Planning
Lord Moynihan Excerpts(4 years, 2 months ago)
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Lord Greenhalgh (Con)
My Lords, I can assure the House that we will consider the needs of all residents, including the vulnerable and the disabled, in ensuring that we have the high-quality design and the beautiful and healthy places that they need.
Lord Moynihan (Con)
My Lords, will the Minister ensure that in any changes to the planning system there will be an emphasis on recreational opportunities to deliver improvements in the quality of life, health and well-being of the population? The protection and provision of sports pitches and the promotion of dual and multiuse facilities where feasible is critical to achieving public health outcomes relating to diet, obesity and physical activity.
Lord Greenhalgh (Con)
My Lords, my noble friend is, of course, a great champion for the importance of sport and recreation. I can give him those assurances. The National Planning Policy Framework encourages local planning policy decisions to ensure that developments create places that promote health and well-being, with a high standard of amenity for existing and future users.
Planning Rules
Lord Moynihan Excerpts(4 years, 3 months ago)
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Lord Greenhalgh
The noble Lord makes an important point about the importance of ensuring that we have adequate infrastructure to fuel the continued delivery of homes, and that the Housing Infrastructure Fund will be the means by which a number of these opportunities will be unlocked. However, this of course has to go through the spending review process.
Lord Moynihan (Con) [V]
My Lords, in view of the vital importance of improving the nation’s fitness, will my noble friend the Minister undertake to ensure that planning policy serves local needs by protecting and promoting existing sports and physical activity provision? Can he also confirm that any changes to planning rules will deliver viable management and maintenance of new and existing sports and physical activity provision for local communities?
Lord Greenhalgh
My noble friend knows that open space, sports and recreation facilities are taken into account in the National Planning Policy Framework, and there is no suggestion made by the Government that that will not continue to be the case.