Housing: North Somerset

John Penrose Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd November 2020 Commons Chamber

[John Penrose (Weston-super-Mare) (Con)]

I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for North Somerset (Dr Fox), my parliamentary neighbour, on securing this debate and on making the case so eloquently and forcefully not just on behalf of his own constituents but on behalf of my constituents—and, as he rightly pointed out, given the various comments that we have both been getting in the Lobby during the votes just now, on behalf of a great deal more constituencies right the way across the country.

I want to pick up on a couple of the points that my right hon. Friend made—very briefly, because I want to leave time for the Housing Minister to respond. He is absolutely right to say that North Somerset as a whole has absorbed a huge amount of housing over the past 50 years. We cannot, by any stretch of the imagination, be described as NIMBYs. We have taken an enormous numbers of houses. We are happy to take more if they are in the right places, because, as he rightly points out, there are very many local residents who want their children to be able to afford to live locally—who do not want them to be forced to move away and come back only when they have made their fortunes, if they can. That is clearly not the right way to do it, and it is clearly not the right way to have sustainable and balanced communities either, so therefore we want to be able to have enough houses for this to be affordable. Both my right hon. Friend and I, and many local residents, agree with the notion that, as a country, we have to build more houses, but the question is where we build them and why the existing system is forcing people to build in the wrong places and in the wrong ways.

My right hon. Friend is also right to point out that if we stick with the current approach, we stand absolutely no chance of delivering on the number of houses that are required. That is not because there are not enough places with planning permission or because there are not enough permitted areas where planning permission has already been agreed, but simply because the existing housebuilders have a business model which requires them to dribble out houses consistently over many years at no more than a pre-set rate—about 800 every year in our areas—in order to avoid deflating the cost of housing by building too fast and ruining their investments. So, if we do not change something soon, we will never get to the numbers that the Minister is rightly setting for the entire country.

Therefore, I urge the Minister to consider that Weston-super-Mare, perhaps some of the areas in my right hon. Friend’s constituency, and certainly central Bristol should be willing to take more homes in the middle of towns, rather than in the areas, which, as my right hon. Friend rightly pointed out in his nicely coloured-in map, are not available to be built on outside towns. Central Weston needs the investment; central Weston would be delighted to have more homes built in the right places. That points to one of the advantages of the Government’s latest set of proposals for permitted development rights with carefully constructed local council-approved planning guidelines.

[Matt Western (Warwick and Leamington) (Lab)]

I congratulate the right hon. Member for North Somerset (Dr Fox) on securing this Adjournment debate. Does the hon. Member for Weston-super-Mare (John Penrose) agree that one of the issues about density of dwelling in planning, and one of the issues with the White Paper proposals, is that we will have less control over what sort of densities would get built out by the developers?

[John Penrose]

Actually, I respectfully disagree with that last point, because local authorities will be able to set development codes, which will be able to dictate the level of density, and they can also dictate the look and feel of the areas. As a result, places like central Weston and central Bristol, where development is, on average two storeys tall, could easily—and in the case of central Weston, would gladly—absorb more homes if we were able to go up to four storeys tall. We are not proposing to emulate the Shard, as my right hon. Friend rightly points out, because that would be completely inappropriate, but we want to go up to four storeys, or maybe five at the outside. We want to build elegant townhouses and mews houses; the sort of things that we are proud to look at in parts of Weston already, and certainly in parts of central Bristol and parts of Bath. Such beautiful bits of architecture—more dense, but beautifully put together—could absorb all the homes if we were only able to do it. But the current system—the current method of allocating those homes—does not allow us to do it, because local authorities do not get credit if they start to allocate building in those areas.

[Dr Fox]

Will my hon. Friend accept that his argument is further strengthened by the fact that the housing density in many of our cities in the United Kingdom is well below the level of housing density that is taken for granted in most cities in Europe?

[John Penrose]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right, and if we do it this way round we are using the existing infrastructure, rather than overburdening the already stretched infrastructure in our rural areas. It is greener, too, because people can live closer to work. If we start building yet more in rural villages—in my case, places like Churchill or Langford or Congresbury—we just create commuter towns and villages, and we add to the level of the commuting carbon footprint as a result. If people can live near where they work—which is much more covid-friendly as well—we stand a chance of creating greener, more sustainable communities, and ones where investment is desired. However, that does require the Government to change the process—to change the way they give credit for the sites that are thus created. That would ensure that the big volume builders, whose whole business plan is based around building on greenfield sites, do not get the only view of the situation, and town and city centre development becomes a route for councils to satisfy the housing numbers they are required to build.