Neighbourhood Planning Bill

Chris Philp Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons & Money resolution: House of Commons
Monday 10th October 2016 Commons Chamber

[Teresa Pearce (Erith and Thamesmead) (Lab)]

I would like to put on record my thanks to the Secretary of State for his warm welcome.

The Neighbourhood Planning Bill does not appear at first glance to be a controversial one. Indeed, it includes many measures that we support. There are, however, elements of the Bill that could be strengthened or amended, so it was good to hear the Secretary of State say that he might be open to amendments in Committee. Labour Members will support appropriate measures that seek to streamline the delivery of much-needed new homes and further engage local people in the shaping of their communities.

We urgently need new homes, so it is a shame that the Bill misses measures to achieve what was announced in the Queen’s Speech in May, namely putting the National Infrastructure Commission on a statutory footing. However, we are pleased that, following pressure from both sides of the House, the unnecessary step to privatise the Land Registry has been dropped. That has been warmly welcomed by almost everybody in the housing sector, but the Bill must be seen in context, and it cannot be detached from the wider housing crisis we currently face.

The Government say that the aim of the Bill is to free up more land for new housing and to expedite the beginning of building once planning permission has been granted. We face the biggest housing crisis in a generation and urgently need more homes, and the Bill does not go far enough to provide them. The Bill could do so much more to encourage development and engage local residents in the process.

The Bill introduces measures in four key areas: neighbourhood planning, planning conditions, the planning register and compulsory purchase orders. The proposals on neighbourhood planning will allow neighbourhood plans to influence the planning process at an earlier stage, and will help to streamline the making and revision of neighbourhood plans. We support measures to streamline neighbourhood planning and to promote the ability of local residents to participate, but the Bill raises a number of questions. First, as the British Property Federation has noted, greater clarity is needed on the level and weight attributed to neighbourhood plans at every stage of their preparation. For example, more clarity is needed on whether a general direction of travel of a neighbourhood plan would be considered in the determination of a planning application.

Secondly, there is huge concern surrounding resources and the impact that the measure will have on our already stretched local planning authorities. Many of them already lack the resources they need to promote quality placemaking. The new measures make significant demands in terms of time and resources, and many planning departments are working on local plans before the deadline next year. How will the Minister ensure that they will be able to resource both adequately? Local authorities have a statutory duty to support neighbourhood planning groups and to provide a local plan. That could present problems for smaller district councils that have limited resources and capacity to respond to multiple pressures.

[Chris Philp (Croydon South) (Con)]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Teresa Pearce]

I would rather not give way because many hon. Members want to speak and we are short of time.

The Bill needs further measures to clarify the true costs of neighbourhood plans. Currently, councils receive £5,000 for each neighbourhood plan area designated, and £20,000 for each neighbourhood plan referendum, but those figures are the same regardless of the number of electors or the complexity or size of the neighbourhood plan. The costs can exceed the moneys that the council receives.

In addition, neighbourhood planning must be open to all, and disadvantaged communities need to be able to participate. Neighbourhood planning comes with complexities and can require professional support. Planning Aid England and the RTPI help to support groups across the country pro bono, but the Government should adequately support local planning authorities and local communities to shape development in their areas.

The Bill allows the Secretary of State to prescribe when councils should review their statement of community involvement, but why are local councils, which understand their communities and can respond directly to local needs, not trusted to decide when to review their statements of community involvement? Why cannot that be decided at local level rather than being imposed from above? A better balance can be achieved, possibly through amendments in Committee.

The British Property Federation has made a number of recommendations on neighbourhood planning that the Government have failed to explore, including ensuring that neighbourhood plans are consistent with and conform to the national planning policy framework, and setting a minimum turnout threshold in referendums on the adoption of neighbourhood plans. I would be interested to hear whether the Minister is receptive to those suggestions.

The greatest concern in the Bill is on pre-commencement planning conditions. Councils approve almost nine of every 10 planning applications and there is little evidence to suggest that development is being delayed by pre-commencement planning conditions. There has been a cautious reception for the Bill from the sector. London Councils has said that there is little robust evidence to suggest that the current planning conditions system has led to an under-supply of housing.

[Chris Philp]

Before being elected to the House, I ran a business that financed construction projects. I have to tell the hon. Lady that people engaged in such projects frequently complain about the onerous conditions. To give one example, they complain about the requirement to have a bat survey.

[Mark Pawsey (Rugby) (Con)]

And newts!

[Chris Philp]

And newt surveys. Such surveys can be done only at certain times of the year. That is a very onerous and often very serious set of conditions.

[Teresa Pearce]

I am very interested in the hon. Gentleman’s previous employment, but people always complain about restrictions. Our job is to balance the complaints of the developer against what is best for a local community. I am yet to see firm statistical evidence of how much pre-commencement planning conditions restrict building.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Philp (Croydon South) (Con)]

I welcome my constituency neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon Central (Gavin Barwell), to his place; I am delighted to see him on the Front Bench. I am also glad to see the hon. Members for City of Durham (Dr Blackman-Woods), and for Erith and Thamesmead (Teresa Pearce), fighting the fight from the Opposition Front Bench. I recall with fondness the many hours we spent this time last year on the Housing and Planning Bill Committee.

I draw the House’s attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests: I have a shareholding in a company that finances construction projects.

I welcome the power that the first part of the Bill on neighbourhood plans will place in the hands of local communities. I ask my hon. Friend the Minister to consider strengthening that power further in two ways. First, the preamble to the Bill says that in all but exceptional circumstances local authorities are expected to grant planning permission only in conformity with a neighbourhood plan, but if permission is granted in contradiction to a neighbourhood plan, I ask that it be made clear that it would be expected that the Secretary of State would call that in as a matter of routine, in order to create a clear incentive for local planning authorities to respect neighbourhood plans.

Secondly, is there any way to strengthen further neighbourhood plans in relation to local plans, given that neighbourhood plans will, by definition, have been passed by local referendum? The stronger they are in relation to local plans, the better. I fully accept that the local plan must be respected when it comes to total housing supply, but on questions of detail, I wonder whether the neighbourhood plan should trump the local plan, providing that it would not damage overall housing supply. The Minister will know some examples from our borough of where that might happen.

I say gently to the hon. Member for Erith and Thamesmead that pre-commencement conditions are frequently a significant problem. The bureaucracy they create ties up both the local planning authority office and developments. When I intervened earlier, I touched briefly on a couple of examples—the notorious cases of bat and newt studies. Bat studies can be done only at a certain time of year, so some developments get held up for an entire year while the bat survey gets done. As for newts, the greater crested newt is apparently an endangered species across Europe. It is not an endangered species in the United Kingdom, as the wretched creature pops up on every site for development as a potential reason for delay. If the Minister could give serious consideration to making sure that the requirements relating to bats, newts and similar creatures were proportionate and appropriate, it would help to expedite the construction of housing in our country.

I agree with the point made by the hon. Lady about resources for local planning departments. The hon. Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Helen Hayes) also correctly pointed out that resources in those departments are under great pressure. They do not have enough officers, time or resources, and that is a real constraint on the granting of planning consents. Although I am not of course usually in favour of any taxes or fees, many developers would be willing pay significantly higher planning fees if they were ring-fenced to fund local planning offices and attached to a particular service level—so if a planning decision were delivered within a certain time, a higher fee would be payable.

As Louis XIV’s Finance Minister, Colbert, said, the art of taxation is about plucking the goose so as to produce the least possible amount of hissing; well, here is a goose that is begging to be plucked. The goose, if I may put it this way, wants to pay extra money to have these decisions made more quickly. It wants to pay more fees. That would help local authority planning departments, as they would then be properly resourced. I would be grateful if the Minister could respond to that point in his concluding remarks. I shall trespass no further on the House’s time or patience, and conclude with that point.

Neighbourhood Planning Bill (First sitting)

Chris Philp Excerpts

Committee Debate: 1st sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 18th October 2016 Public Bill Committees

[Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)]

I should mention that I employ a local authority council member in my parliamentary team.

[Chris Philp (Croydon South) (Con)]

I should draw colleagues’ attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. I am a shareholder in a business that provides finance for construction projects.

[Jim McMahon (Oldham West and Royton) (Lab)]

I am a councillor in Oldham.

--- Later in debate ---

[Helen Hayes]

Q I am a member of the Select Committee on Communities and Local Government, and yesterday we heard evidence from a range of witnesses within the sector, including from the Federation of Master Builders and the Home Builders Federation, about the lack of resource and capacity in local authority planning departments. It was suggested in that evidence session that the reported overuse of pre-commencement planning conditions is a symptom of a lack of resource in planning departments, rather than a wilful misuse of pre-commencement conditions on the part of local authorities. Will you comment on your experience of the resourcing issues in local authority planning departments?

Andrew Dixon: We would certainly agree that under-resourcing is one of the major drivers behind the high level of use of planning conditions. The strong perception among our members is that planning conditions are often being used to limit the necessity of engaging in detail with a full application. Among the things that often arise from that are planning conditions that have actually been covered in the full application. An example of that would be landscaping. I have heard a number of our members say that detailed landscaping plans were included in their full application but that there did not seem to be any engagement with it, there then being a condition to bring forward those details. Under-resourcing is a major issue that causes numerous hold-ups within the system, and we think it is one of the drivers behind the excessive use of conditions.

Ross Murray: This is very profound in rural planning authorities, which are significantly under-resourced in planning. Our members around the country see that all the time. The Committee must also have a mind to the resource of the applicant and the risks within the process. We should do anything that we can to provide certainty of process after the application has been determined, and when an applicant finds that the pre-commencement conditions just do not work for him. In a rural context, these are often low-return projects, and the planning process is the highest risk point at the start of the process.

Andrew Whitaker: It is very much a chicken-and-egg situation. If local authorities do not put enough resources into determining a planning application, the temptation is—rather lazily, in my opinion—to deal with everything via condition, rather than as part of the primary application. If authorities focused their resources on what needed to be done as part of the application, they would need to condition less. That would relieve them of having to discharge conditions, which can take just as many resources as the primary application. Therefore, we think that local authorities should reassess their systems and processes to focus their limited resources into the right parts of the process.

[Chris Philp]

Q I would like to continue the line of questioning on resourcing and planning departments that Helen Hayes started. Mr Dixon, you said earlier that the lack of resourcing in planning departments was the No. 1 impediment to getting more applications. Will you confirm that that was the case?

Andrew Dixon: That was the case.

[Chris Philp]

Q Mr Murray said that certainty of process was the most important thing. Would your members or the development community be willing to pay for further resources in local authority planning departments by way of higher planning fees if, in exchange, they had guaranteed service levels—that is, the extra planning fee would be refundable if the service level was not met? Are you willing to pay to remedy the problem you are highlighting?

Andrew Dixon: The overwhelming feeling of our members is that they are quite happy to pay a higher application fee as long as those resources are ring-fenced and go into a demonstrably improved service. There would be very little resistance to that.

[Chris Philp]

They would be willing to pay higher fees.

Andrew Dixon: Yes.

[Chris Philp]

Q It is relatively rare to find people volunteering to pay more money.

Andrew Dixon: It is fairly standard in any walk of life that people are prepared to pay more for a better service. Our members are no different in that sense.

Ross Murray: From my perspective, I would agree. Delay is risk; risk is money.

Roy Pinnock: The BPF’s position is absolutely in agreement with that. It has set that out in its response to technical consultations. There are issues of how the application is structured, indexation, inflation, and the linking of that fee not just for authorities that are performing well, but for those that are under real pressure for other reasons. There is a general consensus, particularly among commercial development investors, that you get what you pay for. There is a completely profound lack of resource in authorities to deal with the situation in which we find ourselves. It is the single biggest brake on development, in terms of applications and starts on site, in my experience as a practitioner.

[Chris Philp]

Q What level of fee uplift, compared to today’s levels, would your members or the development community be willing to pay if a guaranteed service level—an application determined within x period—was associated with that fee uplift? Give us a feel for the quantum.

Roy Pinnock: I might just duck that question, like any true lawyer. The critical point is that we are very used to planning performance agreements, and to guaranteed service levels being offered and assumed, and then not being delivered. There is sympathy for the reasons for that, not least because applications are complex. Local people’s relationship with planning is complex, and quite rightly so, as we are making difficult decisions. Probably the worst thing, from an applicant’s point of view, is that a guaranteed committee date is set and you do not get that committee. You then go into the long grass, and that is used to ransom the applicant. Concessions are made throughout the application process to get to that committee.

[Chris Philp]

Q So if the fee uplift was refundable if the date got missed, would that give comfort?

Roy Pinnock: It would and the planning guarantee should achieve that currently. The BPF would support that planning guarantee being amended, which would require the application regulations to be changed. The original idea of the planning guarantee was that you should determine either way—refuse if it is a rubbish scheme or approve if it is a great scheme. Within 25 weeks there should be certainty. That certainty is crucial to everyone.

How the planning guarantee works at the moment is that where there is an agreed extension of time, it drops away entirely. It is not the case that if you agree to extend the time to enable a sensible dialogue about the detail of planning application matters, and then that extension fails to deliver a result, you go back to the position of being able to claw back the application fee. What happens, for no good reason, is that it kills off altogether the ability to rely on the planning guarantee. That is completely wrong and undermines the whole purpose and intended effect of the guarantee. In our view, that should be amended so that the system has real teeth.

[Chris Philp]

Q Am I right in thinking that the current planning agreements apply only to large applications? The planning agreements that can already be entered into do not currently help small applications, so one could also introduce that.

Roy Pinnock: Yes, although there is another resourcing issue around entering into and administering planning performance agreements. There is a cultural shift that needs to go on around how applications are project- managed. That is true of the commercial sector, in terms of how it approaches negotiating section 106 agreements, when it looks at conditions in the application process and how much it is prepared to take things on at the earliest stage.

There is also an issue around how to programme-manage people’s diaries. Within an authority, you need sign-off from transport, the education aspect of the authority and housing officers. At the moment, you cannot get a meeting. I have waited three months for an authority to sit down. We said, “Look, there’s no point us sending ping-pong emails on this agreement because you keep telling us everything is not agreed. We just want to sit around the table with everyone and understand your views.” That is impossible, and it is partly due to the chaos, unfortunately, that is going on because of the multiple restructurings and the lack of resource.

[Chris Philp]

Q Are you satisfied that section 106 agreements, which are currently entered into after planning permission is granted, are adequate? It can take a long time to agree them. Are you satisfied that they are adequately addressed by the Bill or not? Do you think that they can still be a source of delay?

Roy Pinnock: They can be a source of delay, but equally, they are highly sophisticated tools for development. I will give you one example: the North Greenwich peninsula. There are 15,000 new homes approved on public land, despite the number of parties involved: the Greater London Authority, the developer and the Royal Borough of Greenwich. That took place within three months of the planning board.

There are other examples. I have just done two schemes further south and west in the country, and it has taken more than a year to get from committee resolution to approval to planning consent. It depends very much how that is approached, but fundamentally, far too much is in section 106 agreements. Much more should be in planning conditions. The Housing and Planning Act 2016 provides a mechanism for a dispute resolution service. We think that should be used in the same way as the appeal that we have spoken about in relation to section 100ZA to provide recourse where planning obligations are used unnecessarily.

[Chris Philp]

Q Should we make section 106 part of the main planning application so that the whole thing gets dealt with in an expeditious fashion in one go?

Roy Pinnock: The difficulty with that, from a practical point of view, is that there should be dialogue about what needs to go into that agreement. It is fine to do a first draft, but there is a dialogue in planning applications. Other witnesses will have a contribution on this as well.

[Chris Philp]

Q Yes, but dialogue can happen in pre-app.

Roy Pinnock: Yes. No plan survives contact with reality. There is always dialogue. There should be dialogue in planning; it is fundamental. I think BPF members value pre-application discussions but recognise that once you are in the mix, having submitted the application, the most important thing is how you project and programme-manage those discussions so that you know when local authority resources are available. The crucial thing is that we preserve the ability to have a sensible dialogue about quality, but drain off some of the issues involving technical things, which can be addressed by model planning obligations and model conditions.

Andrew Dixon: Just to pick up on a couple of points, you asked about the use of PPAs on small sites. They are not normally used on small sites—they are probably too clunky and an inappropriate tool for small sites—but we think there would be value in a standard, very basic, perhaps one-page agreement for covering small sites that would perform the role of some kind of service level agreement against which the applicant can hold the planning authority.

[Chris Philp]

Q So if I pay a higher fee, then this is a service I get in return?

Andrew Dixon: You could have that range or, whatever fee you pay, you could have an agreed service level that the planning authority has to meet—

[Chris Philp]

Q Without extra resources, there will not be any extra service, and extra resources mean more money.

Andrew Dixon: No, and in response to your other question, I cannot put a figure on how much more our members would be prepared to pay, but the planning application fee is a fairly small proportion of the total cost of moving forward a planning application. For an improved service, they would be prepared to pay more.

[Chris Philp]

Excellent.

Ross Murray: Can I take the Committee on a journey from the Greenwich peninsula, with applications for 15,000 homes, to the barn conversion, which is my members’ domain? The concept that someone would instruct lawyers, pay for the authority’s legal department and negotiate a section 106 agreement for a very small, low-value application beforehand is just not practical. There is not time and it will load risk and cost on to the applicant, so I think there are probably circumstances when the section 106 agreement will follow after the determination of the resolution to grant.

[Chris Philp]

Q Finally, on the question of pre-commencements, are there any particular conditions or parts of the planning process that you think are particularly onerous or absurd and would like to draw the Committee’s attention to? It might be anything to do with great crested newts, for example, without wishing to lead the witnesses.

Andrew Whitaker: No. It is possible to discuss everything. It is right that we have conditions that control various things that are not controlled in the planning application, but as I said before, people should be focusing on what is in the application and what the applicant is going to do to mitigate all the concerns on any subject. We frequently find that the mitigation that is proposed in the planning application itself is ignored. A planning condition is placed on the decision notice and the applicant then resubmits the self-same evidence that they submitted as part of the planning application and it is approved under discharge of planning conditions. That is a total nonsense. It is absolutely right that we take a lot of things into account. A lot of people are engaged in the planning application process.

I am interested in the evidence from your questioning of the other witnesses in respect of whether people pay for a better service and whether they get one. Small applications already have a PPA. Those are statutory timetables within which local authorities need to determine a planning application, and they get a fee for that.

[Chris Philp]

Q If the LPA breaks that, no consequence flows from it, other than a bad statistic in its report.

Andrew Whitaker: Absolutely, and we have suggested in various documents that a staged payment process of all the planning application fees would be better, because the other thing that your questions draw attention to is that there are lots of stages of a development, and not just the tiny part that is the planning application and/or the conditioning of that planning decision. We are also talking about allocations of site in local plans and in neighbourhood plans—the other part of the Bill—and then pre-application discussions, the application discharge conditions and section 106 agreements. All those things need to be looked at in the round, rather than merely focusing on a tiny little part and asking, “Would you pay more for a planning application fee?”. It is a very simple approach but it does not have a very simple answer.

Roy Pinnock: Just to round that off, where those additional fees are ring-fenced for the planning service—either where they are going into a smaller application so that an officer who might be a specialist in the 15,000-unit scheme, but who is dealing with smaller but no less valuable schemes, is freed up, or where they are funding on a locum basis, or however we need to deal with this problem—we should use that fee. We should ring-fence it and use it to allocate resource. I think the industry would probably support that. You get what you pay for, in that sense, and I think that is more important than the idea that we have a specific set of milestones, which may well be missed, just because that’s life.

We need to know that we have someone dealing with the application, that they have read all the papers and are not going to get switched over, that they understand the ecological mitigation because they have read, unfortunately, the three habitat surveys that have been done, and that they can have that conviction, because it comes from a deep knowledge of these complex schemes. At the moment, we have a real crisis in dealing with these applications, because we do not have the deep knowledge available. Unfortunately, with the best will in the world, this is a resource issue.

Ross Murray: May I come back to your point about newts, Chair? Newts and bats are totemic in rural England and Wales in the planning process. I offer you a personal story about an application for a barn conversion. Thieves came and stole the slate roof. There was no roof and, therefore, there were no bats. The planning authority insisted on the bat survey—and there we were, £1,000 later.

[Chris Philp]

Which, of course, can only happen at a certain time of year.

[Mrs Theresa Villiers (Chipping Barnet) (Con)]

Q I possibly take a slightly different view from my colleague of newts and bats. There is some anxiety about the Bill, probably based on a misunderstanding of what the changes on pre-commencement conditions actually involve, so this discussion is very helpful from that point of view. I have constituents who are keen to see local authorities retain the power to ensure that proper surveys are done in relation to wildlife and archaeological heritage. From what I understand from the debate on Second Reading and from what you have said today, the planning authorities will retain the power to impose conditions of that kind; there will just be a change in how that is done to ensure that it involves the developer at an earlier stage and does not necessarily have to happen right at the start, before the whole process has begun.

Mr Whitaker, can you explain, in simple terms, at what stage of the process surveys of that kind can be required? I can then reassure my constituents that the Bill will not prevent an archaeological survey if it is necessary, and that the aim is to ensure that it happens in a way that causes less delay and cost to developments. It is obviously important to ensure that such work is done before a final decision is made on a planning application.

Andrew Whitaker: You are absolutely right and we agree with you. There are many stages in the planning process at which a local planning authority can reflect the community, in many instances, by asking what are the important things that need to be considered as part of the development of a site. They can do that when they allocate the site in a local plan—they can set out various matters that will need to be addressed as part of the development. That can be done by the community themselves at a neighbourhood plan level; it can be done as part of the pre-application and consultation discussion, with the potential applicant, of the issues that the local authority will want to be addressed via the planning application process; and it can then be discussed as part of the planning application process itself, prior to a decision being made. It can also be addressed as part of a planning condition attached to the planning permission.

At all those stages, one can quite legitimately raise any issue that one sees as being key to the planning decision, whether that is archaeology, bats and newts, or any other issue—for example, drainage is often seen as causing delay. Some of those issues will be so critical to whether the development is allowed to go ahead that they should, of course, be addressed very early on in the planning process.

If my local plan allocated a site but said, “This is a difficult site to drain. We will want to see all drainage details sorted out as part of the planning application. We are not going to leave this to a planning condition because it is fundamental to how much development you are allowed to put on the site, depending on your drainage scheme”, the developer would accept that as a constraint and would submit a detailed drainage scheme with their planning application. It is up to the local planning authority to then say, “Okay, this is an important issue for this site. Is the proposed drainage system capable of mitigating the drainage issues and should we approve the planning application on the basis of the scheme submitted with it?” The problem we see is that a lot of local authorities say, “We haven’t got time to do that now. We will make a planning condition that says that, prior to the commencement of the development, we want to agree a drainage system for the site.”

As I have previously explained, frequently, all that happens is that you submit exactly the same drainage system as was submitted with the planning application, or the same mitigation for wildlife, or the same detail that you knew was critical to the determination of your planning application later down the line as a pre-commencement planning condition, rather than it being sorted out as part of the original planning application. We think there are lots and lots of points along the planning journey at which the things that are key to the development of sites can be sorted out. The Bill does not change that at all.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Blackman-Woods]

Q Do you think that the measures in the Bill change the balance of power more towards the developer, and what are the risks with that? We have not yet talked this morning of the risks, particularly in clause 7.

Hugh Ellis: Pursuing that point, it is an issue about whether you end up with a planning system whose primary purpose is the efficient allocation of units or a wider endeavour around place-making and inclusion. Although it seems like a good idea because it is difficult to defend inefficiency or apparent inefficiency when it is thrown up, really good place-making requires good dialogue with developers, but also strong control from local government and an empowered local government to ensure that community visions are truly delivered.

The system has been weakened—permitted development is one example of that—and the Bill needs to strike the right balance. I suppose that if it went forward, the safeguard would be, and would need to be in the wider system, the place-making objective, otherwise we would find a series of outcomes that potentially have very long-term and serious impacts on everything from public health to wider economic efficiency.

Councillor Newman: I agree with that. As I said earlier, the Bill would potentially build in a more confrontational approach, and we would lose that ability to have a place-making and sustainability overview of a development, along with the benefits and perhaps future development to come.

Somebody mentioned permitted development. We have certainly seen the flip-side of that. Where permitted development has sometimes let rip, we have seen poor-quality provision of homes—perhaps people do not have any choice in a market such as London. Permitted development has proved not to be the answer. At one point, I think, half the permitted development in London was happening in Croydon. We got an article 4 direction for Croydon town centre, and we were able to protect what is now thriving business use and office space, so permitted development was not only delivering poor-quality planning outcomes but threating our local economy by damaging a space that is now at a premium for investment in jobs.

All that would reinforce my view that you need a holistic approach where possible. That is not to be naïve—there will always be confrontation in the system, but to build it in at the start seems to me to be the wrong approach, and in the LGA’s view it is an unnecessary further layer of legislation or red tape in the process.

Duncan Wilson: It seems to me that there are two issues. One is the imposition of unnecessary conditions and the other is the time taken to discharge conditions. I have been on the other side of the table too as, in effect, the developer of a number of major heritage schemes in London, and inasmuch as we had any trouble, it was to do with the time taken to discharge conditions, which was largely related to the people and resource within the local authority—it is simply a matter of getting people up to the place to tick the box and see that we had done what was required of us. The same applies to a whole load of other things such as building regulations.

On the imposition of unnecessary conditions, the local authority has to be reasonable already—if it is felt that unnecessary conditions are being imposed, it is challengeable. I worry that the proposed new system will lead the local authority to have to make a choice early on as to whether it wants to impose a condition that would be challenged—the application could be turned down and the condition challenged again. That whole system would surely take longer than arguing about the condition and determining whether to impose it at the beginning.

Angus Walker: In line with the other speakers, I think that the planning system is a balance. Although economic growth is important and development contributes to that, it still has to be in the right context and have regard to social and environmental factors.

I can see that, if an applicant and a local planning authority cannot agree on a condition, in some cases the planning authority will refuse permission, which may be appealed and then allowed. In others, the authority will agree the application without the condition in it, even though it might have been one that ought to have been imposed. In answer to your question, it seems to me that there is a slight increase in the balance being weighed towards applicants by the measure.

[Chris Philp]

Q Good morning. One of the speakers briefly touched on this. What is the panellists’ opinion about whether planning departments in local authorities are adequately resourced to deal with the kind of issues we are discussing—pre-commencement conditions and the determination of applications?

Councillor Newman: Local government has taken more than its fair share of efficiency savings in the past few years and has faced serious cuts. Planning has to be properly resourced: the LGA would put forward the figure of £150 million a year for the planning department, which is effectively subsidised by the council tax payer. The British Property Federation—two thirds of it anyway—supports the view that they would rather see a contribution that meant it was properly resourced and not subsidised by the taxpayer, and there are always issues around recruitment. Many planning departments work well but are stretched to the limit. There are extra pressures and other challenges in growth areas. I do not just want to sit here and say that more resources are needed, but local government is operating on tight budgets after year-on-year decreases in our budgets.

[Chris Philp]

Q Will other members of the panel comment on the resourcing question: do you think local authority planning departments are adequately resourced bearing in mind the demands being placed on them?

Duncan Wilson: In relation to archaeology, it very much depends on the archaeological advice rather than the planning department. Some local authorities have that advice, but in the past few years there has been a reduction of around 30% in the volume of archaeological advice directly available to local authorities. There is no straight-line relationship between the quality of the advice, its timeliness and the number of hours that the local authority has, but obviously there is a relationship. There is also the question of conservation offices, which is another specialist area where there has been a significant decline in local authority resources. It would be counterintuitive to suggest that there is no relationship between the volume of resources available to the local authority in terms of its planning department and conservation and archaeological advice, and the timeliness of turning casework around, but it is not quite as simple as that.

Hugh Ellis: I am trying to choose my words carefully based on research we have just carried out on the production of local plans. The research showed that planning teams had fallen below the critical mass capable of delivering a local plan effectively in the rural areas that we looked at that were at severe risk of flooding. In some of those authorities we visited, we found 1.2 full-time equivalent members of staff were working on a local plan process, which I found quite shocking. There is no fixed limit for how many people you need in a planning department, but minimum service levels are a critical issue, both establishing them effectively and resourcing them properly.

What struck me about your discussion with previous witnesses was that, while fees could be increased—that is an option—there are low-demand areas where not many applications are submitted. Those applications would not attract much fee income but would require significant planning services, particularly in those areas trying to deal with the aftermath of significant severe weather and flood risk. Cumbria is one of those places.

There is a crisis in the planning service—it is not everywhere because some urban areas have sustained resource—that overwhelmingly affects efficiency and the quality of neighbourhood planning service that the community receives. That is probably the single biggest thing for us as an organisation presented to us by applicants and communities about the state of the modern local planning process in England.

Angus Walker: I do not think there is any question that a large number of local authorities are not adequately resourced in their planning departments.

[Chris Philp]

Sorry, can you say that again?

Angus Walker: A large number of local authorities—perhaps not all—are not adequately resourced.

[Chris Philp]

Q The previous group of witnesses, who by and large represented the property development industry, appeared unanimously to support the idea of paying higher planning fees for some kind of guaranteed service level—for a determination within a particular time. If that target was not met, the extra planning fee might be refunded. Do panel members think that that might be one way of getting extra financial resources into local authority planning departments? If one proposed that idea, the Chancellor would probably say—I am putting words in his mouth—“The danger is that you put the extra money into the planning department, and the council reduces its subsidy, to spend it on something else, so the total amount of money stays the same; it just comes from applicants, rather than the subsidy.” If you do think extra planning fees for a guaranteed service is a good idea, how do you prevent existing resource being diverted to another part of the council’s activities? I suppose that is a question for Councillor Newman.

Councillor Newman: As you alluded to, if there was a different planning fee, there would be some relationship with, or expectation relating to, the outcome. I think what you are asking is whether it would be ring-fenced. There is a way of doing that without getting into the ring-fenced budget piece. The other position on that, the LGA would say—I welcome the question in that sense—is to have locally set planning fees. That would involve people who know an area, know what the demand is, and know what the recruitment issues are for the planning department in one area, vis-à-vis another. Then it would be for the local authority to justify both the fees it charges and the outcomes of the service it offers. Locally set planning fees and, related to them, performance indicators on how the process works—that is something that should be explored.

[Chris Philp]

Q Would you support the specific idea of extra planning fees conditional on service delivery?

Councillor Newman: I have to be careful what I support. I represent LGA policy here. There is a principle in the line of questioning you are asking. I think there is a way forward around locally set planning fees related to an expectation of the service one gets. That would be a step forward in terms of localism, and democratic accountability locally for the performance of the planning department.

[Chris Philp]

Q Do you accept that there is a danger that if you allowed local authorities to charge higher planning fees, you would at the same time have to stop them from simply diverting existing financial resources elsewhere, in order to make sure that you got an increase in total resource level in the planning department?

Councillor Newman: I do not think it would be beyond somebody to construct the model, but the key test would be the outcome—whether the planning process was working well, or was speeded up, depending on what the local challenge was.

[Chris Philp]

Q Can I invite other panel members to comment on that exchange?

Duncan Wilson: In the Historic England context, clearly the issue of hypothecation is really important. My colleague has said more or less what I would want to say on that. However, it is probably worth noting that Historic England has operated something called enhanced advisory services for the last year or so on more or less that basis. If it is worth your while as a developer, you can buy a tighter outcome, in terms of deadlines and delivery, and a more detailed assessment in relation to listed buildings and scheduled monuments. That has been introduced with the encouragement of the development industry, on the whole, and the British Property Federation.

[Chris Philp]

Q Have you found them coming forward and saying that they would like to pay these higher planning fees?

Duncan Wilson: Exactly. It can be consensual, because the cost of a planning application, certainly in the sorts of services that we provide in relation to listed buildings, is a tiny percentage of a major development project.

Hugh Ellis: I would add that there are two problems here; it is partly the planning service in local authorities, but I would not want us to completely ignore the fact that there is also a crisis in the number of planners. There is direct investment in planning schools that we also need to get right. There is a major recruitment problem in local government, not just in being able to afford planners, but in finding them. We need to take a wider step back and look at how we bring planners through the process. It is also about the messages you send to young people about why planning is important and why it might be a career that they want to take up. That is important.

[Chris Philp]

Q One of the challenges is that local authorities lose planning experts to private practice, because private practice can afford to pay more, and because local authorities are very stretched, so it is a slightly stressful and harassed environment to work in. The resource issue might partly address the brain drain to private practice.

Angus Walker: Undoubtedly, if you pay more for dedicated resources, you will get a better service. My concern would be that those who made applications and had not paid any more would get a worse service as a consequence. Maybe the diversion of funds would be a consequence of that. It would not necessarily be more money in the system that everyone would benefit from.

[Chris Philp]

Q Of course, you would still have the statutory time targets, and if you increased total resource levels, it may most directly benefit those paying more, but it might have wider benefits as well, even to applicants who were not paying the extra fees.

Angus Walker: It is possible, but in my field, it is not financial deadlines—we have time deadlines in some areas, and not in others. The ones that have a decision required, statutorily, in a certain length of time get their decisions within that time; the others probably take longer than they otherwise would have done, because more of the resources are devoted to making those decisions on time.

[Helen Hayes]

Q I have a question for Councillor Newman, and perhaps Hugh Ellis as well. Have either of you undertaken any assessment of the likely additional burden to local planning authorities from the new proposed process in the Bill? Supplementary to that, and following the discussion that was just had about the possibility of applicants paying for an enhanced level of service, might a better system be for local authorities to be able, on a transparent and consultative basis, to charge the full cost of their development management service through fees? One concern I have about the proposal that developers be able to buy in an enhanced level of service is that it is potentially quite difficult for local authorities to manage fluctuating demand, in relation to individual applications. Surely what we actually want is for local authorities to be properly resourced to do the job well for everybody, irrespective of who the applicant is.

Councillor Newman: We do want to be properly resourced anyway, as a starting point. There is a £150 million tax subsidy going in; that would absolutely be the starting point for me, but I still think that this is worth exploring, in terms of the particular recruitment issues we have, because there will never be agreement on what “properly resourced” would be. That is why I would not rule out looking at—I do not like the word “enhanced”. There is something around fast-track and something around some major developments perhaps requiring more resource than other developments, but there is a discussion to be had. One way or another, we have to get more resource into a system that is under-resourced financially, and where in many areas, as we have heard, there are pressures regarding recruitment and staff coming forward.

On the other question you asked, I know the LGA is submitting written evidence later in the week. I have not got figures in front of me to evidence the extra burden, but I think the extra work this would potentially bring round is significant. As colleagues here have said, you could see more refusals, and the whole thing could become mired in a more confrontational process that, by definition, will set planning applications back, rather than them being, where possible, resolved, sometimes in a mature manner.

Hugh Ellis: Just to reiterate, planning is a key service with vital outputs for communities; in that sense, it needs to be resourced properly, and certainly at a minimum level. It also worries me that a lot of this resource in fees would go into development management, leaving open the question of how you fund the rest of the planning service, which is, in some senses, the most important part for us—the development plan, neighbourhood planning and master planning process, and getting it right up front.

On the idea that applicants would pay a fee base for a particular service, and that that would somehow sustain the planning service, there are some real questions to answer. It could be part of the answer—that is absolutely true—but I return to the point, on section 106 and the community infrastructure levy, that there is already, in pure taxation terms, a slightly regressive element to planning: you get most in high-demand areas. If this was another measure that led to that, it would be challenging, partly because the planning system has to deal with all sorts of varied issues. The examples coming in from Cumbria really reinforce that. They need very powerful local plans; how are they to pay for them if the predominant form of income generation is fees from applications that they do not get?

Neighbourhood Planning Bill (Second sitting)

Chris Philp Excerpts

Committee Debate: 2nd sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 18th October 2016 Public Bill Committees

[Jim McMahon]

Q I am interested in the balance of the drive and ambition to build more homes with trying to protect the environmental standards, in particular around the green belt. I would welcome your views on that.

Matt Thomson: Shall I kick off, given that green belt is one of the key things that the Campaign to Protect Rural England is concerned with? It comes down to the general principle behind neighbourhood planning, that people and communities at the local level are best placed to make decisions about the impacts of development on their area, and about the type of development that takes place in their area. The more local the level at which decisions are made, the better the outcomes can be for those kinds of concerns.

Carole Reilly: I think it is really important that we listen to communities. We have seen a number of neighbourhood planning groups that are challenging local authorities that have not got a “brownfield first” policy. That is one the things that we see: a brownfield list that is going to be updated and reported on. That surely will be one of the ways, viability issues all being considered, of securing the green belt.

[Chris Philp (Croydon South) (Con)]

Q Welcome to Westminster. Do you think the way the local plan interacts with the neighbourhood plan could be improved in any way, particularly bearing in mind that the neighbourhood plan has been subject to local referendum? If you think that interaction could be improved, how would you suggest improving it?

Carole Reilly: I think we are going to see quite an interesting two years coming up, where local planning authorities are getting their local plans in place. I think neighbourhood plans and local plans can be produced in tandem. They depend on a lot of the same evidence. We are very heartened that this Bill shows a commitment for local authorities to explain what their support is going to be. There are a number of ways in which the development of the local plan would really help the development of a neighbourhood plan: giving maps, giving evidence, sharing diagrams—stuff that often does not happen at local authority level. So I think there is a way that they can be developed together. Without a local plan, obviously the latest plan takes precedence under the national planning policy framework—it is the neighbourhood plan. Where there is no five-year land supply, that leaves your neighbourhood plan terribly vulnerable. So I think the two have got to be intertwined. We also have to remember that, in practice, we are four years in, and there was a lot of scepticism from local authorities about neighbourhood plans. It feels like there is a far more open, partnership approach now.

But local planning authorities have been stripped of funding and they have reduced huge amounts of skills. Lots of people do not have a lot of experience with neighbourhood planning, and their focus will be on writing and producing the local plan. So I think they should be produced together, they should be meshed together, and that can be done by sharing that top-level evidence that is gathered by the local planning authority, but I think the resources are tight and the focus is going to be on the local plan.

Matt Thomson: I would agree with a lot of what Carole said. The question reflects one of the key problems that we have been facing with the operation of the planning system for decades. That is that where you have tiers of nested planning policy documents, there is always a question of which has precedence over the other. It should not necessarily be just a question of the one that is produced most recently holding the most weight in a planning application environment.

Another, bigger, question has vexed us with regard to the relationship between local plans, county structure plans and regional strategies. We tend to think of neighbourhood plans as somehow needing to be prepared in the context of an adopted local plan, despite the fact that, although we have lots of adopted local plans, we do not have enough adopted local plans. But we need a relationship whereby the work that goes on at the neighbourhood plan level informs the preparation of the local plan, rather than the local plan, when it is finally produced, somehow trumping a short-lived neighbourhood plan and forcing the neighbourhood to review that plan. We need somehow to protect the policies and proposals of the neighbourhood plan, and bring them into the local plan when it is being produced.

[Chris Philp]

Q On that point, can you think of particular examples of the type of policies or measures that might appear in a neighbourhood plan and that you think could or should trump a local plan?

Matt Thomson: The existing NPPF says that detailed policies—non-strategic policies—in a neighbourhood plan, where they exist, can outweigh the policies in the local plan.

[Chris Philp]

Q What is the definition of “strategic” in that context?

Matt Thomson: I think, generally speaking, that that is interpreted as relating to the scale and location of mainly housing development. It is the big picture things. A lot of local plans have quite detailed policies on design, and on the kinds of development management policies and conditions that can be imposed on planning permissions and so on. A neighbourhood may feel that the design policies are not the right design policies for their particular area, and so produce their own design policies. It is that kind of thing.

[Chris Philp]

Q As an example, let us say that the local plan specifies the total number of housing units in a five-year period to be built in a particular area—in a village or a particular neighbourhood of a suburb. Would it be reasonable to say that a neighbourhood plan could allocate different sites—that would take precedence—provided that the total number of housing units was the same as specified in the local plan?

Matt Thomson: That, I think, is a tricky area. A good example of where this has worked well is Thame in Oxfordshire. The district council gave an overall housing requirement for the Thame neighbourhood plan to meet and identify its own sites. It is more difficult when the district council has already identified sites, because the owner of that site has a reasonable expectation that they will get planning permission for it. It would be difficult for a neighbourhood plan to de-allocate a local plan. It is not impossible, and it may be appropriate to do that.

One of the other pitfalls we would want to watch out for is this: we know that neighbourhood plans are allocating more housing sites than they were expected to—that is the 10% or 11% figure that the Government have been talking about—and that is great news. What I would be really concerned about is when a neighbourhood is expected to provide 100 houses, but plans for 110 houses, and the local plan then takes the extra 10 houses off its total. It should be putting those 10 houses somewhere else in the district and not just double-counting, because it might lead to a void and end up punishing that neighbourhood for being much more forthcoming with housing sites.

Carole Reilly: Also, where a local plan is allocating a large housing development, quite often what we have seen in practice is that, on designation of the area, the local authority has removed that strategic site from the neighbourhood planning designated area, against the wishes of the qualifying body. Quite often they are not even able to take those out, and there has been quite a lot of wrangling over designation for boundaries that are coterminous with parish boundaries, because strategic sites have been removed. Whether that is about not wanting to interfere with housing development or about protection of the community infrastructure levy, there are a lot of questions.

Matt Thomson: To clarify, if it is desirable for a neighbourhood plan to de-allocate one site and allocate a different site, then that is a good thing—it is something that the CPRE would often support, because, as I said before, it is better for local people to make the decision. I am just saying that it would be tricky to do that. It could be tricky and there could be legal ramifications if an investor has invested in that site as a result.

[Chris Philp]

I am not sure that any public body has ever been financially liable for changing planning permissions.

[Helen Hayes]

Q May I ask Carole Reilly how many neighbourhood plans Locality has supported to date?

Carole Reilly: To date? Under the current programme, we have supported 1,300 neighbourhood plans with grants for technical support. In outline, there are two ways in which you can get support. You can get cash—£9,000 for straightforward plans and, for those that are more complex, the grant can go up to £15,000—and, alongside that, we offer a number of technical support packages. Under the current programme, which we have been running since the beginning of 2015, we have worked with 1,200 or 1,300 groups.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jim McMahon]

Q In order to allow flexibility—so you would not argue for a blanket rule to allow demolition in all cases, because there might be an argument to say that what is there now could be better than the alternative, depending on the final scheme presented.

Tim Smith: Yes. It is the kind of thing that is susceptible to regulations and policy far better than it is to primary legislation, but that would be an example of where some welcome flexibility could be brought.

Richard Blyth: I think there is an issue around whether the condition needs to be pre-commencement or not—around leverage, I suppose. If construction is under way, there is less incentive for the developer to come forward and submit the relevant scheme because they are already getting on with it, whereas saying, “You must do all this before you start,” gives a very powerful incentive for the party to come to the table. That may be why local authorities have tended to do that. They are afraid that, if they try to implement and enforce a condition after the starting gun, they might find that that was very difficult to do in terms of ultimately getting the court to agree. There are lawyers here who would probably better interpret that than me, but that may be why this has arisen.

Under the Infrastructure Act 2015, if a condition is not discharged by a certain time, it will be discharged in a deemed fashion, so the issue of having to discharge them is not necessarily requiring further legislation—we have just had some legislation on that. The other question is that, if a condition is not really serving a useful planning purpose, welcome other aspects of the Bill would say that it should not actually be possible to impose it in any case.

I am just a little concerned that requiring every good developer and every good planning authority to go through a written sign-off procedure for the sake of the minority, perhaps, of planning authorities and developers who may be pursuing less good practice is kind of asking everyone to take on an extra burden for the benefit of some bad eggs. Maybe there is another way of dealing with the problem of poor practice than requiring everyone else to have to go through the process of signing off conditions and, ultimately, the risk of applications being refused as the only way of resolving the dispute.

[Chris Philp]

Q The draft legislation provides that the Secretary of State by regulations can prohibit the use of certain planning conditions entirely, should the Secretary of State see fit. First, do you think that is a reasonable provision? Secondly, assuming you do—or if you do—are there any particular kinds of planning condition that you, if you were advising the Secretary of State, would advise him or her to prohibit?

Tim Smith: We have some visibility about how this might play out, because the consultation has been issued for views on what sort of conditions might be prevented. What we have in those proposals are things that, as a matter of policy, ought not to be applied anyway. I recognise that putting them on a statutory footing places a different emphasis on them. It is not just a question of whether policy should be interpreted so as to prevent them. The starting point will be that they should not be applied.

Having seen the list of conditions that are proposed, I would have a concern that some of them are not capable of being drafted in a sufficiently precise way. One proposal, for example, is that conditions should not be imposed that place a disproportionate financial burden on developers. That is easy to state and easy to understand as a concept—

[Chris Philp]

Q So you think that is inappropriately broad.

Tim Smith: I think that, as the proposal stands, that would present difficulties both for developers and local authorities in deciding whether or not it were a permissible condition, and it is not the kind of thing that I can see is easily capable of being further defined so as to provide that certainty.

There are other things that I think are appropriate. One of the examples is—

[The Chair]

Order. Sorry to interrupt. The hon. Member is taking a sip from that cup. It looks remarkably like tea. I am sure that it has cooled down to a temperature that is no longer regarded as hot. In other words, we cannot have hot drinks in here, bizarrely. I am afraid that is one of the rules. I am sorry—do continue.

Tim Smith: I think that the proposals we have before us in the consultation are on the species of condition that it would be apt to prevent. I do not know whether this is an appropriate answer to this question, but I should perhaps flag that there is one type of condition that should be expressly permitted that currently is not. It would be a missed opportunity if the Bill did not allow for it. It is something that the Law Society has expressed a view on before. I am happy to elaborate on that now or, if you would prefer, I can come back to it.

[Chris Philp]

Q No, elaborate now, please.

Tim Smith: At the moment, one cannot use a condition for the payment of a financial contribution. In some cases of minor development, the planning obligations sought from a developer upon the granting of planning permission are those that would be minor financial contributions. As things stand, the developer and the local planning authority are forced to use the vehicle of a planning obligation under section 106, which is the negotiation of an agreement, and that takes time and incurs additional cost for both sides. The cost, however, will be borne by the developer in defraying the cost to the local authority in putting that agreement in place.

One of the things that the Law Society has recommended in response to previous consultations is that, so long as it be agreed between local authority and applicant—a proposal that forms part of the Bill, albeit for different reasons—it would speed up the system to prevent the developer from having to enter into a section 106 agreement because they will have consented to a condition requiring the payment of a financial contribution. That is the very reverse of what is being proposed at the moment. These are conditions that must not be opposed. We are saying, and we have recommended this previously in consultations, that it would add utility to the system to allow conditions that are expressly approved by the developer to require the payment of financial contributions.

[Chris Philp]

Q So are you in effect suggesting that what we currently refer to as a section 106 agreement should be integrated into the main planning consent to avoid having to then have a lengthy and uncertain subsequent negotiation?

Tim Smith: It will not be appropriate for all cases. This relates to a safeguard that would apply for the benefit of the developer. The concern had always been that, if you allowed conditions to be imposed about the payment of financial contributions, it could be done unilaterally by the planning authority, leaving the developer having either to appeal the permission or to submit another application to get rid of that condition.

A sufficient safeguard would be if the developer said, “I’m fine with the process here. I’m fine with the principle of paying this contribution, so let’s put it into a condition so that I do not then have to negotiate the planning obligation.” In a sense, you might be surprised that I am sitting here as a lawyer saying that there are some things that lawyers get involved in that are perhaps not necessary, but the view expressed fairly broadly in the committee is that it would be sensible to include the idea in a piece of legislation.

[Chris Philp]

Could I invite other witnesses to comment on that?

Richard Blyth: On the issue of whether it is necessary, the proposals to elevate a list of satisfactory kinds of conditions into law from policy have been around under successive Governments for a very long time, and the principle is well understood. It seems sensible to elevate that list into the status of law. I am not clear, however, on why the Government need to go further and empower the Secretary of State to add a whole series of secondary legislation to the list of what constitutes a reasonable condition. I do not see why that is necessary; we have not had that before. I would have thought that policy and guidance would be quite able to elaborate, if the Bill becomes law, on a satisfactory basis in principle for defining a reasonable condition.

[Chris Philp]

Are there any additional comments? Thank you.

[Dr Blackman-Woods]

Q Can I move on to look at some of the compulsory purchase order provisions in the Bill? To what extent do you think the proposals in the Bill will free up more land for development and lead to the delivery of more homes in a speedier and more streamlined way?

Richard Asher: I think that any improvements to the compulsory purchase process are to be welcomed. The provisions in the Bill for resolving the long-standing issues about temporary possession are very important. It has long been an area of great difficulty for practitioners to try to interpret how temporary possession should be dealt with. That is a key advantage of the Bill. Some of the detail needs further work, as the wording could lead to further legal disputes or litigation. However, the principle of providing for temporary possession on broadly the same terms as permanent acquisition is very important.

There is one area of difficulty: the danger that authorities may use powers to acquire land compulsorily when it is only required on a temporary basis. That interferes with long-term prospects for development by landowners, whose development plans are quite often disrupted by compulsory purchase on a temporary basis. That needs to be considered to ensure that authorities only acquire land on a temporary basis when it is required temporarily.

Colin Cottage: I agree with that, and the Compulsory Purchase Association welcomes a more codified approach to temporary acquisition. At the moment, the large number of compulsory purchase orders do not allow for temporary possession at all. Where there is potential to introduce it through development consent orders, Transport and Works Act orders and so on, each of those particular instruments is drawn separately, so a codified approach is to be welcomed.

As Richard said, there are practical issues with temporary possession that need to be dealt with, including the interrelationships between different tenures in land, how to deal with an occupier of land when that land is taken temporarily, and what to do if buildings have to be demolished and so on. Those issues can be overcome, but they need to be looked at carefully if the Bill is to come into law and to not cause, rather than solve, problems.

Another issue that we are quite conscious of is the ability to take both temporary and permanent possession. We are of the view that a decision should be taken at the outset as to whether possession will be temporary or permanent. When a business or individual homeowner is faced with compulsory acquisition, and possession is initially taken temporarily but may ultimately become permanent, huge amounts of uncertainty are created. The person or business does not know how long the land will be taken for, and whether it will be for a temporary period or whether it will be permanent, and that makes planning difficult.

When temporary possession is taken initially, compensation is paid on the temporary basis. At the moment, because the system is not codified, there is no strict ruling about when compensation is paid, so the introduction in the Bill of advanced payments should be encouraged. But, of course, even if compensation is paid, it is on a temporary basis. If permanent possession is then taken, it may cause a problem for relocation or for funding a business move.

Richard Blyth: The concern for us, as we set out in our briefing, is that we do not think it is reasonable for the owners of private land to benefit from public investment in infrastructure. I am not a lawyer so I cannot tell whether that is in the provisions of the Bill but, from a lay point of view, that is an important point.

I was in another building in the Palace of Westminster yesterday talking about the issue of land hoarding before the Select Committee on Communities and Local Government. The Royal Town Planning Institute is not really of the view that developers are necessarily guilty of as much land hoarding as is the case. There is a difficulty in situations where the most sustainable choice for the expansion of a town requires the conversion of greenfield land into housing land. That puts the owner of that land in an extremely powerful position. It would be regrettable in that situation if those owners were, as it were, to hold the city to ransom—to require very high prices for the sale of land for conversion to residential use—not only because of ideological concern but because finding money for schools, health centres, roads and other infrastructure is increasingly difficult.

What is vested in the increase in land value coming from the grant of planning permission is an extremely important possible source for trying to deal with the difficulties of the lack of infrastructure provision in relation to housing. It may assist with what Dr Blackman-Woods started with—the understandable resistance to large-scale housing development that communities feel when they find it means there is a longer queue for the doctor, it is harder to get a primary school place and there is more congestion on the roads and railways. In answer to that question, lower land prices would be useful. I would not advocate CPOs as a way of enforcing that, but they are a useful thing to have deep in the background.

--- Later in debate ---

[John Mann]

Yes.

Gavin Barwell: Okay; understood. A £22.5 million support programme is available and has so far made more than 1,500 payments. All groups can apply for a grant of up to £9,000, but, as I represent an urban constituency, I absolutely recognise that it is more difficult to do this kind of work in more deprived areas—sometimes in more transient parts of the country as well—so additional funding and technical support is available to people in such priority areas. There is a national network of 132 neighbourhood planning champions who provide advocacy and peer-to-peer support. We recently launched an advertising campaign to promote the take-up of neighbourhood planning. That targeted a number of urban areas. I know that both you and Helen Hayes have spoken about this before, and are keen to push it. I am keen to listen to you and to think about whatever else we can do to help. I do not want the policy just to work in rural parishes, although the contribution it makes in those areas is important. It should be something for the whole country.

Steve Evison: May I just add a further point? For instances where the individual local authority has not written its plan, the 2016 Act enabled us to invite a Mayor or the combined authority to write the plan in place of the individual local authority. At the moment, that power is not available to county councils. Through the change, we are ensuring that we have the same options in two-tier areas as we do in areas with Mayors and combined authorities.

[Chris Philp]

Q I am pleased by the comments you made earlier about the plans to consult on increasing planning fees to get resources into local authorities. Could you lay out, for the Committee’s benefit, the proposed timetable for replying to the consultation? How will you go about enacting that when you have considered the results?

Gavin Barwell: That is a fairly simple one. The consultation has happened and we are waiting to respond to it. The realistic likelihood is that the response will come in the White Paper.

[Chris Philp]

Q When is the White Paper due?

Gavin Barwell: Later this year, so you will not be waiting long for an answer.

[Chris Philp]

Q Is your decision implemented by regulations, by a circular or by primary legislation?

Gavin Barwell: By regulations, I am told. That is something that we should be able to make progress on quickly, should we decide to.

[Chris Philp]

Q Okay. In the first session, we talked about giving planning authorities the ability to charge extra fees, which would be refundable if they failed to meet a certain level of service, such as the delivery of a decision by a certain time. Would that mitigate, in part at least, the concern you raised in your answer to Mr McMahon about money not seeping out through the back door?

Gavin Barwell: Clearly, that provides some protection for applicants. If they are paying more money and do not get a better service, they get a refund, but we are thinking about a wider issue, which is how to come up with a mechanism to ensure that all the money goes through to extra spending in planning departments.

For example, there might be a council department where 60% of the budget is funded through fees, and 40% comes through council tax. The council could take the extra fee income and just remove the money that was funded through council tax. Not a penny more would be spent on planning, but they would have released some money somewhere else for the local authority. Now, I can well understand their desire to do that but, in my job, I want to ensure that if more money comes in, it leads to more money being spent in total.

[Chris Philp]

Q The Minister is quite right to say that any extra money raised by way of fees should fund incremental extra levels of resourcing, and not simply replace money from general subsidy. To that point, do you agree that we might learn some lessons from the way in which business improvement district funding works? Extra money comes in by way of the business rate supplement but the local authority has to agree the existing level of service provision in writing in advance, and it cannot reduce that. The extra bid funding provides for incremental service levels. Could a similar approach be adopted in this situation? You would agree with the council, before they levied extra fees, that there are 30 people working in the council’s planning department and that the extra fees must lead to incremental hires on a cost basis. Would that be a way of avoiding the problem?

Gavin Barwell: There are a number of mechanisms. I do not want to get into too much detail speculating about them now, but that would certainly be a possibility. A very good point was made in previous evidence sessions that we are partly interested in the speed with which decisions are made on applications, but that is by no means the sole arbiter of how effectively a planning department is doing its job. We also want section 106 agreements to be reached speedily, planning conditions to be discharged speedily and local plans in place. There are a number of strands of work.

[Chris Philp]

Q I am glad that the Minister mentioned section 106 agreements. As far as I can tell from the Bill, the pre-commencement conditions get folded into the planning application. If I have read correctly, section 106 agreements will still come after planning permission. Am I right about that?

Tony Thompson: They are normally negotiated as part of the process. The expectation is that they would be agreed before the final decision notice is issued.

[Chris Philp]

Q But sometimes you get section 106 agreements that are not agreed or signed until after planning is granted. Sometimes it can be sequential. It is better that it is simultaneous, as you described, but sometimes, currently, it does happen sequentially.

Tony Thompson: Sometimes we encourage completion of the section 106 before the final decision is issued.

[Chris Philp]

Q So in that case, might you go further than simply encouraging it, as you do now, and introduce a provision in this Bill to make it a requirement? Rather than simply encouraging, why not compel, if you think it is best practice?

Tony Thompson: The expectation is that you should complete them, but there are sometimes very exceptional circumstances—perhaps a very significant development—where it is exceptionally agreed that the section 106 can be done afterwards. But in those circumstances, the expectation is that when the committee takes the decision to approve and issues that decision, there is a clear understanding of precisely what the section 106 should comprise, even though it has not actually completed the process. As I said, those are the exceptions rather than the rule. We wanted that element of flexibility, rather than a clear point that could not be exceeded.

[The Chair]

Q Order. I am sorry to interrupt. Would it be possible for you to write to the Committee giving us the numbers of how many are exceptional and how many are not? That would be helpful to the Committee.

Gavin Barwell: I am sure we could do that, Mr Bone.

[Chris Philp]

Q The Bill provides for the Secretary of State or one of his or her Ministers to proscribe certain kinds of planning conditions—to ban them from being imposed. Can you explain for the Committee’s benefit, Mr Barwell, what kinds of planning condition used currently you have it in mind to proscribe or ban using the new powers?

Gavin Barwell: My hon. Friend is quite right. Clause 7 tries to deal with two different issues. One is what we see as overuse of pre-commencement conditions; the second is taking a fairly wide-ranging power to proscribe certain types of planning conditions. I will give a brief answer and refer him somewhere where there is a lot more detail. Essentially, one thing that we want to stop is the use of conditions that essentially just replicate things that are either in the building regulations or other statements that legally oblige developers already. There are things that do not need to be restated as planning conditions because there is already a legal obligation on the developer, for example, to do them.

We published a consultation paper when we introduced the Bill that sets out in more detail how we would choose to use the regulations. The main point of reassurance that I would give the Committee is that it is clear on the face of the Bill that the power cannot be used in any way contrary to the NPPF. It cannot be used to water down protections clearly set out in the NPPF.

[Chris Philp]

Q But are there any specific planning conditions currently used that you have it in mind to outlaw, for illustrative purposes?

Tony Thompson: The consultation paper talks, for example, about something that requires the completion of the development. That is an issue about the certainty that could be achieved with that condition. In that particular instance, the expectation is that such a condition should not be imposed.

[Chris Philp]

Q Thank you. Can Mr Barwell comment on neighbourhood plans versus local plans? Are there any areas where you think it may be possible to give slightly higher weighting to neighbourhood plans than to local plans, provided that the neighbourhood plan is consistent with the overall level of housing supply predicted or required by the local plan, given that they are more local and have a bigger democratic mandate?

Gavin Barwell: It is really important that we do not see it as local plans versus neighbourhood plans. Neighbourhood plans should be consistent with the overall planning policy framework set out in the local plan. I think the issue we have at the moment—as some of our witnesses say, the Bill goes some way toward addressing it, but we also need to consider policy changes that could help—is that you either do not have a local plan, or you have one that does not have a five-year land supply. At that point, the presumption in favour of development in the NPPF applies, and that can sometimes, although not always, lead to neighbourhood plans being overridden.

That is where the issue is. I do not think it is so much about the conflict between the local plan and the neighbourhood plan; it is about when you either do not have a local plan, or you have one that has not met the five-year land supply test. There are some things in the Bill that will help a bit with this, but I think the main thing we need to look at is how that five-year land supply test is working and whether we can provide some protection to local councils where perhaps there is suddenly a problem with one site and that therefore drops off. Overnight you thought you had a five-year land supply plan but you do not. Can we provide some protection where councils think about other options available to get things back up to the required level? Can we also ensure that, at least for a period of time after neighbourhood plans are approved, they afford stronger protection so that where a parish or a community in an urban area has worked really hard to produce its neighbourhood plan and, through no fault of its own, its local council does not have a five-year land supply, it does not find that its neighbourhood plan is immediately undermined by speculative development?

[Chris Philp]

Q Where there is a large local authority—we were just talking about having a local plan that covers the whole of Manchester, which is a gigantic conurbation—or indeed a large London borough like our own, Croydon, a local community might have a different view on where housing can be built in their neighbourhood from that of the local authority or, in the case of Manchester, the entire metropolis. There might be a conflict between where the local plan thinks housing should be built and the local neighbourhood—the parish or whatever it might be. Provided that the neighbourhood plan has enough houses in total, would you not want to give priority to the views of the local community, particularly given that that is backed by a referendum?

Gavin Barwell: Yes. As long as the neighbourhood plan is consistent with the overall strategic planning for the area in the local plan, the neighbourhood plan can absolutely fill in that level of detail. If a local plan says a particular town within the district will take a certain level of housing growth, the neighbourhood plan can fill in what the community feels are the right sites and the required mix of housing.

[Chris Philp]

Q I have a final question. One of the bugbears that people developing housing will have told you about are these wretched great crested newts, which apparently are endangered in Europe. The reason they are protected in the UK is due to European regulations, which of course will cease to apply relatively shortly. When the European regulations cease to apply to the United Kingdom, will you be minded as the UK or England and Wales planning Minister to remove or loosen the restrictions that the European Union has hitherto imposed on us?

Gavin Barwell: The first thing to say is that that moment is not yet upon us. We are still within the EU and at the moment all those European laws apply. Clearly, as the Prime Minister has set out, the decision we took as a country on 23 June will lead to some short-term challenges—it will change our role in the world and we are going to build a new future for the country around that—but it also offers some opportunities to look at the laws that we have and ask, “Are these the right laws for the UK?” I am sure that all Members of the House will want to ensure that we have proper environmental protections and proper protections for endangered species, but if we look at a law and say, “Actually the way that law is working in this country is disproportionate or leading to some perverse outcomes,” there will be an opportunity to review it.

[The Chair]

Order. I am sorry to interrupt you, Minister. I hate to say this, but we are talking a little bit too much about the European Union, which is slightly outside the scope of the Bill. We should not really be banging on about Europe.

Gavin Barwell: Having served as your Whip for nearly two years, Mr Bone, I know you have been waiting for the chance to say that to me.

[Chris Philp]

Those are words I never thought I would hear.

[Kit Malthouse]

Q Minister, you will have gathered from my line of questioning that I am concerned about protection for neighbourhood plans. I am pleased to see what is in the Bill, but part of the genesis of the Bill with the previous Minister was, I think, a case in Oakley in my constituency where an appeal was allowed five or six days before the referendum on the neighbourhood plan, notwithstanding that even at that late stage, under existing planning regulations, the plan was meant to have been taken into account. Why will this be any better?

Gavin Barwell: The honest answer is that this will not solve the problem in that very specific case, because as I understand it that appeal was determined days before the examination—

Neighbourhood Planning Bill (Third sitting)

Chris Philp Excerpts

Committee Debate: 3rd sitting: House of Commons
Thursday 20th October 2016 Public Bill Committees

[John Mann]

It is always a pleasure—actually it is the first time, but it always will be a pleasure—to be given the opportunity by the Whips to serve under your chairing, Mr McCabe. I thank the Whips, although I am not sure that those on the Labour Front Bench will necessarily thank them, for putting me on this Bill Committee.

I will first deal with the question of thresholds. It is a good idea but I would suggest that the wrong threshold has been suggested, so I am glad that the new clause is a probing one. When I was first elected as a councillor, I got 86% of the vote on a 40% turnout. That means that I got a higher share of the electorate than the majority of MPs elected in the last general election. Given that, who would be the more statistically valid representative?

The interesting question is whether a threshold should be based on the vote. Should someone on a low turnout get through on 50% to 49%? That would suggest that there is quite a split in the community. There would be a coherent case for suggesting that the neighbourhood development plan needs to have a threshold of a majority for it to be seen to be coherent across a community. I am not aware of anywhere, certainly not in my area, where there is that sort of division, but such situations could exist.

The Secretary of State said that too many people

“object to houses being built next to us”

and that we are going to have to change that attitude. He was, rightly, very outspoken in Bentley in Redditch in 2015 against the proposals for 2,800 houses there, as he was in Hagley in 2012. He, like me, has supported the local people against the planning system and the way it works, but that does not coincide with his commentary at his party’s conference.

In Croydon, one local Member of Parliament talked of the overwhelming opposition to housing in Shirley, with the Save Shirley campaign. He said that the proposals to build there were “a pile of nonsense.” Clearly, there were divisions in Croydon between people who wanted to build in one place and those who wanted to build in another. Some people did not want the development in one place; others did not want it in another.

The Opposition have proposed a threshold but, in the Croydon example, a threshold of how many people vote for a neighbourhood development plan or, indeed, for a local plan would be a good idea. Otherwise, those supporting the residents of Shirley might lose out. They might be very angry at losing out and vent their anger against their local MP.

[Chris Philp (Croydon South) (Con)]

If the hon. Gentleman is casting aspersions on my constituency neighbour for his Save Shirley campaign, may I point out his outstanding record of supporting building in the town centre?

What the hon. Member for Bassetlaw proposes by way of a threshold effectively gives weight to the opinions of people who do not bother to vote. Does he not agree that giving weight to the opinions of those who cannot even be bothered to vote in any election, including the one we are discussing, would not be appropriate?

[John Mann]

I am merely throwing into the mix for consideration the suggestion that the Government may wish to come back with an amendment, in the spirit proposed by Her Majesty’s Opposition, involving a threshold determined not by the percentage of the electorate, but by a percentage threshold of the majority in the vote. That would help to avoid a conflict situation and lead to more local negotiation in places such as Shirley.

There are lots of places like Shirley. Ministers do intervene. They are intervening in Bradford, for example. The hon. Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) was delighted, when the Minister was intervening there, to object to house building. There will always be people who object to house building next to them, and there is nothing wrong with that. If there is a bad planning application, I can fill a public hall at any time. I get hundreds and hundreds of people there very regularly. Indeed, I have a meeting tomorrow.

--- Later in debate ---

[Gavin Barwell]

The hon. Gentleman makes a perfectly legitimate point. In relation to the first three amendments, I hope I have given clear reassurances that the necessary protection is there. In relation to new clause 1, the arguments about thresholds for elections will go on for all kinds of different elections. On balance, I do not see any reason to apply a test that is different from elsewhere in relation to the particular referendums we are discussing. In practice, thus far, the issue has not arisen, but we can certainly keep matters under review.

[Chris Philp]

Given what the Minister just said about referendums for local plans, will he consider amending the Bill to make provision for such referendums? That would certainly have my support.

[Gavin Barwell]

Given my personal circumstances, I wonder whether I have too much of a personal interest in such matters. There is an issue, in that we would probably argue that in relation to most local council policies, councils have a democratic mandate from their elections. The same could be argued of parish councils with regard to neighbourhood plans, but neighbourhood plans can also be proposed by neighbourhood forums, which do not have that democratic mandate. That is probably why referendums are needed. I was trying to tease out the shadow Minister on why the Opposition were making such a suggestion here but not for local plans.

I hope I have provided reassurance on the first three amendments. On new clause 1, I do not see the need to treat the referendums we are discussing differently from others. With that, I hope that the hon. Lady will withdraw the amendment.

Neighbourhood Planning Bill (Fifth sitting)

Chris Philp Excerpts

Committee Debate: 5th sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 25th October 2016 Public Bill Committees

[Dr Blackman-Woods]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point that is pertinent to our discussion.

[Chris Philp (Croydon South) (Con)]

The hon. Lady is very kind to give way, and it is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Bone. In response to the suggestion made by the hon. Member for Oldham West and Royton, if one requires developers to do all the surveys before the application, and the application is then declined by the local authority, the developer will incur significant costs to no purpose. That may prove prohibitive, particularly for smaller developers. What is her view on that?

[Dr Blackman-Woods]

I am sure the hon. Gentleman knows that local authorities approve nine out of 10 planning applications. It would be a rare event for such a detailed plan to come forward to a local authority without the developer knowing that it was breaching local planning policy. That is what must be happening if the application is rejected. That is not a very usual occurrence these days.

If the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton and the Minister are serious about speeding up development, they might want to look at the outcome of the FMB’s house builders survey 2016. One would assume, from reading the Bill, that the major problem in bringing forward development was pre-commencement planning conditions. However, when the small house builders were asked what was the biggest problem, they said it was the lack of available and viable land. That was the most commonly cited barrier to increasing output. We have to look right at the back of the survey, to a few specific questions on planning, to find any mention of planning conditions, and even then they were not the biggest problem; the biggest problem was the inadequate resourcing of planning departments. I hate to say that again and reinforce the message, but we are not the ones saying it; it is the small house builders.

Land is the biggest problem by far, and pre-commencement conditions do not come anywhere near that. Within planning itself, the biggest problem is the resourcing of planning departments—and that comment came only after prompting. They do not mention the setting of planning conditions at all; what they mention is sign-off of planning conditions. That seems to be a very different issue that they are raising. They are not raising an issue about the nature of pre-commencement planning conditions, or whether those conditions are appropriate. What they say in the text is that they could be signed off more quickly and that might help. Why are they not signed off more quickly? It is because of a lack of resourcing for local authority planning departments.

That was the only survey brought to our attention. I searched and found no other evidence, apart from the opinions of some of the larger volume builders. Giving such additional powers to the Secretary of State with no solid evidence base does not seem a very sensible way forward.

Some clauses in the Bill do not have the worrying aspects attached to them that this one does. If the effect of clause 7 is to restrict conditions that are set on developers, that could have a real impact on the community—not only on those who will ultimately occupy that development but on the neighbourhood. That is why we are so concerned about clause 7. We do not think it is necessary; we have not seen the evidence base. If the Bill is to contain such drastic measures, which could have real impacts on the areas that we all serve and represent, we need to hear something from the Minister.

Amendment 18 seeks to amend clause 7 so that if a condition cannot be enforced by the Secretary of State to make the development acceptable in planning terms, it makes the development unacceptable in other ways. Proposed section 100ZA(2) states:

“Regulations under subsection (1) may make provision only if (and in so far as) the Secretary of State is satisfied that the provision is appropriate for the purposes of ensuring that any condition imposed on a grant of planning permission for the development of land in England is...necessary to make the development acceptable in planning terms”.

--- Later in debate ---

[Helen Hayes]

I am arguing, first, that the scale of the problem is not nearly as great as the Government say, and secondly, that where there is a problem it is a symptom of the lack of resourcing in planning departments—the primary cause of that problem—not a problem in its own right. Therefore, the Government should be directing their energy towards the resourcing of local planning departments. I have argued many times that local authorities should be able to recover the full cost of resourcing and development management services through the fees they charge for those services. That proposal has broad support from the development industry, local planning departments and the organisations that represent local government in London and across the country. It would be a far better place to start the debate than clause 7.

As we have heard from many witnesses, there are circumstances where pre-commencement conditions are welcomed by developers, and where there is flexibility to agree some details when finance has been secured on the basis of a planning application, or when more is known about the site due to site investigations that take place in the earlier stages of a scheme. Last week, I sat down with several representatives of the local community and a developer who is bringing forward a very sensitive scheme in my constituency. The planning permission for the site in question was a detailed consent secured by a previous landowner who used that consent to sell the site on; that was a controversial issue in its own right.

Last week we met the developer, which did not take part in the planning application process for the site that it has now inherited. In that case, there are pre-commencement conditions on materials and archaeology. It is entirely right and proper that the developer has the opportunity to consider those conditions and make proposals to the local authority for those conditions to be discharged before development commences.

[Chris Philp]

In the hon. Lady’s example, did not the new owner have ample opportunity to consider those pre-commencement conditions before the purchase of the site? If they did not like the conditions, they could simply have not purchased the site.

[Helen Hayes]

That is a rather blunt and not nuanced enough understanding of how such things work in practice. Last week, the developer met with the community —a vociferous community who feel very strongly about the site. That conversation will enable the developer to inform the discussions and plans for some important detailed aspects of the scheme. That is entirely the right order of things. It would not have been appropriate for the developer to speak to the community ahead of securing the purchase of the site; the developer would not have had a relationship with the community that allowed such a conversation. The way that things are progressing is entirely right and timely; it is not leading to any delay in bringing forward the site in question.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Philp]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Gavin Barwell]

I will give way once more; then I want to look at the specific example of flooding, talk about the consultation document and discuss the amendments.

[Chris Philp]

I have a genuine question on which I should be grateful for the Minister’s thoughts. If we proceed as per the clause as drafted, and the applicant has to agree in writing to the pre-commencement conditions, what if the applicant—the developer—unreasonably refuses to agree to any of the pre-commencement conditions, in order to frustrate them? What would happen in that circumstance?

[Gavin Barwell]

I am sure that my hon. Friend never asks anything but genuine questions. The answer is very clear. In those circumstances, the local authority would be able to refuse permission for the development. If the pre-commencement condition that the applicant sought to resist was an entirely legitimate one of the kind we have already discussed, and if the applicant appealed, the Planning Inspectorate would turn down their appeal.

[Chris Philp]

Just to be clear, any condition that a local authority feels strongly about has to be imposed as part of the main planning condition. It has to accept that anything that it does not put into the main planning condition, it cannot subsequently impose.

[Gavin Barwell]

Pre-commencement conditions must be agreed with the applicant. If the applicant is not willing to agree to a legitimate condition, without which the authority does not feel the application would be acceptable, the application should be refused. The authority absolutely has the right to refuse such an application. I put it on record that I expect the Planning Inspectorate to back up the decisions of local councils when it judges that such a condition is perfectly reasonable to make a development acceptable. I hope that any developer silly enough to play those games will quickly learn that lesson through the appeals process.

What we want is good practice; my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton made that point powerfully. We want applicants and councils to sit down together and work out what legitimate pre-commencement issues are. We have no problem at all with such issues being used for pre-commencement conditions, but we want to stop them being abused.

The hon. Member for City of Durham used the instructive example of flooding. The test seems to me to be one of reasonableness. She used the phrase “There may not be evidence”. Local authorities are in difficult circumstances if there is no evidence to back up what they seek to do. However, if there is evidence of genuine concerns, that is clearly a legitimate and material planning consideration.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Blackman-Woods]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point about the various surveys that the Minister mentioned, which I was about to come to.

[Chris Philp]

I was about to draw the hon. Lady’s attention to the extensive list of submissions that the Minister read out in his speech a few minutes ago. Perhaps I might add my own experience. As I mentioned in my declaration of interests, prior to being elected I ran a business that provided finance for construction projects. The whole array of pre-commencement conditions are often very detailed. For example, they frequently stipulate precisely what kind of brick must be used and it often takes a very long time to get discharged. The pre-commencement conditions are often more detailed than one would reasonably expect.

With respect to the shadow Minister, I do think there is an issue here and that the Minister is trying to address it in a balanced and reasonable way.

[Dr Blackman-Woods]

In which case, what I would say is that we need the evidence in front of us. What examples are there? In how many sets of circumstances? How and why are the conditions inappropriate? In a conservation area, for example, the type of brick would be an important pre-commencement condition.

The evidence from Knight Frank was an assertion that there was a problem because we had no details and no number of applications—nothing. The Crest Nicholson example was a problem with signing off pre-commencement conditions and we on the Labour Benches have already said we recognise that is a problem. The signing off of pre-commencement conditions is a very different issue from the setting of conditions, and the clause is about the setting of planning conditions.

In the NHBC survey, the primary problem identified was again the time taken to discharge the conditions, not the conditions themselves. That was also the primary concern in the District Councils Network survey. We are not saying there is no evidence out there of problems signing off pre-commencement conditions—

Neighbourhood Planning Bill (Sixth sitting)

Chris Philp Excerpts

Committee Debate: 6th sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 25th October 2016 Public Bill Committees

[Jim McMahon]

I have been brought off the subs bench to do this. I am quite excited about the debate we have had and the evidence we have heard, because I am a localist; I believe that communities should have a say and be able to direct their futures in the most appropriate way. Neighbourhood planning gives them the ability to do that, framed in the context of a national plan and the land supply. That means national Government can achieve what they want to achieve, local authorities can take a view of the wider area and, integral to that, the community has a strong voice. That is why I am slightly at odds with permitted development.

A number of representations have been made over the years that are at odds with the “community first” approach that we have been talking about. The Local Government Association’s evidence frames that quite well. In the survey it carried out of its members, to which 93 local authorities responded, 82% were making a loss on maintaining that process. It is important we get some comfort from the Minister today and accept that local authorities are taking on an additional burden that they should be compensated for.

Moreover, that flies in the face of what we might assume would happen. Let us take light industrial and office accommodation as an example. The view surely is, “Well, there’s all this accommodation that isn’t being taken because the market demand for it isn’t there, so it’s far better to put that to good use as residential accommodation.” However, that is not what we have seen. Areas often have low office demand and low residential demand going hand in hand. I could take Members to Oldham town centre and show them empty office blocks, and alongside those is an empty potential residential conversion that, because demand has not taken hold, is commercially unviable.

We have seen a displacement in areas where there is significant high demand. In some London boroughs, for example, we have not seen empty office blocks being converted into solely residential accommodation; we have seen profitable businesses and charities that are there for the community benefit and value being displaced by landlords, who recognise that it is more financially beneficial to get rid of a tenant who is not paying anywhere near enough. They convert the building for residential use and displace the local business or charity in favour of greater profits.

Don’t take my word for it. We have examples in Barnet, where 100 small businesses and charities were displaced with just four to six weeks’ notice. We have a situation in Islington where 71 office buildings have been converted to residential accommodation. More than 40,000 square feet of office accommodation has been taken in that one borough, where there is demand for that facility.

[Chris Philp]

Is not Islington, along with many other London boroughs, now subject to an article 4 direction, which will prevent the conversions that the hon. Gentleman describes from taking place in future?

[Jim McMahon]

That is a fair point about where things are today, but the damage has been done and we cannot change things back to what they were. The phrase “a sledgehammer to crack a nut” has been used probably once too often today, but article 4 is a good example of a very big sledgehammer being used to crack a very particular nut. Article 4 affects everybody in the vicinity or within the boundary and obliges them to comply with the directive. I am talking about a particular problem that has been brought about by the extension of permitted development.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jim McMahon]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. A lot of people are of the view that permitted developments of this type mean that an empty office is simply converted—from the outside there is very little difference, but it is what happens inside that changes, and that is surely up to the person who owns the building—but the rules actually allow for a building to be completely demolished and then rebuilt to a similar scale. That can change the street scene significantly, so it does go further.

Let us also consider the location of some of the buildings. Take an everyday town centre. It is easy to imagine two restaurants or bars operating with an office block in between. If the office block is converted under permitted development, the tenants who move in are forced to live with the noise nuisance of a pre-existing use in an acceptable location. What is not taken into consideration is how to create a vibrant community that has the requisite facilities, amenities and, importantly, quality of life. For a lot of people, permitted development as it stands does not have that balance in place.

The LGA, which is the voice of local government, has said that. It consults its members, who have been clear in numbers that the problems with permitted development should be looked at. It is odd that a Government who say that they are all about community voice and control—about people being empowered, for once, to have some control over what their communities look and feel like—are not tackling permitted development in the right way.

If we take ourselves out of the town centre, we could go to an industrial estate where small industrial units can be converted for residential use. It is perhaps okay if a unit is converted, but what about the existing users who suddenly have a barrage of complaints from the local authority about the noise nuisance from their pre-existing use, which might have been going on for decades? There might be early-morning or late-night deliveries at what is a predominantly industrial location that has suddenly changed into a residential neighbourhood, without the required facilities or amenities. It is a really big issue.

We have talked a lot about bricks and how important their colour and texture are. We have discussed whether they are important in pre-commencement or could be dealt with later. At least we are talking about them. If someone goes for a change of use under permitted development, very little attention is given to the quality of finish, design and detail. An entire shopfront has been removed in my town. Imagine how a shopfront block looks: there is a hole on the ground floor where a full shopfront used to be, with a sign on top. I know of several examples where the shopfront has been taken away, leaving an exposed girder where the sign used to be, and a completely inappropriate insert has been added that has no relationship to the wider street scene. In a normal planning application, such issues would be negotiated with a developer to ensure that they were dealt with appropriately.

We must recognise that permitted development flies in the face of the community voice and empowerment that we have been talking about.

[Chris Philp]

On the question of shopfronts, class A1 retail use, to which the hon. Gentleman is referring, is not subject to permitted development rights, which apply only to class B1 office use.

Neighbourhood Planning Bill (Eighth sitting)

Chris Philp Excerpts

Committee Debate: 8th sitting: House of Commons
Thursday 27th October 2016 Public Bill Committees

New clause 15 is not a probing amendment. We have heard the assurances on the White Paper and what we might be able to expect from that. The new clause is so important that we will want to press it to a vote. Hopefully a vote will not be needed; the measure makes sense to me. Local government is putting it on the table as an option. Perhaps we can agree, and the consensual spirit we have been working towards will not be spoiled by what is a very logical amendment.

[Chris Philp (Croydon South) (Con)]

It continues to be a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr McCabe. As I said in an evidence session, I completely accept the principle we just heard described: that planning departments are woefully under-resourced, which is a significant inhibitor to development and to planning consent being granted, and that the most appropriate way to remedy that under-resourcing is for applicants—the developers—to pay higher fees. I agree with the spirit of what has been said. This is a point I raised in the Housing and Planning Bill Committee in this very room a year ago and with both the current Housing and Planning Minister and his predecessor, my right hon. Friend the Member for Great Yarmouth (Brandon Lewis). I am completely on board with the principles being described. However, the two new clauses have some deficiencies.

New clause 10 simply says that where there is inadequate resource, a review must be conducted to set out the appropriate level of resource. Setting it out does not provide it. That is simply a statement that there is inadequate resource, so I do not think new clause 10 addresses the problem; it simply highlights the fact that the problem exists, which we all know already.

New clause 15 is very generally worded. It gives local authorities complete discretion to set their own fees. I have three concerns about it. First, there is no limit on how high the fees might go. I accept that the fees are currently too low, but as drafted the new clause would mean that some local authorities might set fees that are unreasonably high and in fact deter development. There is nothing in the new clause to address that concern. Secondly, there is nothing to ensure that the money raised by higher fees will be ring-fenced for the provision of additional planning services, nor, in a similar vein, to ensure that the existing level of service being provided by general taxation is maintained. There is nothing to ensure that the extra money raised leads to extra—that is to say, incremental—levels of resource in the planning department, which is what I want. Thirdly, the new clause does not place any performance obligations on the local authority planning department. It is essential that if a developer or applicant is paying higher fees, they receive improved performance in return—for example, a decision made within a certain period.

While I fully support the principles articulated by the hon. Member for Oldham West and Royton, I am afraid to say that the details do not quite pass muster. I could not support a new clause unless it had those three things: reasonable fee levels, ring-fenced money to ensure incremental service provision and a link to performance. I am deeply sorry that I will not be able to support the new clause, despite the fact that I support its spirit.

I listened carefully to the Minister’s evidence and what he said about the coming White Paper. I very much hope to receive satisfaction when that White Paper is published—I hope in the near future. Should these measures not find their way into the White Paper, I will be an energetic and active advocate of those principles in due course. I would be happy to discuss this further with the Minister.

[Gavin Barwell]

Let me start by reiterating what I said during previous Committee discussions and in the evidence that my neighbour and hon. Friend the Member for Croydon South just referred to. The Secretary of State and I have heard the concerns of developers, local authorities, professional bodies and hon. Members about stretched resources of planning departments and the calls for an increase in planning fees. We absolutely accept that there is an issue here and we are looking closely at it. I want to ensure that planning departments have the resources to provide the service that applicants and communities as a whole deserve. However, for many of the reasons that my hon. Friend eloquently set out, I do not believe that new clauses 10 and 15 are the answer.

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I do not want to break the consensus that this problem exists. I have been clear that I accept that it does, but we need to be clear that when we get evidence it tends to come either from local authorities themselves, expressing the genuine pressures they face, or—and mainly—from larger developers who have the means to pay much higher fees. Indeed, many of the large developers say to me, “We would be happy if local authority planning departments offered a standard service and a premium service. Our members would pay for the premium service to get faster approval.” We need to remember that the fees we set are paid by everybody, down to householders paying the application fee for an extension to their property. They may not quite share the enthusiasm that developers have for paying more to get a quicker service.

[Chris Philp]

Could we not have a graded scale of enhanced fees, reflecting the size of different applications?

[Gavin Barwell]

There is already a grading of the fees, but the general presumption is that fees increase by a similar percentage. We could consider increasing some fees and not others for larger schemes, with the caveat that although developers with large applications pay very significant fees, the majority of people who pay fees are individual constituents wanting to put an extension on a domestic property.

The hon. Member for Oldham West and Royton and I may have different views on the issue, but it is worth pointing out that we already have the powers to achieve what new clause 15 proposes. The Secretary of State can already provide in regulations for local planning authorities to set their own fees, at least up to the level of cost recovery. I would be surprised if the Opposition believed that fees should go beyond full cost recovery. Earlier this year, we consulted on several proposals for the resourcing of planning departments; we shall publish our response shortly, as part of the White Paper.

Before I resume my seat, I should like to add one other caveat, which does not detract from the central importance of getting the resourcing right. This is about not just money but ensuring that sufficient people enter the profession. In the last year, we have provided the RTPI with funding for a bursary scheme for students undertaking postgraduate planning studies. I very much agreed with the hon. Member for City of Durham when she spoke passionately about the important contribution that planners make with regard to new settlements. Raising the profile and status of the profession and ensuring that planners are seen as not obstructing or stopping development but ensuring that we get the quantity and high quality of development that we need is important in getting enough people coming into the industry.

Money is an issue—I hope I have provided sufficient reassurance that the Government are looking at that—but we must ensure that we have the human resources as well as the financial resources. I ask the hon. Gentleman to withdraw the new clause.