Draft National Planning Policy Framework

Lord Avebury Excerpts

Thursday 27th October 2011 Grand Committee

[Lord Avebury]

My Lords, I declare an interest as a landowner. I refer to the comment by the Minister at the beginning of the debate that everything that was said this afternoon would be taken into account when considering the final version of the NPPF. However, there is no opportunity for us or anybody else to make representations on the revised version of the document, Planning for Traveller Sites, which is intended to go into the NPPF. If I may say so, it is a major defect in the process that the two documents were not compatible with each other from the start. I make no apology for intervening to draw attention again, as I have done on several occasions since the Queen's Speech, to the planning vacuum that exists with regard to Gypsy and Traveller sites, and, in the context of this debate on the NPPF, to the confusion that arises from the decision to publish and consult on a separate document on planning for Traveller sites.

One of the first things that the Secretary of State did when he took up office was to write to chief planning officers to say that they were not bound to adhere to the target figures for Traveller site provision that had emerged from the process of Gypsy and Traveller accommodation needs assessments, and from the public inquiries that followed those assessments, or the limited redistribution of the obligation to provide sites through planning permission within each region so as to put the responsibility on local authorities which had not so far made any contribution towards meeting the overall need. The Secretary of State said that local authorities could start again from scratch and make their own individual assessments of the need for site provision, reflecting local need and historic demand, giving them an excuse for arriving at a lower estimate of the need than had been reached by the independent Gypsy and Traveller accommodation needs assessments.

Not surprisingly, a survey of 100 local authorities by the Irish Traveller Movement in Britain found that in the three regions covered, there was a fall of 52 per cent in the number of pitches for which planning permission would be granted, compared with the figures in the published and emerging regional spatial strategies. This reinforced the conclusion reached by the CLG Select Committee in its February 2011 report that revocation of the RSSs was going to mean a reduction in site provision. I would be grateful if the Minister would comment on the ITMB survey and say whether the figures in it are agreed by the CLG.

It would have been possible to abolish the RSSs but to retain the targets for Traveller site provision that were the outcome of the GTANA process on which local authorities had already spent a great deal of time and money. That was what we suggested in our manifesto. It would have saved a great deal of unnecessary expenditure as well as ensuring continuity with the new planning system, in which local authorities are still required to make adequate provision for Traveller sites. In fact, 30 of the local authorities that completed the ITMB survey adopted the RSS targets, and one adopted a higher target. My noble friend Lord Greaves referred to the huge burden on local authorities created by the requirement that they were to base their plans on new evidence gathered. In this matter, that imposition could have been avoided.

The London Gypsy and Traveller Unit goes a stage further and proposes that the whole GTANA process be incorporated in the new planning framework. The guidance on the process says that it should be led by local authority housing departments, thus it is not top-down by nature. The GTANA guidance, they suggest, could be added as an appendix to the guidance on preparing the strategic housing market assessment referred to in paragraph 28 of the NPPF. That sounds like an excellent idea to me, and I would be grateful if the Minister would comment on it, either when she comes to reply, or perhaps in a letter to your Lordships who have taken part in this debate.

The LGTU points out that the GTANAs are a valuable set of data which would be wasted if put aside, as the current PPS suggests. That would be contrary to the principle of evidence-based planning and to the injunction in paragraph 27 of the NPPF that local authorities should:

“ensure that the Local Plan is based on adequate, up-to-date and relevant evidence”,

and to paragraph 6(c) of the draft Traveller PPS, which requires local authorities to use “a robust evidence base”.

I would like to hear from the Minister why the Government decided to throw away all the work that was done on the GTANAs and the methodology behind them which, as the LGTU underlines, was tested at many public inquiries. If the caravan counts by local authorities over many years are “appalling”, as the LGTU demonstrate with two examples of major errors, what reason is there to suppose that a new and untried system of assessments by local authorities who have made these mistakes in the past and have a vested interest in making the figures as small as possible to appease widespread prejudice against Travellers in the electorate, will come up with accurate assessments?

What my noble friends ultimately intend to do about planning for Gypsies and Travellers is still wrapped in mystery. They have published a draft policy on planning for Traveller sites, which I have mentioned already, and they intend, we understand, to incorporate a revised version of it in the NPPF, which is radically different in approach. The NPPF is essentially concise and permissive, for which it has been roundly criticised, while the draft policy on Traveller sites is lengthy, strong on enforcement and on the unfettered enablement of local authorities to make their own assessment of need and to set their own targets for pitch and plot provision.

The consultation document warns that there is a risk of short-term reduction in authorised sites during the transitional period of the policy, which is to be six months from the date that the final policy is published. During that period, there is nothing to stop local authorities refusing to renew any temporary permissions that have been granted in the past. Surely no one believes that at the end of the six months, not only will there be local plans covering the 17 per cent of the caravan-dwelling population of Travellers still on unauthorised sites and legally homeless, but also those on sites with temporary permission that the relevant local authorities do not intend to renew? Is that really what the Government think? Assuming that such a miracle does occur, do the Government further assume that enough land will have been designated in the local plan to accommodate the numbers produced by the new assessments that have been completed in the six months following the final NPPF publication?

In principle, incorporating Gypsy and Traveller policy in the NPPF, provided it takes the same positive attitude to development for Travellers’ needs as it takes for wider housing needs, is a good idea. But as far as we know, there is to be no opportunity to see and comment on the revised Gypsy and Traveller policy that will be incorporated in the NPPF. That is contrary to the Government’s own Code of Practice on Consultation, and above all to Criterion 1,

“that consultation should take place when there is scope to influence the policy outcome”,

and Criterion 3, that the consultation should be “clear about the process” and “what is being proposed”. If I am wrong on this, perhaps my noble friend will correct me. A new consultation on the revised Traveller policy need not be a full exercise on the NPPF itself, but should be focused entirely on the section dealing with Travellers.

I have a few detailed concerns about planning for Traveller sites which I hope my noble friend will be able to address when she comes to reply, or if not then, perhaps she will write to me. First, it is proposed to retain the existing planning definition of Gypsies and Travellers based on travelling for economic reasons, which includes many New Travellers—as has already been mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Whitaker—but excludes many ethnic Gypsies and Irish Travellers, particularly those living in bricks and mortar housing. Will my noble friend consider instead using what the noble Baroness has already suggested, which is the definition in the Housing Act 2004 which takes account of ethnicity as well as economic mobility?

Secondly, the Secretary of State’s foreword to Planning for Traveller Sites suggests that planning policy favours Travellers unfairly, particularly in green belt areas, but it says nothing about the huge unfairness of the under-provision of accommodation for Gypsies and Travellers, with 17 per cent of those in caravans legally homeless, according to the latest caravan count figures, as I have said. Nor does it refer to the unfairness of inflicting the downstream consequences of housing stress on homeless Travellers in terms of poor educational attainment, health and life expectancy. Will the Minister say that the Government will put addressing the acute accommodation shortage experienced by Travellers as the central objective of policy in planning for Travellers, and will they apply an analogue of paragraph 109 of the NPPF which outlines means of,

“significantly increasing the supply of housing”,

to do the same for the supply of sites for Gypsy and Traveller accommodation? If not, how can they reconcile treating Gypsies and Travellers differently from other people in regard to accommodation with the public sector equality duty in Section 149(1) of the Equality Act 2010?

Thirdly, Planning for Traveller Sites is based on a false premise: that existing policy failed because it imposed targets on councils and that a more locally based approach will deliver. At its worst, local determination leads to situations like Basildon’s refusal to make any additional provision. The reason that local authorities are slow in identifying sites and most planning applications are refused is resistance by local residents. Putting the emphasis on determination by local communities is exactly how not to make provision for Gypsies and Travellers and thus to increase homelessness, evictions and inter-community tensions. Many local authorities make similar points. To make the needed provision, they need strong, unambiguous guidance from the Government, not putting the most parochial, reactionary sections of the community in the driving seat. Will the Government provide clear guidance to local authorities that where opposition by local residents to a Traveller site is based on reasons that are not concerned with planning, it is to be ignored?

Fourthly, the restrictions on development of sites in open countryside in paragraph 22 of Planning for Traveller Sites are at odds with the presumption in favour of sustainable development in the NPPF. Ideally, both housing and Traveller sites should be located conveniently for access to schools, public services, amenities and shops, but making it hard for Travellers to get planning permission except on land which is contiguous with other developments will drive up the price and make it far harder for them to provide sites for themselves, as they have been doing since Circular 1/06. Will the Government strike out paragraph 22, for which there is no equivalent in the NPPF?

Finally, the Secretary of State says, when asked about Travellers, that we want to see fair play within the planning system. However, what we have under the coalition is a manifestly unfair system in which the prejudice and racism of settled communities has been given free rein; where local authorities are being encouraged—and indeed subsidised to the tune of millions of pounds—to kick Travellers off sites they own and develop at their own expense; and where planning for Travellers is under a different and harsher regime than for the rest of the population.

For the past 45 years, I have fought for the rights of Gypsies and Travellers to have places to live like everyone else. I am sorry to say that under this Secretary of State we are back where I began. The spectacle of riot police invading Dale farm to evict residents, including pregnant women, small children and disabled elderly people, was the epitome of our denial of fair play to this most deprived of all communities.