Planning and Housing Supply

Andrew Bingham Excerpts

Thursday 24th October 2013 Westminster Hall

[Andrew Bingham (High Peak) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friends on securing this debate. We can tell by the attendance today, and from our postbags, that the subject is of great importance to Members and our constituents. It follows on from a 30-minute debate held in Westminster Hall some time ago, in which, because of sheer weight of numbers, the time limit was very restrictive. Today we have been given double that limit— six minutes.

I spent 12 years on the local council, and planning exercised my residents more than anything else, and as an MP, I find a similar situation. The creation of the NPPF has simplified the planning laws, which had become complicated and burdensome. Like many others here today, I supported sending the power to rule on applications down to local authorities. As a councillor on the planning committee, I felt many times that we were rubber-stamping central Government policies on development. That was frustrating to me and my residents, because they believed, as I did when first elected, that the local authority was the sole arbiter on applications.

As previous speakers have said, I look forward to a brave new world under the new NPPF and local plans, where locally elected representatives make the decisions that impact so much on local people, but I, too, am concerned about recent events. My constituency, High Peak, is the most beautiful in the country, though I am biased. I am sure that others will disagree. As I said in the previous debate, there has been a proliferation of significant applications for development on greenfield sites. They have been refused by the local authority’s planning committee on perfectly legitimate grounds. This is not a case of nimbyism at all. The decisions were met with great approval, and in some cases relief, by local residents, who felt that their views had been represented by the people for whom they had voted.

I want to be clear: the High Peak is a great place to live. I am lucky, as are my constituents. We know that many people would love to live in the High Peak. We are not of the mind that says, “We have our housing and we’re going to pull the ladder up. We’re all right, Jack.” We acknowledge that there is a need for some housing. My constituents have young children and teenagers. There are people in their early 20s who want to stay and live in the High Peak. There is a housing need, which I touched on in my Adjournment debate last week on the challenges facing rural businesses. We need houses for people to live in, so that they can work in the High Peak. No one I have spoken to disputes that there is a need for housing. My constituents would accept development, provided it was proportionate.

Recent decisions by local councillors, who, I remind everyone, are elected by local people, have been overturned by the Planning Inspectorate, which is not. That flies in the face of everything that we believe about localism. I have spoken to many residents, who are seeing more applications coming forward, with the threat of ever larger developments. In my previous speech on the subject, I highlighted the area of Harpur Hill and the concerns of its residents’ association. I will not repeat the statistics, because time is short and they are in Hansard, but as I said in my previous speech, the problems facing Harpur Hill are mirrored in other areas of my constituency. As the Minister knows, Chapel-en-le-Frith parish council now objects to every significant planning application, after several applications have already been given the nod. If all of them were built, the size of that small village, where I live, would increase significantly, beyond what many believe the infrastructure could cope with.

I could run through a list of applications in different parts of my constituency, but we are not at a planning meeting today. My constituents are asking questions about the applications and the method of approval. Are they powerless to prevent approvals? Can they at least ensure that there is some sense of proportion? Proportion is what they are asking for. I am sure that the Minister will respond that local plans should be drawn up, and planning policy should be defined in documents and properly evaluated. My local council has yet to product its local plan; indeed, it has delayed its anticipated completion. In 2011, the controlling Labour group rejected proposals from the Conservative group to use some underspend to bring forward brownfield sites. It has now belatedly allocated some extra resources to that. Delaying the local plan has created a window of opportunity for developers. I could easily turn my contribution into a tirade against the Labour group and its management of the local authority. I have met the executive member to discuss the situation; he has his views and I have mine.

I want to deal with the harsh realities of the here and now. No local plan has been completed, and developers are submitting speculative applications time after time—applications that may have been refused in the past. They see from previous examples, which I highlighted today, that the Planning Inspectorate appears to be unmoved by local representations. I repeat that this is not nimbyism; my constituents and I are not against development. It is about proportion. A well-constructed local plan should bring in proportion, but at the moment the Planning Inspectorate does not listen to our views.

I am pleased that the Minister has agreed to visit the High Peak. I promise him a warm welcome in the hillsides. We can have an interesting day. There has been a dearth of houses built in the past few years, and that has created the shortage facing us today, but I am concerned that in our eagerness to deal with that, we are being too hasty, and will be left to repent at leisure. I have asked the Minister this question previously, and I will repeat it today: will he not seek to give more weight to emerging plans? I know that that may amount to making up for the shortcomings of the council, but I am looking to assist my constituents.

I am looking at the clock; time is short, and I could go on to several other issues. A consultation on the latitude in permitted development rights for agricultural buildings closed recently. The Peak District national park covers a large chunk of my constituency. I value that national park greatly, as I know the Minister does—he has gone on record on this. People are concerned about that proposal. There was also a consultation on catching up on housing deficits, and having to reduce them in the first two or three years. That will cause huge problems to local authorities if we are not careful.

I plead with the Minister: listen to what we have all said today. We are all on a common theme: we need houses. We know that under the previous Government, the numbers were woefully low, but let us get some proportion. The essence of localism is local decisions made by local people. That is not happening in the High Peak, and, from what we have heard today, it does not appear to be happening in other areas of the country. I would therefore like some assurance from the Minister that something can be done for my constituents. Harold Wilson once said to Hugh Scanlon,

“get your tanks off my lawn”;

the people of High Peak are saying to developers, “Get your bulldozers off our fields.”

I look forward to welcoming the Minister to High Peak. My residents are eager to see him. I hope that he will come soon. It is very cold and high where I live, and we will get a lot of snow soon, so I recommend that he comes as soon as possible.

[Mr Graham Brady (in the Chair)]

Hon. Members have all been so disciplined in their time-keeping that we have lots of time for Front Benchers’ responses. However, I am keen to reserve at least a couple of minutes at the end for the hon. Member for Tewkesbury (Mr Robertson) to respond, if he wishes.