Planning for the Future

Kieran Mullan Excerpts

Tuesday 15th December 2020 Westminster Hall

[Dr Kieran Mullan (Crewe and Nantwich) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Charles. I congratulate the hon. Member for Richmond Park (Sarah Olney) on securing the debate. Like that of my hon. Friend the Member for North East Derbyshire (Lee Rowley), my local authority in Chester East has suffered enormously from speculative housing developments that took place because there was no local plan. They have turned a corner now and are delivering housing at a sustainable rate, but that is on the back of having had all sorts of developments go on that local people did not want, and that I do not think should have taken place.

I do want to begin by recognising the positive elements in the proposals. The emphasis on a national design code and locally produced designed guides is very welcome. For the reasons that I mentioned before, getting local plans in place all over the country is only going to be a benefit, if we can do that right.

The more certainty we have in the planning system, the fewer delays we get and the less money that is spent by taxpayers and local authorities in costly legal battles with developers about whether a development can take place. I also welcome the measures aimed at helping small and medium-sized enterprise builders and zero carbon homes. But we have to be realistic about the world into which these proposals are seeking to introduce reform. As constituency MPs, we all know that too many developers are incredibly well-resourced and have legal teams to match. While many planning and enforcement departments of local authorities are excellent, some may be found wanting because of a lack of resources, a lack of competence or a mixture of both. We need to be mindful that whatever changes will need to withstand the full force of developers’ legal teams, which all too often operate on the basis that they only have to be successful in one of the developments they are fighting for to pay the costs of the lawyers for all the others for which they are agitating to get permission.

Let us take the idea, for example, that permission might be automatically given to developments if decisions are not taken soon enough. I can see that becoming a real favourite of developers who bombard local authorities that are behind the curve, knowing that they will not get decisions done in time. Those authorities end up with lots of developments that they would not otherwise have wanted. I appreciate the Minister and the Government want to see decisions made more quickly, but some local authorities are going to suffer in that transition if we put in that kind of a big stick.

When it comes to zoning, again I can see big arguments over who has made the right or wrong decision over zones, and lawyers pushing to get more areas put into the development zones. Similarly, the decision potentially to take out councillors from more detailed decisions on planning matters means that they will be left just to officers and developer pressure. Councillors play a vital role, with their local knowledge and their representation of local people.

In other areas, I feel like the proposals are more about what they are missing—for example, on infrastructure. I do not see clearly what we will do to stop this cat-and-mouse game with developers and local authorities about when to start building infrastructure for developments that they have already built, and when they start about how quickly they finish.

There is a whole gap around NHS provision. Again and again, I see decisions on planning that never even mention provision for the NHS. We have gotten okay at getting provision for schools or highways, but the Government’s focus in this area is lacking. I would have liked to see something in the proposals to specifically address that balance. The algorithm will almost double the number of homes that my local authority is expected to build and the infrastructure for that is incredibly important.

Finally, and most importantly for me, the answer to our desire to build more homes, which is a laudable desire and on which we have already made good progress, is to get the homes built for which we already have permission. We would not need to go down the road of radically reshaping proposals. There are more than 1 million homes for which permission has been granted; every year, tens of thousands of homes get given permission. Let us make that the No. 1 focus of our proposals, then we would have everybody onside and everybody on board, wanting to deliver homes for people in a balanced way. I ask that the Minister goes away and thinks again in terms of putting forward proposals that will see homes with permission built first and foremost, before we tear up some of the institutions that help keep local decision making as a priority.

--- Later in debate ---

[Felicity Buchan]

I agree with the hon. Lady that we need more socially rented homes. As my right hon. Friend the Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds) said, we need a wide range of tenures across the spectrum. In my local authority, we are building 600 new homes this year. Of that, half—300—will be socially rented.

Let me indulge myself for a moment and talk about my borough, because it is slightly unique. We are the densest residential borough in the entire country. We were fully built out by 1900, and we already have a high skyline. We have just approved a 29-storey tower. Others have been approved, such as Newcombe House, which has 18 storeys. We have a huge physical constraint on our ability to build more houses in our borough. Some 73% of my borough is a conservation area, which we are delighted about. In fact, we think more of it should be a conservation area, but it brings constraints.

I want to limit my remarks to the White Paper, as opposed to the algorithm, because I have talked about the algorithm in the main Chamber. By the way, under the algorithm the housing target in my borough goes up sevenfold, relative to the December 2019 London plan, which has not gone through yet. 

Let me focus on the White Paper. I think that local engagement in planning and local democracy are absolutely critical. I have spent one year in this place, and the more time I spend here, the more I believe in local democracy, since local authorities are closest to the people.

The current plan in the White Paper is that there will be local engagement in the plan for a growth zone, but it is up front, and once the plan is formulated there is no need for specific planning permission. I am very concerned about that. Although I have great residents associations and the Kensington Society, which work very hard and will submit input at that stage, the vast majority of people comment only when they know about a specific development on their doorstep. My constituents and residents will be up in arms if they find out that 18 months ago a plan was approved that they were not aware of and certainly did not give any feedback on, and now they simply have to suffer the consequences.

[Dr Mullan]

Particularly in transient populations, which we see a lot in London, people who move into an area long after the consultation took place will have no opportunity to comment even if they were inclined to.

[Felicity Buchan]

That is an exceptionally good point. The other point I want to make about local plans being decided up front, with no subsequent planning permission, is that they cover a period of three years, and we all know how volatile the housing market has been over the course of the past three years. What was planned a few years ago at one of the two brownfield sites in my constituency—the Earl’s Court exhibition site—is definitely not what is being considered today. It is very important that we do not have one plan that stays in place for three years.

The other point that I want to make is also about localism. We should not have a standard national plan that every local authority adopts. We need the ability to adapt each plan to the local authority. I will give hon. Members an example from my local authority. We have fought very hard on basements, and we now allow only one additional basement. On my street a few years ago, a house went down three additional basements underneath lower ground floor level. Goodness—the terrace could fall down, but never mind. It is very important that local authorities can tailor things to their individual communities. There are good things in the White Paper. The move to digital first must be recommended, as must the move to beauty in design—although one person’s beauty can be another person’s something else.

[Ms Nusrat Ghani in the Chair]