Neighbourhood Planning Bill (Fifth sitting)

Debate between Helen Hayes and Theresa Villiers

Committee Debate: 5th sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 25th October 2016 Public Bill Committees

[Helen Hayes]

It is my view that a clause that requires an exchange of letters and makes agreement to the principle of pre-commencement conditions the preserve of the applicant rather than the local authority does the opposite. It does not encourage best practice; it encourages a much more litigious and formalised approach to negotiation, which does not allow for genuine engagement between applicant and planning authority. It would be far better to resource planning authorities properly to undertake those detailed discussions with applicants, so that they can agree and discuss the issues that are important to local communities and ensure they are properly addressed, with as many as possible being within the planning permission itself rather than within pre-commencement conditions. However, there is a role for pre-commencement conditions and it is a very important one.

Finally, we should remind ourselves of what pre-commencement conditions seek to achieve and why they are important. Conditions cover many aspects of application, such as the choice of materials, which is sometimes belittled as a trivial matter but is in fact so important in determining the impact that a new development will have on a community in the long term. Once something is built, it is there certainly for the rest of our lifetimes and perhaps those of future generations. What a development looks like, the impact it has and how sensitively considered the materials are plays a really important role in how acceptable it is to the local community.

Conditions also cover issues such as sewerage capacity, which influences whether residents will have serious problems, sometimes in their own homes, in the long term. They are a key means by which local authorities can safeguard the interests of local communities and ensure the quality of new development. Of course, they should not be overused or misused, but where that occurs it is a symptom of the lack of resources rather than wilful misuse or poor practice.

I argue that the setting of conditions should be the preserve of democratically elected local authorities, not contingent on the agreement of the applicant. Local authorities must be properly resourced to undertake pre-planning discussions, to review properly the content of applications and to agree as much as possible within the framework of the planning permission itself, in order to minimise the use of conditions. The clause is simply misdirected. It is trying to treat the symptom of a problem, rather than the cause. I hope the Government will therefore reconsider it.

[Mrs Theresa Villiers (Chipping Barnet) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to take part in this Committee under your chairmanship, Mr Bone. I have what amounts more to an intervention than a full speech. I spoke about this clause on Second Reading and received some useful reassurance from the Minister, but now we have the more relaxed circumstances and timings of a Committee, I would like to reiterate broadly the importance that many of my constituents place on matters relating to the protection of habitats—that includes bats and newts—and landscape and flooding.

It would be helpful if the Minister expanded on his remarks on Second Reading to explain how it will still be legitimate for the planning process to consider such matters and how there will still be opportunities for local authorities to require research to be done into them, so that planning permission can be granted on the basis of full awareness of the facts. While the clause as drafted will help streamline the planning process, it must leave planning authorities with the ability not only to take matters such as habitats into account, but to require developers to provide the appropriate surveys and research. Will the Minister explain at what stage that is still open to the planning authorities? I am sure my constituents would be very grateful for that.

Neighbourhood Planning Bill (Second sitting)

Debate between Helen Hayes and Theresa Villiers

Committee Debate: 2nd sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 18th October 2016 Public Bill Committees

[Helen Hayes]

Q Have you done any work to understand good practice or the resources necessary to engage effectively communities that might not naturally have the capacity or inclination to engage in strategic planning?

Carole Reilly: We have. We undertook an internal review early days, thinking, “Why is this going on?” because we always seemed to be speaking mainly to the parish council. I have to say that that is one of the elements of the Bill that I feel most disappointed with—it does not go far enough. There was a manifesto commitment to encourage neighbourhood planning across the country, but I think we could be sitting in this room in 10 years’ time and, if we have not done something very significant around urban and deprived areas, we will still be having 10% to 15% of forums doing neighbourhood plans.

Some of the issues are very straightforward. Parish and town councils have a place, a building, a phone, a clerk and an address where people know to go, so they are easy to do. When we did all the asset transfer work at Locality, people understood district councils better than counties. People understood where to go. Those councils also have a big infrastructure, like a number of other bodies, to inform them, “This is an opportunity, take it!” and they have a bank account that they can get going straightaway.

In urban areas, who is your neighbourhood? Is someone on the next street your neighbourhood? Where is the boundary? Is it coterminous with another one you know, such as your political or health boundary? What is it? That is really difficult. Who are the leaders on that? I think it is a major problem that neighbourhood forums have a five-year lifespan. From the start, that does not build in long-term thinking.

There is a problem about funding for implementation for forums, so while my first reaction would be to say that CIL is an issue, it and the new homes bonus scheme only channel funding to areas where there is growth already. If we look at those forums in deprived, urban areas, where CIL is set but set at nought, 0% of nought is still nought, so it makes no difference. These issues could be helped in terms of big-picture stuff. A national policy that tried to balance regeneration and planning would be really helpful so that people can understand what a neighbourhood plan can do for an area where there is actually not a lot of housing demand—there is not a problem because there is not a shortage—but where there is a shortage of employment. Using your neighbourhood plan to understand employment space and encourage and generate that would be great.

The reason why it does not happen in urban areas is that there is not already a thing or a vehicle to do it. In poorer areas, there is an issue about personal investment. If you do not own your own home—if you live in private rented accommodation—you have no investment there, and there is nothing to lose. If you are time-poor, you are not going to get involved. There are also things about skills, transient communities and a general point about focus.

I think a huge amount of work can be done. There have been promotional campaigns on neighbourhood planning, but I think we need something much more targeted and focused, something that works with the people that we know on the ground—the local planning authority—and supports them. We also need to fund it, so it is about a very proactive, promotional mobilisation campaign that targets specific groups to take it forward, otherwise we will be still be at the same picture.

[Mrs Villiers]

Q I would very much like to ask Matt Thomson about one of the points made in your recent report, “Safe Under Us?” about housing development on the green belt. Obviously our planning rules say that such development should be made only in very exceptional cases, but I am alarmed by the research that CPRE and the London Green Belt Council have done, which seems to suggest that inspectors are now deeming general housing pressure and housing need to be sufficiently exceptional to justify green belt development. Could you expand on that?

Matt Thomson: Well, you have put the case that I think CPRE would make very eloquently. Despite the fact that Ministers have said on several occasions that housing demand on its own is not sufficient justification to grant planning permission on green-belt land, it is of concern to us that neither local authorities nor the Planning Inspectorate have necessarily enforced that in all cases, and certainly not in a number of cases that are of concern to CPRE.

Secondly, under the same principle, it is very clear, in our view, in paragraph 14 of the NPPF that, while local authorities should plan to meet their objectively assessed need in full, the requirement does not apply in green belt areas and other areas listed in footnote 9. However, councils are planning for growth—despite being restricted by green belt—and releasing land from the green belt to meet that growth need at an increasing and higher rate than regional plans were doing before they were abolished, largely for the reason that they were proposing development in the green belt. Yes, that is a great concern to us. Housing need obviously needs to be met somewhere and there is still some way to go in order to overcome the problem of how housing need should be met while protecting the green belt and other areas of landscape importance and so on that we would expect to be protected.