I decided to go alone to ‘listen’ to the F&P (Finance & Policy) meeting, followed later by the Planning meeting.
1. F&P meeting was predominately the same as last weeks full council meeting, however there was some serious discussion around:
(a) Premise Evacuation Policy
(b) Fire Procedure Policy
The debate revolved around fact that there is no suitable emergency exit from the meeting room on the first floor, other than having to go down the stairs and out of the usual exit.
When WTC took on the building it is my understanding that they had a ‘Fire’ official look over the building and brought up no issues.
Now that the above has been identified, the committee decided to re-seek further updated advice from a competent person and I presume act on their report.
2. See below the agenda….
Ref F/YR17/1051 Conversion of ‘Wrights Shop’ – there was a good debate – however some great confusion about Cambs CC wanting 4 dedicated parking spaces for the 2 new shop units….in my experience this has ‘never’ been brought up before, and dozens of retail units in the town would surely be subject to the same conditions.
My opinion is that quite often there is NO consistency in applying planning rules, quite often various ‘stakeholders’ change there stance on planning – this should NOT be so.
All applications should be subject to the same rules.
A somewhat entertaining!!!! rift between Cllr Bistrow and Cllr Mrs Mayor took place about
her ‘abstaining’ from the decision process.
Councillors have to declare ‘interests’ whether personal and/or prejudicial and there are rules pertaining to councillors and officials have to abide.
Anyway the result was 2 Councillors voted for the planning permission and 1 against.
If you zoom in (+) the document will be better readable.
Planning-Agenda-15th-January-2018