Housing and Planning Bill

Debate between Kit Malthouse and John Howell

Tuesday 5th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[John Howell (Henley) (Con)]

I understand completely where my right hon. Friend the Member for Arundel and South Downs (Nick Herbert) and my hon. Friend the Member for Cleethorpes (Martin Vickers) are coming from, but I take a slightly different view. Let me start with finalised neighbourhood plans. I have some sympathy with their argument that there should be a community right of appeal in these circumstances, but when we looked at this in the context of the Localism Act 2015, we originally did not include it to avoid the situation where part of a community would appeal against something that the rest of the community had just voted on. I urge Ministers to look at the issue again in the context of the Bill to see whether that problem can be worked out.

On emerging plans, I take a completely different view. First, such plans already have protection. The closer they get to finalisation, the stronger that becomes. Secondly, if communities undertaking neighbourhood plans start off at the end point rather than at the beginning, they are likely to have lots of help along the way, including at appeals.

[Kit Malthouse (North West Hampshire) (Con)]

rose—

[John Howell]

I will not take interventions at this late stage.

The end point is not the inspection, but the referendum. Many communities in my own constituency have started the process of producing a neighbourhood plan and for one reason or another have abandoned it along the way, in some cases fairly close to the referendum. There is many a slip before the referendum takes place and votes are counted. To take the view that emerging plans should have a greater degree of protection would sterilise a whole area from development while that neighbourhood plan was theoretically an option. Plans have a proper place and they are being followed at appeal. There are examples of front-runners in my constituency where development has been proposed that was not in accordance with the neighbourhood plan and it was rejected at appeal.

Neighbourhood plans share responsibility with the district or borough council for the development of the planning system for their location. It is not just a matter of protecting a village. It is a view of the development of the village for the future, and in my experience the planning inspectorate is fully prepared to back those plans as they proceed.