Localism Bill
Debate between Baroness Andrews and Lord Newton of Braintree
Baroness Andrews
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for so beautifully moving the amendment. I only just managed to sneak into the Chamber in time, so I was not here for all his speech. Declaring my interest as chair of English Heritage, I am happy to support the amendment.
The sites that the noble Lord talked about could be designated as scheduled monuments, but they have not been so scheduled for the simple reason that, until now, they have been perfectly well protected through the planning system. We are concerned here with the possible loss of that protection through neighbourhood development.
There are about 80,000 sites of archaeological interest of national importance that could be scheduled, compared with about 20,000 that are already scheduled. The reason for our not having scheduled all the sites historically is that scheduling is a very strict, precise and quite expensive regime to implement. Many sites of national and international importance have not been scheduled because the onerous protection system has been seen as unnecessary as long as they have sat within the planning system. Neighbourhood development orders have the potential to take them out of that protection.
The NPPF may well provide for policies to protect such sites and some policy protection in the event of a normal planning application. The problem to which we return is that we do not yet have the document. I am therefore quite anxious to see whether it is explicit in saying that neighbourhood development should not interfere with such sites. I therefore strongly support what the noble Lord, Lord Renfrew, seeks in his amendment, which is expressly to exclude those sites and put the matter beyond question. That is what the community of people who have to guard and look after the sites want. It is also what every community in the country that is proud of its local archaeology would want.
These sites by definition hold a very important interest that extends well beyond neighbourhood boundaries because of their national significance. There should be no real objection to putting it beyond doubt that they cannot be affected, at least physically, by neighbourhood development orders.
If the amendment is not carried and we lose the protection that it would offer, the pressure will be on local authorities to schedule. That would be an extremely onerous and expensive undertaking, an unintended consequence of which would be that the matter was taken away from neighbourhoods and subjected to the national regime. To put it at its most simple, the system that we have works best. It is proportionate; it is well understood; it delivers the protections that are required. It would be an enormous shame if, inadvertently, the system was destabilised and the protections were lost. I have great pleasure in supporting the amendment.
Lord Newton of Braintree
My Lords, perhaps I may briefly extend my support to my noble friend. I had better confess that I am in the same boat as the noble Baroness, who got back just in time. I had sneaked off for a while, in the belief that I deserved some respite from this suffering, but I was tempted back by my noble friend Lord Renfrew, having had the same representations from the same groups as he has evidently had. I have not given them such assiduous attention as him, but I express my support for the careful consideration of the purport of his amendments, even if they are not perfect to achieve his objectives.