Planning for the Future

Felicity Buchan Excerpts

Tuesday 15th December 2020 Westminster Hall

[Felicity Buchan (Kensington) (Con)]

Thank you, Sir Charles. I congratulate the hon. Member for Richmond Park (Sarah Olney) on securing the debate. I think all Members present agree that we need more homes, and more affordable homes. Picking up the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington South (Andy Carter), however, we need the right types of homes in the right places.

I congratulate the Minister on building 250,000 homes, which is an excellent achievement, and I would like to contrast that with what is happening in my city, London, where we are failing to build enough homes. The Mayor of London was given just under £5 billion to build 116,000 new homes, but we have started only 52,000, which is disgraceful. My borough and many other London boroughs need more homes.

[Wera Hobhouse]

Is the problem about providing not affordable homes but social homes for rent? In Bath, the average house price is almost £500,000, and an affordable home would cost 20% less. It will never be affordable for anybody to rent, let alone to buy. What is actually “affordable” in her words?

[Felicity Buchan]

I agree with the hon. Lady that we need more socially rented homes. As my right hon. Friend the Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds) said, we need a wide range of tenures across the spectrum. In my local authority, we are building 600 new homes this year. Of that, half—300—will be socially rented.

Let me indulge myself for a moment and talk about my borough, because it is slightly unique. We are the densest residential borough in the entire country. We were fully built out by 1900, and we already have a high skyline. We have just approved a 29-storey tower. Others have been approved, such as Newcombe House, which has 18 storeys. We have a huge physical constraint on our ability to build more houses in our borough. Some 73% of my borough is a conservation area, which we are delighted about. In fact, we think more of it should be a conservation area, but it brings constraints.

I want to limit my remarks to the White Paper, as opposed to the algorithm, because I have talked about the algorithm in the main Chamber. By the way, under the algorithm the housing target in my borough goes up sevenfold, relative to the December 2019 London plan, which has not gone through yet. 

Let me focus on the White Paper. I think that local engagement in planning and local democracy are absolutely critical. I have spent one year in this place, and the more time I spend here, the more I believe in local democracy, since local authorities are closest to the people.

The current plan in the White Paper is that there will be local engagement in the plan for a growth zone, but it is up front, and once the plan is formulated there is no need for specific planning permission. I am very concerned about that. Although I have great residents associations and the Kensington Society, which work very hard and will submit input at that stage, the vast majority of people comment only when they know about a specific development on their doorstep. My constituents and residents will be up in arms if they find out that 18 months ago a plan was approved that they were not aware of and certainly did not give any feedback on, and now they simply have to suffer the consequences.

[Dr Mullan]

Particularly in transient populations, which we see a lot in London, people who move into an area long after the consultation took place will have no opportunity to comment even if they were inclined to.

[Felicity Buchan]

That is an exceptionally good point. The other point I want to make about local plans being decided up front, with no subsequent planning permission, is that they cover a period of three years, and we all know how volatile the housing market has been over the course of the past three years. What was planned a few years ago at one of the two brownfield sites in my constituency—the Earl’s Court exhibition site—is definitely not what is being considered today. It is very important that we do not have one plan that stays in place for three years.

The other point that I want to make is also about localism. We should not have a standard national plan that every local authority adopts. We need the ability to adapt each plan to the local authority. I will give hon. Members an example from my local authority. We have fought very hard on basements, and we now allow only one additional basement. On my street a few years ago, a house went down three additional basements underneath lower ground floor level. Goodness—the terrace could fall down, but never mind. It is very important that local authorities can tailor things to their individual communities. There are good things in the White Paper. The move to digital first must be recommended, as must the move to beauty in design—although one person’s beauty can be another person’s something else.

[Ms Nusrat Ghani in the Chair]

[Anthony Mangnall]

Nightmare.

[Felicity Buchan]

Yes.

I welcome those proposals, but can we review the White Paper? I have fed into the consultation, but we need much more focus on local decision making.