Neighbourhood Planning Bill

Duke of Somerset Excerpts

Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Thursday 2nd February 2017 Grand Committee

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

I am speaking on behalf of my noble friend Lady Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville, who is indisposed and has had to leave. I draw attention to my interests as set out in the register. I am another vice-president of the Local Government Association and a councillor in the Metropolitan Borough of Kirklees.

My noble friend wanted to say that, while some developers submit planning applications and build the homes for which they have been given permission, not all of them do so. It is not unusual for developers to gain permission but not to start work on site or, if they do, for the work to be at a low level and for the site then to be abandoned. This does not help the housing crisis that the country is currently undergoing. Local planning authorities and councillors believe that there are sufficient planning permissions to cover local housing needs, but they are thwarted when homes are not built in a timely fashion. There is currently little that they can do to encourage a developer to start and finish. The amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, would encourage tardier developers to take seriously the permissions they already hold and to build to meet the need. It is not intended to penalise the smaller developer who may be having problems financing his work but is aimed at those who have permissions for 50 homes or more, and who could make a real difference to the housing shortage by realising that these homes matter.

I turn now to Amendment 63. We have all seen sites around the country that have received full planning permission and where a digger has been on site and excavated a drainage ditch, then the driver has packed up and gone home. Often the digger is left on site. Perhaps metal barricades will be erected around the ditch, but nothing else happens. These sites can often be left for years before anything further is done. There is a notorious site in my area which was 40 years in development. As noble Lords can imagine, many things have changed in that time, such as the road network and all sorts of other things. It is a real issue that needs to be addressed. The country is suffering a housing crisis, and has been for many years. This will not improve unless we get developers moving to fulfil their obligations to build with the permissions they hold.

Encouragement does not appear to have worked in the past, so we must turn to sanctions. In my amendment I have not specified what “a reasonable time” for completion might be or what the financial penalties should be. I believe that these are best left to be determined by the size of the site and the number of homes not completed in an orderly fashion. The amendment appears to be all stick and no carrot, but I regret that the country has reached the stage where homes need to be built, and developers have to play their part in making that happen. I look forward to the Minister’s response.

[The Duke of Somerset]

My Lords, when I first saw the amendment tabled by my noble friend Lord Cameron, I was not sure that I would be able to support it. However, in his introduction to the amendment he certainly clarified some points, and I agreed with a lot of what he said. However, I see both good and bad points in this short amendment, and would like to offer two comments. First, I declare an interest as a landowner who has recently benefited from a housing development planning application.

On the one side, there are often planning circumstances in which a housebuilder will submit a new, revised planning application on a site where he already has planning permission. This could perhaps be to squeeze in more houses, to improve the layout or to take account of a potential Section 106 condition. The real aim, of course, is to increase profit on the scheme, which is often to the detriment of the vendor of the land.

The disadvantages of the amendment arise where it talks about the “area”. I am not sure whether there is a definition elsewhere of the word “area”, but I take it that it means the local authority area or the district council’s geographical area. Large national housebuilders may have various schemes on the go throughout an LPA, the aim of which is to provide more houses of the type that we really need, as we have already heard. The amendment could thwart these types of concurrent developments, to the detriment of aspiring occupiers. Therefore, I look forward to hearing the Minister’s reply.

[Lord Beecham]

My Lords, I apologise to the noble Lord for missing the first part of his speech moving the amendment. Like other noble Lords, I strongly sympathise with the objectives but I am not sure that the amendment as drawn is viable. The noble Duke, the Duke of Somerset, has identified one or two issues with it, notably what is meant by “area”. We are not necessarily talking about a small area or even a city. There are now unitary authorities—for example, Durham and Northumberland in my part of the world—that are geographically large counties. For them, 50 homes is neither here nor there.

The objective that the noble Lord seeks to pursue is absolutely the right one, but the noble Baroness’s amendment is a better way of dealing with matters. She is looking amazed. I am always happy to congratulate the Liberal Democrats on getting something right; it usually happens in leap years, but not always. I think she has identified a better way of approaching the matter than the noble Lord, but what is important is that the noble Lord has raised the issue, which is something that has been in people’s minds for a long time.

I hope that this is an opportunity for the Minister to indicate what, if anything, the Government are considering doing to deal with what is something of a scandal. We apparently have something like 500,000 or 600,000 permissions not acted upon, at a time of huge shortage. The Government want to increase housing numbers, and there must be ways in which developers can be persuaded to get on with it or lose their permission. That could take a variety of forms, and the noble Baroness’s suggestion may more workable than the noble Lord’s. However, the main thing is that the Government should accept there is a problem and agree to do something about it in one form or another, in a way that will help to incentivise the implementation of planning permission and effectively remove the risk of permission being outstanding for long periods with nothing happening on the ground where it is most needed. I am looking forward to a sympathetic reply from the Minister on the issue, without his necessarily committing to either of the two projects.