Housing and Planning Bill
Debate between Baroness Young of Old Scone and Baroness Parminter
Baroness Parminter (LD)
My Lords, I am a strong supporter of brownfield first when it comes to housing, but I have a particular concern that the PIP proposals do not exclude brownfield sites that have very clear benefits for biodiversity and, by extension, to society—namely, land of high environmental value. That could be SSSIs, heathland, local wildlife reserves or habitats for some of our most precious species, such as red squirrels, water voles, or bluebell forests, you name it—some really special areas of our country.
The coalition Government put together some very strong safeguards for such land. I quote the NPPF, paragraph 111:
“Planning policies and decisions should encourage the effective use of land by re-using land that has been previously developed (brownfield land), provided that it is not of high environmental value”.
The planning practice guidance goes on to say that brownfield land can have high ecological value and that,
“planning needs to take account of issues such as the biodiversity value which may be present on a brownfield site before decisions are taken”.
My concern with the PIP proposals is: how can those very strong safeguards in the NPPF and the planning guidance, which make it clear that those decisions have to be looked at right at the early stage, be taken into account? The Minister said earlier that if something was not compliant with the NPPF, it would not happen. It seems quite clear to me that the NPPF is saying that land of high environmental value is not compliant and it should therefore be excluded.
These sites are important, but they are not a huge number. My understanding is that English Nature has assessed the figures and we are looking at a total of between 6% and 8% of all brownfield land. They are important sites, but they are only a small number. Therefore, it would be difficult to argue that, by removing them from the PIP provisions, they would somehow prevent use of brownfield sites for housing overall. Clearly the number is quite contained.
They are a small number but they are vital. Most of our species—some 65%—particularly those of most concern, are declining. We need to take account of that, not only for the effects on nature and biodiversity, but for the impact on quality of life as well. Therefore, there is a strong case for land of high environmental value to be excluded. I beg to move.
Baroness Young of Old Scone
My Lords, I support these two amendments to which I have also put my name. It is distressing that we are again beginning to see important and lesser wildlife sites being increasingly damaged by development, and particularly by housing development. When I first came into the environmental movement almost 30 years ago, on average 15% of sites were damaged each year. We managed to get that down to less than 0.1% about 10 years ago, but it is increasingly creeping up again. So there is a real issue to make sure that the provisions for permission in principle and for the brownfield site register do not inadvertently make it more possible for development to damage sites of wildlife interest.
As the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, said, the NPPF and, indeed, the national planning practice guidance steer both local authorities and developers away from land of high environmental value. We run the risk of encouraging developers—at the breakneck speed with which we are moving towards the provision of housing in particular—to be less aware of the requirement to be careful, especially on brownfield sites and on sites such as local wildlife sites that do not have statutory protection. As the noble Baroness said, brownfield sites with high environmental value are comparatively small in number, but a proper assessment is required at the appropriate time for that to be established.
We also need to take into account the fact that some of the traditional safeguards against development of these sites have diminished. Local authorities are under pressure and have less specialist ecological advice available to them. The statutory nature conservation bodies similarly have less capacity and less ability to comment in detail on small-scale sites. So it would be absolutely right to have on the face of this Bill a reminder to both local authorities and developers of the importance of these sites and to abstract them from the permission in principle and the brownfield site register processes.