Agenda item

8.1

The Director of Regeneration and Development Services submitted a report seeking authority for the Council to sign the Highways Act Section 278 agreement to allow the detailed design and construction of the scheme at Meadowhall Way, Vulcan Road and Sheffield Road.

8.3

The report stated that for many larger developments it was common for the development to include some form of improvement to the adjacent public highway to either allow access to the development site or improve the capacity of the adjacent highway to allow the additional trips generated by the development to be facilitated without detriment to existing highway users. These improvements were normally undertaken via an agreement with the Council under Section 278 of the Highways Act.

8.4

Section 278 agreements were formalised by the Director of Legal and Governance and to comply with the Council’s standing orders as regards delegation the requirement for this type of agreement needed to be approved by this Committee to authorise Legal Services to sign the agreement.

8.5

Normally, as part of the planning approval process the reports presented to this Committee clearly indicated the extent of highway improvements that were required for any specific site and included a standard Grampian condition to cover these requirements. Where the Committee approved this type of report it had been accepted that this did give automatic approval for any necessary Section 278 agreement to be entered into by the Council.

8.6

In this particular instance the development which was presented to this Committee under planning application number 12/01017/FUL (which is the “Next” development adjacent to Meadowhall) was refused and therefore no formal consent to enter a Section 278 agreement existed. However, this application was subsequently granted on appeal and it was now necessary to obtain the Committee’s approval to enter into a Section 278 agreement as the developer was hoping to commence works very shortly.

8.7

RESOLVED: That the Committee delegates authority to the Director of Legal and Governance to sign a Highways Act Section 278 agreement for highway improvement works associated with planning application number 12/01017/FUL (Next Development) on Meadowhall Way, Vulcan Road and Sheffield Road.