Planning (Subterranean Development) Bill [HL]

Lord Marlesford Excerpts

Friday 20th November 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Marlesford (Con)]

My Lords, I support the Bill, particularly Clauses 3, 4 and 5. I now have no interest to declare but do have an experience to relate. I have for 47 years lived in a small house in Battersea. The noble Lord, Lord Dubs, was for many of those years the most efficient and excellent local Member of Parliament responsible for my welfare.

Our house is a Victorian terraced house in what is now a conservation area. On 12 December 2013, out of the blue I received a letter dated 5 December from a junior planning officer in the planning department of Wandsworth Borough Council, advising me that my neighbour, who had recently bought the adjoining house, had applied for the construction of a basement and an extension over the very small gardens that these houses have at the back. The letter told me that I had to make any comments by 26 December. That gave me 14 days, including the Christmas holidays.

A couple of days later, I had a letter from a surveyor, telling me that he represented the new owner and that he intended to start work within a month—that was, early in January 2014. That suggested to me that the council had already indicated that planning permission would be granted, long before it got in touch with me. I had never met the new owner, or heard from him. I echo the great Dr Johnson, who said that he,

“did not care to speak ill of any man behind his back”,

but I had heard that he was a banker.

The council is supposed to post notices of planning applications in the street. It had omitted to do so: an omission consistent with the timescale it was trying to impose. My wife and I were really upset, especially when my neighbour’s surveyor then wrote to me saying that unless I appointed an independent surveyor to represent me, he would appoint himself in this role. Fortunately, our friend and neighbour on the other side of the developer is a charming and brilliant barrister. He leapt into action. First, we jointly appointed a wonderful planning surveyor, who held our hands from then on.

I may say that despite representations to Wandsworth council, it did absolutely nothing to help at any time. I never did discover what lay behind that extraordinary attempt to rush through the planning application. And our own councillor—a Tory, I am ashamed to say—despite repeated applications, never found time to come and see us.

Fortunately, we were able to prevent the extension being built, which would have taken the light from the gardens, and although the inside wall of our ground floor room was cracked by the basement work next door and had to be reinforced with steel bars and redecorated, all is now well. However, we had a most unpleasant 18 months which I would have gladly paid several thousand pounds to have avoided.

I should add that during this worrying time I had a lot of advice and support from my noble friend Lord Selsdon, who I recognise as one of the leading experts in this area, particularly in this House. So your Lordships can see why I want to support the Bill proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Dubs.