explained with regards to quality that officers were looking at other schemes which worked.  For the design of interiors the Council already had a residential guide.  Planning policy would also look at how uses were split within a tall building vertically e.g., cafes, offices and residential or spaces to mix in the middle of a building.

Officers would look at winds and microclimates created by tall buildings and review guidance on how winds circulated around buildings and how this could be prevented by using canopies over cafes.  All the information would be included in the guidance to help achieve the desired outcome for Watford.

Councillor Bell welcomed the report  ...  view the full minutes text for item 23.