Whitsun Recess

Jonathan Ashworth Excerpts

Thursday 24th May 2012 Commons Chamber

[Anna Soubry (Broxtowe) (Con)]

It is a great honour to speak in this Adjournment debate before the recess. Hon. Members should welcome the fact that I do not intend to speak for well over half an hour, so that everybody can participate in the debate and then go out to enjoy the sunshine and, more importantly, return to our constituencies to carry on the work that we do on a daily basis for our constituents.

I will talk about an issue in my constituency that I believe has an impact on other Members: the threat to the green belt in Broxtowe. I will address two direct threats to the green belt in Broxtowe. The first is an uncontroversial issue in that all political parties in Broxtowe are in agreement about it. We are united in our opposition to an application by UK Coal for an open-cast mine on a piece of land between Cossall and Trowell called Shortwood. It is a 325-acre site, and this is the third time that UK Coal has made an application to Nottinghamshire county council in respect of it. We have already held one public meeting, and there will be another one on Friday.

There is no merit whatever in the application that UK Coal has made. It would undoubtedly lead to an excess of dust and noise and the loss of an amenity that is much loved by many of my constituents. Perhaps the greatest irony of the application is that 1.5 million tonnes of coal and clay would be removed from the site and put into lorries. There would be eight heavy goods vehicle movements every hour along an already overly congested road, up to the equally congested Nuthall roundabout and on to the M1. The coal and clay would then be driven all the way back down the M1 to the Ratcliffe-on-Soar coal-fired power station. It is the stuff of madness that in this day and age we are still extracting coal in that way and burning it in power stations. We should now have alternatives up and running.

The second most important threat to the green belt in Broxtowe, which I believe also affects other areas, is housing development. Many hon. Members should be greatly concerned about it. What I will say is, in effect, an open letter to the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government. In a nutshell, we have a serious problem in Broxtowe and other boroughs in Nottinghamshire and, I suspect, across the land. Councils have adopted and accepted the targets that were laid down under the last Administration’s old—they should be old—regional spatial strategies. That means that they have no alternative but to build on our green belt.

Only last week Broxtowe borough council voted on and accepted, with only the Conservatives dissenting, a top-down housing target of 6,150 houses being built in a 16-year period or so, as set down under the last Administration’s structures. We have very little green-belt land left in Broxtowe, because we have built on it over the years. We are now the most densely populated borough in the whole of Nottinghamshire, and arguably in the whole east midlands. Hon. Members do not need me to remind them that the whole purpose of green-belt land is to prevent urban sprawl and protect communities so that they stay just that—identifiable communities that people love and enjoy, for all the reasons that one can imagine.

The other great benefit of green-belt land, as well as its preventing the coalescence of communities, preventing sprawl and retaining identities, is that it provides green, open spaces that people can love and enjoy in many ways. They walk their dogs there, take their children there and so on. We do not have much of it in Broxtowe, which has become overdeveloped. Now we have the housing target, and we have only brownfield land or green-belt land to build on, so we face the real threat of yet more of our green belt being lost.

The situation flies in the face of the national planning policy framework that the Government announced at the end of March, and of the statements of the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government and various other Ministers including the Leader of the House and the Prime Minister. They have made it crystal clear that green-belt land should not be developed on save in exceptional or very special circumstances, and then only after robust public consultation. There is a complete disconnect between what the Government are rightly saying—they could not say it in clearer or firmer tones—and what some councils are actually doing in the real world.

There is an argument about the amount of brownfield land that is available in Broxtowe, but up to 2,000 homes are to be built on our green-belt land. I believe that the majority of people in Broxtowe are against that. However, our Labour and Liberal Democrat council has steamed ahead in the face of local people’s views and without proper consultation. Instead of adopting Labour’s admirable policy of brownfield sites first and green-belt land afterwards, Broxtowe council is doing the reverse. The very first site that has been put forward for development—it is almost a done deal—is a place called Field farm in Stapleford. That piece of land separates Stapleford from Trowell, so it is doing its job and providing a buffer to prevent urban sprawl. It is also a place that people love very much. They go there to enjoy the wildlife and so on.

An application has gone in for 450 homes on that land, and the deep irony is that the two local councillors—Labour and Liberal Democrat—not only failed to vote against the plans that have made the land ripe for development, but spoke in favour of them last week. That flew in the face of the people whom they are meant to represent. Many people have found it ironic that it has been the Tories, and a Conservative MP, who have spoken out in defence of that green-belt land.

[Jonathan Ashworth (Leicester South) (Lab)]

The hon. Lady is speaking very well. I am an east midlands MP, as is she. She will recognise that a report published earlier this week suggested that the east midlands faces a potential housing crisis, and that in the next 20 years or so we will probably need 22,000 extra houses. I recognise her argument entirely, but those houses will have to go somewhere.

[Anna Soubry]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman and understand his point. Unfortunately, when we run out of land on which we can build houses, we have to look elsewhere. This is not about nimbyism; it is about the fact that my constituency only has enough brownfield land for about 3,000 houses. The target has been accepted, and the only other place to build is on the green belt. He mentions homelessness, and it is a valid point, but the number of people on the waiting list in Broxtowe is 2,254. As he will understand, that list often indicates the level of interest in finding houses that the council may have available. The number of homeless people recorded in my constituency is probably fewer than 10, if that.

I do not want to trouble the House any longer, but people in my constituency are concerned that their voices will yet again not be heard. Only this week, I was publicly admonished by the planning officer in an e-mail that was unfortunately copied to Labour councillors and my predecessor. The e-mail told me that my advice to my constituents was in some way inaccurate, but it was not at all. I have come to this place to achieve a number of things, but perhaps most importantly I am here to represent my constituents, whether they voted for me or not. I intend to continue to do that. In so doing, I speak out in favour of protecting the green belt in my constituency, whether from open-cast mining or from a housing target that my borough council did not have to accept.

I hope the Deputy Leader of the House will forgive me if I am not here at the end of the debate. I will be quiet very soon, so that others can speak. I hope that the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government will make the Government’s policy quite clear yet again. I hope he will say that local authorities are under a duty to determine their own housing targets and make their own plans, and to protect their green belt from development at almost all costs.