Baroness Sharples
Main Page: Baroness Sharples (Conservative - Life peer)
Baroness Hanham
My Lords, the Question is very apt but it relates almost entirely to big developments because garden city developments are not in their nature small. The noble Lord will know that these sites are very complicated. The garden city principles were enumerated by the Deputy Prime Minister in his speech to the National House-building Council last November. He said that we should build places which,
“draw on the best of British architecture and design, which have their own identity and character”,
and have a crucial role in keeping the countryside intact. He said that garden cities enable people to live sustainably and to move easily between work and home. Those are very large principles and demonstrate that a development needs to be large to bring all that in.
Baroness Sharples
Can my noble friend say whether allotments will be included in these plans?
Baroness Hanham
My noble friend never misses an opportunity to mention allotments. Of course, if allotments were proposed—and they could be—within these plans, I am sure they would be considered by the local authority. In any case, as my noble friend knows, no allotment ground can be vacated without the Secretary of State’s permission.