National Planning Policy Framework

Henry Smith Excerpts

Thursday 20th October 2011 Commons Chamber

[Martin Vickers (Cleethorpes) (Con)]

As others have observed, this is a good debate which raises issues that go to the heart of our communities. I pay tribute to the way in which the Minister has battled through the last few months. He has taken quite a battering from some rather hysterical media reporting, most of which has been full of misinformation.

I spent 26 years as a local councillor. During that time, like many other Members, I fought battles both for and against certain developments. I also spent six years as a cabinet member whose responsibilities included everything from roads to rubbish to licensing tattooists, and also included planning policy. A very successful coalition controlled the council—a Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition, I should add.

I realised during that time that the planning system was a hindrance to the development that is so desperately needed in many parts of my constituency, but protection is also needed: there has to be a balance. My constituency includes parts of the Humber estuary, a site of special scientific interest, and is on the edge of the Lincolnshire wolds, an area of outstanding natural beauty. Of course I welcome the protection that will remain in place for those areas, but my constituency also includes town centres, and they need to be protected as well. Barton-upon-Humber, for instance, is a beautiful market town with many Georgian buildings, but like all market towns it suffers from empty shops on the high streets.

[Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend not agree that the best people to decide which areas in a given part of the country need protection and which need development, whether they are town centres or parts of the surrounding countryside, are local people? Is it not because local people have been cut out of the planning process that so few houses have been built where they need to be built, while houses have been built in areas which local people would like to be protected?

[Martin Vickers]

I entirely agree, but none of the measures for which I am arguing would take power away from local people. I spent most of my quarter of a century as a councillor bemoaning the fact that central Government were telling us to do this, that and the other, and not allowing us to note what local people were saying. I believe that the system that is evolving will feature widespread consultation from the bottom up, and—I hope—the making of final decisions by elected and accountable local authorities rather than distant planning inspectors. The more we are able to ensure that decisions are made locally, the more communities will be shaped in a manner of which local people approve.

On the importance of maintaining the vitality of town centres, as was mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for The Cotswolds (Geoffrey Clifton-Brown), shopping habits have changed and continue to change. It is a fact, regrettable in many ways, that we shall need fewer shop units in the coming years. Let me give an example from my constituency. The entrance to Cleethorpes, that beautiful seaside resort on the east coast, is to some extent blighted by a drive through an area containing parade after parade of shops, many of which are empty. Many others serve local needs, but the fact remains that we need fewer of them, and we certainly need policies that will allow those areas to regenerate themselves. I was pleased to note that the NPPF mentioned the need to remove “barriers to investment”. That is one of the key developments that I hope will result from the implementation of the Government’s plans.

Reference has been made to the need to speed up the system. Local plans and development frameworks take an age to proceed from A to Z. Reference has also been made to consultation. Yes, we need consultation, because we need that bottom-up feedback from local people, but we must recognise that plans need to be determined quickly. Along with my hon. Friend the Member for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy), who represents a neighbouring constituency, I have spent much time over the past year trying to overcome the barriers to a major development in our area, caused partly by the fact that the overall process does not recognise the commercial pressures on potential investors to meet needs in the face of competing areas and, in some instances, competing countries. Speed is also essential for those who oppose developments. A week or so ago we debated High Speed 2 and the possibility that areas could be blighted for many years while waiting for decisions to be taken. Both sides need urgency, therefore.

The transition period is a concern, and I hope the Minister will spell out how areas without local plans in place will be dealt with. Many Members have also asked about the definition of sustainable. It is one of those warm and cuddly words that we are all supposed to hug to ourselves, because none of us wants our local papers to report that we support unsustainable development or want an unsustainable economy. We do need a proper definition of sustainable, however, and I ask the Minister to supply one.

--- Later in debate ---

[Heidi Alexander (Lewisham East) (Lab)]

I speak today as someone who has spent four years of my life dealing with the planning system in London. Before becoming an MP, I was a councillor in Lewisham and had responsibility for regeneration. I worked with planners, with developers and with the community, and I can say that in some ways it was the best job of my life and in others the worst.

I know how controversial planning applications can be, and I know how fiercely people will defend their own interests. There is nothing wrong with that, but someone, somewhere has to take a decision about the wider interests of the community, and indeed the wider interests of the country. Sometimes that will fall to councillors, but sometimes the responsibility will stop at the door of the Government. I have a real concern that on the evidence of the past 18 months this Government are not up to the task. They want to wash their hands of the task of setting out a vision of where in the country new homes will be built and where new jobs will be created. They talk about sustainable development but fail to provide an adequate definition. They hide behind a smokescreen of empowering communities through neighbourhood plans, but then use the planning system as a political football to justify the lack of economic growth.

In my view, the planning system is a vital tool in helping to create places where people want to live.

[Henry Smith]

Will not the hon. Lady concede that during the last decade and a bit of the previous Government, despite the massive top-down, centrally planned housing targets, house building fell to its lowest level since the 1920s? How does she reconcile those two things?

[Heidi Alexander]

I know that the hon. Gentleman has not been here for the whole debate. We have heard convincing evidence from a number of hon. Members about how house building and, most importantly, the building of affordable houses increased over the last decade.

I was setting out why I believe the planning system is so important. It is one of the only ways in which we can determine where to locate the things that we all need but perhaps do not like, such as places to deal with our rubbish and noisy hospitals with lots of traffic. It is also one of the only ways in which we can start to change how we live in the future. It is a simple fact that we need fewer cars on our roads. That will happen only if the jobs of tomorrow are located in places where public transport is good and if new homes are built in places where people can walk to the shops. That is what sustainable development is about. It is not just about shiny bits of eco kit on buildings; it is about how we live our lives. It is about investment in our town centres, making the most of brownfield land in our cities and protecting those parts of the countryside that we all hold dear.

The Government tell us that the planning system is a brake on economic growth and that planners are the enemies of enterprise. That is rubbish. In 2010-11, 86% of planning applications were approved, and 90% of commercial applications were approved. In London, planning permission exists for 170,000 homes on which work has yet to start. It is not the planning system that is stopping those homes being built; it is the availability of developer and mortgage finance.