Committee backs amendment to Western Avenue scheme

The Northern Area Planning Committee approved the change at Beech Hurst on August 6 after considering a non-material amendment to the Western Avenue plans.

The amendment changes the scheme’s arboricultural method statement and tree protection plan. The project will close the Western Avenue gyratory’s southbound carriageway and create a new riverside park.

Test Valley Borough Council submitted the proposal to change how work would be carried out near several protected trees.

Case officer Emma Jones told councillors the amendment would not change which trees were retained or how they were protected.

She said: "What we've had submitted is an amendment to the arboriculture information that had been submitted with the original information.

"That information had been conditioned in condition 12 that they had to build in accordance with that.

"The method of construction is now proposed to change, the tree will still be protected.

"What the arboriculture information has been amended to do is to change the method of construction so it would be supervised construction rather than doing cellular method of construction.

"It's a non-material amendment."

Councillor Jim Neal asked whether the revised method would make construction easier than the approved scheme.

Ms Jones said it was an alternative method, not a more invasive one.

(Image: Dan Quina Brito)

She said the cellular system could be less suitable if future highway work was needed because the paths would run close to adopted county roads.

Objector Adrian Truss told the committee about what he called inconsistencies between the council’s amendments and proposals made by residents at a recent public inquiry into the project’s stopping-up order.

Mr Truss said he and his wife were not sent letters about the meeting, although some nearby residents were, despite their objections to the original application and stopping-up order.

Councillor Carl Borg-Neal asked officers about the issue, but Ms Jones said there was no legal requirement to consult residents or notify them about non-material amendments.

She added that people who had written about the original application were told about the meeting.

Jason Owen, head of development management north, said planning matters must be kept separate from the stopping-up order inquiry. He said procedural complaints should go through the council’s complaints process.

Councillor Neal said there was “nothing threatening the trees” and that the amendment only covered how they would be supported and protected during construction.

The committee unanimously approved the amendment, allowing the revised tree protection measures to be added to the Western Avenue scheme.