Localism in Planning

Debate between Lord Herbert of South Downs and Lord Haselhurst

Wednesday 17th July 2013 Westminster Hall

[Nick Herbert]

I understand the concern of my hon. Friend the Member for Reigate (Mr Blunt). Protected landscapes, including the green belt, are specifically singled out in the national framework to ensure that they are not subject to these pressures. My concern is for the wider countryside, which does not have such designation, yet he points out that there is concern in those protected areas, too. That is another reason why we need to reconsider the matter.

We agree that we need more housing. Houses have never been less affordable. The gap between incomes and house prices is very wide, and there is clearly a problem. There is clearly a need for more houses, given the rising population, changing lifestyles and so on. That much is not in dispute.

The new Government agreed to approach those issues by moving away from the top-down approach of setting housing targets, so the coalition agreement was explicit:

“We will rapidly abolish Regional Spatial Strategies and return decision-making powers on housing and planning to local councils… In the longer term, we will radically reform the planning system to give neighbourhoods far more ability to determine the shape of the places in which their inhabitants live”.

The regional spatial strategies have been abolished. The top-down target has nominally gone in the south-east, but a number of problems have arisen, despite what the coalition agreement promised.

First, district councils in my constituency, and I believe elsewhere, do not believe that the targets have really disappeared. There is considerable danger that because of the way the process has been set up—with a requirement to conduct a strategic housing market assessment that may not properly take into account the downturn that we have had—and other pressures, which I will address, what those councils are really being told is that they have little choice but to reimpose the target that we said we were taking away. That damages confidence and removes the freedom that local authorities should have to deliver housing.

The whole theory of the localist approach is that, if we move to a system of incentives and encourage responsibility from councils, they will plan for additional houses in a way that does not set up conflict. Indeed, in my own area, whereas 51,000 houses were allocated to the four district councils that cover my constituency under the south-east plan, the current proposed plans of the four councils suggest that they will build nearly 40,000 houses, which is well over three quarters of the target originally set by the previous Government.

We must reject the false dichotomy that there is either a highest housing number or zero houses, with my constituents or councils rejecting the prospect of any house building. The councils are not doing that; they are actually planning for a very responsible level of housing, but it is important that they do that by consent and can carry their communities with them, which is the principle that we set out. If the emerging plans that they published are overturned by the Planning Inspectorate, or if the councils set a higher number than they want to build because they fear that some plans will be overturned by the inspectorate, that freedom has effectively been taken away. So my first key point is that we must not chase the target that we said we would abolish. If we chase that target, we will undermine confidence in the system that we said we would set up.

Secondly, although planning authorities are required to assess housing needs in their area—it is right that they should be able to do so—it is important that they also weigh up the availability of infrastructure to support those housing needs. We have a serious infrastructure deficit in West Sussex. We have an inadequacy of water and real pressure on unprotected countryside, which is important for agricultural use. We have pressure on school places and rural roads. The system will be failing if district councils are not able to adjust their figure to reflect that and say, “This is what is realistically deliverable in our area.” Again, district councils feel under huge pressure to adhere to the original high housing target with little regard to such infrastructure considerations, which should be material and allow councils to set a reasonable level of housing.

Thirdly—this is the real point that I wish to make—there is now a growing risk that we will return to the bad old days of planning by appeal, under which the plans put together by local authorities are effectively overturned by the inspectorate. More to the point, before plans are fully in place, the inspectorate might be allowed to uphold appeals from speculative developers that are charging into my constituency—I understand that they are all over the countryside—and putting in applications in the hope that, in the climate that has now been set, the inspectorate will uphold them. I believe that those developers are responding to a signal that has been sent to them.

[Sir Alan Haselhurst (Saffron Walden) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend probably knows the district of Uttlesford as well as he knows his own constituency. Does he not think it is particularly iniquitous if the Planning Inspectorate makes the kind of decisions to which he has just referred when the district plan is not in place, not because of the planning authority’s idleness or unwillingness, but because it is being held up by waiting for confirmation from the highways authority or the Highways Agency?

[Nick Herbert]

I strongly agree. My right hon. Friend makes his point very well.

The dangers of returning to planning by appeal are multiple. First, such a return is founded on the mistaken belief that the way to get house building moving is to send some kind of signal through the system and the Planning Inspectorate that such speculative applications are to be rewarded. That is not the way to get house building moving. We need a correct analysis of the real reason for the slow rate of housing starts, which is the economic downturn. In so far as the rate is increasing again, that is due to the upturn in the economy.