Planning (Community Right of Appeal)

Andrew Smith Excerpts

Tuesday 20th January 2015 Westminster Hall

[Anne Marie Morris (Newton Abbot) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Streeter. This debate is about the potential for changing the planning system to give communities a genuine stake in the planning process. My proposal is to introduce a community right of appeal.

The Government rightly recognised when they came to office that there was a significant housing problem, and that one of the challenges was unburdening the planning system of bureaucratic processes so that the houses we so badly need could be developed. The Government said that while liberating planning processes to make them easier, they would give communities a greater say in what happens in those communities and in planning decisions.

However, the reality was that the changes in the planning system and in communities’ rights did not move at the same pace, although the legislation was passed pretty much in parallel. The benefits of the community legislation—the Localism Act 2011—inevitably lagged, because neighbourhood plans, the last stage of the planning process, could not be put in place until local plans were in place. Although there was some grey debate about whether they could precede local plans, in reality, neighbourhood plans must conform with a local plan, so one had to follow the other. Clearly, they will give communities great benefit, as they bring community infrastructure levy benefits, but they are late.

There were many other provisions in the Localism Act 2011: for example, communities’ ability to identify community assets, which could therefore be considered for preservation for community use, and a further provision enabling them to be acquired. The problem is that many such community assets are owned by local authorities, which decide whether or not an asset can be listed, giving them an inevitable conflict of interest.

Likewise, although the potential sale option was not intended to give communities a particular financial advantage to give them time, the reality is that it will not help communities acquire time, because if the local authority owns the asset in question, all it has to do is wait for the months to expire and then sell to a developer who will give a better price. I have some concerned constituents in Shaldon and Kingsteignton who have suffered as a result of those deficiencies in the legislation.

Meanwhile, the planning side of the balance—the national policy planning framework and local plans—moved ahead apace. The Minister wrote to me recently to advise me that 80% of all planning authorities now have local plans in place. That is much to his credit, but the problem is that during that tortuous three to four-year process, developers have been able to develop without communities feeling that they have a real say. Clearly there are provisions for consultation, but that is not quite the same thing. Communities feel that they are in no better position now than in the old days, when parish councils used to be consulted and then, they felt, roundly ignored. As I am sure the Minister will tell me, where communities are agreed, there is the option of judicial review, but the problem is that it is an expensive process that few communities can afford.

I will give some examples from my constituency of how the process has frustrated constituents and made them feel that they are not being listened to and do not have a voice. As local plans were introduced, the Government indicated that as a plan got closer, more weight would be given to it. In Shutterton, in Dawlish, an application was made for 350 houses. Those houses were not part of the local plan provision, and the council and constituents violently opposed them. None the less, three weeks before the local plan was adopted, the application went through. After our local plan was adopted, the council continued to authorise infill development. Although some infill development is understood and accepted, the amount in this case was substantial.

In other cases, we have found that a number of developers applied for more housing on the site allocated than was in the plan. On other occasions, due to density changes, where a site would not take the designated number of houses, the local authority extended the land on which the development could take place. The result in Dawlish was that instead of the expected 1,200 houses in the area, the community are now facing 2,000. That seems to be a significant mission creep from what was originally intended.

[Mr Andrew Smith (Oxford East) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Lady on securing this important debate. Does she agree that what ought to be at issue is not a question of more or less development but of the quality of planning decisions? Would not the right of appeal for which she advocates correct an asymmetry in the present system, whereby an applicant who thinks that a refusal is contrary to the planning framework can keep appealing to get the decision that they want, whereas a community that thinks an approval is contrary to the planning framework has no right of appeal other than judicial review, which as she says is prohibitively expensive? Therefore, it would empower people to balance things out.

[Anne Marie Morris]

I could not agree more, and I commend the right hon. Gentleman on his comments. The point that he makes entirely supports the point that I am making. It is about creating a balance and fairness in the planning system that do not currently exist.

The final complaint, which it is worth articulating for the Minister, involves the infrastructure challenge. Although stakeholders involved in roads, schools and so on are consulted, some stakeholders who are relevant are not statutory consultees, including the NHS. There is no obligation for the NHS to put forward its views about whether there is an adequate number of GP surgeries and the like. It is probably fair to say that although county councils have a duty and will consider infrastructure issues carefully, if one looks at how they justify some developments, it is in the hope and expectation of a school that might open in five or 10 years’ time, or a road that might be built if some other development occurs in two or three years’ time. Sometimes, communities feel that that is a bit fanciful. They perceive—I share that perception—that some communities have significant infrastructure issues that seem to have been ignored.