Planning Policy (Housing Targets)

Brandon Lewis Excerpts

Wednesday 19th November 2014 Westminster Hall

[The Minister of State, Department for Communities and Local Government (Brandon Lewis)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Bone. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Romsey and Southampton North (Caroline Nokes) on securing this timely debate. I know that she is committed to making sure that housing in her constituency is developed in the right locations, and I welcome the opportunity to discuss the role of the Government’s national planning policy in achieving that, as well as the issues other hon. Friends have raised today. I know that Members across the House, as well as my hon. Friends here today, have made similar points about making sure development happens; we know we need to build more houses, but we all want to see them in the appropriate places, and designed and built in an appropriate way.

My hon. Friend has outlined the importance of getting local plans in place, and I will respond on that point in more detail in a moment. Most of the areas where there are issues do not have a local plan in place. Once a plan is in place, it gives the level of protection that people want. As my hon. Friend the Member for Winchester (Steve Brine) said, nothing will ever stop a developer trying something, but with a local plan in place residents have protection and therefore the expectation—rightly—that the planning process and any appeal will back up the approved and adopted local plan.

Several of my hon. Friends have mentioned the green belt and brownfield land. I know that the green belt is not directly relevant to the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Romsey and Southampton North, which does not have much green belt, but it is worth noting that the green belt has remained constant in England over the past few years. If we disregard land reclassified as national parks, the green belt is larger now than in 1997. We are focusing on developing brownfield land as a priority. That is why we launched a new fund specifically aimed at brownfield development during the summer.

I am pleased to hear that Test Valley council is giving strong leadership and recognises the importance of providing the housing necessary to suit the needs of local people. That the rate of construction in the local authority area is at its highest for 15 years is testament to that and to the work done there by councillors and by my hon. Friend.

My hon. Friend noted that as a Minister in DCLG I have a quasi-judicial role in the planning system and therefore cannot comment on specific proposals, or on the emerging local plan in Test Valley, which, as she said, is currently at examination stage. However, she has raised some important issues relating to the Government’s approach and reforms and I will touch on those.

The Government are committed to increasing housing supply and helping more people achieve the aspiration of having a home of their own. I am pleased to hear of my hon. Friend’s support for our changes to get rid of the top-down regional strategies that, as many of us know, built up nothing but resentment, while in the meantime, of course, nothing was getting built. I welcome the enthusiasm of local communities in her area for exploring neighbourhood plans. When we came into power, we wanted local communities to play a much stronger role in shaping the areas in which they live and supporting new development proposals that would deliver the houses we need. That is why we introduced the neighbourhood planning system in the Localism Act, which my hon. Friend the Member for Winchester mentioned. That important and popular legislation means that local people in communities get a real say in planning in their area. For the first time, communities can come together to produce plans that have real statutory weight in the planning system.

[Andrew Bingham]

I agree with what the Minister says about neighbourhood plans, but it seems that the plan written in Chapel-en-le-Frith is being completely ignored by the planning authority—the borough council—which has led to great dissatisfaction in the village. People got together to put the plan together, but they now feel it is being ignored, so they are wondering what the point is.

[Brandon Lewis]

Without going into the specifics of my hon. Friend’s case, if a neighbourhood plan has been drawn up—particularly if it has gone through a referendum and been approved—it is right that the local authority should give it weight. Neighbourhood plans have statutory weight. If residents in my hon. Friend’s area look at casework from just the last month or two, they will see that the Government and planning inspectors have backed neighbourhood plans and turned down planning applications that go against them. If a local authority is not taking account of neighbourhood plans, residents should be very firm with it about what it is doing. Authorities are ultimately elected by their communities and they should be listening to them.

Neighbourhood plans can include policies on where development should go, what it should look like, what should be protected and what facilities should be provided. I therefore encourage all constituents, whether in rural or urban parts of any of our constituencies, who want to support house building while protecting the historic, environmental and aesthetic value of our communities, to get involved with neighbourhood planning.

[Caroline Nokes]

I very much welcome neighbourhood plans, and some great plans are being worked on in my constituency, but will the Minister acknowledge that in some instances there is frustration at how long the process can take? Even when good, experienced people are drafting the plan, it can take many years to come to fruition.

[Brandon Lewis]

People in a few areas have raised that point with me over the summer. For neighbourhood plans to work, we want them to be robust but as straightforward as possible, rather than a bureaucratic nightmare. I am determined to do something to see whether we can speed up that process, and if my hon. Friend can bear with us over the next few more weeks, we will be taking decisions about this very issue.

I am aware that there are concerns—my hon. Friend has outlined some—about the way the framework is used in areas such as hers. In all our reforms, including the introduction of the NPPF, the Government have put plans and communities at the heart of the planning system, which is very much designed to move from the historical system of development and control to a plan-led system and, ultimately, with neighbourhood plans, to a proactive plan system. An up-to-date local plan, prepared through public consultation, sets the framework in which all decisions should be taken, whether locally by the planning authority or at appeal.

The framework is clear that the purpose of planning is to deliver sustainable development, but not development at any cost or in any place. Localism means choosing how best to meet development needs, not whether to meet them at all. We do not ask local authorities to plan to set housing targets or to build more homes than they need, but by putting in place a locally led system, we ask them to take tough decisions about where development should and should not go.

[Mr Andrew Turner]

What we have is urban areas where building is suitable but does not come forward, while in pleasant places outside those areas it does come forward. How do we get cases, some of which have been there for years, treated so that they come forward in a reasonable way and are not ignored?

[Brandon Lewis]

It is for local authorities, not for any of us in Westminster, to take through their local plans. The policy itself says that local planning authorities should

“use their evidence base to ensure that their Local Plan meets the full, objectively assessed needs for market and affordable housing in the housing market area, as far as is consistent with the policies set out in this Framework”.

That is important. Sometimes, councillors forget that it is for the local authority to use its evidence to see what its housing needs will be. Then, at the second stage, having assessed what those housing needs are, it should produce a strategic housing land availability assessment to establish realistic assumptions about what it can deliver, and what is appropriate and where in its area. There are, in effect, two separate stages. The authority could and should also take into account environmental constraints, as is clearly outlined in the NPPF. Once the local authority has done that, it ends up with its housing requirement figure, against which the supply of housing sites should be calculated.

Local authorities should identify and update annually a supply of specific deliverable sites. Once a local plan is in place, has been approved and is therefore robust, that gives local communities the protection so many people want. I therefore encourage all areas to move on and get their local plans adopted and taken through the system. That approach is preferable to the endless discussions and debates that are often replicated in determining individual applications and appeals. Should Test Valley borough council’s plan be found sound and be adopted next year, as my hon. Friend the Member for Romsey and Southampton North anticipates, the council will be in a much stronger position to defend its decisions on general planning applications in line with that plan.

Where local authorities cannot demonstrate a five-year supply, relevant housing policies will not be considered up to date, and the presumption in favour of sustainable development applies. That means granting planning permission unless the adverse impacts of doing so would significantly and demonstrably outweigh the benefits, or unless specific policies in the framework indicate that development should be restricted. Even in the absence of an up-to-date plan, our policy seeks to strike a balance between enabling the sustainable development we need and conserving and enhancing our natural and historic environment. Clearly, the weight attached to every decision will depend on the decision taker and the facts of a given case, but planning decisions over the last few months show that development that goes against environmental constraints will be overturned, even where there is not necessarily a local plan, if that is the appropriate decision.

I note the National Trust’s claims about developers’ rate of success where there is no five-year housing land supply in place. I should point out that, overall, the views of local authorities are upheld in the majority of cases. About two thirds of appeals are refused, and the figure has been around that level for a number of years.

My hon. Friend mentioned her concerns about slower delivery rates by local developers on sites with planning permission, which can put extra pressure on local authorities to release more sites. Test Valley borough council has been concerned about such activities, which is why my officials met the council and other authorities while preparing the planning guidelines. Many factors influence when a development is started, not least the availability of finance, market conditions and legal constraints. In the main, however, I would hope that a developer that commits to building out at a particular rate will do so, and we are right to expect that the local planning authority will keep the delivery of new development under review as part of its wider working on monitoring housing delivery.

At various stages of the planning process, local authorities may be able to take steps to tackle concerns about that. For example, our guidance is clear that they can consider the likely deliverability of sites as part of the plan-making process. When assessing the availability of a site, consideration should be given to the delivery record of the developers or landowners putting forward the site and to whether the site’s planning background shows a history of unimplemented planning permissions. We also made the point in our guidance that local authorities that review their five-year supply every year are likely to make the assessment very robust and to be protected from having out-of-date housing policies when defending an appeal further down the line. We have also made it clear that older people’s housing, student housing and vacant housing can, in the right circumstances, be counted towards meeting the housing requirement. Furthermore, where a local authority has concerns about the deliverability of a site and about the negative impact of delay, it can, where appropriate, impose shorter time scales for the start of development. It can also serve completion notices to require that development commenced is completed within a set period, and it can, ultimately, revoke planning permission in some circumstances.

I acknowledge my hon. Friend’s request for a change to national planning policy on the designation of the green belt. As she knows, the Government attach the highest importance to protecting our green belt, and we underlined that further in guidance this summer. However, designating and changing green-belt boundaries must be a local decision. We are clear that green-belt boundaries should be established in local plans. I appreciate the challenge for an area such as Hampshire, and I am sure my hon. Friend will continue to make representations to us, but we want to avoid urban sprawl. Despite my hon. Friend’s concerns about protecting our beautiful villages and the countryside in her constituency, designating land as green belt is not necessarily the way forward in this instance, although I am happy for her to make further representations herself or through her local authority in the future.