Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town
Main Page: Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Labour - Life peer)Housing and Planning Bill
Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town Excerpts“(4) Criteria for permission in principle and technical details consent shall be subject to consultation with local authorities.”
Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)
My Lords, Amendment 91 stands in the name of my noble friends Lord Beecham and Lord Kennedy and is still on the issue of permission in principle. In particular, we seek to mitigate the parts of the Bill that introduce a new system that in effect takes out both local democratic control and the rights of local people to have a say in proposals on their area—or on their doorsteps, as I think the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, said earlier.
Amendment 91 would require consultation with local authorities on criteria for PIP and on the technical details. Amendment 94 sets out information about the permission in principle granted by a development order, which must have prior consultation with local planning authorities. Amendment 95 would allow local planning authorities to overturn permission in principle decisions where important material considerations which the planning stage did not reveal have come to light. My noble friend Lord Beecham gave the example of archaeological finds in the debate on an earlier group.
These amendments and the others in the group are essential if the Government’s new system is to retain any workable input of local democratic accountability and to allow for further consideration as circumstances or what is known about a particular plan and its effect come to light. I beg to move.
Lord Greaves
My Lords, I have four amendments in this group that pursue the question of what should be in permission in principle and what in technical details. These are absolutely crucial issues, which need a great deal more thought between now and Report.
People will not understand that permission in principle can be given, as I suggested in Amendment 96ZC, for a piece of land where there are clearly drainage problems and there needs to be drainage assessment, unless that drainage assessment has taken place. If it is a brownfield site, is the local authority supposed to carry out that assessment to see whether a sustainable drainage scheme is needed for the site, to set out any details of measures that can mitigate the problem, or perhaps improve the problem by taking water off land that is liable to flood but that, if dealt with properly, would not? I suggest that that kind of thing ought to be part of the assessment of permission in principle, and it ought to be the responsibility of the developer to assess it and to produce a scheme that is acceptable. Otherwise, it will be put in the local plan as suitable for development, it will be allocated for housing and it will automatically get permission in principle because of that, yet the problems will not have been looked at and sorted out, and the certainty that the Government want for the developer will not exist. It will simply be transferred to the technical details stage.
Amendment 96ZD picks up another similar issue, which is highways and access appraisal. On any substantial development it is almost impossible to get outline planning permission nowadays unless you have the access sorted out. That is absolutely crucial. The access may be the direct access into the site, off the road or down the road, or works may be necessary on the local highways network to make the development of that site acceptable. Again, if that is not done by the permission in principle stage, if people think they have permission in principle and everything is okay, all the problems, all the expense of doing this will inevitably go to the technical details stage.
On the proposed timescale for dealing with consultations of three weeks, which I read out during the debate on the last amendment, if the local planning authority is consulting the local highways authority and it has to do a technical appraisal, go on site, measure junctions and all the rest of it, the whole thing is impossible. Unless it is sorted out at the permission in principle stage, there will be no certainty, permission in principle will be nothing, and technical details will turn into a full planning application type of process.
Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town
My Lords, on behalf of everyone who has spoken, I thank the Minister for dealing with that. We will all need to look quite closely at some of the things she said. At one point I thought she said that PIP was about the basic acceptability, but she also said that it would be very rare for the technical details to be declined. I see quite a contradiction in that if it is just very basic, but if it would then be very rare for the technical details to be the hold-up. However, that is something we will need to read carefully in what she said and ensure that these two fit in properly.
Other issues remain, particularly about the consultation. As my noble friend Lady Young said, is “technical details” just the fine tuning, or is there something quite substantial there? If PIP is only basic acceptability, it sounds like there is more there. However, like my other noble friends, I thank the Minister for agreeing to look at whether PIP could be modified for changes. We will want to come back and look at that when we have read this carefully, but for the moment, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town
My Lords, I support the amendments proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Tope. I was surprised when he said we have had a Mayor of London for 16 years—the establishment of that position was another great step forward by a Labour Government.
It is absolutely appropriate that the mayor—the only politician with a London-wide executive mandate—has these powers. The amendment sets out a framework in which he can make an order, including who he must consult and how the proposal should be dealt with. It is effective and time-constrained and should not cause any undue delay. It reflects the mayor’s mandate and we think it strikes the right balance, enabling him to help drive forward the development of our great capital city.
Baroness Evans of Bowes Park
I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Tope, for his comments on these amendments, and to the noble Baroness. I hope I will be able to assure your Lordships that the Mayor of London will continue to play an important role without the need for these amendments.
New Section 59A of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990, inserted by Clause 136, makes it possible for permission in principle to be granted on sites allocated within local development plans, neighbourhood plans and the new brownfield register, and the choice of when to do this will be a local one. Let me be absolutely clear that the Secretary of State will have no direct role in choosing specific sites to grant permission in principle to. In the same way that the Secretary of State maintains oversight of the existing development order-making powers under Section 59 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 to ensure consistency of how the planning system functions across England, he must maintain oversight of how the permission-in-principle system will work.
Amendment 92B would effectively set up different planning systems between London and the rest of the country by giving the Mayor of London the ability to change the process for permission in principle. We believe that introducing inconsistency into the system would be undesirable.
I reassure noble Lords that there are a number of ways in which the Mayor of London will be able to play an active role in influencing the granting of permission in principle in London. The London Plan will be able to set policies that will influence which sites are suitable for a grant of permission in principle. The mayor will also be a key statutory consultee during the plan preparation of any borough in London. Furthermore, where a mayoral development corporation is in place, the plan for that corporation can allocate specific sites that could be granted permission in principle. Mayoral development orders can also now be used to grant planning permission for site-specific development in London.
The noble Lord also asked whether the mayor would be able to call in applications for technical details consent. The answer is yes: the mayor can call in applications, including the new technical details consent, when the planning application is of potential strategic importance. He can also do this for an application for permission in principle. I will see if there is any further information that I can provide the noble Lord with in writing, but I hope that on the basis of what I have said he will withdraw his amendment.