Housing and Planning Bill (Fourteenth sitting)

Helen Hayes Excerpts

Tuesday 8th December 2015 Public Bill Committees

[Stephen Hammond]

My hon. Friend is, as ever, persuasive and logical in his argument. It would be appropriate therefore, on the basis of his reassurance that he intends to keep the matter under review, that I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

[Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)]

I beg to move amendment 284, in clause 104, page 49, line 3, at end insert—

“( ) When granting development orders, local planning authorities shall prescribe, in accordance with the objectively assessed needs identified in the Local Plan—

(a) Appropriate density;

(b) Suitable dwelling mix;

(c) Affordable housing required, and

(d) Community and social infrastructure requirements.”

This amendment would ensure that development is suitable in planning terms on a site specific basis, and will also assist in controlling the price of land. The upfront identification of planning conditions will speed up the time it takes for developers to start on site, and also complete development.

[The Chair]

With this it will be convenient to discuss amendment 285, in clause 104, page 49, line 3, at end insert—

“( ) The Secretary of State must make regulations which—

(a) require sufficient testing of the land to be carried out before permission in principle may be granted, and

(b) ensure provision of adequate funding to carry out the testing in subsection (a).

In this subsection ‘sufficient testing’ means carrying out necessary studies and assessments to ensure that a site is suitable for the development benefiting from permissions in principle.”

[Helen Hayes]

These are probing amendments, designed to explore further the concept of permission in principle and the Government’s intentions in introducing it. There is considerable confusion regarding the concept and what it will mean for the English planning system and local communities. The Opposition wish to see a planning system that delivers the housing we need but does not override or overrule communities, or repeat the mistakes of the 1980s, when communities were built and developed and left without the facilities they needed to thrive and with no scope for future expansion.

I understand that there will be three types of permission in principle: sites included in brownfield registers, sites identified in local and neighbourhood plans, and straight applications made to local authorities. Already, permission in principle is starting to look confusing, since those three routes will have been subject to different levels of scoping and public consultation. It is not clear what needs to be known about a site or who needs to have commented on its suitability for permission in principle to be granted. A site that has been identified through the local planning process will have been consulted on. The consultation arrangements for brownfield registers are not yet clear, and an application made by a landowner or developer direct to a local authority might have had no consultation at all on the principle of development.

Permission in principle, as far as we can tell, will not set any parameters for development other than land use. A developer will know that housing can be built on a site, but not how much, or of what size or type, or what the design and quality standards must be. Importantly, developers will not necessarily know anything about the land on which they want to build, unless they have voluntarily undertaken investigations. I will set out why I believe that permission in principle as drafted offers nothing to local communities and little to developers, and why, as a consequence, it will fail to speed up the pace of development or to help to secure new homes.

The current development management process balances the interests of landowners and developers and local communities. Planning permission gives developers the certainty they need to unlock the finance for development, in return for having undertaken a rigorous process of analysis and design and consulted with local communities. Local communities have the opportunity to comment on and feed into the planning process and, where necessary, to make objections, in return for which parameters and safeguards should be written into the planning permission to help ensure the best possible outcomes for communities.

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[Peter Dowd (Bootle) (Lab)]

Many of us remember the brutalist structures built in the 1960s and planned under Tory Governments in the 1950s, and we recognise how dreadful many of those buildings are. Does my hon. Friend have any fear that proposals such as the Government’s will lead us back to those brutalist buildings?

[Helen Hayes]

One of the great concerns about the Government’s proposals is that at present they contain no safeguards on quality of design, which our communities all care very much about. Which of us, as elected representatives, has not been asked to represent constituents objecting to a planning application because it is too tall, or too many homes are proposed, or because it is all small flats where the local need is for family-sized homes, or there is insufficient affordable housing?

[Mr Richard Bacon (South Norfolk) (Con)]

Some of the best dwellings in the country are the old estates in central London, such as the Cadogan estate and the Belgravia estate. One thing that they have in common is that they are dense and tall. The hon. Lady said “too tall”. Who is to say what is too tall?

[Helen Hayes]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention, but I am not sure he was listening to my comments. I was saying that many of us, as elected representatives, have been asked to support communities in objecting to applications involving buildings considered by the community to be too tall. The point I am making is that if the content of a permission in principle contains height parameters, it will reduce the scope for objections on those grounds, because the matter has already been resolved. Communities can be secure in the knowledge that the content on height has been agreed. That is the point that I was making.

Similar grounds for objection include concern that an application will leave the area too built-up without adequate open space, or that there will be too much pressure on schools or GP practices as a consequence of development. A minimum level of detail contained within a permission in principle, which could be stated within the local plan or within the listing on the brownfield register, or determined by the local authority where an individual applicant comes forward, will be helpful in giving a genuine level of certainty to developers and a genuine level of comfort to communities.

[Mr Stewart Jackson (Peterborough) (Con)]

As an hon. Friend said to me just now, the proposal is not for in principle permission but detailed permission. It is the Stalinist tractor figures. The hon. Lady would be more compelling and persuasive in her arguments if there were any timescale to give effect to the changes. She will know that the uncertainty over permitted development rights, the conversion of offices into houses or flats, has stymied that development to a certain extent. To include the amendment in the Bill would do exactly the same thing and slow down the production of people’s homes.

[Helen Hayes]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention, notwithstanding the reference to Soviet dictators, which is never a helpful contribution to political debate in this Parliament—I stand by that. He made a good point about the need for timescale and for the development management process to be rigorously managed. I agree with him on that point.

The content of permission in principle for which I argue could be contained in the entry on the brownfield register about a particular site. It could be part of the process of designating that site on the brownfield register. It could be part of the local plan process, and it could be something that the local authority designates when an applicant comes forward in person.

Without that level of detail, permission in principle is a very confused concept. It purports to be a move towards a zonal system but it misses the key point about the zonal system in countries such as the Netherlands, which is that all of the work required to give certainty through the planning process is undertaken in those countries during the plan-making stage. A zonal system that has comparatively little detail at the plan-making stage, and apparently even less detail in the planning permission stage, gives certainty to no one, will fail to minimise risk and may even succeed in increasing—

[Seema Kennedy (South Ribble) (Con)]

Would the hon. Lady give way?

[Helen Hayes]

I would like to make a little more progress, if I may.

It may even succeed in increasing alarm local communities, leading to further objections and challenges at the technical details stage.

The amendment is supported by the National Housing Federation written evidence that says:

“We believe that permission in principle should be broadly comparable with outline permission. So, for it to be granted, there will need to be clarity over the number of homes to be delivered, the tenure mix, the house type, the density and other permitted uses…and the permission in principle, should be time-bound to incentivise delivery.”

Amendment 285 seeks to ensure that sufficient investigatory work is undertaken prior to permission in principle being granted to determine that the site in question is suitable for the proposed development. It would require the Secretary of State to make regulations on the information about a site that must be known before permission in principle is granted. The content of that information should be defined by the regulations, but obvious examples include heritage and archeological considerations, ground contamination, wildlife habitats and protected species, flood risk and rights of light to neighbours. There are several others.

It seems only sensible that planning permission in principle should not be granted on whim or a hunch but on the basis of a sufficient level of information for all concerned to be confident that the land is suitable and that development can be delivered.

It is not at all clear how permission in principle will relate to technical details consent, or that other forms of consent that are currently required in sensitive locations, such as demolition consent, listed building consent or conservation area consent, will still be required.

Historic England has presented a case study that illustrates the issue well: brownfield land in an historic town centre. It may be possible to judge without too much detail that 10 housing units might be developed on the site. Permission in principle could, therefore, be given, but what may be very serious is the impact on below-ground archaeology, the massing of the building and the style of the architecture. If these issues cannot be dealt with thoroughly at the technical details stage, then nationally important archaeology and historical places, which I think all of us on the Committee would agree that we value, could be seriously at risk.

[Chris Philp (Croydon South) (Con)]

Is not the whole purpose of the technical details consent stage that exactly the matters the hon. Lady has referred to will get considered fully at that point, prior to full permission being given? If we try to force all these things to be considered at the in principle stage, it will simply place obstacles in the path of the in principle consent being given in the first place by making it much more difficult to achieve.

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[Helen Hayes]

What I am not clear about is the relationship between in principle consent and technical details consent if something as significant as a Roman fort underneath a site or other important archaeological considerations emerges at the technical details stage that would override the suitability of the principle of development on the site. What is the relationship between the two forms of consent, and can development be refused on principle at the technical details stage? That is unclear, and many of the important stakeholders, including Historic England, the National Federation of Housing Associations, and the Town and Country Planning Association, have made representations to this Committee along those lines.

[Mr Thomas]

One thinks at the moment of the flooding that is taking place in many parts of the country. From time to time, there will be applications to build on a floodplain. Would my hon. Friend’s amendment potentially give a developer an indication of what might be acceptable to be built on a site that is in a floodplain, bearing in mind the potential risk to exacerbate flooding down the line?

[Helen Hayes]

I thank my hon. Friend for his helpful intervention. What would arise from the adoption of amendment 285 is the provision in the regulations whereby development in flood risk areas, including the issue of whether or not a development is in the floodplain, should have been identified and that information set out prior to permission in principle being granted. That would give some security to communities that development is not being undertaken in an irresponsible way.

[Dr Roberta Blackman-Woods (City of Durham) (Lab)]

I refer my hon. Friend back for a moment to the intervention from the hon. Member for Croydon South. I think that part of the discussion that we had in the Committee last Thursday was exactly about that question of what would happen if something has permission in principle but it is then discovered that the site is an important archaeological site. Can the permission in principle be removed? I think there was clarification from the Minister, but perhaps he could return to that issue at some point today to say whether or not the permission in principle would be removed on that basis.

[Helen Hayes]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. In drawing to a close, I simply say that the amendments taken together seek to ensure that permission in principle is underpinned by a sufficient level of knowledge about the site and its context, so that it is genuinely meaningful both to local communities and developers. Without that, I fear that developers will find this device to be a hollow one that provides no certainty at all, and communities will simply be let down and will feel the need to object to and challenge the process at the technical details stage, or through the courts.

I hope the Minister will consider the amendments and provide reassurance about the issues I have raised.

[Seema Kennedy]

I will speak quickly about amendments 285 and 285, which were tabled by the hon. Member for Dulwich and West Norwood. Referring to what my hon. Friend the Member for Peterborough said, I think that the whole thrust of these clauses is to have permission in principle to allow people to start building quickly, and attaching too many conditions would slow the process down. I speak as somebody who has acted as a developer, developing a piece of land that had been occupied by Courtaulds for 50 years. It is highly contaminated, but the cost of decontamination has been gradually coming down during the last 30 years.

I wanted to ask the hon. Lady about paragraph (a) in amendment 284. Are there not already adequate provisions in environmental law, land law and laws of tort that cover that material? She talked about risk and knowledge. Currently, there is a good balance in the Bill between the knowledge that a developer would have and the risk they are willing to take, whereas the paragraph (b) of the amendment would put more of that risk on to the taxpayer. Again, it would slow down the process and put more of the burden on the public purse rather than on the developers.

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[Chris Philp]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Gray. I will endeavour to be a model of brevity in opposing amendment 285—[Hon. Members: “Hear, hear!”] That is the most popular thing I have said so far.

I spent the five years prior to coming here running a business that financed residential development. I can tell the Committee that a grant of permission in principle is of great use to financing organisations in offering finance either to acquire land or to fund the professional fees associated with developing it. Even though not all the technical details will have been signed off at that stage, it will give both funders and the prospective developer a huge amount of confidence and a measure of certainty that a particular kind of development scheme can be brought forward. As such it will be extremely valuable and will undoubtedly expedite the process of development.

On the question of technical details raised by the hon. Lady the Member for Dulwich and West Norwood, I think it is reasonable that they are dealt with later. If we insist on them being dealt with up front, there will be significant associated costs that may deter acquirers of land or developers from proceeding with a project. If the subsequent technical investigation uncovers problems such as bats, newts or Japanese knotweed, developments can be fine-tuned to address those issues in granting detailed consent.

The hon. Lady mentioned Roman forts. My father is an archaeologist and has encountered many Roman forts in his career. It is generally possible to reconfigure developments to avoid causing disruption: for example, my father was involved with a Roman fort in Dover that was going to be destroyed by a road, and they simply lifted up the road to go over the Roman remains. There are always ways of changing developments to resolve whatever problem subsequent technical investigations uncover. If the hon. Lady looks in the basement of many buildings in the City, she will see Roman remains that have been preserved.

[Helen Hayes]

The hon. Gentleman is making a helpful contribution. I am fully aware that in almost all circumstances it is possible to accommodate any constraints that might be found on a development site. The point is simply that there is a significant cost in doing that. If a developer is entirely unaware that the problem exists or even the potential that a problem exists, they may be biting off more than they can chew in seeking to bring forward that development.

[Chris Philp]

To that point I would say “Caveat emptor”—buyer beware. The developers should assess risk. If they choose to take the risk of not having done those investigations, that is their problem. Moreover, once they have got permission in principle, they will have the confidence to invest the money required to undertake those investigations.

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[Brandon Lewis]

Local people go through the process in the full knowledge that they are looking to allocate land. One frustration expressed by areas—while travelling around the country, I have spoken to people in a lot of areas that have done both local and neighbourhood plans—is that they go through all that work and must then effectively do it all again for every individual planning application, which defeats the object of the work that they have done in the first place. Our proposals will back up the work that they have done.

I finish on this point. On the brownfield register, I can reassure the hon. Lady that we intend to require local planning authorities to assess the sites that they propose to put on local registers against criteria to be specified in regulations. That will ensure that the sites are suitable for housing. We will shortly consult on our proposed criteria. We expect them to assess whether sites are available and capable of being redeveloped for housing, and whether development is viable. Local planning authorities already take such matters into account when assessing potential sites in their strategic land availability assessments. Local authority decisions will have regard to the national planning policy framework and to local plans. Our intention is that local authorities will draw on existing strategic housing land availability assessment processes as much as possible to identify and test the suitability of sites for inclusion on the brownfield register.

We also have a rigorous new burdens assessment process in our Department to ensure that local planning authorities receive the relevant resources to meet their statutory obligations. I therefore ask the hon. Lady to withdraw the amendments.

[Helen Hayes]

I thank the Minister for that explanation. It is good to hear proposals regarding some of the detail that might be included in the requirements for the brownfield register and the assessment process.

I remain unclear about the status of the proposed third route to gaining permission in principle—direct application to the local authority. I am unclear whether it might be possible to apply to a local authority for permission in principle for a site that is not on the brownfield register or in one of the other qualifying documents. If that is the case, what requirements for assessment and consultation will there be?

I want briefly to address Government Members’ comments about paragraph (b) in amendment 285. That proposal does not necessarily imply that costs should be borne by the taxpayer; it simply says that the Secretary of State should make provision for regulations that ensure there is adequate funding. Funding for local authority development management functions is an important issue, and we will return to it in the debates on some of the new clauses.

Points were made about environmental and other regulations, and I want the processes and guidance around permission in principle clarified. The hon. Member for South Ribble referred to her own experience, and I am sure that, as a developer, she was experienced and responsible in the projects she undertook. However, I have come across many developers in my constituency who have taken on sites, even under the current system, without knowing some of the constraints in terms of what lay under the ground or, sometimes, the demolition of the buildings on the site. Constraints exist anyway, and it is important that they are acknowledged up front in permission in principle. Unless they are, permission in principle becomes the emperor’s new clothes of the planning system—a piece of paper that purports to give someone permission, but which, when we delve down into the layers of detail and the constraints, offers only short-term certainty, leading to a whole lot of expense and heartache in the long term.

These were probing amendments, and I would like to return to this issue on Report, when we may have seen further detail from the Government. On that basis, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

[The Chair]

With this it will be convenient to consider the following:

New clause 19—Granting of planning permission: change of use to residential use—

“After section 58 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990, insert—

‘58A Granting of planning permission: change of use to residential use

(1) efore planning permission is granted under section 58(1) for change of use of a building to residential use as dwellinghouses, the body considering granting planning permission must consider the impact of noise and other factors from buildings which have been in continuous and unchanged use for at least a year in the vicinity which would affect the amenity and enjoyment of the residents of the dwellinghouses.

(2) Where planning permission is granted under section 58(1) for change of use of a building to residential use as dwellinghouses, the permission must include conditions imposed on the persons granted planning permission in respect of the building changing use to—

(a) eliminate noise between the hours of 10pm and 6am from neighbouring buildings which have been in continuous and unchanged use for at least a year before the permission is given; and

(b) counteract any other impact seriously impairing the amenity and enjoyment of the residents and prospective residents of the dwellinghouses arising from neighbouring buildings which have been in continuous and unchanged use for at least a year before the permission is given.’”

This new Clause would ensure that residents of buildings converted to residential use are protected from factors, particularly noise, affecting their amenity and enjoyment. Such measures shall be the responsibility of the agent of the change of the permission.

New clause 20—Permitted development: change of use to residential use—

“Where the Secretary of State, in exercise of the powers conferred by sections 59, 60, 61, 74 or 333(7) of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990, makes a General Permitted Development in respect of change of use to residential use as dwellinghouses, the change must first be subject to prior approval in respect of the impact of the amenity and enjoyment of the prospective residents of the dwellinghouses arising from neighbouring buildings which have been in continuous and unchanged use for at least a year before.”

This new Clause would ensure that residents of buildings converted to residential use are protected from factors, particularly noise, affecting their amenity and enjoyment when buildings are converted to residential by virtue of a General Permitted Development order. Such measures shall be the responsibility of the agent of the change of the permission.

I should make it plain to the Committee that I have allowed a fairly extensive, Second Reading-type debate on the content of the clause, so anyone who wishes to make any remarks should focus those on the two new clauses.