Housing and Planning Bill
Debate between Antoinette Sandbach and Lord Herbert of South Downs
Nick Herbert
Neighbourhood planning has been one of the success stories of this Government and a flagship of the localism policy. I commend my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the work he did in putting that legislation through and in pioneering neighbourhood plans. They put communities in control and create a situation where they ask themselves what they want in their local areas rather than what they do not want. Neighbourhood plans have ended up producing more housing than was originally intended. As the plans are voted on by a local referendum, it is very important that they are respected once they are agreed. We tell local communities that their neighbourhood plan will apply for, say, 15 years, and that certain areas that they decide will be developed and that others—green spaces and so on—will be protected. It is therefore of concern to local communities that are about to produce a neighbourhood plan or have made one, and to other areas in the process of producing such plans or considering them, if developers appear to be allowed to come along, game the system, bang in a speculative planning application in the hope that they will get it through, arguing that there is some reason why it should be allowed despite a neighbourhood plan, perhaps because of the five-year land supply, and their planning permission is then upheld by the local authority or a planning refusal is overturned on appeal.
Antoinette Sandbach (Eddisbury) (Con)
That is exactly the position I face in my constituency, where a number of speculative planning applications are being put forward, often involving the argument that there is not a five-year supply. One case is now having to go to the House of Lords in order to uphold neighbourhood plans, which clearly is not what was intended by the Localism Act 2011 and neighbourhood planning.
Nick Herbert
I understand my hon. Friend’s concern. Indeed, a number of hon. Members are concerned about this issue, as the Minister knows. As I explained in my earlier intervention on him, the intention of the original amendment to introduce a neighbourhood right of appeal was not just to redress a perceived inequity that developers have a right of appeal but communities do not; it was to deal with this particular problem, whereby we cannot allow the whole policy of neighbourhood planning, or the democratic decision, to be undermined in the public eye, given that we accept that a local planning authority does reserve the right to make a strategic allocation. That is understood, but that is a rather different position from suddenly deciding that an area should be developed contrary to a neighbourhood plan.