Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Baroness Williams of Trafford Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 6th September 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, I rise to speak to Amendment 199 in my name and that of the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham. I apologise to the House for not being here on Monday—another failed transport from the Isles of Scilly. I would have supported Amendment 191, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Ravensdale, and Amendment 190, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill.

My amendment follows on from that in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Lansley—and other future comments, I think. It refers to cycling, walking and rights of way and their incorporation, or not, in development plans. We have heard quite a lot already about whether there is or should be a link between plans and strategies for housing, the economy and active travel. It is all getting quite complicated. I want to put the case for walking and cycling to be included in a way which actually works.

This amendment is supported by a long list of eminent organisations: the Bicycle Association, the Bikeability Trust, British Cycling, Cycling UK, Living Streets, the Ramblers, and Sustrans. It covers what we might call active travel in its widest sense—in the city, in the countryside, going to work and school, and for leisure. This very important issue needs to be addressed, partly so that we can encourage more environmentally friendly travel generally.

The noble Lord, Lord Lansley, mentioned the NPPF being a problem. It is a problem for that active travel group and for the Walking and Cycling Alliance, because in the Commons debate the Government suggested that the concern of that group would best be dealt with through the NPPF rather than through legislation. However, as I think the noble Lord referred to, the draft NPPF did not include any new policies on these issues and put it into the further-action box on sustainable transport and active travel. NPPFs have been around for some time, but they take an awfully long time to get through, probably for good reasons. Now is the time to try to find a better way of including these policies in the Bill, and I hope that the Minister, when she responds, will support the concept at least.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

Could I just remind noble Lords that we have a long day ahead of us and that this is Report?

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

I apologise to the House for that. The amendment aims to address the problem of local planning authorities unwittingly, and I think occasionally intentionally,

“frustrating a higher-tier authority’s aspirations for walking, cycling or rights of way networks”.

We must not forget the rights of way, because you cannot walk or cycle if rights of way get blocked. The problem is in not recording those network aspirations in authorities’ own development plans,

“thereby failing to safeguard land for those networks, to connect new development with existing networks and/or to secure developer contributions to implement or upgrade specific routes”.

I will give examples. It is probably worse with two-tier authorities. Where the local transport or highway authority, which is usually a county council or combined authority, is not the same body as the local planning authority, you can have this example, which Sustrans exposed. The alliance says that

“one part of a unitary authority commissioned Sustrans to assess the feasibility of re-opening a disused railway line as a walking and cycling route, yet another part of the same authority then gave permission for a housing development which blocked that disused railway line before Sustrans had completed the study. In another case, planning permission was granted by a local planning authority for development which adversely impacted a section of the National Cycle Network (which Sustrans manages), with planning officers unaware of the existence and importance of this walking, wheeling and cycling route”.

This is confusing for local authorities, especially when they are probably very short of resources, as many noble Lords have said on previous amendments. I think the Government believe that our concerns about lack of co-ordination would best be addressed through the NPPF, but that does not mention it, and it omits other things altogether. Unless we get something here that links granting planning permission with taking account of adequate provision for walking, cycling and rights of way, we are in trouble.

I will give one other example before I conclude. In a recent case in Chesterfield in Derbyshire, the local planning authority considered a housing development close to the town centre and railway station. The council officials pressed for the development to include walking and cycling routes to facilitate access to, from and through the development, and obviously to and from the station. However, when the committee was due to consider the application, the developer made a submission claiming that the walking and cycling routes would render the developments economically unviable, and the councillors accepted that view without really challenging it. I have cycled on many cycle routes that probably suffer from the same failure by a developer to provide a proper, sensible route, because it tried to persuade the planning authority that it would be all right on the night, and it is not always.

I hope that the Government will support this amendment. Active Travel England is involved in this, and I certainly welcome what it is planning to do. However, it will often be consulted only at a later stage, and it would be much better if the relevant authorities’ walking, cycling and rights of way network plans were clearly shown in development plans from the outset.