Radlett Aerodrome (Green Belt)

Debate between Anne Main and David Simpson

Tuesday 29th January 2013 Westminster Hall

[Mrs Anne Main (St Albans) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to speak under your chairmanship, Mr Williams. We have a very short debate, so you will have to excuse us if we rattle through it. We need to explore the history of the Radlett site and the role of the metropolitan green belt in protecting communities from harm. We need to explore the professed support or otherwise given to green-belt land by the coalition Government and by the previous Labour Government, and the views of key players such as the Minister concerning the appropriateness of development, particularly in the green belt, to see whether there has been any slackening of resolve to protect communities such as mine in and around the Radlett site.

It is worth restating that green-belt land serves specific purposes. It may fulfil one or more of its five designated functions: to check unrestricted sprawl of built-up areas; to prevent neighbouring towns from coalescing; to safeguard the countryside from encroachment; and to preserve the setting of historic towns while encouraging the recycling of derelict and other urban land. The Radlett green-belt site fulfils all those functions, so it serves a very valuable purpose, even if it is not all beautiful woodland. There is no bad green belt. We ditch that principle at our peril. My constituents in St Albans and those of my hon. Friend the Member for Hertsmere (Mr Clappison), who will speak in this debate, need to know whether the green belt is safe under this Government, or will the economic imperative to get the country building mean that we ditch those worthy principles when it suits us?

Given the “minded to grant” decision by the Minister on a rail freight interchange on the Radlett aerodrome site, which comprises 300 acres of metropolitan green belt—the site represents 10% of the entire green belt around St Albans—it is important to explore whether is fully supportive of protecting green belt policy or if he believes it to be an inconvenient blockage that stands in the way of the drive for growth. Is he to stand accused of supporting the green belt when it is politically expedient to do so but jettisoning his principles when the need arises or under pressure from the Treasury?

[David Simpson (Upper Bann) (DUP)]

I accept the hon. Lady’s point about protection of the green belt, but does she agree that where established businesses have been there for more than 25 years and need to expand, it would be right to move into that?

[Mrs Main]

I think that each green-belt application should be decided on its merits; that is very firmly the case. Indeed, I will go on to show that there is very little merit in the application for St Albans. I will not give way any more, because my hon. Friend the Member for Hertsmere and I must get everything down in this particularly important debate.

Can the Minister convince the House and my constituents that he does have a passion for the green belt and that he has a coherent and consistent approach to planning decisions? Some people have tried to suggest that this green belt site in Radlett is not really green belt, so it is important that we briefly explore the history of the site and its role as green belt.

Radlett was used as a grass aerodrome in the 1930s. In 1947, the runways were upgraded to concrete. All that was before the introduction of the metropolitan green belt protections, which were fully implemented in 1955. By 1970, the runway was no longer in use; most of the structures on the site were removed and it was restored to farmland. However, for a second time the community of Park Street was required to allow its land to be utilised for the greater good of the country when it was revealed that significant sand and gravel deposits lay under the site. In common with communities across the country that have such deposits, a firm undertaking was given that full restoration and landscaping of the land would occur and that it would be returned to the community as an open green space—in our case, green belt.

In 1978, 1985 and 1990, the site was used for gravel extraction, with the runways dug up to access the gravel. That ceased in 1997. The site has undergone a full environmental restoration, which has nearly been completed. The people of this community, like other communities that endure mineral extraction, rightly expected the restoration of the site as a community green space and nothing else. They were horrified to be targeted by developers for a massive rail freight site in 2006. That application was made because the Government of the day had a stated mission to deliver three or four new rail sites that would be

“located where the key rail and road radials intersect with the M25”,

and developers were scrabbling around to find land that would deliver on that goal.

In 2007, the hon. Member for Glasgow South (Mr Harris), who was then a Transport Minister, said that the importance of rail freight had been acknowledged in terms of its significant contribution to the economy and productivity. In 2009, Lord Adonis said:

“Rail freight has become a vital driver of UK economic growth...The government remains fully committed to supporting...the development of a Strategic Freight Network”.

It has therefore always been a battle between the economy, the need to build and the protection of our countryside. The economic imperative has been a material planning consideration whenever a proposal to build on the site at Radlett has been considered. However, the question has always been whether the strength of protection afforded by green-belt status would be overridden. It has been a David-and-Goliath struggle, costing my local council more than £1 million, and STRiFE, a valiant group of local residents to whom I pay tribute, huge amounts of time, money and effort in fighting for their community and, importantly, for the green belt.

The case has been tested twice, in 2008 and 2010, and the green-belt designation saved Radlett on both occasions. It is worth noting what Ministers said when they reached those decisions about the weight given to Radlett’s green-belt status. Every application for the site has been for an almost identical scheme. In 2008, the decision was as follows:

“The Secretary of State considered that the need for SRFIs”—

strategic rail freight interchanges—

“to serve London and the South East was a material consideration of very considerable weight”,

but the then Secretary of State went on to say that

“very special circumstances to justify the development had not been demonstrated.”

She

“concluded that the proposal would constitute inappropriate development in the Green Belt and…attached substantial weight to that harm. She also identified that it would further harm the Green Belt because it would cause a substantial loss of openness, significant encroachment into the countryside and would contribute to urban sprawl”.

That is all contrary to green belt design. It is pretty damning stuff, with real harm to Radlett being identified and every one of the five green-belt purposes being compromised.

In 2010, the plans were considered again. We had a new Secretary of State and a similar decision; it had almost the same wording. In May 2010, he said that he was

“not satisfied that the appraisal of alternative sites”

had

“clearly demonstrated that there would be no other suitable location in the North West Sector that would meet the need for an SRFI in the foreseeable future in a significantly less harmful way than the appeal site.”

He went on to say that the benefits of the proposal, taken either individually or cumulatively, would not clearly outweigh the harm to the green belt and other harm. He did not therefore consider that there were special circumstances. He concluded that there were no material considerations of sufficient weight that would require him to determine the application other than in accordance with the development plan. It was refused.

It is clear that despite the need for an SRFI somewhere near London, the green-belt protection always held firm for very similar applications. Then the mood in the Government appears to change. A few colleagues are shuffled off into other areas, and we start to hear a lot of talk about the need to get Britain building. Those who stand in the way are dismissed as luddites.

Other Departments put in bids for construction projects, particularly in relation to transport, with High Speed 2 and rail freight suddenly hot topics. In 2011, the previous Secretary of State for Transport made a statement on rail freight and stressed its economic benefits, saying that

“the Government believe that rail freight could make an even stronger contribution to the country’s economic recovery.”

That sounds like a rehashing of the old Strategic Rail Authority statement and comments that I have quoted in my speech. I am concerned that the coalition Government may now be using a flatlining economy as a justification to take a less than robust view on green-belt protection—to ditch protection of our countryside in a massive push for activity. I want to test that in this debate. If it were to be the case, it would have worrying implications for many communities across the countryside.

That Secretary of State went on to say in her statement:

“The Government are therefore taking measures to unblock the development of strategic rail freight interchanges”—[Official Report, 29 November 2011; Vol. 536, c. 57-8WS.]

What is meant by unblocking? I am extremely concerned that the convenient overriding of green-belt policy may be seen as the solution to unblocking the wants of the Treasury and the Department for Transport, yet historically Ministers and senior politicians have sworn that the green belt is dear to their heart and safe in their hands.

The Prime Minister, reassuring the National Trust in September 2011, said:

“We must ensure the appropriate protections for our magnificent countryside. This is why our reforms will maintain protections for the green belt”.

In 2011, the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government said in response to oral questions that

“we intend to ensure that the green belt is held solid and absolutely inviolate by this Administration. We are not going to follow the tenets of the former Labour Government by concreting over the green belt.”—[Official Report, 4 April 2011; Vol. 526, c. 731.]

Much was made in opposition of the concern that Labour could not be trusted with the countryside. In 2005, my right hon. Friend the Member for Meriden (Mrs Spelman) said:

“Under John Prescott’s watch, Green Belt protection has become worthless.”

In 2008, my right hon. Friend the Member for Welwyn Hatfield (Grant Shapps), then shadow Housing Minister, when challenged on the flexible reassigning of green belt, said that

“we will rigorously protect the Green Belt and won’t pull the wool over people’s eyes by saying that we’re enlarging it, whilst simultaneously deleting parts and creating new green belt…We’ll protect the Green Belt and we won’t play tricks by deleting one part and creating it elsewhere”.

The hon. Member for Lewes (Norman Baker), who was then the Liberal Democrat environment spokesman, said of Labour:

“They are designating land as Green Belt land simply to fiddle the figures”.

Both coalition partners agreed that we cannot swap the green belt around conveniently, but there appears to have been a seismic shift in sentiment. It is now being touted by the Chancellor of the Exchequer as a way of getting round the awkward nature of the green belt. On “The Andrew Marr Show” in September 2012, he said:

“When it comes to the Green Belt...we are not proposing to tear that up but if you look at, for example, around Cambridge…they’ve been pretty smart about swapping some bits of the Green Belt for other bits...Those powers already exist but they’re not widely used, I’d like to see more of that.”

There is a bit of a change of mood there.

I am very concerned that the mood and rhetoric around planning and development has changed. We have a new Minister in place, and I am sorry to say that I do not have confidence that he truly understands the value communities up and down the country place on the green belt, nor does he have the confidence of my constituents, who will be unsure of what we as a Government stand for if this departure from green belt protection goes ahead. I am sure that many of them, who have copied me in on their correspondence, will let him know that.

In January 2012, in a speech to the Tory Reform Group, the Minister said:

“Business investment is also deterred by the bureaucratic rigidity of our outdated planning regime. So it is essential that we press on with our planning reforms and do not allow the hysterical scare-mongering of latterday Luddites…to strangle developments”.

On “Newsnight” he said:

“We’re going to protect the green belt”,

but he went on to say:

“The built environment can be more beautiful than nature and we shouldn’t obsess about the fact that the only landscapes that are beautiful are open—sometimes buildings are better.”

May I inform the Minister that 6 million square feet of industrial development on the green belt will never be regarded as beautiful or better? It will not deliver any local benefit, either in economic terms or through homes for local people.

This flip-flop, inconsistent approach to decision making is infuriating residents, who have a right to expect protection from inappropriate development and to lean on green-belt policies to defend them. In response to my constituent who contacted him about his “Newsnight” comments, the Minister wrote:

“We recognise the importance of the countryside to the well-being of communities, which is why the National Planning Policy Framework guards against inappropriate development in valued areas such as the Green Belt”.

Given that reassuring response, my constituents now regard his decision to be minded to grant a desecration of 300 acres of local green belt as somewhat hypocritical. He can drop a conjoined inquiry for Radlett with no explanation—which is being challenged by my council, so I will not investigate that here—but it seems that he can oppose developments when it suits him.

In a letter to the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, the Minister sought to clarify his position on inappropriate locations for wind farms:

“We should be working with communities rather than seemingly riding roughshod over their concerns”.

My constituents are being ridden over roughshod and they are not being worked with. They were informed on the Friday before Christmas that the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government was minded to sacrifice the green belt at Radlett, and have concluded that the Minister cannot be trusted on the green belt, and my post bag reflects that.

We need to ask who is now deciding planning policy—the Minister and his Department or the economic drive of the Treasury? He knows that if the development goes ahead, it will hugely harm St Albans. The fatal decision letter of December 2012 said that

“the appeal proposal would be inappropriate development in the Green Belt...it would cause further harm through loss of openness and significant encroachment into the countryside...would contribute to urban sprawl…would cause some harm to the setting of St Albans. The Secretary of State has attributed substantial weight to the harm that would be caused to the Green Belt”.

Surprisingly, substantial weight having been given to the need for an SRFI in the other appeals of 2008 and 2010, it now appears to trump green-belt protection. It seems that the hunt for shovel-ready sites is paramount, but I hate to inform the Minister that this site is green fields and does not have a hope of being developed for years. It certainly is not shovel-ready.

The letter went on to say:

“The Secretary of State considers that the factors weighing in favour of the appeal include the need for SRFIs to serve London and the South East, to which he has attributed very considerable weight.”

That is the only thing that has changed, which leads me to believe that there has been a shift in green-belt policy. The words are almost the same as those used in previous refusals. Have we had a change in green-belt policy? Do national economic factors now outweigh green-belt planning protection? Is it really, “The economy, stupid”? Perhaps the Chancellor’s recent words when discussing High Speed 2 give us a clue to the new approach:

“As with all these things unfortunately somebody is going to be affected, but that’s life.”

It might be life for some, namely my constituents living cheek by jowl with a noisy, intrusive 24/7 industrial development, but it is not life for privileged Ministers fortunate enough not to be affected by their aggressive decisions to build on Britain’s beautiful landscapes and green belt. The Minister needs to demonstrate by his deeds that he truly supports the green belt and to rethink the dangerous precedent he may be setting by sacrificing our historic landscapes on the altar of No. 11’s economic strategy.