Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Lord Addington Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 25th June 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, I thought I would be the only person to mention recreation and sport in this Bill, but the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, has stepped timidly on to the territory with footpaths.

The removal of consultees is something I have found rather worrying, and Sport England disappearing as a consultee is something I find very worrying. We are going to do away with the system and remove the roadblock by making sure that we do not have a body that defends playing fields. Now, I would say this, wouldn’t I? I cover sport; I play sport. If I have to declare an interest about my career as a rugby union player, it is a financially very strongly negative one. It is positive for physiotherapists and manufacturers of rugby boots, but the rest of it is distinctly negative.

Playing fields allow that sport to happen. The little club I started with is now known as Lakenham Union but was originally Lakenham Hewett. For the first 10 to 15 years of its career, it played its home games totally on school playing fields. It has gone on to be something bigger and has developed. But we do not have that statutory defence any more. The Bill before me says that the ultimate plan is—I give up; dyslexia comes into it, and I probably should have declared that in Questions earlier—to look at this. However, the Bill is removing the people who look at playing fields; you do not have that defence in place any more.

The noble Lord, Lord Rooker, spoke about government being a little bit cleverer. Did we not hear yesterday the Minister determinedly saying, “Yes, we need more sport; we need a better choice for school education; we need people to get out there to try the whole thing”? You cannot do that if you do not have playing fields. You just cannot. It is a benefit for health, communities and everything else. I hope that at the end of this process—how much I bother the Committee and Report stage depends on how soon I get the answer; you can save some parliamentary time by giving me a nice answer —we get some consideration and something solid to defend community assets.

One of the briefings I had referred to things being superfluous and no longer needed. But if you have a bit of green open space to play sport on, how can that possibly not be needed? It is ultimately reusable many times over. The way you do that is by making sure you do not have any changing rooms, but it takes a bit of investment. There is enough local government experience in this room to know that I am telling the truth. If we are not going to look after these things to make sure that the communities we are building around have some assets to make them communities, we are ultimately going to fail.

A reference was made to Billy Connolly’s description of being moved out of Glasgow. I have heard it; it is very funny, and it makes a political point. You move somebody out of somewhere and say, “You’re out of a slum now—but you’re living in a desert”. School playing fields, parks and so on are key components that allow these things to happen. I say to the Government: please make sure they are protected, and protected properly, and if you are going to get rid of them, make sure you put something much better in their place. It is these little details that turn successes into failures, and I hope the Government are listening.

Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Lord Addington Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 9th September 2025 Lords Chamber

The noble Lord, Lord Carlile, referred to design. The decent homes standard currently refers only to housing hazards in socially rented homes once they are in use. It does not address the planning, design, construction or quality of new homes, nor where they are located, nor does it address measures that more positively promote good health. Neither the NPPF nor the decent homes standard nor this Bill contain any requirement for new development to promote health creation. Part 2 of the Bill states that development policies and sustainable development strategies should “have regard” to health inequalities—it does not require any action. The amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Crisp, simply raises the stakes, and that is why I support it.

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, I rise to give a few words of support to my noble friend in sport Lord Moynihan—that is his expression, but I will use it today. Sporting activity is an incredibly important part of building most communities in our country. It brings them together and contributes to health. We have heard a lot about the Department of Health; it may not be represented here, but I am sure the Ministers are quite capable of carrying the message to it that if you do not have good sporting facilities and activity, you cannot utilise this. I hope that when the Minister comes to respond she will tell us how they are going to work this—or some duty that looks at all the benefits—into the new structure. We have a great deal here about driving something forward; as other noble Lords have said, if we drive forward something that does not deliver a decent environment—the opening comments from the noble Lord, Lord Crisp, got to the heart of it—you will ultimately create unpleasant environments. We have done so in the past. We have already heard Billy Connolly’s description of being moved out of the Gorbals, because it was a slum, to somewhere which rapidly became a slum except with new buildings, because it had no facilities. Can the Minister give us a description of how they are going to work in access to green spaces, active travel infrastructure, sport and physical activity? If these are excluded from planning up front, those making the decisions will not follow up on them—if you do not have to do it, you will not, because you are busy and you have a prime objective. I hope that the Minister will tell us how they are going to deal with this, because if they do not do so, I am afraid we are going to have to put it into the Bill, one way or another.

[Baroness Hodgson of Abinger (Con)]

My Lords, I rise to support Amendment 123 in the names of the noble Lords, Lord Crisp, Lord Young of Cookham and Lord Carlile of Berriew, and the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle.

Design is so important. Buildings can be beautiful, or ugly. They can enhance communities, or they can destroy them. We need quality homes that are sustainable and that in 200 or 300 years, people still think are beautiful. It was Winston Churchill who once remarked:

“We shape our buildings and afterwards our buildings shape us”.—[Official Report, Commons, 28/10/1943; col. 403.]


Thus, upholding architectural standards and considering aesthetic standards is essential. Our environment has a dramatic impact upon our lives, affecting our outlook, our well-being and most importantly, our mental and general health.

We already have many beautiful buildings in the UK, big and small, but it would seem that this aspect is all too often forgotten in new construction. Houses need to include local area designs, and, where possible, use local, natural materials. We should not forget that concrete and steel contribute significantly to carbon dioxide emissions, exacerbating climate change.

I understand that this was discussed in detail in the Levelling-up and Regeneration Act 2023, commonly known as LURB. I ask the Minister, when are the provisions in LURB going to be implemented, and can she guarantee that they will be? Is the office of the place up and running in this regard, and will this have an effect on what is going to be built?

Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Lord Addington Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 11th September 2025 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Addington]

165: After Clause 52, insert the following new Clause—
“Preservation of playing fields and pitches(1) A local planning authority must, when exercising any of its functions, ensure the preservation of playing fields and playing pitches.(2) The duty in subsection (1) may, when granting permission for development, be met through the imposition of conditions or requirements relating to— (a) the protection of playing fields or playing pitches affected by the development, or(b) the provision of alternative, additional or expanded playing fields or playing pitches.(3) For the purposes of this section, “playing fields” and “playing pitches” have the same meanings as in the Town and Country Planning (Development Management Procedure) (England) Order 2010.”

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, we now come to one of those wonderful issues where we have something in place that works, which this Bill will remove, and that is the protection provided by Sport England for playing fields and recreational facilities. I am in danger of making a very short speech or a very long one and am trying to draw a line down the middle.

[Baroness Thornhill (LD)]

The former, please.

[Lord Addington (LD)]

Clearly, my noble friend has heard me often enough.

The best playing fields are in nice, urban environments where people can get to them. Effectively, you have a greenfield site, often owned by a cash-strapped local authority or an independent school that has been increasingly under pressure to improve exam results rather than develop the whole picture. The playing field owners say, “Wouldn’t it be better if we had a slightly better new gym court and got rid of the field?” or “Nobody else is playing on the playing field because we haven’t maintained it”; they sell it off and get rid of it. Who cares? The people who play the sport do and the people you want to play the sport should.

What is sport? It is the ultimate community activity with health benefits, and public playing fields are essential for those in grass-roots sport to be able to address this. Go to any successful sports club, especially for sports such as football, rugby, and cricket, and it will have started on a public playing field. That is where you start. Even with these property-owning sports—rugby and cricket are the classic examples—where you are encouraged to take over, manage and own your own ground, you start somewhere else and develop on from it. You can expand your playing numbers by taking on smaller pitches for your junior teams by using them. It is an integrated part of it. If you do not have that capacity, the nature of the club will be threatened. So we have something which adds to it, but it is potentially a cash cow for some other groups and is sitting there in the right place, very tempting for any housing plan.

The body that has been protecting such places, Sport England, is no longer a consultee. That is what it is thinking and feeling. If we are wrong about that, I would be very grateful to hear it when whichever Minister replies, and your Lordships will not be hearing from me again. If that is not the case, there is something to be answered here.

My amendment would put in another duty; of course, it is Committee and this is just the first go, but I hope that the Government will tell me here if there is another solution to this—if they cannot tell me exactly at this stage, I will make myself available for any meetings to make sure that I know and can tell the rest of the House. If something positive is going to happen there, I will be more than grateful to go away and spread the word. If the Government are not going to do something like this and will just leave it to a general duty, they are basically guaranteeing losses, and possibly catastrophic losses. Unless you understand this and your current drive is for something else, you will ignore it, because we all do. What is your primary objective? We go there. I hope that the Government will tell me something positive and supportive with regard to this group.

We should also remember that you are supporting voluntary groups which do this at very little cost to the state at the moment. That culture of gathering together, paying for the use of the pitch and running up has to have a little space to grow. If we remove that, we will stifle the whole thing.

The noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, has another amendment down here; I think we all know enough not to say exactly what her amendments mean, but the idea of play also comes in and tags on there. Such play is not as formalised or structured, but it is also important.

I hope that whichever Minister replies will be able to tell us that something solid will address this, not a general air or duty of “Oh yes, of course they will deal with it”, because we all know that things like that get ignored. We need something solid that will make sure there is a protection at least compatible with what is going on now. If we do not, we will have to go back to this, at least once, and possibly it will have to be decided by a decision of the whole House. I hope we do not need to do that, but I am quite prepared to do it. I beg to move.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Addington. Just to reassure him, I did not dream up Amendment 179; it was originally presented in the other place, and I am taking it forward with the support of Play England. I hope that what it means will be very clear.

I was happy to attach my name to Amendment 165, which the noble Lord, Lord Addington, just presented. In a sense, the first amendment we have had here is a subset of the broader amendment. Amendment 165 is about formal play, if you like, such as organised games and structured activities; my amendment covers those but also looks more broadly at unstructured play and interaction where young people in particular have the chance to mix.

The proposed new clause introduces a play-sufficiency duty to ensure that every local planning authority

“must, so far as reasonably practicable, assess, secure, enhance, and protect”—

“protect” is particularly important—

“sufficient opportunities for children’s play when exercising any of its planning functions”.

Far too often, play is seen as something frivolous and childish, to be fitted around the edges of cramming for exams; rigid, structured arrangements. Yet we know that play is essential for physical and mental health. It is vital for the development of minds and bodies. It offers a space for the flowering of social skills and the development, crucially, of independence: the ability to assess risks, to take risks and to deal with the consequences, particularly in an unstructured environment. Yet this is being squeezed out of children’s lives in urban and other environments. The noble Lord, Lord Addington, talked about playing fields being sold off. We have also seen a huge number of closures of swimming pools, which has real public safety implications.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Wilson of Sedgefield (Lab)]

The Government have committed to consult on the impact of removing Sport England as a statutory consultee. We will do that shortly and see what the result is, and I suggest that the noble Lord takes part in that consultation as well.

As I have set out, we have robust processes in place to support and protect spaces for play and recreation, and we will consider this issue further as we update our planning policies. These matters are best addressed through our policy and funding. I therefore hope that noble Lords will not press these amendments.

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, it is the answer that I expected: “There’s a process in place that’s going to take care of this and look at it, because we’re basically nice people, we’re going to do the right thing”. The problem with that is that you may be basically nice people trying to do the right thing, but you have a thousand different pressures pulling at you.

Preserving these spaces is going to annoy planners and people doing other things, so it is a trade-off. At the moment, there is public consultation and public pressure to make sure they are kept going. If the Minister could expand on his answer and tell us whether this will be made public so we knew what is going on, I would have a bit more faith. How do the general public or the national governing bodies know what is going through? How can they put pressure on from the outside? You would have a little bit more faith then.

[Lord Wilson of Sedgefield (Lab)]

The noble Lord mentions this or that consultation. We have put in £1.5 billion of funding for neighbourhoods, part of which can be used for enabling the provision of public areas for play. The noble Lord cannot say that it is just about consultation and warm words; it is real money put to real effect.

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, real money has been put to real effect in planning disasters throughout my adult life. It is a case of making sure that you get someone who understands what this means and is publicly able to answer. Would the Minister be able to facilitate me being able to see what this means? That is something I would like to see, and I am sure there are a couple of people here with experience in this area who might want to come in on this.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Wilson of Sedgefield (Lab)]

I am sure we can sort something out.

[Lord Addington (LD)]

I thank the Minister for that undertaking; I will take him up on it. I have to say I also support the amendment from the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett. We have to get this right because the potential for cock-up is massive. It is damaging to the communities around them. There is no point in having a lovely home in a dreadful environment. I thank the Minister, and I am quite happy to withdraw this amendment. What I do with it in future will depend on the outcomes of those meetings. Under those circumstances, I withdraw my amendment.

[Lord Fuller (Con)]

Before the noble Lord sits down—