National Planning Policy Framework

Graham P Jones Excerpts

Thursday 20th October 2011 Commons Chamber

[Greg Clark]

I want to make some progress, and the hon. Lady intervened earlier.

Let me say something about the definition of sustainability, which I know has attracted some interest. The definition that we have used is the one used by previous Governments. It is the Brundtland commission’s definition, which has stood the test of time. It has been suggested that it is a high-level definition, so there should be a further elaboration of it. Hon. Members will know that planning policy statement 1, for example, contains the Brundtland definition in one paragraph and includes an extra 10 lines referring to the sustainable development strategy. That has been part of the previous document and some organisations and perhaps some Members have suggested that we should make reference to the current version of the sustainable development strategy, the 2005 document.

[Graham Jones (Hyndburn) (Lab)]

On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. It appears that rumours are circulating that Colonel Gaddafi has been captured. If that is true, will you ask a Secretary of State or a Minister to make a statement to the House today?

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

What I can say is that it is up to the Secretary of State to decide whether to make a statement. The point has been noted and everybody is aware of it. Has the Minister finished?

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[Jason McCartney (Colne Valley) (Con)]

The consultation on the draft national planning policy framework is far and away the biggest issue in my constituency, although this weekend it may be run a close second by the forthcoming vote on an EU referendum.

Concerned residents in my beautiful Colne Valley constituency were angered by a poor-quality consultation on Kirklees council’s local development framework. The Labour-led council is still obsessed with the top-down housing targets introduced by the previous Government, and it is trying to impose 28,000 new homes on our area. Then came the fiasco over the planning permission for 294 new homes and a data campus development on Lindley moor, which is north of Huddersfield. Despite the fact that democratically elected councillors originally voted against the housing plans, the planning department and the council leadership kept going until they secured a narrow 8:7 vote in favour of the controversial development on green fields. The development should have been rejected on the grounds of poor infrastructure, with clogged roads, oversubscribed schools and medical services at full stretch.

[Graham Jones]

The hon. Gentleman seems to know a lot about that development. In the planning committee, what did the Highways Agency say about access to the site? Was it in favour, or against?

[Jason McCartney]

The hon. Gentleman is quite right— I know a lot about this, and sat through a whole day of the planning committee’s considerations. I spoke against the proposal. The committee came up with highways figures but, as a number of local residents rightly pointed out, those figures were out of date and they did not apply to peak times in the morning and evening. I attended the committee for many hours, and I thank the hon. Gentleman for raising the issue, as he has helped to make a good point.

Concerned local people have read and heard about the draft NPPF with deep suspicion. While the aim of simplifying 1,000-plus pages to little more than 50 is laudable, residents in the beautiful countryside of the Colne and Holme valleys, as well as Lindley, fear the phrase,

“presumption in favour of sustainable development”.

Local people have interpreted that as a developers charter for more unwanted developments on their rapidly reducing countryside. There is confusion, too, about what sustainable development actually is, and there is a need for a clear definition, as we have heard in our debate.

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[Mr James Clappison (Hertsmere) (Con)]

I declare my relevant interests in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests.

Let me begin by warmly welcoming the objectives that my right hon. and hon. Friends have set out in this policy framework. This has been a good debate, in which we have seen an emerging consensus behind those objectives, even though some questions of detail have arisen. I pay tribute to the right hon. Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn) for supporting the objectives of the Government’s planning policy framework. In fairness, questions of detail are bound to arise when, as is the case now, a Government try to simplify a policy that was previously very complex indeed. However, I strongly support the objective of simplifying planning policy as it stands.

I know that hon. Members have talked about developers, lawyers and so forth, but my experience as a constituency Member of Parliament is that the unequal playing field between developers and members of the public—as well as local authorities, with the cost that they face—has been created by the sheer complexity of the current planning system. To be fair, I am not blaming the previous Government for that; we are talking about something that has grown up over the years, under Governments of all descriptions. It is my experience that the developers turn up at planning inquiries with armies of consultants, lawyers and lobbyists, giving the impression that the system belongs to them, that there is no place for members of the public or communities to have their say and that local authorities, particularly smaller ones, are at a disadvantage, as they are always mindful of costs, something that my hon. Friend the Member for The Cotswolds (Geoffrey Clifton-Brown) rightly mentioned.

[Graham Jones]

Would the hon. Gentleman therefore be in favour of a right of appeal not for the applicants, but for those whom we might consider the defendants—that is, the people objecting to an application?

[Mr Clappison]

That is an interesting proposition that could perhaps be considered on another day and in the fullness of time.

The hon. Gentleman will be pleased that the objective of localism has been fulfilled through the national planning policy framework, and in particular through the opportunity to establish neighbourhood plans to take into account the views of local communities. At the same time—I grasp the nettle on this issue—I welcome the planning policy framework’s approach towards promoting development and growth, which is a perfectly proper consideration for such a framework. The planning system should not be, as it sometimes has been, an obstacle to appropriate and justified developments in the right place. It is a question of getting development in the right place and striking the right balance among the social, environmental and economic factors that have to be taken into account. I welcome the willingness that Ministers have shown so far, including today—they will no doubt continue to show it in future too—to listen and seek to strike the right balance among those different considerations. I understand that that is a work in progress, and I urge Ministers to continue with it.

I have heard a lot about sustainable development. Although I do not have a problem with the definition in the policy framework, I would ask Ministers to look again at the presumption in favour of sustainable development. We can all see what Ministers are trying to achieve, but more work needs to be done on how that operates throughout the planning policy framework, because the word “presumption” creates the impression that there is something that has to be rebutted. I think we know what Ministers are trying to achieve, but more work needs to be done.

I have two further points to make. The green belt is a particularly strong interest for me, as much of my constituency is covered by it. However, I am rather at a loss to understand some of the legal opinion that has been quoted about protection for the green belt, because as I read the planning policy framework, the protection for the green belt is at least as strong as in the existing documents, if not arguably stronger. I am not sure whether those who say that there is no protection against inappropriate development have got as far as paragraph 142, which states:

“Inappropriate development is, by definition, harmful to the Green Belt and should not be approved except in very special circumstances.”

What could be plainer than that? I welcome that plain speaking. I think that that provision is probably stronger than what were said to be the safeguards allegedly taken out by the Government, because it represents a prohibition,

“except in very special circumstances.”

I would ask the Government to go further than the enhanced protection that they have given to the green belt. Over the years, I have seen developers come to my constituency with ingenious arguments about what might amount to special circumstances to justify development in the green belt. Time and again, those applications have been made, and if every one had been granted, there would now be no green belt left in my constituency. I therefore ask for still further protection for the green belt.

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[Graham Jones (Hyndburn) (Lab)]

There have been many good contributions today, and many points have been made, but in the short time that we have been squeezed into I want to focus on some issues in Hyndburn.

First, the north is not the south, and one cap does not fit all. The pressure in the national planning policy framework to build, and the under-supply of housing in the south which is driving that, will simply cause problems in Hyndburn.

Secondly, the framework document exists in a vacuum, ignoring other Government policies on sustainable communities, health outcomes and the effects of brownfield sites in areas such as mine, which are of predominantly low value and experience low demand. The consequences of concentrating development on those sites will be detrimental.

[Gavin Shuker]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the complexity he mentions is a primary reason why, when the framework comes back to the House, we need a full, affirmative vote on it ?

[Graham Jones]

Yes, I do, and that was a very good intervention.

Given that this is a housing supply-side problem, I have every sympathy with the Government’s presumption in favour of sustainable development, and they are attempting to achieve what the previous Government also tried.

Parts of the national planning policy framework are to be welcomed, particularly the removal of brownfield targets for housing; the protection of community facilities in inner-urban areas; green space designation, which the hon. Member for Hertsmere (Mr Clappison) mentioned and which should be used as a tool to green our towns and cities; and the issue of Traveller sites, which I do not wish to go into but do support.

[Mrs Glindon]

My hon. Friend mentions several things that could be included in the document, but many hon. Members have said that empty housing should be included more forcefully. Does my hon. Friend agree?

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[Graham Jones]

Absolutely. My hon. Friend has obviously seen an advance copy of my speech.

The planning document is crude, and I want to highlight some of its failings, which I hope the Minister will consider. I accept that in some areas of the south there is an insufficient availability of housing land, but I do not want to say any more about the southern dilemma. I want to reflect on why the framework will not work in Hyndburn and some of the old industrial towns of the north.

In the document, there are two particular spatial planning failures. The first is on empty homes, and it was raised by the hon. Members for Castle Point (Rebecca Harris), for Colne Valley (Jason McCartney) and for The Cotswolds (Geoffrey Clifton-Brown), and by my hon. Friends the Members for North Tyneside and for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Tristram Hunt). The issue clearly has cross-party support, but there is nothing substantial about it in the NPPF. There should be, and we should do more about it. In my constituency there are 2,500 empty homes, and those properties must be part of any housing consideration. The national planning policy must include a presumption—of first preference, I would argue—that they are brought back into use. Brownfield and greenfield sites should be somewhat secondary.

The national planning policy framework also takes a blanket view on sustainable development. Unmanaged sustainable development will not abate the over-supply of housing in my constituency but exacerbate the problem.

Secondly, there is the issue of old factory sites in my constituency and the gaping hole in the definition of sustainability, which my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts) mentioned. “Sustainability” is quite a loose word in the document, and I am concerned about that, because it does not recognise some of the important aspects of sustainable communities which go beyond housing. Put simply, inner-urban brownfield development can be a disaster for poor and deprived communities, and there is a case in some areas for a policy of no more urban infill. We need a framework that alleviates the problems of an ageing stock where there is de-population, a static population or sufficient housing.

Hyndburn is a constituency where 89% of people live in an urban area, and in many neighbourhoods there is a lack of open space and recreational areas. As hon. Members are probably aware, it has row after row of terraced housing sitting by derelict former mills and factories, now classed as brownfield sites, for which housing planning permission is frequently sought. It comes as no surprise that Hyndburn has one of the lowest rates of physical activity for adults in England. It has consistently been in the lowest 25% of all localities as regards adults having 30 minutes of physical activity three times a week. Consequently, it has poor and/or chronic health statistics. The impact of this national planning policy framework on health and lifestyle inequalities cannot be underestimated.

The previous “brownfield first” presumption on which much of this debate focuses favours the rich and privileged on the urban fringes and works against the urban poor. It is not fair to maintain an expectation that the poor who neighbour many old brownfield sites should shoulder the burden of housing development. It is no wonder that the gap between the rich and the poor is widening when the national planning policy framework sits in a policy vacuum where it has no relation to, and works against, the objectives of other Government Departments.

Health inequalities are widening. The Prime Minister’s happiness index would do well to reflect the national planning policy framework as regards some of these sites. If the Government are serious about putting forth an agenda of improving the health of our people, they must resist the further crowding of densely populated urban areas by brownfield developmental pressure. A free-for-all urban infill based on gross housing need simply will not work in my constituency.

To put that in perspective, 60% of the terraced houses in my constituency sit cheek by jowl with old unwanted industrial sites. For the past 20 years, I have lived in one of the most deprived wards where, as one would expect, there are all the social problems that the Government wish to address. We must resist a “brownfield first” presumption of development of such former industrial sites. One of those in my neighbourhood stands out as a particularly good example, as it is turned over to housing. It is surrounded by old Victorian property that sells for £40,000 per house. Many properties have been boarded up or are empty; most of the remainder are in the hands of landlords who do not really care much for the area. I am sure that hon. Members understand the issues. The pressure to release the brownfield site resulted in a successful housing application to build what can only be described as the slums of tomorrow. No one is willing to develop a former industrial site in a poor area with five-bedroom luxury homes and open space, and the national planning policy framework will not prevent that from continuing. I hope that the Minister will address my concerns.