Growth and Infrastructure Bill

Lord Campbell-Savours Excerpts

Tuesday 12th March 2013 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hanham]

My Lords, my noble friend said “benefit to the developer”. The development is limited to the curtilage of the building and the benefit is to the person who owns the property and who wants to extend it, for their own use, to a limited extent—to have a new kitchen or whatever they need. I hear what my noble friend says but, first, the amount is limited to the curtilage and, secondly, it would be expected that consultation would take place.

There are many people who wish to do smallish extensions to their houses. The noble Lord, Lord True, suggests this is “garden-grabbing” but it is their garden and the garden-grabbing we have talked about in the past has been new developments in back gardens which are clearly not just modest extensions to people’s houses. It is probably not very good to deny people the benefits of being able to extend their houses somewhat.

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

I am sorry, but this is just agony. What are the origins of this proposal? It was not in the coalition manifesto, it was not in the Conservative manifesto, it was not in the Liberal Democrat manifesto. Where has it come from? What are the origins of this nonsense?