A Planning Application has been received and can be seen HERE.  The Plans and related documents can be seen HERE.

Langham PC held a public meeting on Friday 20/07/12 to discuss Avada’s most recent application for the glassworks site on North Street.

The Parish Council formulated a response based on the opinions expressed at the meeting and the open planning meeting that followed it. 

Langham Parish Council wishes to register no objection or support for the scheme.  We offer the following comments for consideration by the Planning Committee.

• We are concerned about the change to full residential use of the houses and the loss of employment that this will incur.  The original plans included the bookings and servicing of the holiday homes as an employment opportunity. 
• There was only minority support for more affordable homes in Langham.  The design, location and letting policy will have to be better defined in order to pursue this.

Whilst we acknowledge that the affordable homes statement does not form part of this application we make the following comments.

• We also have significant concerns about the suggestion (in the Affordable Housing Statement) of a scheme to build workers’ accommodation off-site and particularly in the area proposed.  This would place a substantial block of housing for a group working unsocial hours within existing and proposed housing.  The corresponding disturbance to residents living in the housing round the hotel staff houses and along the route between there and the hotel would change our village environment permanently.
•  If the scheme’s viability is dependent on the provision of worker’s accommodation this must be on the hotel site where it is under managerial control.
• The application as submitted with its approved new homes on site, the suggested new affordable homes and suggested workers accommodation would increase the housing stock in Langham by over 20% and this is surely too much to maintain the village environment.

This application was discussed at the Planning Meeting in Cromer on Thursday 26th July.  As expected, the offer of a financial incentive for affordable homes meant the approval of the application was a foregone conclusion.  Our comments re the worker’s accommodation and increase in the housing stock in the village were presented to the committee but not discussed as they did not form a formal part of the application.

Our District Councillor, Peter Terrington, promised he would take up the issue of the worker’s accommodation with the Planning Officer.

In the meantime we have been looking at the NNDC Core Strategy and in particular Policy HO3 that restricts the siting of a proposed new development next to an existing one.

So we have alerted planning at NNDC to our concerns and will continue to press for the views of Langham parishioners and the Parish Council to be heard.

Avada have submitted yet another change to the planning application for the former glassworks.

The application can be found HERE.  The documents are HERE.

The main changes are:

• The dropping of the holiday housing provision, 
  
• Amendments to the site layout and landscape changes. 
  
• £500,000 financial contribution for off-site affordable housing
  
• 8 - 10 Off-site housing units for the hotel staff
  

The plans will be available to view in the Parish Room on Friday 20th July from 7.00pm, there will be short time available for comments then the Parish Council will discuss their response to this application from 8.00pm.

A planning application has been submitted for the installation of a toilet unit at the Dome Trainer, Cockthorpe Road.   The plans can be seen by clicking the LINK.  Any observations on the plans should be submitted by 22/06/12.

The Parish Council chose to offer no comment on this application.

A planning application has been made and can be examined at  PF/12/0479 the supporting documents are at PLANS. - you may need to be patient waiting for this page to open at NNDC.

The Parish Council responded by Friday 18 May. We objected to the plans as the proposed building would have been over dominant to the neighbouring cottages and the red brick construction was not appropriate in the conservation area.

The planning application has been withdrawn,

The Planning Committee visited the Glasshouse site on North Street on Thursday 26/04/12.  This was not an open meeting but the Chairman of Langham Parish Council was allowed to make a statement on behalf of LPC.  John said that LPC had chosen to make no comment on the revised application then gave a concise account of the concerns of the village as raised at the public meeting held on 9th March and we gave copies of a traffic survey conducted by John and Dave on 25/04/12 to back up our case.

The application continues.