That was long

Today’s Development Control meeting lasted 2.5 hours, longest meeting I’ve had so far on the council.
I knew that when I put my name forward to be on the committee that meetings could go on for some time and I’ve been expecting worse.
We had 12 applications to consider with the longest being the land to the rear of 41-69 Hykeham Road. It was obvious in advance of the meeting that this might take some time. The applicants had submitted two applications offering two options for access to the site and there were 40 pages in the agenda taken up. Almost everyone who lived on that bit of Hykenham Road objected, as well as the 3 ward councillors and for the first option even the County Council Highways and Planning department.
The rules for speaking to the committee are 5 minutes against, 5 minutes for any councillor and 5 minutes for and we had all of these twice.
In the end we voted against the development (as per the recommendation from the officers), but I’m sure we’ll see an official objection to the decision.
Six applications were approved without much fuss. One extension application was obviously going to lead to neighbours not talking, but either way the vote went that would happen (we approved it). The new development for 29-31 The Strait and land to the rear were exciting to see and also approved.
The only application which split the committee was for the former Community Rehabilitation Centre on Long Leys Road. I felt that we couldn’t object to the application, in line with the officers. Others felt the building were too high, too dense and not following the draft for Long Leys Urban Village. The application was rejected, but a vote on the rejection lead to a chairs casting vote against the reason to object. Finally I proposed a motion to reject based on the officers opinion which was passed.

Whilst it sounds confusing that’s nothing compared to LDYS policy debates.

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