Planning Decisions: Local Involvement

Jane Stevenson Excerpts

Monday 21st June 2021 Commons Chamber

[Jane Stevenson (Wolverhampton North East) (Con) [V]]

It is a pleasure to have the chance to speak in today’s debate.

This is an emotive issue. For most people, a home is the biggest purchase they will ever make. Where we buy our home—our local neighbourhood—has a huge impact on our quality of life. Planning decisions affect our access to public services, jobs, retail and leisure facilities, and quality green spaces. To listen to the Opposition, I would think that we lived under a perfect planning system. Our planning system is decades old. Anyone who has served in local government knows how clunky it is and how little involvement local people have in planning decisions. Local neighbourhood plans take several years to draw up and even then they are not respected. In the ward I previously represented as a Wolverhampton city councillor, there was a clear local neighbourhood plan that was against any homebuilding on a local nature reserve—on the site of the Wolverhampton Environment Centre. The council has ploughed on regardless and has plans for a number of homes. Local people are still campaigning against the development, assisted by my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton South West (Stuart Anderson). As the Minister said earlier, only 1% of local people are getting involved in planning decisions, and I applaud the Government for their commitment to an easier system for local people to navigate. Online maps with design codes and the ability to really see what is suggested in a good level of detail will increase engagement.

I again draw Ministers’ attention to the issue of cross-border co-operation. My northern border with South Staffs is green belt and it is under threat. My constituents are gravely concerned that they have no say, and what suits South Staffordshire does not suit Wednesfield and Bushbury. As any development would add significant pressure on public services in Wolverhampton, I seek reassurance that the voices of people affected by large developments should be heard even across the county boundary.

As time is short, I will conclude by applauding the ambition of the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government and not just because it will be my new neighbour in Wolverhampton. Levelling up opportunity includes the opportunity to own one’s own home. This has simply been a pipe dream for so many of my constituents. Beautiful affordable homes helping ordinary working people to fulfil the dream of home ownership is absolutely the right thing to do. Building on brownfield land, and indeed investing in the National Brownfield Institute in my constituency, is the right thing to do.

There is so much to address around planning: making retirement housing a positive move that will free up family homes, ending land banking, innovative design and bringing empty homes back into use. Modernising the planning system is a difficult nettle to grasp, but it is long overdue as the current system has not been fit for purpose and it will not deliver the homes we desperately need.