New Homes Bonus

Andrew Stephenson Excerpts

Tuesday 15th March 2011 Westminster Hall

[Andrew Stephenson (Pendle) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing the debate. I agree with what he has said and also the comments from my hon. Friend the Member for Rugby (Mark Pawsey) and the hon. Member for Hyndburn (Graham Jones) about the 80:20 split. Will my hon. Friend the Member for Meon Valley (George Hollingbery) comment on another issue? In my constituency there is a significant problem of empty properties. We have 896 empty properties in the town of Nelson alone. Will my hon. Friend join me in welcoming the Government’s decision to include long-term empty properties being brought back into use as part of the new homes bonus, thus boosting the financial viability of regeneration schemes in areas such as Pendle?

[George Hollingbery]

That is entirely to be welcomed. I would add that a section in the recently published final scheme for the new homes bonus reminds us that the spending review also announced that the Government were investing £100 million through the Homes and Communities Agency to enable housing associations to support local authorities to bring more than 3,000 homes back into use. As a package, I think that is to be welcomed. It is right that the new homes bonus should also be made attractive by bringing empty homes back into use.

My second question to the Minister is about transfers across local planning authority borders. I emphasise again that the new homes bonus is to compensate for a loss of amenity. However, what about the loss of amenity to those sitting on the other side of a local planning authority boundary? All of us who represent rural constituencies—and even those who perhaps represent slightly more urban areas—will recognise a situation in which one planning authority plans a large number of homes in an area of its administration which will not have any effect on its citizens.

There is such a development in my constituency at Whiteley, where 15 years ago a large new development of 4,000 homes was built. It was immediately adjacent to Fareham town, which has no contacts at all with Winchester district. All contacts went south. Under current rules on the new homes bonus, all of that new homes bonus would flow to Winchester and not to Fareham where it rightly should be. Likewise, we are now confronted by a proposal from Fareham borough council, which wishes to build 6,000 homes on the border of Winchester constituency, with most of the loss of amenity affecting those in Wickham and Knowle in the Winchester district authority.

I believe we should be able to form neighbourhood forums across LPA boundaries, and some of the payment of the new homes bonus should go directly to those forums across boundaries. We should at least encourage the chief executives and leaders of local councils that reduce the amenity of those across the border to share and share alike.