Communities and Local Government

Lord Field of Birkenhead Excerpts

Tuesday 21st December 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Frank Field (Birkenhead) (Lab)]

I am pleased to have the opportunity to raise the way in which one area in my constituency, Devonshire Park, is being treated. It feels that it is under attack from the planning system. I am glad that the Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Robert Neill), who has responsibility for such matters, is present. I will end by making a constructive suggestion on how Devonshire Park could be a pilot under the Government’s Localism Bill.

Devonshire Park is a small part of Birkenhead, which began to be built during Disraeli’s great reforming Government. It was that Government who, in the late 1870s, forged a new tradition for the Tory party. That was the beginning of one-nation Toryism. While Disraeli was doing that great work here in Westminster, the burghers of Birkenhead were building up their town. This small part of Birkenhead is rather finely built: the houses are set back from the road, are mainly detached or semi-detached and are large, decent family houses with gardens. The walls, which are such a feature of Birkenhead, are particularly interesting in this area, because much of the stone came from the nearby Storeton quarry.

It would still be a most peaceful community, but times change. A quarter of its 477 houses have been made into flats. That is double the proportion in the nation as a whole. That is not what worries my constituents the most, nor does it worry them that the houses make very good residential care homes for frail elderly people from Birkenhead and beyond. What worries my constituents is the number of homes that have been converted for institutional care use, such as rehab centres and support units for single mothers. My constituents feel that having 16 such institutions in such a small area begins to change the character of the local neighbourhood. They are not nimbys and are not saying that they do not want any such institutions in their back garden; they are just saying that they have rather a large number. They oppose developers who try to buy up property to convert yet more family homes into centres for use by institutions.

The chairman of the residents association, Robbie Bell, says that Devonshire Park is a

“community that other areas would aspire to.”

He, like me, wants the community to grow in spirit, so that it protects what it has and builds on it. The area is under attack, not from the normal forces of yobbish and criminal behaviour, but from developers. The area is targeted by developers who wish to buy up the homes and to create more institutional care homes, adding to the 16 that already operate in the area. I have already made the distinction between institutions such as drug rehab centres and support centres for single mums, and the residential care homes that do not trouble the local community.

I hope that the Government’s Localism Bill will come to the community’s rescue. From reading the Bill, I am not sure whether the Government have yet settled on their views in all areas. I therefore want to be positive and suggest that Devonshire Park would like to be No. 1 on the Government’s list to try out the neighbourhood development plans and neighbourhood development orders that are mentioned in the Bill. Across the country, there are examples of conservation areas, where the physical environment is protected. The Devonshire Park residents association wants the Government to consider whether we can use the neighbourhood development plans and orders in the Bill to move from protecting the physical environment to protecting the character of an area.

We all know that as we can kill people in different ways, so can we kill areas in different ways. There can be planning blight or local authority neglect, or we might have earthquake or fire. Alternatively, an area can come under attack from developers who, like the thief in the night, are constantly looking out for the opportunity to change the very nature of an incredibly strong community, which makes it feel under attack. My view is that the Localism Bill might ride to the rescue of such communities. I hope that the Minister might give my constituents hope that they can be the first through his door, suggesting how they would like the idea of a local development plan to become reality and protect them and people in similar areas of the country.

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[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Robert Neill)]

It has been a wide-ranging debate, which perhaps reflects the remit of the Department. I shall try to address the issues raised by hon. Members in order.

The right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr Field) made a characteristically graceful speech that argued a serious point. I have a lot of sympathy with the issue that he raised, and I was of course especially taken by the historical context and his reference to Disraeli. It may be of some comfort to him to learn that a portrait of Disraeli sits behind my desk—

[Mr Frank Field]

He’s watching you.

[Robert Neill]

He is indeed keeping an eye on me. I have long suspected that the right hon. Gentleman and I would both be comfortable within the tradition that Disraeli founded, but I shall not ask him to change his position too much in the Chamber just before Christmas.

The right hon. Gentleman made a serious point about repeat planning applications and gave some serious examples of what has happened in his constituency. I have had similar examples in my constituency and I suspect that many right hon. and hon. Members could say the same. Many of us have heard horror stories of communities—and, indeed, local authorities themselves—sometimes feeling worn down by repeated applications from the same developer on the same site. The right hon. Gentleman has seen that with particular types of development in his constituency, and I have certainly had to do battle on behalf of my constituents over repeat applications to develop back gardens, for example. That is a real threat in many suburban areas. It is important, therefore, that we take steps to prevent the system from being abused.

People of course have a right to make planning applications, but there are measures, to which I will come now, with which we can seek to control them. At the moment, a local planning authority can decline to determine a planning application, if it has refused permission for two “substantially similar” applications on the same site, or if one such application has been refused by the Secretary of State on appeal within the past two years. It is worth reminding local authorities, and members of planning committees and their officers, that they are entitled to use that safeguard, and not to be browbeaten, perhaps, in some circumstances. The relevant provisions are in sections 70A and 70B of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990, as amended.

The decision on whether an application is the same or substantially the same, and therefore on whether a determination can be refused, is for the local planning authority. Obviously, it has to take care, because it is justiciable, but provided that it acts within the context of public law in decision making, that safeguard is open to them. It is a discretionary power, however, and does not preclude an amended application from being made—once a developer has listened and addressed objections, as I hope would be the case—that does not fall foul of the provisions,.

I can confirm to the right hon. Member for Birkenhead that the Government intend to apply similar principles to neighbourhood plans drawn up under the Localism Bill. The Bill would allow local authorities to decline to consider a repeat proposal for a neighbourhood development order—the mechanism for, in effect, giving consent under the Bill. I hope that his point has been taken on board in that regard.

[Mr Field]

Under the Localism Bill, what new powers would the residents in Devonshire Park get to prevent the sorts of attacks they have faced over the past four years?

[Robert Neill]

The Localism Bill would create the concept of a neighbourhood plan, which could be incorporated in Birkenhead borough council’s statutory development document—its planning framework, as it is generally called. It would permit residents of Devonshire Park to apply to the local council to be recognised, as I am sure they would be in these circumstances, as a neighbourhood forum for the purposes of producing a neighbourhood plan. That would enable them to set out their vision for the area, which, subject to a referendum and getting support from their fellow residents, the local planning authority would incorporate into its plans, unless there were strategic reasons to the contrary.

That a significant safeguard would enable residents to put in place protection against particular types of development, if they thought they were not sustainable. It would, of course, have to be consistent with national policy that we will be setting out in the national planning policy framework, and with our support for sustainable development. However, it is exactly the sort of vehicle that the right hon. Gentleman and his constituents are seeking. I would be happy to talk to him as the Bill progresses to ensure that he and his constituents are in a position to take advantage of the provisions.

I also hope, of course, owing to the requirement in the Bill for pre-application discussions on any scheme of any significance, that developers themselves will recognise and take heed of the concerns and aspirations of local communities, and adjust their developments accordingly. We are trying to move to a much more collaborative and front-loaded approach to planning, rather than repeat applications and the threat of a decision by appeal at the end. I am happy to keep the right hon. Gentleman informed on progress on those matters.

Let me now go back further than the Disraeli period—to the Plantagenets, as I understand it—and address the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Banbury (Tony Baldry). I am sure that he was not there at the time, but he has a degree of erudition that clearly indicates that he has gone that far back in researching borough status for Banbury. Those of us who watch “Lark Rise to Candleford” will be well aware of the status of Banbury within Oxfordshire, and not just as the home of Banbury cakes, but as a major town. I understand the sense of where my hon. Friend is coming from, because we as a Government recognise civic pride as a valuable part of the big society. That said, these things are not quite as easy as one might wish. My hon. Friend is a distinguished lawyer, and he is quite right about the constraints on achieving the ambition that he set out.

At the current time it is not possible for any authority, other than a district council, to become a borough. There may be no confusion among the residents of his area about Cherwell district council and a borough of Banbury, but I would not like to guarantee that that would apply everywhere else. [Interruption.] I see the right hon. Member for Birkenhead smiling. One can just imagine the confusion about what was the historic borough of Birkenhead and the borough of Wirral, of which it is now a part. I can see the same thing happening in my constituency, with confusion about the former borough of Bromley and the current borough of Bromley, one of which is much larger than the other, which happens to lie within it. Things are not quite so simple, so we will have to be a careful. We will of course consider the position, but the route suggested is not to create a new type of borough, which could confuse people even more. Rather, if Banbury wishes, it can apply for city status under the jubilee provisions.