Green Belt (England)

Guy Opperman Excerpts

Tuesday 18th October 2011 Westminster Hall

[Guy Opperman (Hexham) (Con)]

Thank you, Mr Crausby, for calling me to speak.

I rise to speak as an MP for the north-east. I am disappointed that there are no other MPs here from Northumberland, Newcastle, Gateshead, Tyne and Wear, Durham or Teesside. Nevertheless, I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Broxtowe (Anna Soubry) on securing this debate, where she has made a compelling case. In addition, I entirely support what has just been said by my hon. Friend the Member for Kingswood (Chris Skidmore).

I will speak very briefly, because I am very conscious that time is short. I want to emphasise my community’s desire to protect the green belt areas that are in or near my constituency. There is a need for housing in Northumberland and young people certainly struggle to get on the housing ladder. Without them, the schools, villages, shops and communities that make up the fabric of God’s own county struggle. We have small villages in Kielder, Riding Mill and Wylam where there is a need for community-based affordable housing, which is surely the way forward.

That aim is best achieved by the type of town and village plans that are being brought forward. They should be supported, and I entirely endorse the work that has been done by local villages such as Ponteland and in towns such as Hexham, which is my local town. Those villages and towns are putting forward really good local plans to establish how they will run their local communities. That is the way forward, not the bureaucratic, top-down, regional spatial nonsense that was forced on us by the previous Government and that great pioneer of planning and housing, John Prescott.

In the limited time that I have to speak, I want to touch briefly on urban regeneration. I am talking about regeneration not only in rural Northumberland but in places such as Newcastle, Gateshead and Tyne and Wear, which have sites that can be taken up and utilised. I urge the Minister to make it a fundamental priority that urban regeneration is done not only in large cities but in smaller villages and towns.

The usage of Government sites is another priority. In my area, two former hospital sites have lain derelict for nearly 20 years. The Stannington hospital site has not been used since 1993. We—the taxpayers—have paid more than £1 million to keep it secure during the past 15 to 20 years, but not a building has been built, nobody lives there and nobody has done anything with the site. We therefore have a Government-owned site, a need for housing and, hopefully, a way in which that site can be utilised for housing in the future, which would also release funds that the Government clearly need. That is the sort of project that we should be highlighting and identifying with, not anything in relation to building on the green belt or greenfield sites. The former mental hospital site at Prudhoe in my area is being developed in the way that I have just outlined. I would have liked that project to include more affordable housing, but there is a good, sustainable mix of housing, which is the way forward.

I also want to touch on the scandal of empty homes. I will be very curious to hear the Minister’s response on this point. In the region of Northumberland, including in my constituency, there are 2,351 empty homes, as established by an audit carried out by the county council in April. Those homes were not used in the six months prior to April and were therefore sitting idle. We could do so much with those properties in the towns and villages where they are located. The county council is conducting an excellent project on using empty homes. I support and endorse that project, and I hope that the council’s approach will be supported by the Minister.

I will make a final point. If there is an example of the housing that we should be getting, it is surely the Vanguard project. That is the pilot project put forward by the Government, which we are proud to have in Allendale in my constituency. Allendale Community Housing has got local communities and local partners involved. It has taken former sites and turned them around, with local partners providing the building, the jobs and the architects’ work. I entirely credit the work of ACH in this matter. That type of development is the right way forward, and it is what we need to see, rather than there being any prospect of any building on the green belt.

I thank you, Mr Crausby, for the limited time that I have had today to speak.