Localism in Planning

Andrew Bingham Excerpts

Wednesday 17th July 2013 Westminster Hall

[Andrew Bingham (High Peak) (Con)]

Like my hon. Friend the Member for Romsey and Southampton North (Caroline Nokes), I spent 12 years on the local council. For some of that time I sat on the planning committee, so I have some knowledge of the way in which the planning system has worked, and I, too, am concerned about recent events. In the three minutes available to me, I shall try to crash through a few of the points that I wish to make.

In the High Peak in recent weeks, we have seen significant applications for development on greenfield sites. They have been refused by the local development control committee on High Peak borough council. Those decisions have been met with great approval and, in some cases, relief by local residents. However, they have then been overturned by the Planning Inspectorate. I want to be clear: neither I nor my residents in the High Peak are nimbys. We are aware that there is some need for housing, and nobody would dispute that, but seeing such decisions being made by local councils and then overturned by the Planning Inspectorate is not what the process should be about. It completely devalues the faith that people have in the planning system.

I want to highlight a particular area called Harpur Hill on the outskirts of Buxton. Harpur Hill has approximately 900 to 1,000 houses, and applications are swirling around to more or less double the size of that small area. The residents association, which is headed up by a couple of my constituents, Ken Greenway and Pam Reddy, is really concerned. It sees the applications being refused, and then granted by the Planning Inspectorate, and it is wondering how some sense of proportion can be introduced. It is not saying “No houses”, it just wants a proportionate number of houses in the area, because the infrastructure cannot cope with those huge numbers.

What can we do about the issue? My right hon. Friend the Member for Arundel and South Downs (Nick Herbert) made some excellent suggestions, and I would agree with all of them, but we have a gap, which is not being helped with in the High Peak. I grant that the local council has delayed the introduction of its local plan—wrongly, in my view—and a window of opportunity has been created. Developers are jumping through that window with great enthusiasm. They are putting in speculative applications for greenfield sites that are being granted by the inspectorate. That is creating what many people see as a free-for-all in the High Peak. The residents association in Harpur Hill has seen that going on, and it is concerned that the problem will come knocking on its door.

I am asking for a sense of proportion, which is what a local plan should bring, using local people and local councillors. However, it is not there in the High Peak, and developers are making the best of that. Giving parish councils more say is an excellent idea. In Chapel-en-le-Frith, the parish council has now said that it will object to all applications because it is the only voice it has, even though it is not being listened to. I would like the Minister to give me some assurance that I can go back to my residents and say, “Yes, we are listening, we do understand this.” The way it is at the moment, it is just not working. The High Peak is a fantastically beautiful area and I can understand that people want to live there, but at the moment it seems to be open season on development on greenfield sites, which I do not think is right.

--- Later in debate ---

[Nick Boles]

I will not give way to my right hon. Friend, because I have only three and a quarter minutes, and I want to address the many points made in speeches.

The guidance that will be produced at the end of July will be in draft. It will all go on what is an explicitly beta website. In truth, what applies now is the inherited guidance on prematurity from the last Government—it still applies in all decisions made in courts and elsewhere by decision makers—but the new guidance will be in draft form later in the summer and will be available for everybody to comment on. I absolutely encourage my right hon. and hon. Friends to comment if they do not believe that the guidance goes far enough in attaching weight to the emerging plans. I reiterate, however, that the best possible thing is for them to look up from the here and now and to think about their community in 10 years’ time—

[Andrew Bingham]

Will the Minister give way?

[Nick Boles]

I am sorry, but I will not give way again as I have many points to cover.

My right hon. and hon. Friends may miss one development that their communities do not like and that they would have opposed, and which would have been backed up by the inspectorate if their plan was in place. Perhaps they will, but they will be able to control and decide 10 years-worth of developments if they put in place a plan that meets their objectively assessed needs. That has been done in Thame, which will now determine its own future. There have been developments in Thame that the town did not like: it did not just say, “Right, we’re giving up,” but, “That makes it even more important to put even more energy into the process of producing a neighbourhood and local plan.”

I therefore urge communities not to lose heart. Childbirth is a painful process and gestation is not without its pains and difficulties, but the process resulting in local communities having local plans and neighbourhoods having neighbourhood plans will—I promise—be one in which everyone feels that they are in control of development in their area in a way that was never true under Labour or previous Conservative Governments. We are involved in a revolution. Revolutions are not quick or painless, but this revolution is gathering pace and beginning to work.

I urge my right hon. and hon. Friends to continue to write to me and to invite me to their constituencies to submit me to absolutely proper pressure, but not to give up hope. Every Government Member will be able to campaign with pride on the Localism Act at the next election in 2015, because by 2015 it will have delivered.