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20/01050
This statement supports the attached application in respect of three units of staff accommodation on land at Arragon House, Santon. IM4 1HH.
This application follows two previous applications, 16/00258/B and 17/01205/B which sought consent for combined offices and staff accommodation on the same site.
The Applicant has carefully noted the recommendations of the Inspectors reports in both of the previous applications. Consequently, this application does not seek consent for office accommodation and the application seeks consent solely for a residential element for essential staff accommodation in respect of the Applicants' medical needs and the security and maintenance of the Arragon Estate.
The Applicant is willing to locate its office facility away from the application site however there were elements of the previous two applications which dealt with essential needs as above that are separate to the operation of the Applicant's business interests and that do require to be located within the Arragon Estate and close to Arragon House.
This application seeks to fulfil these essential needs and this statement sets out a justification for the development needed, identifying applications where similar consents have been granted and drawing upon proof available from the Inspectors' reports as above in demonstrating that the proposal does not cause harm to the countryside in contravention of Environmental Policies 1 & 2 in Areas of High Landscape Value (AHLV's).
It should be reiterated that this application does not set out to discard the considerable commercial investment in the economy to be made by the Applicant and the resultant economic benefit to the Isle of Man that were demonstrated to be at the core of the previous applications.
The two previously refused applications sought an enabling consent to support the Applicants' plans for significant expansion of its property and construction holdings in the Isle of Man. The requisite written support for the previous proposals in recognition of the national benefit of this expansion was granted by DFE as per the attached documentation.
It is the Applicants' intention to continue with that investment in the Isle of Man.
Wherever the geographical location of the Applicants' offices the Applicant still has a defined need for modest staff accommodation that is on-site and within a short distance of Arragon House.
At this point in this statement, the potential case for any objections is worthy of examination.
In both of the previous applications the Inspectors found that the proposal, even with the office element, did not cause harm to the either of the nearby objectors.
Consequent of the office element now being removed, and only the staff accommodation remaining, there can be no question that any new objection by any of the previous objectors on the grounds of harm can be valid. It naturally follows that if there was no harmful impact attributable to either of the previous schemes then there can be no harmful impact from this, lesser, scheme.
One previous objector stated that the Applicant could use the 'nearby' Arragon Lodge to provide staff accommodation.
This statement was clearly made to suit the argument of the objector and disregarded the material fact that there in an intervening watercourse between Arragon Lodge and Arragon House which, in the ever-increasing periods of abnormally high rainfall, suffers from localised flooding. This effectively isolates Arragon Lodge from Arragon House unpredictably both in terms of the timing and duration of such disruption.
The Applicant has essential requirements that any staff accommodation is, for the good of his health and the security of the estate, within no more than two minutes walking distance of Arragon House.
It is equally important to note that the dwellings of the two nearby resident objectors originally formed the staff accommodation to Arragon House but were sold before the Applicant became the present owner.
The application immediately preceding this application received no objection from the Department of Highways up to the Committee hearing.
However, it appeared that an objection on highways grounds had been contrived by the time of the appeal hearing as the Highways Officer attended the appeal to object. However, this had no impact on the Inspectors opinion that the proposal did not cause any highway safety concerns.
In his closing remarks the Inspector specifically stated that that the refusal notice should be amended, to quote... "subject to the deletion of the words 'and would have an adverse impact on highway safety' from reason for refusal No 3."
Again, as that proposal included the office element that is now absent from this proposal, there cannot be any reasonable objection on highway safety grounds.
The principle of guest/staff accommodation is well illustrated as a permitted planning concept. The two nearest estates of similar size, Meary Voar and Arragon Mooar has both been granted consent for guest/staff accommodation. At Meary Voar, application no. 11/01715/B received consent for the provision of 'guest accommodation'.
Similarly, at Arragon Mooar, application no. 01/01121/B received consent for the provision of 'ancillary accommodation'. Presumably, both of these applications were considered to make a positive contribution to an AHLV and were thus permitted. The Applicant believes that the design of the scheme that accompanies this application also makes a highly positive contribution.
The Applicant wishes to reiterate that the site that is proposed for development is not a stand-alone site surrounded by open AHLV countryside, akin to what may be imagined by the way it is generally described.
It can at best be described as an enclosed, unused patch of forgotten land that is surrounded to three of its sides respectively by a road, a car park and a substantial agricultural barn.
The remaining side that 'faces' open countryside is screened from that countryside by trees to the degree that the development proposed would be no more noticeable or harmfully impacting to the observer from the open countryside than would the existing barns or Seafield House.
The Applicant appreciates that the Planning Members did conduct a site visit prior to the determination of the last application.
However, in judging or attempting to quantify any harm, the Applicant would ask the Members to revisit the site and look at it again, as above, from a point in the open countryside.
The Applicant wishes to add that if the proposed site was not walled and gated it would certainly be properly categorised as a 'gap' site and the previous proposals would have been measured against different criteria and looked at very differently.
It is neither in, nor would it affect by being modestly developed, the AHLV or the wider countryside.
In the last Inspectors report, the Inspectors observations as to the personal needs of red redact have not been properly considered.
The observations are contained within a single paragraph (77) and whilst the important issues of health are acknowledged, they are cursorily and inequitably dismissed.
The Inspector appears to consider that the medical needs require to be evidence based when an empirical approach is really all that is necessary.
Redacted accompanying medical issues should not be a point requiring proof.
The Inspector appears to acknowledge that many people will require nursing care as they get older and states that 'there are generally alternative solutions to this problem' but fails to identify what these solutions are.
The Applicant believes that the solutions are as outlined as above in the form of 'guest' or 'ancillary' accommodation which have been readily consented at the nearby estates of Meary Voar and Arragon Mooar.
However, in this case, the need for the accommodation is well defined and not generalised by phrases such as 'guest or ancillary'.
Well defined staff accommodation is what is sought here, staff to manage and assist in the Applicants ongoing medical needs and for the security and maintenance of what is, after all, a very sizeable estate that has lost its staff accommodation before the Applicant bought the estate and consequently by no fault of his own.
The ongoing Coronavirus pandemic poignantly illustrates the overwhelming need for staff accommodation to be on site and any argument that the last Inspector has made about the generalisation of nursing care is swept away by its effects.
The Applicants are both in their early seventies, redacted has coronary issues in addition to Type 1 diabetes and redacted has also begun to suffer from a coronary condition.
Redacted mother is over 90 years old and living in a care facility in Douglas.
In the somewhat inevitable scenario of new cases being diagnosed in the Island, the Arragon Estate needs to become what has become known in pandemic vernacular to be a' bubble'.
It is a matter of fact that the creation of such bubbles dramatically reduces the risk of transmission in the wider community.
In the case of an Arragon bubble, the lack of movement of people on and off the estate, even and only for essential purposes, will minimally require on site accommodation for a health care provider, a housekeeper, estate/animal keeper and a driver.
The Applicant has made strong efforts in ensuring that the proposed buildings fit entirely with the vernacular and mass of the surrounding buildings and holds the firm belief that harm to the wider countryside, the key determining factor in the previous applications, is entirely absent from this proposal.
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