Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Jason McCartney and Nick Boles
Nick Boles
The protections for green-belt land in the national planning policy framework are as strong as they have ever been in any planning policy. Green-belt land can be revised to meet other needs only by local authorities through the local plan process, and it can happen only after intense consultation and in exceptional circumstances.
Jason McCartney (Colne Valley) (Con)
22. Kirklees council has restarted its local development framework process, but it does not expect to have a local plan in place until early 2017. Until then, unscrupulous developers are using the void to build on provisional open land. Will the Minister clarify whether the council can do anything to stop those developments, which are against local wishes in many cases?
Nick Boles
First, no development should go ahead unless it can be made acceptable—unless it can be shown to be sustainable according to policies in the national planning policy framework. That gives my hon. Friend’s local authority lots of grounds to check whether a development is acceptable. Secondly, it is not good enough to have a local plan in place in 2017. This is the beginning of 2014, and the local authority should get a move on.