Neighbourhood Planning Bill

Fiona Bruce Excerpts

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

[Fiona Bruce (Congleton) (Con)]

I welcome this Bill. The importance it places on neighbourhood plans validates the extremely hard and challenging work that so many of my constituents in the village of Brereton and the town of Sandbach have undertaken, in some cases over years, to develop neighbourhood plans and have them adopted. I congratulate them. Other areas in my constituency are working on their neighbourhood plans, which are vital in a constituency with distinct and individual local communities, lying as it does in a relatively large unitary council, Cheshire East, which stretches from the fringe of Greater Manchester down towards Shropshire. If localism is to mean anything, it is important that the people who live in such towns and villages have a real say in the development of their communities.

Does this Bill go far enough? I want to challenge the Minister in one or two ways.

I am pleased to hear the Minister say that neighbourhood plans will be given “proper consideration” in the planning process, that “due weight” will be given to them and that they will have full effect. However, will he clarify precisely what that means where a large principal authority still has no local plan and no agreed housing supply numbers? My constituents who have gone to the trouble of preparing neighbourhood plans are asking whether, if there is no local plan and no agreed housing supply number, their plans should have the status and strength of a local plan when planning decisions are made. That is the critical question.

Without that reassurance, my constituents—particularly those in Sandbach, who are besieged by developers and who have gone far beyond making what I believe is a reasonable contribution to housing numbers in the Cheshire East area—are saying they are becoming “very disillusioned” with the neighbourhood planning process. They quote a recent planning decision in September with respect to an area of land in Sandbach. The inspector acknowledged that the Sandbach neighbourhood plan had been adopted, but said he would not examine the application in the light of that plan. Instead, he set it against the as-yet unadopted local plan with the housing supply number as yet not agreed, which relates to the whole Cheshire East area. According to my constituents, the inspector seems to be saying that the neighbourhood plan is “an irrelevance”. Will the Minister look again at strengthening the authority of neighbourhood plans where there is no completed local plan and no agreed five-year land supply, and declare that the neighbourhood plan has the weight of a local plan where there is no such plan in place?

My constituents have been encouraged by three recent appeal decisions to the Secretary of State in East Sussex, West Sussex and Bath. The Secretary of State cited local plans in the appeals and prevented developments, highlighting neighbourhood plans as a key factor in his decision. I thank the Minister for that and hope that it indicates a trend of thinking in this area.

I support the references that have been made to land banking, or, as I refer to it, permission banking. The former mayor of Sandbach, Mike Benson, wrote to me saying:

“During the Public Inquiries held in Sandbach…Cheshire East’s Head of Planning Strategy…gave evidence that in some parts of the Borough, planning permissions granted over the last 5 years”

had resulted in not one house being built in those locations. Nevertheless, appeals continue to be allowed across Cheshire East on the basis that Cheshire East Council does not have a five-year housing supply. He says:

“What would be fairer is a formula which regards the granting of permissions as the determining factor, not the number of houses actually being built.”

Will the Minister consider that as the Bill progresses? Will he also consider the fact that it is very important to ensure we balance the need for housing with the need for employment land? Businessmen in Congleton tell me that they need more employment land. We cannot afford to have our communities turned into vast commuter belts, because there are simply not the jobs for local people to work in.

I have two final points. First, it is quite clear that in some cases where developments are occurring, for example in Congleton where 4,000 houses are projected to be built in the draft local plan, we will need extra health facilities. However, Cheshire East Council officers have contacted Public Health England, which has been unable to identify any community infrastructure levy-compliant projects to which contributions could be sought for development. It is very important that the Minister liaises with his counterparts in the Department of Health to ensure that health provision projects that can be used for community infrastructure funding are in place.

If I may stretch your patience, Mr Deputy Speaker, I would like to add one further point, which relates to an issue I have been asked to raise by Cheshire East Council on the importance of guiding developments so that they avoid the most sensitive locations. I refer to a recent decision by the Court of Appeal that renders protective policies, such as green belt, green gap, wildlife conservation and Jodrell Bank safeguarding, which is critical in my constituency, as similar to “housing supply policies”. If a local authority cannot demonstrate a five-year supply of housing, such housing supply policies are deemed out of date, carrying much less weight.

I have an appeal going through now to the Secretary of State for a large development near Jodrell Bank. Jodrell Bank is concerned that having many more houses in the area will interfere with its instruments. It is a critical, individual, specific issue, and that area needs protection. It is important that that protection is not weakened if the council is unable to resist housing in unsuitable locations. Will the Minister clarify that the Bill will ensure that such sensitive designations will not be overridden and developers’ appeals will not be allowed? Will he confirm that that will be embodied as an amendment to the NPPF?

Neighbourhood Planning Bill

Fiona Bruce Excerpts

3rd reading: House of Commons & Legislative Grand Committee: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Tuesday 13th December 2016 Commons Chamber

[Graham Jones]

I presume the hon. Gentleman has done an impact survey and a geographical study of the number of alcoholics and whether they live near pubs and of the number of people who may be obese because they live near takeaways, but he did not offer that information, so I presume that he has no argument and is just trying to make an invalid point. [Interruption.] Caring about this issue is caring about the people who go into these bookmakers and get caught by these FOBTs, because there are clusters and these things are attractive. We also have to look at the impact on the viability of our high streets, on communities and on other retailers.

[Fiona Bruce (Congleton) (Con)]

Is it not also true that there is a traumatic impact on the children and families of those who spend money on these terminals? Should we not also be conscious of that?

--- Later in debate ---

The hon. Member for Hyndburn talked about the clustering of betting shops on the high street. The fact of the matter is that a person can only go into one shop at a time, and the fact that there are two, three, four or five shops on a high street does not make that person more or less of a problem gambler. Whether there is one shop or five makes absolutely no difference to problem gamblers, and it is absolute nonsense to suggest that it does.

[Fiona Bruce]

Is it not correct to say that betting shop managers have an obligation to stop a gambler if they think that that person is gambling irresponsibly, and therefore there is a reason why we should stop the proliferation of betting shops in the same locality?

[Philip Davies]

The problem with that is something that used to be called competition, which the Conservative party used to be in favour of, many moons ago. I know that it is an old-fashioned view in the Conservative party to believe in competition, but some of us still do. Self-exclusion for people who have a problem now applies across different betting shops. If someone self-excludes in one shop, it will apply in every shop in the locality, so I think my hon. Friend’s concern has been allayed.

The point I want to make before I finish is that if the choice was between having a betting shop in a town centre—in Bradford or in Shipley, for example—or having Marks & Spencer or Next, I would say every single time that the local authority should look to give planning permission to Marks & Spencer or Next, because it would do much more to regenerate the high street in Shipley than another betting shop would. Absolutely—I would be with the hon. Member for Hyndburn, every single day of the week. But the reason why betting shops have gone from the side streets to the main street is that retailers have been abandoning the high street—they have been walking away from it. The choice is now whether we have a betting shop or a closed-down, boarded-up shop down the high street. It is not a choice between a betting shop and a wonderful retailer that will do this, that and the other to the local community; it is often a choice between a betting shop and no shop whatsoever.

I would say that in a local community it is far better to have a betting shop employing people, and looking out for people who are gambling to make sure that they do not bet with a problem, than to have a boarded-up shop, which is the alternative. The Government should be very wary about doing something that will further reduce the number of betting shops when it is already going down, even without any intervention. I hope that the House will support my hon. Friends with their new clauses but reject new clause 1.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. We have a few more speakers and there is another group to get through after this one. The quicker we can move on, the better.

[Fiona Bruce]

I rise to speak in support of new clauses 7 and 8, to which I have added my name, but I am spurred by my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) to put on record my support for the tenor of new clause 1.

It is imperative that Ministers act to restore the confidence of my Congleton constituents in the status of neighbourhood plans specifically and in localism more widely. My constituents consider that the status and application of neighbourhood plans is confusing, contradictory, inconsistent and unfair. The area has no local plan and no agreed five-year planned supply. For years, local communities in my constituency have been bombarded with a barrage of inappropriate planning applications by developers gobbling up green spaces, including prime agricultural land, and putting pressure on local schools, health services, roads and other services. It is essential that Ministers take action to give neighbourhood plans the full weight in practice that the Government say they have in theory. It is for that reason that residents in my constituency have in some cases taken years to prepare neighbourhood plans. I respect the Government’s good intentions, but they are not being carried out.

The Government factsheet on the Bill states:

“Neighbourhood planning gives communities direct power to develop a shared vision for their neighbourhood and shape the development and growth of their local area. For the first time communities can produce plans that have real statutory weight in the planning system.”

That is the theory, but let me tell hon. Members about the practice. The parish of Brereton was the first area in my constituency to produce a neighbourhood plan. It is a rural farming area mainly—just 470 houses are dotted about it. It developed a neighbourhood plan over many years, and it was voted in with a huge 96% majority vote on a 51% turnout. It is a very intelligent document. It has no blanket objection to development, but does say that development should be appropriate in scale, design and character of the rural area of Brereton, and that it should not distort that character. It says that small groups of one or two properties built over time would be appropriate, supporting the rural economy and providing accommodation for those with local livelihoods, which seems reasonable.

I warmly welcomed the plan when it was produced and when it was adopted. However, the Brereton example is one of several in which planning applications that are contradictory to the best intentions of local residents have been approved by the inspectorate. Brereton is a parish of 470 houses. Within the last month, one development of no fewer than 190 houses has been allowed on appeal. Another application for 49 houses is coming down the track. That is more than half the size again of the parish.

Brereton has very few facilities—for example, it does not have a doctors’ surgery—so nearby Holmes Chapel will be pressurised further. That village already has hundreds of recently built properties or properties for which permission has been given. The health centre is full, the schools are under pressure and traffic pressures render roads dangerous. Unlike Brereton, Holmes Chapel has not yet completed its local neighbourhood plan, but people there are now asking whether it is worth the time and effort of completing one.

The position is the same in Goostrey, another nearby village that is in the process of developing its neighbourhood plan. A resident and member of the Goostrey parish council neighbourhood plan team wrote to me. He says that such decisions are demotivating when it comes to creating neighbourhood plans, and that they make encouraging people to get involved in the Goostrey plan much harder—he refers not only to the Brereton decision, but to the inconsistency of two recent decisions down the road in Sandbach, where one application for a substantial housing development was dismissed based on the neighbourhood plan, and another, cheek-by-jowl down the road, was approved with the neighbourhood plan carrying little or no weight, even though there was no five-year housing supply in both cases.

I have been told by local residents that what really offended people in Brereton was the fact that

“at the public examination of the Brereton Neighbourhood Plan in November 2015 at Sandbach Town Hall, the Examiner insisted our Plan and its policies were sufficiently robust to counteract mass housing development and protect the rural character of the Parish. He asserted publicly that Brereton, as a rural Parish, did not have a responsibility to provide mass housing towards the wider strategic housing target—yet, the Appeal Inspectorate essentially has argued the complete opposite. Why are Government representatives involved in planning matters holding completely opposing and inconsistent views?”

Another resident in yet another parish who has worked for almost two years with neighbours to develop a neighbourhood plan area designation has now resigned from the steering group, in what the constituent calls “total disillusionment”, saying:

“I do not understand how this decision is either fair or reasonable…I conclude that the Neighbourhood Planning Process is a Government-sponsored confidence trick”.

Those are strong words, but they express how many of my constituents feel. Another said that

“there seems little point in producing a neighbourhood plan if it is considered irrelevant.”

[Sir Greg Knight (East Yorkshire) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that consultation is meaningless if the people consulted are then ignored?

[Fiona Bruce]

That is what I am saying. Time and again, our constituents are being encouraged to produce neighbourhood plans. About two years ago, my hon. Friend the Member for Grantham and Stamford (Nick Boles), then a Minister in the Department for Communities and Local Government, came at my invitation to Sandbach town hall to talk to residents concerned about the barrage of applications by developers to build thousands of houses across my constituency. He said that the way to protect our local communities was by developing neighbourhood plans. That galvanised communities such as those that I have mentioned into working towards neighbourhood plans. As others have said, some residents have put hundreds of hours into doing so.

[James Heappey]

My hon. Friend describes a situation that I am sure we all recognise well. In my experience, many local communities engage positively with their neighbourhood and local plans to identify the housing need in their area, and then plan accordingly. Does she share my frustration, however, that because of the robust protections afforded to the Bristol and Bath green belt to the north of my constituency, despite my communities having made plans in Somerset, much of the former’s housing demand is being displaced southwards, so we end up having to absorb that as well, outwith our planning?

[Fiona Bruce]

I do very much empathise with my hon. Friend’s concerns.

Another resident says that unless neighbourhood plans are given significant weight—that is what I and many colleagues have asked the Minister to ensure—their community

“would advise others not to put the time and effort into what is increasingly looking like a futile and wasteful exercise”.

Another resident pointed out that the factsheet I referred to states, in response to the question,

“should a community produce a neighbourhood plan where the Local Plan may not be up-to-date?”,

that through

“a neighbourhood plan, communities can have a real say about local development…and protect important local green spaces”.

It also states that

“the NPPF is very clear that where a planning application conflicts with a neighbourhood plan that has been brought into force, planning permission should not normally be granted (NPPF para. 198)”.

Contradictorily, in the case of Brereton, the inspector’s report allowing the appeal for these 190 houses stated:

“Reference was made to paragraph 198 of the Framework, which provides that where a planning application conflicts with a neighbourhood plan (as in this case)”—

he acknowledged that—

“that has been brought into force, planning permission should not normally be granted”.

So far, so good. It goes on to say:

“However, the position is not ‘normal’ in that as NP policy HOU01 is clearly a relevant policy for the supply of housing, and is in conformity with LP policies which are themselves out of date”—

meaning there is no current neighbourhood plan—

“only limited weight can be afforded to the policy”.