Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Ben Spencer Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 24th March 2025 Commons Chamber

[Dr Ben Spencer (Runnymede and Weybridge) (Con)]

Our planning system is critical and should protect against inappropriate development, including on the green belt and flood plains. It needs to protect and enhance biodiversity, and it needs local democratic and community input. Rather than dictating to communities, the Government should work with them. We need not only houses but homes, and that means infrastructure, roads, schools, health services and sewers. Whether through “infrastructure first” or making them all statutory consultees, it has to work. Planning enforcement must also work, but it is an ongoing issue in my patch despite recent changes and improvements.

On the changes proposed to the NSIP system and development consent orders, I will speak about the experience in my constituency because we have had DCO complete, have one ongoing and hope to have one in the future. I will start with the one that has finished, which is the Esso pipeline project. It ended up blocking access to homes and ripping up green spaces, with poor communication and no compensation to the residents affected. When I asked for compensation, the answer was, “Well, it’s not in the DCO.” Reform must ensure greater protections for communities affected by a DCO project.

The M25/A3 DCO, which many Members will know about because of the M25 closures, one of which over the weekend, is a fantastic project that will improve local connectivity, but it has wreaked havoc through diversion routes and problems at the Painshill roundabout, which National Highways admitted was deprioritised in favour of the works. It has caused problems with kids getting to school and to their exams. When I tried to raise this to get enforcement, including through, among others, the Office of Rail and Road, no formal investigation was even opened, and it has been pretty much impossible to find a meaningful way to get enforcement when things go wrong.

We hope to have—we must have—a DCO in the future with the River Thames scheme, which will massively reduce my constituents’ flood risk and make it far less likely that we see a repeat of the impact of the 2014 floods. We have had countless rounds of consultation. I am concerned that, because of the current system, perfect has become the enemy of the good, and I am worried about the problems with local council reform and the impact they will have. Will the Minister in his wind-up explain and give advice to people putting together a DCO as to what they should do given the Bill’s impact when it gets Royal Assent?