Growth and Infrastructure Bill

Debate between Lord Cameron of Dillington and Lord Greaves

Wednesday 30th January 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Greaves]

My Lords, at the heart of this matter is a fundamental difference of view, which I shall turn to in a minute. I thank the Minister for replying in great detail to the amendments, most of which I did not speak to specifically. I discarded my notes on those because I thought I had spoken for long enough. I had listened to myself for long enough even if other people had not. I am very grateful to her for doing that, because it gives me something to go away and read carefully. Many of them were probing amendments to find out what the Government really meant by them. I am grateful for the offer from the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, to have further discussions on this. I hope that we might have further discussions all round.

There may be agreement between the two Front Benches, but there is a wish, certainly on the part of the Minister and I thought there might be on the part of the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, to bring the registration of greens, as part of the process of deciding the future of land, into the planning process. The Minister has said that quite clearly on several occasions. She talked about the decisions on the future of land not being bypassed by the registration process and so on.

My submission is that there are two separate systems and that the registration of greens is not part of the planning process because, as clearly set out in the commons legislation, it is a question of the establishment of fact and not a question of what, as a matter of opinion or a matter of planning policy, ought to happen. That is the difference. There are two quite separate processes based on different principles and different legislation. One goes back to commons law, as set out in commons legislation, and the other is the planning legislation which is relatively recent, dating mainly from 1948.

There is a difference of view here. It seems to me that the Government are saying that the planning process, or the ability of communities collectively to make a decision about pieces of land, should always trump the commons registration and greens registration process. I think that they should come out openly and honestly and say so and then we can have that argument. They ought not to be pushing it through as one element of a rag-bag miscellaneous Bill of bits and pieces gathered from all sorts of places. At the moment, we have a problem with a meeting of minds because we come from quite separate areas. Perhaps that can be thought about and talked about further.

Of course, there are practical dangers in what is being proposed. It will be two months after the passing of this legislation—assuming it is passed—that it will commence. During those two months people might start rushing in with registration applications. I do not know whether they will, but they might if they know what is going on.

I have one question for the Minister. I am not sure that I know the answer to it. What happens if a piece of land is subject to a registration for a village green—if an application goes in—and somebody makes a planning application after that? Is making a planning application after an application has been made to register a green a way of trumping it completely? That would run a coach and horses through the entire system set out in Section 15 of the Commons Act. I should like that question answered.

I agreed with a lot of what the noble Lord, Lord Cameron of Dillington, said about the planning system. The purpose of the system is to balance different interests and make a decision. I do not disagree with any of that, and I agree that many of the people who come forward on planning applications have special interests—in particular the people who go out hunting for natterjack toads, great crested newts, various sorts of obscure bats and types of birds of which I have never heard. That always happens. A sensible planning system deals with all that. With respect to the noble Lord, it seemed that what he said was not relevant to this discussion because the green registration system is not part of the planning system. If he and other noble Lords say that it should be and want to change the system, that is a different argument. There would be some big arguments all over the place about that.

[Lord Cameron of Dillington]

Surely that is the whole point of this clause—to make sure that this problem is addressed by the planning system so that it does not become the statutory show-stopper that it currently is. The noble Lord talked about looking at this from two separate points of view. We are looking at it from that point of view; that is the whole point of the clause.

[Lord Greaves]

I understand that that may be the purpose of it, at least in certain circumstances—and I agree that it is a show-stopper at the moment. If a piece of land is found to be a green, and if the application is legitimate, that trumps the planning system; there is no doubt about that. If noble Lords do not want that to happen, they should change the system. However, this clause does not do what the noble Lord wants, and it does not do what the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, suggested that the local planning system should do. There is no way, through a local plan-making system—whether it is a neighbourhood plan or a local plan—to deliver a new green, because that is not part of the planning system. No one can state in a neighbourhood plan, “This will be a village green”, or, “This will be a town green”, unless the owners of the land want to dedicate it as such. Otherwise, no one can do it because the systems are not aligned, or part and parcel of the same process, so the plan-making system will not deliver a green—particularly through a planning application. If a planning application comes in, somebody may come in with an objection and say, “I think that this is a village green because I have kicked a ball about on it for the past 45 years”, but that cannot be dealt with as part of the planning application because it would not be a material consideration. A planning application cannot be turned down on the grounds that something is a village green; it is just not part and parcel of the planning system.

I am in favour of aligning the systems much more than they are now. I am in favour of speeding up the green registration system and making it more modern, and certainly more efficient, than it is now—but this clause does not do it. What it does is abolish the rights that people have under the triggering mechanisms. Having said all that, I will read with great interest exactly what the noble Baroness said. Perhaps we may be able to find at the very least a way forward for Report which improves the proposals that have been made, does away with some of the possible unintended consequences and achieves a degree of consensus. On that basis, I thank noble Lords for taking part in the debate and I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Localism Bill

Debate between Lord Cameron of Dillington and Lord Greaves

Thursday 7th July 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Greaves]

My Lords, I gave notice of my intention to oppose the Question that Clause 74 stand part of the Bill. I do not intend to speak in the debate, although I note that the noble Lord, Lord Cameron of Dillington, would like to do so.

[Lord Cameron of Dillington]

My Lords, I rise, at last, to speak in this clause stand part debate. I shall speak to whether all the clauses in Chapter 4 of Part 4 should stand part of the Bill. In some ways I am glad that I did not get to speak on Tuesday. Our debate then and some of the statements that have just been made confirm my view that I might have a solution to everyone’s concerns.

Before I set out my position, I must first make it clear that I totally endorse the intentions behind Chapter 4. I have spent the greater part of my life trying to save community assets, as envisaged in this chapter. When I was at the Countryside Agency, we worked hard to provide funding for villages that were trying to protect and enhance their pubs, shops, sports facilities and heritage assets. On the latter, we ran the local heritage initiative for the Heritage Lottery Fund for both rural and urban communities. At the same time, the agency was one of the instigators of the Pub is the Hub movement. We also had a great scheme for encouraging the use of village facilities for multiple purposes, such as using the same room or building for everything from a hairdresser and a citizen’s advice bureau to political surgeries and Jobcentre Plus services. We also worked hard with others to persuade the Government to put £150 million a year into saving rural post offices. We were not totally successful in saving all rural post offices, of course, but we certainly helped. Ultimately, in all these things, and as is the intention behind these clauses, whether prized community assets survive depends on the oomph or activities of the community itself.

Having established, I hope, my credentials and my enthusiasm for this chapter’s intentions, I shall now explain why these clauses, as currently framed, first, will not work and, secondly, are an unnecessary nightmare of administrative red tape. First, why will they not work? On the basis that the two main community assets to be saved are probably the village shop and pub, or, in urban areas, the local shop and pub, perhaps I may use them as prime examples. I note at this point that open land used for sport or quiet recreation is already catered for by Section 15 of the Commons Act 2006, under which it can be registered as a town or village green. I put that forward tentatively because I am not an expert on the use of Section 15.

Sticking to the pub and the shop, it is important to note, first, that they are both customer-based businesses. Any interruption to their trading is tantamount to a direct hit on their sustainable future. In any period of closure, people soon develop the habit of going elsewhere for their shopping or their pint. It is surprising that even those without their own transport find alternative ways of getting what they need. More to the point, those habits soon become ingrained. There are lots of reasons why a publican or shopkeeper might want to retire. Customers may be drifting away and the business owner might be finding it hard to make ends meet. It might all be too much hard work. Believe me, running such enterprises really is hard work. There might be family reasons for moving or they might just want to retire. However, if they do want to retire, it is likely that they will want to maximise the value of their business asset. At the moment, the best way to do that is to get permission for a change of use and sell the building as domestic premises. Often, half of it will already be a house, so they try to turn it into a bigger house, or even to have two units to sell.

If, on the other hand, they want to sell their business as a going concern, that is all well and dandy and none of this is needed. If not, and particularly if the business is failing, the first thing they will do is to close the business in order to justify any change of use application. Very often the business will sit like that with the shutters closed, in my experience, for six months or a year—in some instances that I know of, considerably longer—even before an application is made. As I have already explained, that means that the business as a community asset could be snookered anyway. Of course, as far as the business owners are concerned, it is more likely that they will get their change of use because such a permission will be merely confirming a fait accompli.

I should point out that there could be as much as an extra £100,000 accruing from a successful change of use application, but the main point is that, after planning permission and building conversion, the sale of a property in this scenario—the “disposal”, as it is called in Chapter 4—is often several years down the track, by which time there is definitely no community asset to save.

If the local planning authority refuses permission—I accept that, if the property is now deemed a community asset, this is more likely—the owner will probably hang on for a year or two, maybe until the five years have elapsed, and have another go. They are probably living in the property or they can lease the living quarters for a few years. Alternatively, they might, under the new circumstances, give up and sell the business as a going concern, in which case we do not need to protect this community asset at all. If the disposal of the property, being usually six months to a year or more after the closure of the business, is used as the trigger for the moratorium to give the community a chance to galvanise itself and take appropriate action, it is already too late. To plagiarise Charles I, “The bird has already flown”. The business, as opposed to the property, already has both feet in the grave.

I accept that the focus that the Bill now gives to community assets means that the owner will know that an application for a change of use is likely to be refused and is therefore more likely than ever simply to close the business and carry on living in or letting the domestic side of the premises until the property slips off the radar as a recognisable community asset. However, the effect is the same. No trigger has been given to spark the community into action. Although, frankly, if the community is not sparked into action by the closure of the business into doing something to revive it elsewhere—perhaps by using their right to build, for example—there is probably nothing we can do to help them anyway. In any case, my point is still valid: it is very unlikely to be the disposal of the asset—I stress the word “asset”, as in that particular property—that kills the business; it is the change of use.

If all this is not bad enough, Chapter 4 as currently proposed could actually be the killer blow to the community asset when it is in no danger at all. Let us take the example of a publican or shopkeeper who dies in service. It is not unknown, as I said earlier. It is extremely hard work. The widow or executors will want to implement a quick sale in order to keep the business going, possibly for the sake of the community, but under the current proposals, they cannot do that, so the proposals could actually cause the demise of the very business that they are supposed to save. I believe that it is important to stimulate the necessary community action only when the business is actually threatened, rather than when the ownership of the property is transferred. The threat to the business really only occurs when a change of use planning application is made. It is at that stage that the community needs to take action, rather than wait for a disposal, when it is usually too late. I accept that a passive closure of the business not involving planning permission has the same effect and that this event is not covered either by my proposal or by the current Chapter 4. As I said, only the community itself will be able to take independent action to deal with that scenario.

My other point, which I shall make briefly and is similar to the points made last Tuesday by the noble Lords, Lord True and Lord Jenkin, is that this chapter is a nightmare of administration and red tape. I looked at it, wondered how I could possibly put down any meaningful amendments and realised that I could not. I am sorry to be so blunt, but to me, it is totally over the top. At a time when local authorities are desperately trying to cut down on costs, they will possibly have to start new sections of administration keeping lists, and not only lists of successful community assets, but also lists of unsuccessful ones. Why on earth one needs the latter, I do not know. Like the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, I should have thought that a non-appearance in the first list was enough for everyone.

My solution, which I hope is a positive suggestion, is that the Government should put a loose but meaningful description of a community asset on the face of the Bill. Then, when an application for a change of use comes into a planning department, the planning officer could inform the parish council or neighbourhood forum and all the members of his planning committee immediately—just in case they disagree with him—that he is deeming the premises to be a community asset. The community would then have, as at present, six weeks in which to express an interest which, if forthcoming, will result in a moratorium on the decision for a change of use for, say, six months or more to allow the community to galvanise itself so that it could, as it were, head off the danger at the pass. That would be a very simple but, in my view, far more effective approach than the current quicksands that we are all being sucked into. Do we really need 19 clauses and a whole wodge of regulations to achieve a very simple procedure? I think not.

I am sorry to have gone on for so long—I bet that those who were here late on Tuesday night are quite glad that I did not speak at that hour—but, as I said at the beginning, this is an important matter. I am right behind the Government in their intentions and I really want to make this work, which it definitely will not do in its current form. I know that there have been consultations, but I expect that the responses were based on what is currently proposed. I bet that few have had the temerity to say that the emperor has no clothes. Chapter 4 sounds good politically, but I do not believe that it will achieve what it is trying to do. I cannot see these provisions saving a single village shop or pub. Indeed, I can see them condemning a few to the grave—