Housing, Planning and the Green Belt

Bob Seely Excerpts

Tuesday 6th February 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Bob Seely (Isle of Wight) (Con)]

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Tewkesbury (Mr Robertson) for calling this important debate. I am delighted to follow my right hon. Friend the Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper).

Does the Minister know how many affordable houses were built for Islanders two years ago? Thirty-five. Would the Minister hazard a guess at the number of affordable houses built for Islanders last year? Thirty-four. Just 79 affordable houses were built in two years for an Island with a population of 140,000. This is utterly unacceptable. It is proof of a system in need of reform and, judging by the many voices here, in need of much greater local flexibility and the support from the Government that that would entail. I would like briefly to outline the problem and to suggest a few thoughts on the situation, locally and nationally.

Like many areas, the Isle of Wight needs sustainable, intelligent and sensitive regeneration to drive economic and social development. The current housing system does not serve the Island well. It is a system of developer-led housing, which generates only a small number of affordable houses. It fails to deliver the right type of housing. It is not sustainable. It encourages urban sprawl and all the transport problems identified by my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton West (Chris Green) and others. It forces communities to accept unpopular local developments. And in a place like the Isle of Wight, which has a visitor economy and an important tourism industry, greenfield development actually damages our economy.

A better system would be one where there is a funding scheme to support housing associations and others to build—as a significant, if not near-100%, solution to our housing problems—genuinely affordable housing for local people in small-scale developments in existing communities. That would ensure that we were able to provide housing for our people and to protect our environment at the same time. The wrong type of housing actually damages our society, because what developers want is not what my constituents need. It is not designed for local people. And, frankly, even so-called affordable housing is not really affordable for many people who earn the Island’s average wage.

[Siobhain McDonagh]

May I say how much I support the line that the hon. Gentleman is taking about the use of the word “affordable”? Does he agree that applying the word “affordable” to housing that is 80% market rent probably means that it is unaffordable for most?

[Mr Seely]

I thank the hon. Lady for her suggestion. I would say semi-affordable, rather than affordable— and, even then, people are reliant on the bank of mum and dad.

Housing associations tell me that what they need is one-bedroom or two-bedroom housing, but what is built, because we are part of a south-east market where people come to retire, is three-bedroom and four-bedroom housing, which is not what Islanders need. One of the most painful experiences of the last election was hearing the desperation of young people unable to find anywhere to live. I want a system that prioritises housing for Islanders at prices they can afford, and specifically for young Islanders. Indeed, research that I commissioned from the House of Commons Library a few months ago shows that an increase in our population on the Island has not led to an increase in prosperity—quite the opposite. Our gross value added per head has actually gone down slightly since 2000, while adult social care costs threaten to bankrupt us on a near-annual basis.

Throughout Britain, especially in island communities, in national parks, in areas of outstanding natural beauty, and perhaps even in the big cities nowadays, our country needs a system of building that is sensitive to the environment, caters for the resident population, and has much greater local flexibility. In considering these housing proposals, I am thinking not of the next five to 10 years—where to stick a housing estate now— but of what my Island is going to look like in 50 or 100 years’ time. Its landscape has inspired people for generations, and, frankly, I do not want that disappearing just to fulfil Government targets.

Our housing policy should oppose, in principle, all greenfield development unless it has strategic advantage for Islanders. Our housing target is 640 houses a year. Few of those houses will be for people who currently live on the Island. For me, that is difficult to accept; in fact, I do not want to accept it. I have yet to meet a single person on the Island who supports it. It is much better for us to have a system that builds what we need. Working with Government and the Housing Inspectorate, we should aim to support the building of, say, between 200 and 400 properties a year, overwhelmingly funded by housing associations who will be given the support to do that. If that means social housing, council housing, or whatever we want to call it nowadays, then yes, that is what we need.

This housing should be built overwhelmingly for two groups of people: first, young people, for whom we need to build social housing, starter housing and shared-equity housing—we should also include key worker housing in this—and secondly, elderly people who are seeking supported and sheltered housing. We need to make sure that our elderly do not face a choice between an expensive nursing home, which very often the council ends up paying for, and staying in a bungalow or house that they cannot quite manage to run. By having that midway point, we can free up more housing as part of a more sustainable model of development. I hope to work on this with the Campaign to Protect Rural England, as well as other green or green-oriented groups, to develop a sustainable model that I can work on with the Minister and with the Government.

I envisage that some of this housing may be for, say, an old lady or an old gent who moves out of a bungalow that could then be purchased by a housing association who would have a planning assumption whereby they were allowed to repurpose the building, perhaps by adding a second storey or creating two properties on the site, so that we meet increased housing targets without eating into our precious landscape, and provide perhaps a home for old folks on the bottom and a younger couple on the top.

We need intelligent, sustainable and sensitive development. We do not have that at the moment; I do not feel that the current system provides it. I will do what I can in the coming months and years to work with the Minister, perhaps using the Island as a test case for a sustainable model of development that accepts some increase in population but also accepts that in unique environments we need to protect that landscape rather than just see green fields as further housing developments of the future. I look forward to working with the Minister on this.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dominic Raab]

The national planning policy framework makes it very clear that building on the green belt must be the last resort. Well disposed as I am towards the hon. Gentleman, he will not tempt me to start commenting on individual plans or planning applications, but I can tell him, in relation to his own local authority, that we did not have a bid for the homes infrastructure fund and we want the bids to be locally driven. Then we will look on them as sympathetically as possible—in accordance, obviously, with a set of criteria—to maximise the output.

[Mr Seely]

Does my hon. Friend understand that, for smaller authorities such as Isle of Wight Council, which is just about the smallest county council in Britain, it is difficult because we do not have the capacity always to know how the central Government system works? Therefore, we lose out when it comes to applying for some of these funds.

[Dominic Raab]

I listened to my hon. Friend’s passionate, tenacious and articulate speech on behalf of the Isle of Wight. I am happy to look again at whether we can provide any support in relation to the bidding process, but we are in a Catch-22 because we will be criticised for imposing ideas on local communities—particularly the smaller ones—if we do not allow bids to be community-driven and led. However, let us take that forward and see whether we can work together.

I cannot tell my hon. Friend the Member for Grantham and Stamford (Nick Boles) how fantastic it was to see him in the Chamber, back in fine fettle, setting the housing market in context. As usual, he is a one man walking ideas factory, offering ideas that I am already in part looking at trying to take forward. He made a powerful case for the national mission to build more homes and for trying, as we—I emphasise this—carry communities with us, to think in radical terms to get this job done.

The hon. Member for Coventry South (Mr Cunningham) made some important points about the green belt. My right hon. Friend the Member for Arundel and South Downs (Nick Herbert) brought his experience directly from a local public inquiry to inform the debate at the national level. He also raised the issue of equality of arms between developers and local communities, an important point well made.