Housing, Planning and the Green Belt

James Frith Excerpts

Tuesday 6th February 2018 Commons Chamber

[James Frith (Bury North) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Hazel Grove (Mr Wragg), who is a Greater Manchester MP. I, too, will discuss the Greater Manchester spatial framework, but I rise to appeal for balance in the pursuit of new housing and the need to protect our green-belt land. Local communities are not mean about the need for new homes in Bury. Grandparents want the best opportunity for their grandchildren to be able to own or afford housing. As has been said, this is about affordability and not just over-supply.

What we do not accept is the universal, one-size-fits-all approach taken by a Government issuing targets to regions without an appreciation of the place itself. Too often, planning lacks a democratic voice and feels too much like a developer’s charter, and the Government have tipped the planning regulations against communities such as mine. I am proud to have stood at last year’s election promising to help to rewrite the Greater Manchester spatial framework. I am clear that by working with our new Labour mayor and the leader of our Labour-led council, Bury now has a voice at the planning table, listening to the concerns of residents across Bury North.

Let me put a Bury case here. Of the some 2,000 people who responded to a survey in my constituency, 90% want local decisions, not Government diktat. New homes are needed, but they should be proportionate to a pre-determined agreement on green-belt land. Bury has the lowest proportion of brownfield sites, so targets handed down to us from London that take no account of the imbalance of green belt and brownfield land are wrong. They need to be adjusted. It cannot be that equal shares for housing targets are applied across a conurbation, when in some areas there is an abundance of brownfield sites, unlike in Bury.

The default to building homes must begin with brownfield sites, as was established under the last Labour Government. In the absence of such sites, we should continue with urban areas that are better supported with infrastructure and local services. Again, the concerns are that the 25-year spatial framework lays out the need for homes and housing, while there is no corresponding plan for the local public services. The Government target for homes has been issued at a time when Bury has lost £120 million from our ability to prepare public spaces, services, networks and local government budgets. Our schools are over roll and bursting at the seams. Our waiting lists are heavily populated, roads are brimming with traffic and potholes are minor sink holes, in some cases.

A Government that hands out plans for homes should first accept the need for local community voices to protect the green belt, where there is already considerable reach into that land, and then offer some sight of their plans to ensure that an appropriate level of infrastructure, public services and local government budgets can be associated with those plans. The Government’s consultation on their new methodology for calculating housing need for localities is yet to be declared. We anticipate that it will be used to tweak yearly targets up, so we have no open door to local authorities questioning the housing targets based on the limitations of their area. To date, the Minister has ignored council requests and my requests, which I repeat here, to meet us to understand the Bury-specific issue on this point.

The Government targets ignore our needs. The original GMSF is to be rewritten, but it still sits within the framework guidance that the Conservative Government stipulate. The current set-up pits Tory Government numbers on housing with Labour leaders in Greater Manchester, working with local MPs such as me to protect green-belt land and minimise the impact of these housing targets on an ever-dwindling local government and public services budget.

Let me end by saying that for every resident in Bury who is unhappy that these numbers are far too high and who feels that green belt should be protected, there is a housing developer who is lobbying very hard, and quite possibly donating to the Conservative party, to argue that—[Interruption.] They don’t like it up ’em. Those developers are arguing that the numbers are far too low to meet the Government’s target. In Bury, we spoke with one voice and kept the walk-in centre open. Another promise I made at the election was to make the case to protect as much green-belt land as possible from development as a result of arbitrary targets imposed on Bury by this Government. Under their terms, 12,000 units are required in Bury by 2035, but approximately only 5,000 of them can be accommodated on brownfield.

In closing, I wish to propose some solutions. We should allow local authorities to enforce their own affordable housing policies; force developers to develop brownfield first; set dates by which sites need to have been completed; and allow councils to borrow more to mass build.