New Homes Bonus

Debate between George Hollingbery and Jason McCartney

Tuesday 15th March 2011 Westminster Hall

[George Hollingbery]

That is entirely to be welcomed. I would add that a section in the recently published final scheme for the new homes bonus reminds us that the spending review also announced that the Government were investing £100 million through the Homes and Communities Agency to enable housing associations to support local authorities to bring more than 3,000 homes back into use. As a package, I think that is to be welcomed. It is right that the new homes bonus should also be made attractive by bringing empty homes back into use.

My second question to the Minister is about transfers across local planning authority borders. I emphasise again that the new homes bonus is to compensate for a loss of amenity. However, what about the loss of amenity to those sitting on the other side of a local planning authority boundary? All of us who represent rural constituencies—and even those who perhaps represent slightly more urban areas—will recognise a situation in which one planning authority plans a large number of homes in an area of its administration which will not have any effect on its citizens.

There is such a development in my constituency at Whiteley, where 15 years ago a large new development of 4,000 homes was built. It was immediately adjacent to Fareham town, which has no contacts at all with Winchester district. All contacts went south. Under current rules on the new homes bonus, all of that new homes bonus would flow to Winchester and not to Fareham where it rightly should be. Likewise, we are now confronted by a proposal from Fareham borough council, which wishes to build 6,000 homes on the border of Winchester constituency, with most of the loss of amenity affecting those in Wickham and Knowle in the Winchester district authority.

I believe we should be able to form neighbourhood forums across LPA boundaries, and some of the payment of the new homes bonus should go directly to those forums across boundaries. We should at least encourage the chief executives and leaders of local councils that reduce the amenity of those across the border to share and share alike.

[Jason McCartney (Colne Valley) (Con)]

I thank my hon. Friend for giving way and for securing this important debate. House building is probably the biggest issue in my constituency at the moment. The Labour-led Kirklees council is pushing a local development framework plan using the old regional spatial strategy house-building target of 26,000. There is a lot of suspicion about that, particularly about the new homes bonus.

My hon. Friend spoke about the loss of amenity. My constituents are really worried about the loss of amenity of green belt, green fields and the countryside. Could we ask the Minister about the possibility of a massively disproportionate new homes bonus for houses built on brownfield sites and regeneration of empty homes, which my hon. Friend the Member for Pendle (Andrew Stephenson) mentioned, as opposed to a bonus for homes built on greenfield sites? That would be a really positive step.

[George Hollingbery]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention and add his question to the Minister’s already long list.