PITSTONE PARISH COUNCIL
Minutes of the Extra-Ordinary Parish Council Meeting held on 12 October 2015 
in the Meeting Room at the Memorial Hall, starting at 7.30pm and 
concluding at 10.40pm

84/15	ATTENDANCE AND APOLOGIES
	
COUNCIL PRESENT:  Cllr Nicholls (Vice Chairman of the Council and Chair for this meeting), Cllr Mrs Stack, Cllr Blunt, Cllr Mrs Groom, Cllr Weber, Cllr Mrs Crutchfield and 
Cllr Mattey.   Clerk: Laurie Eagling.    

OTHERS PRESENT:  Tony Clare, Chair of Pitstone NDP and Ann Broadbent, Treasurer for Pitstone NDP.  Neil Homer, rCOH (via telephone from 8pm-9pm).
	
It was RESOLVED to approve for absence from:  Cllr Saintey (compassionate leave), Cllr Mrs Arney (annual leave) and Cllr Starling (annual leave).
  
85/15	QUESTIONS FROM MEMBERS OF THE PUBLIC/PRESS

No questions were tabled by the members of the public.

86/15	DECLARATIONS OF INTEREST AND DISPENSATION REQUESTS

	All councillors declared a standing interest in the actions of the Recreation Ground Charity and Pitstone Parish Charity as the council as a corporate body is trustee of both.
Cllr Blunt declared an interest as Chair of Governors for Brookmead School.   
Cllrs Weber, Starling, Crutchfield & Groom are members of NDP Steering Group, for which a dispensation to discuss, but not vote, exists.
Cllr Mattey has a standing declaration as the parish council’s representative on the Memorial Hall Committee, for which a dispensation to discuss, but not to vote, exists.

It was RESOLVED that a dispensation would be granted to enable all present members to vote, as the meeting would become inquorate if those associated with the Parish Charity and NDP were excluded.

87/15	PITSTONE NEIGHBOURHOOD DEVELOPMENT PLAN

	The council had been supplied with a huge quantity of information and associated appendices from Pitstone Neighbourhood Development Plan to consider, receive, amend or adopt as appropriate to enable submission to Aylesbury Vale District Council.

1)	Regulation 15 Consultation Report prepared by NDP
It was RESOLVED to accept the Regulation 15 Consultation Report with one amendment to rework point 14 to discuss “community facilities” of which one element could be the possibility of a public house but which would also include development of the recreation ground and pavilion site etc.
NDP to circulate the pub survey responses to members of the parish council for information only.

2)	Regulation 14 Statutory Consultee Report prepared by rCOH
Received and noted.  No amendments were requested to this document.

3)	Local Green Space Report prepared by NDP
The reduction in application sites was noted.  It was RESOLVED that the business case would be strengthened prior to submission by including elements of the Aylesbury Vale District Council Housing and Economic Land Availability Assessment report issued that morning, that had also assessed the land at The Crescent as being unsuitable for development and important to the local community.

4)	Habitat Regulation Assessment prepared by Lepus
Received and noted.  No amendments were requested to this document.  

5)	Strategic Environmental Assessment prepared by rCOH
Received and noted.  No amendments were requested to this document.
   	
6)	Basic Conditions Statement prepared by rCOH
Received and noted.  No amendments were requested to this document.
7)	Submission Version of the Pitstone Neighbourhood Development Plan

a.	Policy 1, Settlement Boundary
NDP assured the Parish Council that Rural Exception Housing Schemes did not need to be listed within the permitted exclusions as they were provided for as an exception within the National Planning Policy Framework.

b.	Policy 2, Pitstone Development Area
It was noted that the NDP could not set a maximum housing volume, so it was RESOLVED to say “approximately 70” to reflect the aspiration for up to 80 dwellings.
It was RESOLVED to amend point iv to refer to the prevalent standard of affordable housing set by Aylesbury Vale District Council at the time of the application rather than stating a set % (as the AVDC policy was currently under review)
Whilst there was a general consensus for the principle of including provision for a nursery & public house there was much debate around the precise wording of point i and the time constraints/procedure imposed in point 4.19.  This is a vital area of land for the community and negotiations have proved very fragile in the past.  It is therefore important that the wording and policy are correct.  It was RESOLVED that NDP, Parish Council and rCOH would work together to review the wording of Policy 2 with regard to these issues.

c.	Policy 3, Land north of Marsworth Road (existing horse field)
It was RESOLVED that the policy description should be amended to include provision for the land to the left of the dotted line to be utilised for sport & recreation (extension of the pavilion site), as the current policy reads as though the whole site will only be permitted for education use (the only current mention of leisure/sport being in a bullet point by the map)

d.	Policy 4, Land West of Westfield Road (data centre site)
No issues were raised with this policy.

e.	Policy 5, Areas of Special Landscape Value
It was noted that Aylesbury Vale District Council were currently consulting about a review of Areas of Attractive Landscape.  It was therefore RESOLVED to consider amending the area designated under policy 5 to include the current Area of Attractive Landscape in case the AVDC protection should fall away.

f.	Policy 6, Development Principles
It was RESOLVED to delete the second half of bullet point ii in case it prevented expansion of the volume of smaller/larger homes within the village.
It was RESOLVED to amend point iii to just state that affordable home volumes should reflect the prevalent District Council policy at the time rather than state a % value as this was currently under review by AVDC.

g.	Policy 7, Local Green Spaces
It was noted that the area of charity land currently used as open space adjacent to the Recreation Ground was no longer included within this designation.   Nor had it been registered as an Asset of Community Value.  Therefore, implementation of the leisure aspiration plans for the recreation ground (play space, skate park and open access multi-use games area) remain insecure.  Whilst the Charity had indicated that it may be willing to consider sale of the land that would enable delivery after the Pitstone Development Area had been determined, this was not guaranteed.  It was RESOLVED that whilst this was not ideal, it could not be addressed within the NDP.

It was noted that the policy now only related to both parcels of land at The Crescent, following feedback that the other areas did not meet the necessary criteria.

See note above re including evidence from recent AVDC consultation documents.

h.	Policy 8, Community Facilities
No issues were raised with this policy.

i.	
Section 5, Implementation
It was RESOLVED to remove reference to 20mph within point 5.6.
It was RESOLVED to review the list of CIL points in 5.7 as some were very similar and to include an explanation that this list was not exhaustive as other matters may require funding (such as highway schemes, sport & leisure development etc) and the parish council needed to retain flexibility for the duration of the NDP period.

j.	Other Sections
No issues were raised with other sections of the NDP submission document.

88/15	CONCLUSION

It was RESOLVED that the parish council would accept/adopt the Neighbourhood Plan submission documents (except policy 2) on the proviso that they included the amendments detailed above.

It was RESOLVED that all parties would work to seek an acceptable form of wording for Policy 2 and that the council could approve the amendments via unanimous email vote, to enable the Neighbourhood Development Plan to be submitted to AVDC ahead of 19/10/15 aspiration.   However, if no unanimous vote could be obtained, the matter would be referred to the Parish Council meeting on 22 October 2015 for debate and vote.  It was more important that the Pitstone submission was correct, than the 19/10/15 was achieved.

89/15	CLOSE OF MEETING

	There being no further business to transact, the Chairman closed the meeting at 10.40pm.

Signature: ________________________________________________		22 October 2015

Position:   ________________________________________________