Planning Reform

Debate between James Gray and Annette Brooke

Wednesday 8th January 2014 Westminster Hall

[Annette Brooke (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (LD)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr Heath) on securing today’s debate. I would like—in a timely fashion, obviously—to reinforce some points that he made.

We have a dilemma. We all believe in local decision making. Nobody could have been more pleased than me when the regional spatial strategy was abolished and we lost our proposed new town, which had not been supported by any democratically elected person. That was good. Like the Minister, I want a planning system that will play its role in contributing to providing our much-needed homes. At the moment, things are clearly not working together and at the right pace.

Neighbourhood plans sound so good; we hear about the examples that have gone to referendum—the great success of Thame and others. The number of neighbourhood plans sounds good, but I suspect that it represents a tiny proportion of what is needed. I believe that there needs to be more support, although I accept that the Government are supporting the process, because it is such an important way forward. I do not think that we should lose sight of that on the Government side, because it was a great innovation.

I agree with my hon. Friend that the emerging local plan has to have more material weight in the inspectors’ considerations. I do not know how that can be achieved, but in the past an emerging plan certainly had weight. Perhaps developers are finding new ways of getting around things. The Government must concede the point, given the number of places that do not have fully adopted plans as such, and support those areas that do not have fully adopted plans.

I have mentioned housing projections to the Minister. I feel that our local residents have to be able to understand where the local projections have come from and why they are there, at the scale they are at. It would then be easier to get a community buy-in.

I want to touch on the need for authorities to co-operate, because I am not convinced that they are doing so very well at the moment. My hon. Friend the Member for Cheltenham (Martin Horwood) likes to make the point that Cheltenham is very constrained, in terms of where new development would be suitable. My constituency is very constrained because of protected heathland. We have these dilemmas. There is a duty to co-operate, but I think we need to look more at how local authorities can form natural partnerships and work together to meet housing and other infrastructure needs.

I shall briefly touch on rural exception sites, which I have raised with the Minister. I was a big fan of rural exception sites until last week, I think it was. In my constituency, one has come in for 35 homes. There is a recently adopted plan in that part of the constituency. The parish is working up its neighbourhood plan, but that site has not been consulted on at all. It seems totally wrong that that could come in without a proper round of community interaction. It may well result in houses at the end of the day, but I am finding it difficult to see how it fits with our new planning framework.

I also want to touch on good design. There are instances in which we should accept that higher density can be good design and meet some of our objectives. I have to use those words carefully, because that is not always the most popular thing to say, but I just ask generally what encouragement the Minister is giving for good design.

I believe that the Minister has commented on how we could approach the problem of planning permissions being given but not implemented. I would like him to comment on what more he should be doing, because the public need confidence that what land is coming forward is not just the easiest picking when there are outstanding planning permissions that could be implemented.

[Mr James Gray (in the Chair)]

It gives me great pleasure to call someone who has so often called me to speak— Mr Nigel Evans.