Housing and Planning Bill

Lord Best Excerpts

Thursday 17th March 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Best (CB)]

I support the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, on Amendment 88A, which would give parish councils and neighbourhood forums rights of appeal if permission was given for a development that failed to accord with a neighbourhood plan that had been prepared but was not yet finalised. I note that this proposal was debated in the other place, where Nick Herbert MP commended neighbourhood planning. I echo his views and agree with noble Lords who have congratulated the Government and the coalition Government on the neighbourhood planning initiative, which has now reached this number of 1,800 neighbourhoods—I think that well over 200 have now been concluded, but we will probably hear about that from the Minister.

During the passage of the Localism Bill through this House, I supported the idea of neighbourhood plans, but I opposed the idea that after the plan had been approved by the parish council, the district council, the county council, and by an independent examiner, it would then need to be approved through a referendum. I was worried that all the people who had not participated in any of the public meetings, consultation sessions and the rest after years of hard work by the local volunteers, who had nobly got together to prepare their neighbourhood plan, would come out of the woodwork and vote against the plan on principle because they opposed anything happening in their area. I was wrong. The referenda have all so far been in favour of the local plans, and this has not been a negative barrier to getting the plans through.

Returning to the debate in the other place, I note that Mr Nick Herbert went on to say that,

“support is undermined when speculative developers try to get in applications ahead of the completion of neighbourhood plans or even after they have been completed. They bang in their applications, and either they are upheld by the local authority, which is fearful of losing an appeal, or the developer makes an appeal that is upheld by the planning inspector. The development is then allowed to go ahead, which leads people, including groups of volunteers, to ask, ‘Why have we spent literally years working on this neighbourhood plan for where developments should go—a power that was given to us, the community—only for it to be overturned by a developer?’”.—[Official Report, Commons, 5/1/16; col. 222.]

Nick Herbert’s views were echoed by Sir Oliver Heald MP, who thought it was wrong that a neighbourhood plan,

“can then be trashed by an application by a speculative developer.—[Official Report, Commons, 5/1/16; col. 222.]

Andrew Bingham MP said this was happening in Chapel-en-le-Frith, a village in his constituency. These sentiments from Conservative MPs were echoed by those of Dr Roberta Blackman-Woods MP for the Opposition.

I have followed the progress of the production of an excellent neighbourhood plan for the Cerne Valley in Dorset, covering the village whose name, Godmanstone, is in my title—I declare an interest in this as an owner of land within the area covered by the plan. In the case of the Cerne Valley, local volunteers formed a neighbourhood forum in the summer of 2011. Consultative meetings were held with fierce debates, and after huge efforts the group—a vanguard for neighbourhood forums, brilliantly led by a local farmer, Fred Horsington, who is now a neighbourhood planning champion—obtained the approval of the relevant parish councils for their plan. In December 2013, it was submitted to the council. It was then subject to independent examination and the examiner’s report came out in August 2014. Then, in December 2014, a referendum was held. To the considerable credit of all the volunteer workers, the plan was approved by a huge majority. Finally, on 8 January 2015, three and a half years from the beginning, the plan was approved by the local authority.

During this lengthy period, all the hard work of those engaged in this exercise was at risk from a developer putting in an application which did not accord with the emerging plan. Had this happened, the parish council and the neighbourhood forum would have had no way of appealing, and the council would have had to be hesitant about using the submitted plan in determining the planning application. Until the referendum was done and dusted, it was a nerve-wracking time. This amendment would overcome the problem and ensure that, even where a neighbourhood plan had not reached its final stage, it would make its mark as it should. I support the amendment.

[Lord Greaves]

My Lords, I tabled an amendment in this group which covers similar ground but is not about neighbourhood planning. I tabled it at the behest of a different set of interest groups from those that my noble friend Lady Parminter has worked with, but it seems sensible for it to be in this group because the principle is the same.

This is an interesting issue, which has been around for quite a while. One of the interesting political aspects is that political parties tend to be in favour of some form of community right of appeal against the granting of planning permission when they are in opposition, but when they are in government they find all sorts of reasons why it is not practical. I think this has happened with all three parties, although I think my noble friend is complaining that we continued to be in favour of it during the coalition but were stopped by our big-brother partner—at least I think that is what she is saying; she may have been closer to it than I was.

I have no doubt whatsoever that, for major applications which are against policy, there is a very good argument in favour of the right of appeal. It is also true that nobody has come up with workable legislation. I am not claiming that my amendment, which covers the principle generally rather than just neighbourhood planning, is the answer. But we have to accept that the right of appeal has to be restricted to a considerable degree: it cannot be for any old planning application that comes along, even if it is against policy. If, for example, an extension to next-door’s kitchen is against council policy but the council has passed it, then—rightly or wrongly—it is not a matter for appeal. That right has to be reserved for a major planning application defined in some way or another. I have suggested,

“a major planning application or an application for permission in principle”—

no doubt we will be calling it a “PIP” before we have finished with this part of the Bill.

The legislation will have to clearly define who can object and carry out an appeal—whether this be a body, person or group of people—and will have to strictly limit the right to appeals which are clearly against policy. I believe that workable legislation can be drawn up to cater for those cases, but it has to be tightly drawn and not something that is going to generate loads of appeals, because that would totally undermine the planning system and would certainly undermine the Government’s wish to build many more houses.

I am in favour of this with the restrictions I have outlined. I would ask the Government to look at it seriously and ask an expert to come up with a scheme which we can then decide whether to go ahead with or not; otherwise, we will simply continue as we are. If the Conservatives lose the next election and someone else takes over, at the election after that the Conservatives will be doing what they did on platforms with me in 2010—saying what a good idea this is and promising to bring it in if they get into government. I am not blaming them, because everyone does that and everyone changes their mind.