communities and local government committee

Debate between Geoffrey Clifton-Brown and Clive Betts

Thursday 18th December 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)]

I am delighted to present the Committee’s report and I thank in particular our Committee specialist, Kevin Maddison, and specialist adviser, Kelvin MacDonald, whose hard work and expertise have made a major contribution to the report. As has been customary with reports from the Committee, this report was agreed unanimously.

Three years ago this week we published our report on the draft national planning policy framework which, at the request of the Government, we had closely scrutinised. We were encouraged that the Government paid close attention to our findings at that time and accepted 30 of our 35 recommendations. By listening to and acting upon the concerns that we raised, the Government were able to make big improvements so that when the final version of the NPPF was published in March 2012, it was well received for the simplification that it brought to the planning system. The NPPF, in the words of the then Minister, now the Minister for Universities, Science and Cities, the right hon. Member for Tunbridge Wells (Greg Clark), reduced

“over a thousand pages of often impenetrable jargon into around 50 pages of clearly written guidance”.

The NPPF was a bold, radical and much needed change. Given that it was such a big change, it was inevitable that there would be unforeseen problems and that a couple of years down the line some changes would be needed to it. No Government could have carried out such a wide-ranging reform and expected it to work perfectly from the off. This was the motivation for our inquiry, which led to our report. Our aim was to take a comprehensive look at the NPPF as it was operating in practice, to identify any sticking points or unintended consequences and to make recommendations on how they should be addressed. Our approach was thorough: 300 submissions were made to the Committee, we called 45 witnesses, we had discussions with 60 representatives from parish and town councils and community groups, and we made visits to the Planning Inspectorate and to councils in Gloucestershire. We based our recommendations on the evidence we found.

We found overall that there is still strong support for the principles of the NPPF and the simplification that it has brought. We do not need to tear it up and start again. There are, however, a number of emerging concerns that people have raised with us about inappropriate development in their communities. Much of this arises as a result of speculative planning applications by developers. Although the NPPF is clear about the importance of sustainable development, for many people, sadly, the absence of a local plan has created an easy route to unsustainable development. In our report, we set out a number of steps that should be taken to address these concerns.

The key to preventing undesirable development is for councils to get their local plans in place. Local plans were first introduced in 2004, but two fifths of authorities have still not adopted one. This is not a problem with the NPPF, but the NPPF envisages and is based on a plan-led system. The NPPF has a presumption in favour of sustainable development, but that golden thread running through the framework is linked to the development of local plans. One cannot have a plan-led system without plans. Councils that fail to adopt a plan surrender their ability to influence the future development of their local area and leave their communities exposed to speculative development. We therefore call for a statutory requirement for every council to put a local plan in place within three years.

Some councils may not have shown the political will or made available the necessary resources to develop local plans, but we received evidence of a number of other issues that have delayed their production. The planning inspector’s approach can be a barrier to councils getting plans in place. The process of producing a plan has been likened to a game of snakes and ladders: councils can spend years drawing up a plan only for the inspector, on examination, to find it unsound and send the council right back to square one. This is frustrating and wasteful, especially if the plan comes unstuck on just one particular issue.

We call for the Government to allow plans to be partially adopted when the bulk of the work has been done. When an inspector is happy with the bulk of a plan, he should consider finding it sound, subject to an early review. Such an approach was taken in Dacorum, to widespread acclaim. We could not understand why the Planning Inspectorate did not see that as a model for others to follow. Inspectors should also give more support to councils throughout the plan production process. The assessment of housing need has emerged as a particular bone of contention. There is a clear need for an agreed methodology against which inspectors can test strategic housing market assessments.

Another sticking point for local plans is a duty to co-operate. The Government should consult on appropriate incentives and penalties to encourage councils to co-operate better. Councils such as Cheltenham, Gloucester and Tewkesbury, which we visited, should be rewarded for choosing to group together. Where combined authorities exist, a duty should be placed on them to produce a joint core strategy for the area they cover.

Problems identifying a five-year supply of housing land have left many areas without an adopted local plan. Up and down the country, in places as diverse as Leeds and Forest of Dean, problems have been caused by developers claiming that sites are unviable in order to obtain planning permission on more lucrative sites, against the wishes of the council and its communities and also delaying the local plan process. To address this, the NPPF should be amended to make it clear that all sites with planning permission should be counted towards a five-year supply. Moreover, developers are taking a pessimistic view about the future viability of sites. They refuse to accept that brownfield sites that are unviable now may well be viable in five years’ time, and therefore look to add more greenfield sites to the five-year supply. We call for a much more transparent approach to the assessment of viability. Developers should be required to open their books and account must be taken of future projections of viability.

We must make better use of previously used land. The NPPF is clear that brownfield land should be developed first, but a lack of resources means that this often does not happen in practice. The Government have launched some eye-catching initiatives, but they do not address the costs of making the land fit for building. In order to deliver their own policy, we call on the Government to establish a brownfield remediation fund.

Next, we must update the NPPF to ensure that it gives greater protection to town centres. Planning policy must face up to the fact that changing shopping habits, particularly with online shopping, mean that town centre uses are also changing. The Welsh Government are producing a new 21st-century town centre planning policy, and we must do the same in England. Councils must look to reduce the size of their retail areas, which are often too large for modern needs. To do this effectively, we need to manage and plan the change. Our evidence was strongly opposed to the new permitted development rights that allow shops and banks to become homes without the need for planning permission. It is too random, and risks hollowing out the commercial heart of our town centres in an unplanned way. Councils have to be able to plan strategically for the future of their communities through their local plans. These permitted development rights must be revoked.

Finally, the Government must ensure that the NPPF delivers the sustainable development that it promised. Steps must be taken to ensure that equal weight is given to environmental and social factors as well as the economic ones. Development must be accompanied by the infrastructure necessary to support it.

Those are some of the steps that the Government should take. They should also carefully monitor the impact of the NPPF. Regrettably, it stopped collecting important data about what is being built, and so we no longer know how many homes are being built on brownfield land or what percentage of retail development is built on out-of-town sites. Ministers should not be making policy decisions in the dark. The Government need to establish a set of data to monitor the impact of the NPPF against a small number of key aims.

In summary, the NPPF has, overall, been a success. It has consolidated planning policy and made it more accessible to professionals and the public alike. The Government should be proud of their achievement, but they should not be defensive about the changes we say are needed. With a major reform, there will always be issues that have to be addressed. Three years ago, the Government and the then Minister embraced our report on the draft NPPF and acted on our recommendations. I very much hope that the current Minister will be equally positive in his response to this report. We must build on the success of the NPPF to give communities the protections they seek, to deliver development that is truly sustainable, and to ensure that the NPPF becomes a document in which everyone can have confidence.

[Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (The Cotswolds) (Con)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on his Committee’s work, not only in this excellent report but previously. The report contains a number of issues that I would like to raise, primarily local plans.

Of course, a plan-led system needs plans. I was disturbed to hear the hon. Gentleman say that only two fifths of local authorities have a plan in place. Two of the local authorities that I represent do not have a plan. That is causing them severe problems with speculative developers. It also means that parish and town councils are reluctant to embark on neighbourhood plans, which are really important. An example of these problems is in a bit of evidence that his Committee was given from Kingswood parish council in my constituency. It had plenty of sites available, but a speculative developer has emerged on the worst possible site, and it looks as though the district council will be unable to resist granting that permission.

The Government should cut the three-year requirement to have a plan in place to a year and a half. They should adopt a carrot-and-stick approach, forcing councils to introduce the plans but also providing resources to help to them to do it. Small local authorities in my constituency are very short of forward planning resources. The Government should also make it easier to adopt plans. A lot of developments cause problems when infrastructure is not in place, as in the case of the 2,500-house development proposed in Chesterton in my constituency.

[Mr Betts]

The hon. Gentleman is right that local plans are at the heart of this. We set out a number of ways in which the process could be improved and simplified. At the Planning Inspectorate, we were shown boxes of documents just for one local plan in one area. It has all got a bit too complicated. He is right about neighbourhood plans. They are a success where they have been put in place, but there is an issue about the relationship between neighbourhood plans and local plans, particularly when the neighbourhood plan comes first and then has to be related to the local plan. His point about infrastructure is well made, and it is mentioned in our recommendations.