Annette Brooke
Main Page: Annette Brooke (Liberal Democrat - Mid Dorset and North Poole)(13 years, 1 month ago)
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Annette Brooke (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (LD)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Crausby. I congratulate the hon. Member for Broxtowe (Anna Soubry) on an eloquent and important speech. I will be as brief as I can and will try not to repeat the comments that have been made so far. I endorse many of the points that the hon. Member for Sefton Central (Bill Esterson) made, particularly his important concluding remarks.
As my constituency consists of the urban sprawl of Poole and then villages and small towns, the green belt is of great importance to us. My constituency is also distinguished by its large amount of heathland, which is a great constraint on development. I was a vociferous campaigner against the south-west regional spatial strategy and the housing it imposed from above on my constituency. There were excellent campaign groups, such as “Keep Corfe Mullen Green” and “Keep Wimborne Green”. We were all delighted when the regional spatial strategy housing numbers were scrapped—or so we thought. Throughout our campaign, I was conscious of the need for affordable housing; we need it desperately. What we did not need was more executive houses and more second homes in our green belt. I had a vision of communities working together because they know what their local housing need is. I wanted to see full involvement from the bottom up. I was delighted in principle with the Localism Bill and the thrust of the NPPF. As ever, though, the devil is in the detail, but I do accept the principles.
As the detail is missing in both the Localism Bill and the NPPF, we have a particular problem with transition. In the few minutes that I have, I should like to talk about the problems of transition and how I think the green belt will be compromised. Let me take the example of Corfe Mullen in my constituency. Originally, all the local councils—not the parish council—signed up to building 700 houses in the most beautiful valley imaginable. Eventually, the district council backtracked, but the matter still went to the examination in public, with the county council supporting the development. The spatial strategy had been scrapped, so we thought that the beautiful valley would be saved. East Dorset district council worked on its core strategy and excluded this site; it had listened and that was good. None the less, there are developers out on Pardy’s Hill, obviously sizing up the site. My fear is that a quick planning application will come in and we will be back to square one.
We must think about the transition. We need ministerial guidance on transition now. The coalition has a real vision of local neighbourhood planning, but, please, we must protect our green belt, urban green spaces and valuable agricultural land. If we do not get to grips with that aspect, our vision will be totally lost. For the sake of our constituents and those who campaigned so hard against Labour’s top-down approach, please do not let this happen. There is much to be said, but we have another debate later this week, so I will make further points then.