MINUTES OF THE BISHOP'S HULL PARISH MEETING HELD AT THE COMMUNITY ROOM, BISHOP'S HULL SCHOOL,
ON SUNDAY 27TH SEPTEMBER 2009 at 6.30 p.m.

11 members of the Parish attended, including the Chairman of the Parish Council and the Clerk. Ken Burgess was in the Chair. A list of those attending is attached.

1. Welcome and introduction

Mr Burgess welcomed everyone to the meeting, which had been convened by eight electors in accordance with the relevant sections of the Local Government Act 1972. Mr Burgess then outlined the format of the meeting i.e. a brief statement on the current position with the application by Persimmon Homes to build 220 houses on 7.65 ha of land to the west of Bishop's Hull Road, to receive comments from electors, to discuss the possibility of holding a Parish Poll, and to consider and vote upon any request from any elector present for further action.

2. The Persimmon Homes application

Mr Burgess said that the present position with the application submitted by Persimmon was that at a meeting of the Taunton Planning Committee held on Wednesday 23rd September it was decided to defer a decision on the application pending further assessment and consideration of traffic matters.

There was also a question of whether or not there were any highway rights over land adjacent to Bishops Hull Road the ownership of which appeared to rest with the owners of the properties.

The meeting last Wednesday was well attended with the Committee Room full to its 100 person legal limit. Several individuals and representatives of both the Parish Council and the Local Residents Group addressed the meeting opposing the application.

It was difficult to accurately assess how successful the opposition was but at the end more than one member of the Committee indicated that they were inclined to refuse the application. A decision was therefore deferred so that the traffic aspects of the proposals could be further assessed.

The proposed development will again have to be referred to the planning committee and that would be a further opportunity to oppose the application.

3. Parish Poll

Mr Burgess explained that it was important to note that all decisions made by the TDBC Planning Committee must be based on planning law and practice. This was specifically pointed out at last Wednesday's meeting by comments that the large presence of objectors from Bishops Hull would not influence any committee decision. If the committee were not to act in that way any applicant would probably have just reasons for appealing against the decision. Although at present there was no indication when the application would be considered again it was likely that it will sooner rather than later and our opposition would benefit from the knowledge and experience gained last week.

If as a consequence of this meeting a parish poll was held there was no guarantee that the result would be available before the planning committee reconsidered and decided on the application. That presupposed that TDBC agreed to hold a poll.

In addition the outcome of any poll was not binding on TDBC.

It should also be noted that the cost of any poll would be paid by the electors via the Parish Council. The last time there was a similar situation the cost was slightly in excess of £2000. That sum of money should only be spent on a referendum or poll if we could be reasonably certain of success and it was well-supported. In the circumstances it was difficult to see what benefit there would be to the parish if a poll or referendum were held

4. General Discussion

Views expressed on the Persimmon application included:-

a) if a Parish Poll was not held, the builders would go on and on until they had covered all the land with houses;

b) Persimmon had already spent a considerable amount of money on this application, which meant that they were fairly confident of getting planning permission;

c) Not much was known about the S106 agreements and Mr Burgess outlined the main proposals;

d) The School would need to be enlarged -who would pay for that and when?

e) Even if a Parish Poll was held and a large proportion of the parish voted against the application, which seemed unlikely given the turn-out at this meeting, it was doubtful that it would influence the planning committee's decision;

f) The School was actually concerned about a shortage of children;

g) The land in question was outside of the recognised settlement limit for the village and therefore a special procedure had to be gone through. It was incumbent upon Taunton Deane to prove that they had not got a five year supply of development land and were behind where they should be in terms of building new houses;

h) 689 people had signed a petition against the development and no notice had been taken of it by the planning committee;

i) If there was a parish poll and it was not well supported, it may well act to Persimmon's advantage as it could be interpreted that most of the parishioners were not concerned about the application;

j) Traffic concerns in the village were paramount, and really must be addressed satisfactorily before permission was granted;

k) The Parish Council had done all it could so far to object to the application and to highlight the problem areas, particularly with traffic management issues;

5. Motion

During the meeting nobody present made a demand for a referendum or parish poll.

Mr Burgess summed up the mood of the meeting and the following motion was proposed, seconded and carried unanimously:-

Since it can not be guaranteed that the result of any referendum or parish poll will be available before TDBC planning committee make a positive decision on the application by Persimmon to develop on 7.65 ha of land to the west of Bishops Hull Road and since the result of any referendum or parish poll will not be binding on TDBC, this meeting considers it important that electors support the Parish Council and the Residents Group in their continued opposition of the application.

6. Conclusion

Mr Burgess thanked people for attending, and said that their views would be communicated to Taunton Deane Borough Council. The minutes of this meeting would be prepared by the Clerk and published on the parish noticeboards. In addition, all those present would receive a personal copy.

The meeting closed at 7.20 p.m.

CHAIRMAN

ATTENDERS (*non electors)

Ken Burgess, 92 Mountway Road
Mrs Sue Watts, The Coach House, Bishop's Hull Road
Mr and Mrs Davey, 9 Shutewater Hill
P Jackson, Shutewater
John Hewer, 11 Farrant Close
Mrs L Kelly, Laurel House, Bishop's Hull Road
John Turner, 23 Badger Close
Mrs Betty Mapletoft, 20 Shutewater Close
Mrs P Coombes, 20 Shutewater Close
Mrs Jo Beaumont, Longaller Mill
Rod Porter, 132 Wellington Road*
Colin Cortbus, 17 Shutewater Hill*