Housing Developments: West Sussex

James Sunderland Excerpts

Monday 7th September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Griffith]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend on that. I shall come to the point about the provision in the planning system for different landscapes, including floodplains, which, as we know, West Sussex has in abundance.

The aspiration of owning one’s own home is one that every homeowner, parent and grandparent can support. I was proud last December to stand on a manifesto that pledged to tackle a problem that has been ducked by so many previous Governments, but let us also be clear that that manifesto also said that we would

“guarantee that we will protect and restore our natural environment”.

It also said we would “increase bio-diversity” and devolve

“power to people and places across the UK.”.

I am an optimist, and I believe that, with care, it should be possible to do all those things.

The Government’s recent planning White Paper has many features that I welcome, such as local design statements, more emphasis on brownfield land and faster neighbourhood plans, but I would argue that, perhaps not for the first time this summer, well-meaning ministerial intent has been sabotaged by a “mutant algorithm” cooked up in the wet market of Whitehall. There are seemingly three fundamental flaws in the standard methodology. First, it appears to be entirely blind to geography, which is not a great look for a planning system. If, as in West Sussex, much land is physically incapable of being developed or is protected in law, the algorithm appears to completely ignore this. For example, nearly 50% of Mid Sussex District Council’s land is in the High Weald area of outstanding natural beauty, another 10% is in the South Downs national park and the district is one of the most wooded in the whole south-east. My constituents in Hassocks, Hurstpierpoint and Sayers Common are rightly concerned that if this protected land were excluded without an adjustment to the numbers, the algorithm would force unrealistic amounts of development in what should, in any case, be a precious green corridor linking the ecology of the South Downs and the High Weald.

Also, the algorithm must only work in dry weather, as much of my constituency lies on the floodplains of the Rivers Arun, Adur and Rother, something that even a cursory look at the lacework of blue lines on an Ordnance Survey map would reveal. Anyone relying on the Environment Agency’s narrow definition of flood risk will spend much of their winter bewildered by the waters lapping around their waist, as residents of Pulborough, Fittleworth and Henfield know all too well. Promoters of a 7,000-home development known as Mayfield Market Town clearly fall into that category, as locals know that a large proportion of the proposed site sits under water for a good proportion of the winter. I guess we could build the homes on stilts, like those over-water tropical villas, but that does not quite explain how the residents will get in their cars to drive the many miles that development in such an unsustainable location would require. All that is before we take into account the down-catchment impact of run-off from concreting an area that currently acts as a huge sponge, filling our chalk aquifers and preventing flooding of our coastal towns downstream. My constituents in Hassocks and Barnham have both had the disturbing experience of raw sewage emerging from the drains after planners failed to understand how the water table on a floodplain works.

Secondly, the standard method algorithm is backward looking and self-perpetuating; unlike the famous investment disclaimer, past performance here is treated as entirely a predictor of future success. Districts with high rates of house building in the past are assumed to continue that into perpetuity, so this fatally undermines any opportunity to level up away from the over-heated south-east of England.

[James Sunderland (Bracknell) (Con)]

Many of my constituents in Bracknell and the Wokingham Borough Council area are very sensitive about unsustainable house building. Having seen the targets that have been put together in the Lichfields table, they are rightly concerned about what lies ahead. Given that both councils that I represent have proudly and boldly delivered against the local plan in recent years, does my hon. Friend think that for the Government to be worthy of their pre-eminence, they need to apply some form of judgment on top of the science?

[Andrew Griffith]

My hon. Friend makes a very important point about the role of judgment in any planning system—particularly one with a Government who are committed to supporting local democracy.

The report from the levelling up taskforce, which was published only today—I congratulate the author on attracting such attention to such an important issue—shows a huge southward shift in the UK population. Before the second world war, roughly a fifth of the population lived in the south of England outside London, while twice as many lived in the north and Scotland, taken together. Now equal numbers live in both. Between 1981 and 2018, the population of London increased by nearly a third, while that of the north-east grew by less than 1%. By piling on even more growth in the south-east, the algorithm is locking the north and midlands into permanent disadvantage, just as Ofqual’s formula dictated that someone from a school that had not done well in the past could never do well in the future. For much of the north and midlands, the algorithm suggests a lower number than the current one, while in the south it significantly increases. Despite the Government’s stated intent, the new formula is levelling down, not levelling up.

Thirdly, the formula uses a simplistic affordability ratio as a false proxy for local need. For an area impacted by central London wages, such as Horsham, the algorithm produces a result that would take the housing stock from 55,000 in 2011 to almost 90,000 over 20 years. That is growth of 62%. However fertile the local population may be, it seems an unlikely outcome at a time when the reproduction rate of the settlement population is barely at replacement levels. Trying to influence affordability through supply has been likened to a person standing on an enormous iceberg and trying to melt it by pouring kettles of hot water over their feet.

The algorithm needs more work. The reason that matters is that high, top-down housing targets induce developers to submit large and unsustainable schemes. Even when they do not get built, they end up blighting residents for years on end. That is the case for Horsham District Council, which, in calling for sites, has encouraged developers to put forward greenfield sites in Adversane and West Grinstead. Both are in the middle of countryside and only accessible by road, and the nearest town of Horsham is a 10-mile drive away. They would create millions of car journeys a year, and there is no capacity in local schools and GP surgeries or local employment opportunities. Ironically, in that particular case, the alternative is the Government themselves, through Homes England, which claims on its website to be able to build 10,000 homes much closer to existing hospitals, schools and shopping facilities in the north of the borough. If that is the case, I say get on with it.

The perfect example of this blight is Mayfield Market Town, which has impacted 27,000 residents across 17 parishes for seven years, dating back to 2013. Residents, through Locals Against Mayfield Building Sprawl and the inter-parish group, have held 73 meetings, and have had to raise and spend £140,000 to fund barristers and commission experts’ reports on a scheme that, to the best of my knowledge, not a single elected person or layer of government in West Sussex has ever supported.

Let me reassure the Minister that in West Sussex we are not nimbys. Over the past three years, Sussex has delivered 6,000 homes per year and has hit 97% of its allocation. I think good development is organic. The historical growth of our small towns and villages can be traced like rings on a tree. Good development supports the village school, the village shop and the village pub. Without exception, adopted local neighbourhood plans have made healthy provision for growth, and have just got on with it. The tiny parish of Albourne committed to 14% growth in a parish of just 260 homes. It approved this at a referendum in September 2016, and by the middle of this year 21 new homes had already been delivered. Every day that we persist in trying to build the wrong homes in the wrong places is another day when we are not building the right homes in the right places.

There is a better way. First, we should adjust the housing numbers formula not just for national parks and areas of natural beauty but for a broader category of floodplains, high-quality agricultural land and vital green corridors for wildlife. As currently constructed, the logical inference is that the more protected land we have in an area, the greater the density of development on the remainder. It is like a closed-loop error in computer code that would see the South Downs national park end up like Central Park, Manhattan, with protected areas hemmed in on every side by high-rise development.

If we are serious about the guarantee to protect and restore our natural environment, we have to build in protection for green corridors for wildlife to move through the landscape and for natural processes to operate effectively. These cannot be cosmetic or artificial—they need to have the original ancient biome intact. One such green corridor is the ribbon of land between Barnham and Eastergate connecting the coastal plain to the national park. Another is between Henfield, Sayers Common, Cowfold and West Grinstead that connects the South Downs with the High Weald. It contains the Knepp estate, where Isabella and Charlie have made such an iconic contribution to rewilding. It hosts one of the largest concentrations of nightingales in the UK, the biggest breeding population of rare purple emperor butterflies, all five indigenous species of owl and, crucially, about 16 breeding turtle doves—the most likely next bird species to face extinction on British soil. This summer, the first white stork chicks born in the UK for hundreds of years hatched there. This ecological gem is at risk from plans to build a 3,500-home new town on nearby greenfield land in West Grinstead, bringing 10,000 new residents, light pollution, and millions of additional car journeys.

I accept that they may currently be somewhat out of favour, but, as the excellent Sussex Wildlife Trust has highlighted to me, there are also extremely rare bat colonies relying on the native woodlands, ancient hedgerows and streams of West Sussex. In fact, West Sussex is home to the UK’s rarest mammal, the greater mouse-eared bat, which is an extinction event happening in real time and on our watch. As its name suggests, it has large, mouse-like ears and a body so large that it has been likened to a rabbit hanging from a wall. In flight, its wings can stretch to nearly half a metre wide. Only a handful of mammal species live longer relative to their body size than humans, and the greater mouse-eared bat is one of the longest-lived of all: it can clock up more than 35 years. Scientists recently discovered that this is probably due to the fact that its telomeres—the string-like material at the end of its chromosomes—do not shorten with age, an insight that could very possibly help humans live longer. Tragically, as the result of its habitat being destroyed, the population of this great creature is believed to be down to a single solitary male.

Secondly, we should exhaust every single opportunity to prioritise building on brownfield land. How can we teach our children to recycle plastic bags from a supermarket and yet let an algorithm, mutant or otherwise, dictate that we bulldoze by numbers through ancient fields, hedgerows, water meadows and woodland while land capable of reuse stands idle? Every local planning authority now has a brownfield register, which in 2019 showed that there was enough suitable brownfield land to build more than 1 million homes. I welcome the Government’s commitment to a “brownfield first” policy, although we should give this teeth by supporting the call from CPRE to require local authorities to write these numbers into their plans as delivered before considering any greenfield sites.

Even in West Sussex, we do not have to look far. In my constituency of Arundel and South Downs, the Shoreham cement works sits on a 44-acre site on the Steyning Road near Upper Beeding. It should be the perfect showcase of an environmentally friendly, multi-use redevelopment of a brownfield site. It could easily provide more than 2,000 quality apartment homes for a mixed community of downsizers and first timers, which is precisely where the gap in the market exists. But it is an eyesore that has been derelict for over 20 years. Despite—or perhaps even because of—many layers of government coming up with their own visions for the site, nothing has happened, and the site is not even being considered within the local plan, while untouched green fields are.

The Government are spending £400 million to support house building on brownfield land, but why is that money only available for mayoral authorities? If it is good policy—and it absolutely is—then let us make those brownfield moneys available for all. In respect of this particular site, I would be grateful if the Minister and his officials would agree to meet me and my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) to see what might be done to move forward.

Thirdly, we should be looking to do more in the centres of our great urban cities, particularly London. Our great capital city is a magnet for talent internally and externally. It is the closest we have got to a city that never sleeps—young, optimistic and diverse; the very epitome of a thriving urban centre. But it is becalmed, challenged by crime, closed roads, closed bridges, congestion and now covid. It is no wonder that the August survey by the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors saw 93% of businesses expecting to reduce their space requirement over the next two years, or that PricewaterhouseCoopers, Linklaters, Schroders, Facebook and many others are all planning for their London-based staff to work from home.

As well as being overdue fresh leadership, London is now badly in need of a new renaissance. Let us take its now hollow core and transform it into the world’s greatest live-work city. London is a city whose centre was razed by the great fire of London and then again by the blitz but in each case was built back better than before. Let us see commercial to residential conversions on a grand scale, building up not out, vertical farming, ubiquitous wireless connectivity, hydrogen river boats shuttling up and down the Thames—and all building on the abundance of existing infrastructure and services that development elsewhere can never tap into, such as world-class teaching hospitals, universities and cultural institutions. I put it to the Minister that this is no time to give up on our urban areas, and London is just one. Exactly the same opportunity exists for Birmingham, Manchester, Glasgow, Liverpool, Cardiff and all our great historic urban centres.

Fourthly, we should acknowledge the special quality of dark skies and use the next draft of the national planning policy framework to preserve and restore the ability of future generations to connect with our universe by being able to see the milky way on a dark night. The most recent British Astronomical Association survey revealed that 61% of people live in areas with severe light pollution, meaning that they can count fewer than 10 stars in the night sky. This is a real opportunity and costs us nothing to achieve.

Fifthly, we must retain confidence in the fairness of the planning system by ensuring that there is one common and equitable set of rules for all. That means not discriminating in land supply between permanent and nomadic residents, which I know causes a great deal of concern to my local councils.

Finally, I make a personal plea to the Minister to give more support to community land trusts, which are one of the best solutions to providing genuinely affordable homes for truly local people. Projects are being pursued at the moment in Arundel, Angmering, Barnham and Eastergate, Pulborough, Slindon and Steyning, each of which I look forward to supporting all the way to their completion.

I ought to conclude and allow my right hon. Friend the Minister to respond. We have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to get this right, and it is vital that we do. This is not about today, but about tomorrow—the future that we want for our children and grandchildren. As I said at the beginning, I am optimistic about the future. I am encouraged that this is a consultation, and I know that the Secretary of State and the Minister have already said that they are open to making changes. Nature has bequeathed us a unique inheritance on to which our forefathers built thriving towns and great enterprising cities while preserving a tapestry of villages, fields and woodlands. We must not preserve it in aspic, but neither must we replace the species-rich ancient countryside and dark skies of West Sussex at risk from overdevelopment.