Localism Bill

Baroness Hanham Excerpts

Tuesday 28th June 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord McKenzie of Luton]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for moving this amendment. We were not quite clear what was behind it but he has been very clear about the thrust of the amendment. We support its general direction, which is about protecting open space, particularly urban open space. I do question the use of the phrase “equally advantageous to the public”. I do not know if that is an existing term used in other legislation, but one of the requirements of the amendment is that it must be “not less in area”—understood; that is quite easy to determine—and is “equally advantageous to the public”. There will not necessarily be a single approach by the public as to the advantage of a particular piece of open space: it might be the tranquillity of the view or the opportunity for some recreation pursuits or indeed somewhere to walk the dog, whereas an alternative piece of open space may not be able to satisfy people in the same proportion or mix. I am sure that that issue could be overcome but I would be grateful if the noble Lord, when responding to the Minister, might expand a little on that test; the Minister may also have some views on that. However, I do see the thrust and the benefit of this amendment.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Communities and Local Government (Baroness Hanham)]

My Lords, I thank both noble Lords for those short contributions—short, I suspect, because I have indicated that I would be happy to have discussions with the noble Lord about this. This amendment has appeared quite late on in proceedings. I do not quite understand its place in the Bill. I think it has found its way in by a devious route. It would be more helpful for the House to see exactly what lies behind the anxiety of the Open Spaces Society about this.

In acceding to speaking to the noble Lord about it, I have to say that we have particular reservations about paragraph (c). As the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, has just pointed out, that requires a council to provide land in exchange for that appropriated or disposed of unless they can provide reasons under subsection (2) of the proposed new section. This is a difficult area. In order to provide an alternative piece of land, it is possible that the local authority would have to compulsorily purchase another bit of land in order to fulfil this obligation. So we would have considerable doubts and that is one area that I would expect to have a sharp discussion on. Having said that, I am happy to talk about this and come back to it at a later stage if the noble Lord will withdraw his amendment for the moment.