Lord Greaves
Main Page: Lord Greaves (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)Housing and Planning Bill
Lord Greaves Excerpts
Baroness Greengross (CB)
My Lords, I support the noble Baroness, Lady Andrews, in this very important amendment. She described it and made her case so beautifully. I rise because I spent six years as a commissioner in the Equality and Human Rights Commission. I am very much aware that people with disabilities are, rightly, a protected group in our country. Therefore, not complying with the amendment might be seen even as discriminatory by many people. Even more importantly, it would not be the right thing to do. What is the point of being in a protected group if there is no possibility of you being able to live in a local housing project? It is just logic; we have to do something to fulfil our obligations and do so with a good will.
The number of people with disabilities is rising. Thankfully, they, like any other person in our society, have a much better chance of survival than previously. This means that an appropriate proportion of housing in any development should be fully accessible to wheelchair users, as the noble Baroness has proposed. Therefore, I support her very important amendment.
I turn now to the amendment standing in my name in this group. As Mark Twain so famously said:
“Buy land, they’re not making it anymore”.
During Committee, a host of ideas have been put forward as to what we should do about the severe housing shortage facing us as a nation. While a large number of the ideas that have been put forward are great in theory, unfortunately some of them do not always work in practice, as has been repeatedly demonstrated in some of the debates we have already had, while others have been proven after many years of successful practice.
One such is retirement housing for older people with supported care needs. This is often called “extra care retirement housing”, which might not be the best name for it. There are others, often called “close care”, or they may be part of a retirement village. They are provided by a whole range of providers in the public, voluntary and private sectors. Such developments are not merely housing schemes designed without stairs, with grab rails and so on for older people; they offer older people a whole lifestyle, providing independent living, where many of the day-to-day chores are taken care of, and where support services come into play if they are required. People there have the reassurance of knowing that trained help is on hand if they need it. There is a restaurant that provides not just food but company when they wish to go there. There is a lounge or lounges available with activities to take part in. There is a guest suite, so that if the family wants to come to stay, it can. There are also 24/7 alarm calls and monitoring by those who understand the needs of older people.
During the years, I have met hundreds—in fact, probably many thousands—of older people in this and other types of housing. Because of my experience, my husband and I were able to ensure that my mother spent the last five years of her life in extra care retirement housing. She lived there, and died happily in her own home, with friends and family around her. I want many more people to have that opportunity.
The case for providing extra care retirement housing goes much further. At the same time as providing all these services, it also offers direct benefits to both local and national government because it brings down the costs of both health and welfare provision. This has already been said in relation to people with disabilities. I declare an interest as I head up the think tank, the International Longevity Centre UK. A study by the ILC in 2011 showed—to take just two examples—that extra care residents are less likely to be admitted for overnight stay in hospital and that they experience fewer falls. The study also showed that around 19% of those aged 80 or more, living in the community and receiving domiciliary care, were likely to move into institutional or residential care, while only 10% of people in extra care housing were expected to do so. That cuts the numbers by more or less a half. So as well as enhancing well-being for many, it keeps older people at home for longer and gives them opportunities to have a full life and to contribute to their communities because they still live in them.
There was a lady I knew who was totally disabled and in her late 70s. Her MP used to speak to me about her often because she was in awe of her; sadly, she died recently. This lady was about the best telephone campaigner in her area and she often terrified her MP. She was able to be in her community and be a resource in that community.
This amendment does not try to spell out quotas or targets but it ensures that there is a legal duty on people who make decisions on planning applications to have special regard to the need for such provision in the community. As such, I hope that it will be acceptable to your Lordships’ House. For me, extra care retirement housing—or housing of that type—ticks all the boxes. It adds to the housing stock; it encourages downsizing where appropriate. At a time when everyone is rightly concerned about the availability of finance, it releases funds that would otherwise be spent on health, social care and other forms of welfare provision. It truly is a win-win situation.
Lord Greaves (LD)
My Lords, I shall say a few words in support of the amendments tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Andrews, which I signed with some enthusiasm, and by the noble Baroness, Lady Greengross.
Looking back over the past 40 years during which I have been involved in housing issues, it seems that the drive and impetus to provide adequate housing for disabled people across a range of level of disabilities, together with the drive to provide better housing for older people, has faltered. As part of the current wish of people across the political spectrum to have more houses built, simply building them has a higher priority than what kind and quality of houses are built. That is something which I read right through this Bill. I hope that I am wrong, but that is how I read it.
Lord Greaves
Lord Greaves
My Lords, Amendment 89N is the first in the group of amendments on the part of the Bill that refers to permission in principle and relates to Clauses 136 and 137 and Schedule 12. We move back to discussing a countrywide issue rather than a London parochial matter, which the House of Lords does so well. Most Members of the House of Lords come from London, so it is not surprising, really.
This is, I think, the most important and most central part of Part 6 of the Bill, which is the planning sections. It is regrettable that we come to it at tea-time on day eight out of seven allocated for Committee. Nevertheless, we have seven hours today to have a good look at it—and perhaps a bit more in the morning, who knows.
In Part 6, particularly in the planning-in-principle system, we are looking at a radical, fundamental change to the system of development management in this country. My second regret is that this comes to us at a late stage in the parliamentary process on the Bill without any clear understanding or knowledge at all in the country about what is being proposed. This is a technical matter and an extremely important one. For those of us who are local politicians, it is vital because it is about local planning applications, and we all know that they are some of the most controversial things that happen in relation to councils and local communities. These proposals would have been ideal for pre-legislative scrutiny. In particular, when we get on to later parts of Part 6, which were dumped into the Bill at a very late stage in the Commons and had absolutely no scrutiny, it behoves us here to do what we can in the limited amount of time that we have. This is not a good and sensible way, in my judgment, to introduce new and important legislation.
As in some of the earlier parts of the Bill, there is a huge amount of prescription of powers for Ministers to make regulations in this part of the Bill. Simply reading the Bill itself will not tell anyone how the new system will work. That again is unfortunate. Because it is part of the planning system, where a lot of the regulations in planning delegated to Ministers are done through development orders that do not go through parliamentary process, the position is even worse, because a lot of the very important consequences of what is being proposed here will not be subject to parliamentary scrutiny. So we have an important job to do.
I am grateful to have come across a document called Technical Consultation on Implementation of Planning Changes, which has been sent out to local planning authorities. It is unfortunate that it was not sent to us earlier, because it answers quite a lot of the questions about what the Government intend that is not set out in the Bill. I recommend it to noble Lords who have not seen it as bedtime reading before Report. At least it will help them go to sleep.
We all know about the present system of development control. Where planning permission is required, most development is subject to applications for planning permission to local planning authorities, which may be outlined and establish the principle of development, or may be reserved matters, or may be both taken together as a full application. The new system is unusual in that the old system will remain alongside it. I understand that it will remain for everything except housing. Even for housing, there will be a choice for people as to which system to use. It appears that the Government believe that planning in principle should rely on only three material considerations in relation to whether planning in principle for a site should be given. I am simply reporting what I think the Government are proposing.
One is location—the red line. One is uses, which I understand means housing together with any lesser uses that might be appropriate in a big housing development, such as some retail development, playgrounds or whatever. The last is the amount of development—the number of houses—which the technical consultation suggested should be flexible within quite tight limits. Once there is planning in principle, an application to the local planning authority will be required for technical details. They will have to be only within parameters—a new planning word that we will all learn to love or hate—set out in the planning in principle, if I have understood the technical consultation correctly. The planning in principle may be by allocation in a qualifying document—this may be a local development plan or a register; the brownfield register is the one that is most often talked about, but it seems that there may be other registers as well—or by application to the local authority in a similar way to application for planning permission.
As I say, all this is little known and little understood. The legislation is complicated. Even among planners there is a great deal of concern. Hugh Ellis, policy director at the Town and Country Planning Association, says:
“You can’t make a decision in principle”,
first,
“about a site until you know the detail of its implications, from flood risk appraisal to the degree of affordable housing. Giving permission in principle would fundamentally undermine our ability to build resilient, mixed communities in the long term”.
The planning manager in my local authority in Pendle, who is an extremely competent planner, said after reading and studying the consultation document:
“Until there is more clarity on the process that is involved and the level of assessment that is required in order to be able to approve developments in principle, it is not possible to make informed comments on the process”.
That was in response to the Government’s technical consultation.
It appears that this is happening based on a fallacy that housing supply is being held back mainly by the need to secure planning permission, which is not happening. There is very little evidence for this. The blockages are mainly market-linked. They are to do with viability, sources of finance, economic demand as opposed to need, extra costs on sites, and predevelopment work such as site clearance and decontamination. They are to do with the habits of development companies, which they deny but which we can all see around us, of land banking: getting planning permission for sites and then sitting on their increased value, which has a beneficial effect on their bottom line; and, in some places, borrowing money on the basis of those sites and spending it somewhere else.
One of the things we have to look at in this PIP business is the boundary between planning in principle and technical details. The Government think that it is very clear: there are just those three things in PIP and everything else is a technical detail. But technical details include flood risk, contamination, community infrastructure, highways and transport, place-making, landscape heritage, design, and all the rest. They are not technical details; they are things that you need to sort out before you give agreement in principle to a site being developed—or at least some them are some of the time.
One of the arguments put forward is that there is duplication in the present system and a repeated test of the principle of development on a site. I have some detailed evidence from my own authority, which may or may not be typical, which said that in the last three years there have been only three refusals of planning applications for housing based on principle. They were all in the green belt, where they would presumably be turned down anyway. There is really very little evidence that this complaint is true.
What can PIP—I think I will call it that—be used for? It was invented last October—that recently—as part of the brownfield sites proposals. Since then, it has been extended in the Bill to the local planning process. The Bill actually says that it can be used for anything, all subject to ministerial regulation through either statutory instruments or development orders. It could be used for anything from industrial estates to fracking. We in this House ought to tighten up the wording on the face of the Bill. There are lots of other things we need to be discussing.
Lord Lansley (Con)
My Lords, the amendment to Clause 136 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, enables us to consider some of the principles of permission in principle. I draw attention to my entry in the Register of Lords’ Interests as the chair of the Cambridgeshire Development Forum. When we discussed the principles of the Bill at Second Reading, and in other debates in Committee, I said that we have to keep our eye on the purpose: our capacity to build more homes. If we are successful, through the mechanism of the Bill, in enabling and encouraging more homes to be built, many of the issues we have discussed in Committee will be expedited as a consequence.
Permission in principle is a measure which stands a good chance of enabling us to deliver more homes more quickly. I refer to the example which I gave at Second Reading from my own constituency, which continues to be current and interesting. When it was first proposed, Northstowe, to the north-west of Cambridge, would have been the largest new town built in this country for some 30 years. In 2003, as the local Member of Parliament, I participated in the public examination before the inspector as part of a detailed structure plan inquiry. The purpose of the inquiry was to identify the best location for the establishment of a large new town with some 10,000 homes. The structure plan identified Northstowe as the best location for such a development. It was intended, and subsequently incorporated into local planning, that there would be 6,000 new homes built there by 2016. It is now 2016 and no homes have yet been built. Governments of all political colours always included Northstowe as an example of development potential: the coalition, this Government, the previous Labour Government—Gordon Brown mentioned it when he announced eco-towns. Indeed, Simon Stevens from NHS England included Northstowe as one of the new healthy towns when he talked about them three weeks ago. It is no kind of a town unless we build it: we have to make it happen.
I draw attention to this because the structure plan inquiry went into detail—often exhaustive detail—about the suitability of the location for a development of that size. It looked with great care at the questions which permission in principle is intended to treat as the particulars. What was the location? It was a housing-led development, but what other associated uses were in the master plan? What was the amount of development? What were the density issues? The particulars were all there but, under our existing planning system, the fact that so much had been, as we understood it, agreed in the structure plan did not make any difference to the amount of cost, complexity and time that needed to be absorbed by the lead developers to bring this through to even an outline planning application. As noble Lords will understand, that is before the point at which they go on to the full planning application which follows.
What is intended here is very straightforward. Under such a set of circumstances, where major sites for housing development are contemplated and there is a local or neighbourhood planning process or an appropriate register as a qualifying document, we should go from three processes to two. The noble Lord, Lord Greaves, is right that the balance and the boundary between those two things is important. However, the implication of what he was saying was that, because the Government identify three particulars as the basis on which the development order will be granted, those particulars therefore exclude, by definition, some of the issues which enable the particulars to be determined.
Lord Greaves
My understanding, having read the technical consultation, is that that is exactly the position. One thing we have to tease out is the exact stage at which the detailed investigations into and the related decisions about particular sites take place under the new system. We all agree that while they should not take place three times, they should take still place. However, there does not seem to be anything in the new system that says they will unless they are carried out and paid for by the local planning authority. That is unacceptable.
Baroness Williams of Trafford
My Lords, when setting out the local plan, local authorities will have to be clear on things such as environmental mitigation and flood risk—all the various things that would usually be considered. If noble Lords have suggestions for what should be included in the technical details stage of the process, I would be very grateful. I thought the noble Baroness was going to mention something entirely different because we talked the other day about sites of archaeological interest. Of course, such things have to be considered in terms of the NPPF anyway. But if she thinks there are additional things that should be included at the technical details stage, I am very happy to listen and take them on board.
Lord Greaves
That is very helpful but I think what is concerning people is not what additional material considerations there may be for planning applications or the new system, it is which of the existing ones the new system will miss out. Will anything that is a material consideration for a planning permission at the moment, whether it is a full permission or reserved matters or whatever, still be a material consideration under the PIP technical details system?
Baroness Williams of Trafford
I assure the noble Lord that absolutely it will. The rigour that exists in the current planning system will be the rigour that exists through permission in principle. All the permission in principle system does is create a lesser financial burden upfront for builders, particularly small builders, which might want to build developments. It saves the upfront money knowing that they have the “in principle” go-ahead to pursue it further. I assure the noble Lord that none of the rigour that exists now will be diminished or diluted in the permission in principle system. I hope that that reassures him.
Baroness Williams of Trafford
I am making an assumption here, but I would say that a minor scheme would be one with no more than a few dwellings on it. It would certainly not be a large scheme, which is currently designated as more than 10 dwellings, so perhaps one or two houses; no more than that. In fact, it might be just one dwelling.
I can also assure noble Lords that the technical details must be negotiated and agreed before developments can start, so in terms of the rigour of the planning process, they cannot be agreed afterwards. They have to be agreed before the development can go ahead.
Lord Greaves
I am a bit confused by the Minister’s language. When she said that they should be negotiated before the development starts, does that mean that permission is given by the local planning authority as if it was a reserved matter?
Baroness Williams of Trafford
Yes, it would be. The development cannot go ahead unless the technical details have been agreed. It is an essential part of the process, just as it is under the current system.
Perhaps I may finish my opening remarks by reminding noble Lords of what the sector has made of our proposals since the Bill was published back in October. The Federation of Master Builders strongly supports them, and it believes in particular that the application route for minor developments will help to reduce the barriers to bringing forward small-scale housing development. In its evidence to the committee scrutinising the Bill, the Home Builders Federation said that Clause 136 would definitely increase supply because it is,
“a positive step towards finding the sites that local authorities actually want to see developed”.
I hope that I have been able to demonstrate briefly that permission in principle is a much-needed measure that is supported by the sector. It aims to introduce more predictability and efficiency into our system for locally supported development.
The noble Lords, Lord Beecham and Lord Greaves, talked about fracking. I should just like to make the point at this juncture that fracking sites are precisely the type of development that would not be suitable for permission in principle; they are simply at the other end of the scale. We are talking here about housing-led sites, so I shall say on the Floor of the House that fracking is not the sort of thing that we are thinking about. However, I know that noble Lords like to have it confirmed again and again, and I do not blame them.
The noble Lord, Lord Beecham, asked about the number of dwellings. The number will be determined through the local plan derived via consultation with the local community. He also asked about archaeological sites. If, say, a new dead king was found under a site, making it a site of great archaeological interest, it is fair to say that the technical details consent would be refused at that point.
Lord Greaves
My Lords, I am grateful for the care with which the Minister has answered and taken part in the discussion on these amendments. Inevitably a great deal of what she said was explaining the proposals rather than engaging with some of the arguments put forward, although she engaged with quite a few.
The noble Lord, Lord Lansley, made an interesting point about emerging plans. We will discuss this later, but it is clear that the Government do not intend that permission in principle should be retrospective. However, there are plans at the moment that may not—and if they are very close to adoption, will not—have been put together with an understanding that permission in principle might come from them. There is an interesting debate to be had in a later group about that.
The noble Lord, Lord Lansley, also mentioned flood plains. In a sense, this underlines the difficulty behind the permission in principle and technical details concept. Is the liability of land to flood on a flood plain or indeed in any other circumstances a matter to be sorted out before permission in principle is given or not? Should it be sorted out at local plan level? If there is an application for permission in principle outside the local plan, direct to the authority, who sorts it out and at what stage? One of the concerns of local planning authorities is that the work on assessing the problem, assessing what needs doing, designing mitigation methods and so on may be transferred from the applicant—the developer—to the local authority. Most of the work involved in putting a local plan together, such as the strategic housing land availability assessment and other such documents, is done by and paid for by the local authority.
In terms of planning applications, one of the complaints seems to be that developers—applicants—have to spend a lot of money at an early stage when they are not sure if their application is going to get passed. I am not quite sure how you get away from that, but if a local authority says that it cannot give permission in principle on land because it is a flood plain, it will have to have evidence to show that—not least if it goes to appeal. To get that evidence, it will have to do the work and show that mitigation is not possible. There is a real problem. Is this a device for transferring the cost of doing work before an application can be agreed from the developer to the local authority? If it is, there are obvious problems, which I think we can discuss in later groups.
Otherwise, I am pretty grateful to the Minister for what she has said and I will have a happy time over the Recess reading it all. I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.
Lord Greaves
Lord Greaves
My Lords, this is a miscellaneous group relating to planning in principle. In moving Amendment 90ZA, I will speak to the rest of the amendments in my name in the group. Amendment 90ZA and two other amendments in this group relate specifically to the term “technical details”. Noble Lords will know that I take an interest in what things are called. I think that it is important for the way in which they are regarded. “Technical details” seems to me to be the wrong name. They suggest a formality, either right or wrong, or yes or no, like building regulations—non-controversial, technical and able to be the subject of tick lists.
It is becoming clear from the discussions that “technical details” in the case of planning in principle will include a great deal more than that. They will include things that are debateable and arguable and they will require a lot of evidence from both sides. Also, when a local authority makes a decision, it will be subject to appeal. “Technical details” seems to me to be a source of confusion and misunderstanding and have a lack of clarity for the public. When people are told that their objection about access to the site through their estate or the impact that it is going to have on the local landscape is just a technical detail, I think they will get quite angry. Therefore, because it seems a more sensible name and because I always want to help the Government in these matters, I suggest that they should be called “development details”, which is a clear, simple and obvious name for them.
The Bill says that when there is an application for permission in principle—in other words, getting a PIP directly through the local authority and not through a document—the local planning authority may grant the planning in principle or may refuse it. It suggests that there are no circumstances in which local authorities could grant it with conditions. This is causing a lot of bemusement in the planning world. Amendments 94ZB and 94ZC are to probe this and say,
“they may grant permission … with conditions”,
but,
“any conditions imposed … may only relate to matters that are material to the granting of permission of principle”.
It seems rather drastic to say that, in relation to the area, the amount of housing or indeed other uses of the site, the local authority is not able, perhaps after discussion and negotiation with the applicants, to put conditions on in the normal way.
The present planning system is not anti-development; it is actually very pro-development. One thing that applicants often complain about that is not to their benefit is that there can be a great deal of negotiation after the initial pre-application discussions with the local planning authority. There will be perhaps negotiation as it is going through the system and the final result may be different from what was proposed at the beginning, but the result will be that planning permission is given.
The whole impetus now within the local planning system is that, when a planning application comes in, it gets permission. Therefore, what the local planning authority is doing and what the planners are doing very often during that process, in negotiations with the applicants, are the things necessary to make it possible to give that planning permission—and it goes to committee to make a recommendation for that. To say that you can simply pass it or kick it out seems to me a recipe for having more refusals than we do now. If there are things that people think need negotiating and changing, it will not be possible to do it—and having conditions is a way to do that.
Finally, conditions on an outline planning approval will mean that the permission given will say something like, “This permission is given subject to reserved matters, which are as follows”, or it may say that all the matters are reserved, but it will give outline planning permission subject to subsequent agreement about the reserved matters. What is now being said is that the planning in principle will be given but there will be a list of parameters set for a subsequent application for technical details. I do not understand what the difference is between an outline planning permission and a permission in principle in those circumstances and I do not understand what the difference is between reserved matters and parameters. Perhaps the Minister can elucidate what parameters mean and what they are all about. Will the parameters set out be mandatory on technical details? Will there be things that have to be sorted out at that stage? What happens if perfectly good objections arise to a proposal at technical detail stage that have not been thought about at planning and principle stage? Will it be impossible to consider these other things, which members or local groups or even councillors may bring up and which may be valid and obvious things that need to be sorted out before the application can be dealt with? Will they be banned from being dealt with if they are not in the list of parameters—if they are not in the parameter of parameters that have been agreed at the first stage?
With Amendment 94B, I am just trying to be helpful, as the Bill as it is written at the moment does not make sense. It would make an amendment to Section 70 of the Town and Country Planning Act. Perhaps somebody could look at it.
Amendment 94ZA is all about guidance. For heaven’s sake, we are going to have lots of regulation-making powers by the Secretary of State, then we are going to have all the powers of the Secretary of State to make development orders under the Town and Country Planning Act, which will set out most of the rules and regulations for local authorities. In addition to that, we have this ridiculous paragraph saying:
“Local planning authorities must have regard to any guidance issued by the Secretary of State in the exercise of functions exercisable by virtue of this section”.
If the Secretary of State issues guidance, people will pay attention to it—obviously they will. But putting it in legislation like that is an insult to local planning authorities, to councils, to planners and to councillors. It is treating them like children; it is just pathetic. However, that is just an outburst on my part. The other amendments in this group are more substantial. I beg to move.
Baroness Williams of Trafford
I hope the noble Baroness will engage with the consultation. In fact, her words tonight will form part of the consultation. All noble Lords’ suggestions are being taken forward to help shape policy.
Lord Greaves
My Lords, the problem is that getting permission in principle will not provide certainty. All it will provide is certainty that you can go on to the next stage where the hard work will have to be done and paid for and the application might be turned down. The Minister keeps talking about the fact that conditions can be put on and applications can be amended at the technical details stage. That is absolutely right but they can also be thrown out, and the problem that some of us, including the noble Baroness, Lady Andrews, are trying to grasp is that some of the things which will be discussed at technical details stage are regarded as something that should be discussed at outline planning stage. They are matters of principle such as the question of whether you can get proper safe access to the site and the matter of ecology on the site. The proposal that has been put forward is that you can get planning permission in principle for such a site but then there are technical details that have to be dealt with, so it does not stop the cost. It might even cost small builders more because they are being led down the garden path with permission in principle and then they are being stopped when they get to the privy at the bottom, whereas at the moment they would be stopped halfway down the garden path. So this needs to be thought out.
As a ward councillor I am currently engaged peripherally in discussions for a small planning application for about 24 houses. The development has had full planning permission but the developers decided it was not viable as set out so they have come back with a changed application. Discussions are now taking place which are delaying the whole thing, but the purpose is to get it passed in the end. Some of the discussions are taking place because residents in nearby flats, assisted by me and other councillors, are complaining about some of the properties just behind them being too high and too big. Meanwhile, the developer is saying that it is still not viable and they want another one. So discussions are taking place at the moment on the minor detail of changing the design of one of the houses, perhaps putting another house in a corner where there is not one.
Lord Greaves
Lord Greaves
My Lords, I submitted some of the amendments in this group before I got further information by reading the technical consultation and implementation, which I will come to. I shall speak also to the other amendments in my name in this group. These amendments are mainly about timescales and time limitations, which is why they have been grouped. There is a very helpful Labour amendment in the middle of the group.
Amendments 90A, 95C and two others refer to the prescribed period. Amendment 90A is a probing amendment to find the Government’s idea of what the prescribed period should be for after permission in principle is given on a piece of land but before technical details have to be given, otherwise the permission in principle may lapse. I have suggested three years, which is the present position for outline planning permission and reserved matters. Since I tabled the amendment, I have been able to see the technical consultation which talks about a different timescale, and I hope noble Lords will let me raise this as it is important.
The maximum determination period for permission in principle on application and technical details consent is how long the local authority has to process and determine applications. At the moment, it is essentially eight weeks for ordinary applications and 13 weeks for major applications. The proposed determination periods that are being consulted on are five weeks for permission in principle for minor applications, five weeks for technical details consent for minor sites and 10 weeks for technical details consent for major sites. There is considerable concern about these proposals and these timescales. I apologise to the Minister, who will not have answers on these specific things, but I want to put them on the record.
I have a comment from my planning manager in Pendle. He says:
“If there is to be meaningful consultation the timescales involved are unworkable and will lead to many applications being rejected. A significant number of applications need amending or further clarifying information needs to be prepared. This requirement often comes from the comments of consultees who normally take the full 21 days to respond”.
Consultees are Highways England, the Environment Agency, the Coal Authority and the rest of them.
“The processing of an application and registration takes two days and letters sent out to consultees. They will get the letters in the first week. There are then three weeks for consultation. That leaves 1 week to deal with all the issues that are brought up. If there are outstanding matters”—
and my experience is that there usually are—
“which there will inevitably be, LPAs will refuse consent rather than allow something that is potentially unacceptable.
Timescales need to be more realistic or the process will fall down with impossible to achieve timescales”.
The Minister said that our comments will be fed into the consultation, so I hope those comments will be fed in.
Amendment 93A states that PIP cannot be retrospective, and I think the Government agree that that is the case, so perhaps I will not pursue it. Amendment 92N probes the circumstances in which the Secretary of State can grant PIP instead of the LPA. Amendment 93A also states:
“The procedure to be followed for the readoption or revision of a qualifying document in a way that affects the granting of permission in principle to any land is the same as that which applies to the original adoption of the document”.
The purpose of that provision is to probe whether, after the document has been adopted with all the public consultation and processes which it appears are being promised, it could then be changed in some way on the sly without all that process taking place again.
Amendment 93B is about whether permission in principle will cease to have effect on land. If planning permission is given for a different use, does the housing PIP then lapse or does it stand alongside a new permission for, say, a supermarket? If land is allocated for a different use or has the allocation for housing removed in the local development plan, does the planning in principle lapse if the local development plan is changed? If land is removed from the list of land suitable for housing development or the register of brownfield land, does that mean that the planning in principle is also removed at the same time?
Amendment 93C is about how applications for planning permission will work on land which already has planning in principle for housing. If it has permission in principle for housing, and somebody puts in a planning application for a supermarket, a garage site or whatever, will that simply operate on the same lines as it would if that permission in principle did not exist? If the permission in principle for the supermarket, the garage site or whatever is then granted, does the planning in principle for housing lapse or does it continue to exist alongside? I beg to move.
Lord Beecham
My Lords, I rise with, I promise, uncharacteristic brevity to speak to Amendments 93 and 96, which are tabled in my name and that of my noble friend Lord Kennedy. These amendments relate to time. Amendment 93 relates to new Section 59A(4), which states:
“Permission in principle … takes effect when the qualifying document is adopted”,
and, critically, goes on to say in new paragraph (b) that it,
“is not brought to an end by the qualifying document ceasing to have effect or being revised, unless the order provides otherwise”,
which strikes me as somewhat peculiar provision. My amendment would ensure that the provision in principle expired when the plan was no longer relevant or had been replaced. It limits the time to circumstances when it remains relevant or has not been replaced.
Amendment 96 again relates to the time factor, because the somewhat convoluted proposed new subsection (2ZZC) says:
“Subsection (2ZZA) does not apply where … the permission in principle has been in force for longer than a prescribed period”.
That is what the Bill currently says. The amendment seeks to put a limit on that period of five years, so there would have to be development within a five-year period. That seems perfectly reasonable given what we already know about the vast number of outstanding permissions which are not acted on, and which therefore of course do not contribute to meeting housing or indeed any other needs.
Baroness Williams of Trafford
My Lords, I am saying that we have no intention of setting it out in perpetuity; we are consulting on what the length of time would be and on the option of setting the limit at five years, which would indeed be set out in secondary legislation.
Lord Greaves
On the question of five years, if I remember correctly, the limit for outline planning applications and full applications used to be five years, and the limit for outlines was reduced to three years precisely to encourage people to get on with development and apply for reserved matters. Is it not the case that going back to five years for planning in principle before technical details are required could result in the process slowing down, which is the opposite to what the Government want?
Baroness Williams of Trafford
I take the noble Lord’s point; I hope that all that would come out in the consultation and that we would arrive at a sensible period of time.
On Amendments 93A and 92K, in answer to the points raised about permission in principle applying to existing local and neighbourhood plans, I hope that I can make some helpful assurances. I make it clear that permission in principle, granted on allocation in locally prepared plans and registers, will apply only to those adopted once the permission in principle measure is fully in force. The Government have no intention to apply the measure retrospectively to site allocations in existing local development plans. It will be possible to grant permission in principle only going forward, so existing plans and site allocations will not be affected. My noble friend Lord Lansley asked what would happen to plans that are in evolution. Local authorities can go back and review their plans to put permission in principle to effect. I am making the point that it cannot be done retrospectively, which has been a concern.
Lord Greaves
While we are on this, in principle—I hate to use that word here—there might be no reason why, if the local plan has been put together in a very thorough way with lots of public consultation, it should not apply, once it is adopted, perhaps next year or later this year, to permission in principle. The problem is, as the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, and the Minister said, that because of the way in which local plans are put together at present, very often there is not much public involvement about particular site allocations because people always think, “That’s been allocated for housing for ages so it’ll be allocated again, and we can always get involved and object if and when there’s a planning application”—and people hope that there never will be. If a local plan involving site allocations, whether it is the whole local plan or just the site allocations document, is almost or half-way ready to go to inspection, and the sites have more or less been agreed, and then there is the question of whether that plan, once it is adopted, should qualify for PIP, if the Minister is saying, “The local authority might have to go back and review it”, and if that then involves having a greater degree of public involvement and neighbour consultation than has taken place so far, that will delay the plan. Can the Government give a guarantee that under those circumstances they would not then penalise the authority for not meeting deadlines in production of the plan?
Baroness Williams of Trafford
My Lords, there is no intention to penalise local authorities; the Government made it quite clear that this would not be retrospective but could be reviewed as time went on. The noble Lord makes his own case when he talked about local people not being involved in the planning process. In fact, there is every evidence that the local planning process has vastly increased engagement from local communities, so I think it is a very good system, and I hope that local people get involved.
I turn to Amendment 93B. I assure the noble Lord that, as I said, we intend to set out a sensible period of when permission in principle ceases to have effect in secondary legislation. Setting the arrangements out in secondary legislation is more prudent, allowing us to consult and explore this further so that we can get the approach right.
Baroness Williams of Trafford
If I could just complete this point, the noble Lord can come in afterwards. On Amendment 93C, I reassure the noble Lord that we are consulting on the application process for the technical details consent. We envisage that the process will draw on the existing planning application process set out in Part 3 of the Town and Country Planning Act of 1990. However, because the permission in principle, followed by technical details consent, is a different route to obtaining planning permission, it would be inappropriate to place a requirement in the Bill that fully duplicates the current full planning permission procedure at the technical details consent stage.
We will be setting out the application process for technical details consent in secondary legislation once our current consultation closes, and, as I have said today, I will be very interested to hear views from noble Lords. I invite the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.
Lord Greaves
It would be very helpful to have a bit more information about some of the Government’s thinking on the secondary legislation to which the noble Baroness referred several times. That is what I was trying to intervene on. It is very difficult to know how the process is going to work and to understand it without knowing at least some of that. I accept that some of it is in the technical consultation, but not all.
Can the Minister tell us the relationship between pieces of land which have permission in principle and other planning applications that might be made on those pieces of land? Is the existence of the permission in principle a material consideration in the consideration of another planning application for a different use? If that planning application is granted, does the permission in principle on that land lapse, or would there be two permissions of a different sort side by side?
Baroness Williams of Trafford
My Lords, I do not think that a local authority would want to put a permission in principle on a site that already had an application for another use, but that would be up to the judgment of the local authority, particularly in planning for housing.
Lord Greaves
I am sorry to pursue the detail, but it is important. There might be a permission in principle on a piece of land that has been there for three or four years, and nothing has happened, and someone comes along and wants to develop it for something different. That is the sort of situation I am thinking of, in which the permission in principle is historic on the land, as it were, and it is a new application. Perhaps the Minister will write to me on that. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment
Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)
My Lords, Amendment 91 stands in the name of my noble friends Lord Beecham and Lord Kennedy and is still on the issue of permission in principle. In particular, we seek to mitigate the parts of the Bill that introduce a new system that in effect takes out both local democratic control and the rights of local people to have a say in proposals on their area—or on their doorsteps, as I think the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, said earlier.
Amendment 91 would require consultation with local authorities on criteria for PIP and on the technical details. Amendment 94 sets out information about the permission in principle granted by a development order, which must have prior consultation with local planning authorities. Amendment 95 would allow local planning authorities to overturn permission in principle decisions where important material considerations which the planning stage did not reveal have come to light. My noble friend Lord Beecham gave the example of archaeological finds in the debate on an earlier group.
These amendments and the others in the group are essential if the Government’s new system is to retain any workable input of local democratic accountability and to allow for further consideration as circumstances or what is known about a particular plan and its effect come to light. I beg to move.
Lord Greaves
My Lords, I have four amendments in this group that pursue the question of what should be in permission in principle and what in technical details. These are absolutely crucial issues, which need a great deal more thought between now and Report.
People will not understand that permission in principle can be given, as I suggested in Amendment 96ZC, for a piece of land where there are clearly drainage problems and there needs to be drainage assessment, unless that drainage assessment has taken place. If it is a brownfield site, is the local authority supposed to carry out that assessment to see whether a sustainable drainage scheme is needed for the site, to set out any details of measures that can mitigate the problem, or perhaps improve the problem by taking water off land that is liable to flood but that, if dealt with properly, would not? I suggest that that kind of thing ought to be part of the assessment of permission in principle, and it ought to be the responsibility of the developer to assess it and to produce a scheme that is acceptable. Otherwise, it will be put in the local plan as suitable for development, it will be allocated for housing and it will automatically get permission in principle because of that, yet the problems will not have been looked at and sorted out, and the certainty that the Government want for the developer will not exist. It will simply be transferred to the technical details stage.
Amendment 96ZD picks up another similar issue, which is highways and access appraisal. On any substantial development it is almost impossible to get outline planning permission nowadays unless you have the access sorted out. That is absolutely crucial. The access may be the direct access into the site, off the road or down the road, or works may be necessary on the local highways network to make the development of that site acceptable. Again, if that is not done by the permission in principle stage, if people think they have permission in principle and everything is okay, all the problems, all the expense of doing this will inevitably go to the technical details stage.
On the proposed timescale for dealing with consultations of three weeks, which I read out during the debate on the last amendment, if the local planning authority is consulting the local highways authority and it has to do a technical appraisal, go on site, measure junctions and all the rest of it, the whole thing is impossible. Unless it is sorted out at the permission in principle stage, there will be no certainty, permission in principle will be nothing, and technical details will turn into a full planning application type of process.
Baroness Williams of Trafford
May I start on a cheery note and reassure the noble Baroness that I did send the flow chart out with the details of the regulations? I do know that some noble Lords on the Benches opposite did not seem to get it. It will go into the Printed Paper Office. I have some copies here and the noble Baroness can avail herself of one. I hope that she is content with that.
I must say to the noble Baroness that we have spent many hours discussing the process of PIP and, if I do not answer all of her questions, perhaps she could look through Hansard and get back to me. Some of what I am about to say may also give her reassurance.
When permission in principle is granted through locally prepared plans and registers, local authorities will choose which sites they grant it to as part of their existing plan-making and site-allocation work. This choice will therefore be a local one, reached through rigorous involvement of communities and members within the current plan-making process. For the application route for minor development, following the existing planning application process, local authorities will be required to determine applications for permission in principle in accordance with the development plan for the local area, unless material considerations indicate otherwise, after a period of consultation with the community and statutory bodies.
The noble Baroness, Lady Andrews, asked me what “describe” meant. It means the setting out of expectations about what will be covered in a later application underpinned by evidence. That is my understanding of what “describe” means.
Amendment 94 would include in the Bill that information included on the planning register would be subject to consultation with local authorities. Under the current system, local planning authorities are already required to hold and maintain a planning register of all planning applications. The power in subsection (7) of new Section 59A, inserted into the Town and Country Planning Act by Clause 136, will merely require local authorities to add to the planning register information about permission in principle granted through locally made plans, registers and applications. The information to be placed on the register will be the same as they are currently required to publish or make available for standard planning applications.
On Amendments 95 and 95B, permission in principle will agree and establish the fundamental principle of development for location, uses and amount of housing development. Section 70(2ZZA), as introduced by the Government into the Town and Country Planning Act through this Bill, means that when the local authority determines an application for technical details consent, it cannot revisit the fundamental principles agreed by the permission in principle. The noble Baroness, Lady Andrews, pressed me again on what technical details might look like. They might look like matters relating to the design, affordable housing, inappropriate mitigation or, conversely, appropriate mitigation.
Baroness Williams of Trafford
I do not think that the site would get permission in principle if there were no access to the site. That would be one of the fundamental principles for a site to be suitable for permission in principle. But I will get on to that.
If accepted, the amendments would have the consequence of allowing the local authority to reconsider the fundamental principles when considering an application for technical details consent. That defeats the purpose of the measure and undermines the certainty that it aims to give, because it allows other material considerations to become relevant during the decision-making process, as is currently the case. There would therefore effectively be no change.
However, I want to make it very clear that in determining an application for technical details consent, although the local planning authority will not be able to revisit the fundamental principles of development, it will be required to consider all the details of the application fully against the National Planning Policy Framework. The noble Baroness asked at what point; the NPPF is relevant the whole way through and local policy is also relevant. I re-emphasise that technical details consent can therefore be refused if the detail is not acceptable. Permission in principle is a tool that will allow the basic suitability of a site to be established early. What it will not do is override the need to ensure that proposals are sustainable, create mixed and balanced communities and include any necessary mitigation measures.
The noble Baroness pressed me on what would happen if technical details consent cannot be granted for a scheme. I hope that I have set out the rigorous process of consideration and engagement that will be followed to grant PIP and in that context, the scenario when no scheme can be given technical details consent, is an extremely rare one. But if it does occur, in those rare circumstances we have made provision for PIP granted on application to be revoked or modified.
Baroness Williams of Trafford
I hope that I can reassure the noble Baroness that that is certainly one of the things that could be part of that stage. I could perhaps come back to this on Report, but it is certainly one of the examples of what could come forward.
Lord Greaves
That was very interesting and we are making a bit of progress. I will put a particular instance to the Minister. It is based on real life, but I shall not say where it is. There was a big application for 500 houses—that is huge by east Lancashire standards. It has outline planning permission. As part of that, it required details of access. The highways authority—it is a two-tier area, so a county council—was required to approve access off not only an existing main road, but I think the roundabout on to that road. It also required a contribution towards improvements to a roundabout further down the road to increase its capacity on to the motorway. That all happened at the outline planning stage. Where would that happen under PIP and technical details? When will it happen? What is the process by which it would happen? Would that be part of declaring that that piece of land was okay for permission in principle, or would it have to wait for technical details?
Baroness Williams of Trafford
My Lords, the noble Lord will know that outline planning permission is entirely different from permission in principle, but if a site required significant infrastructure investment to access it, it is unlikely that that would be a simple permission in principle site.
Lord Greaves
My Lords, the effects, implications and consequences of the planning in principle and technical details regime for consultation with ordinary members of the public, whether they are residents, members of interested groups or whatever, is one of the more alarming parts of the proposed PIP system. I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, and the noble Baroness, Lady Andrews, on tabling Amendment 96ZBA.
My Amendment 100ZAZC is about notifications and publicity. This is something that we need to get to the bottom of before this matter leaves your Lordships’ House—although I do not imagine before it leaves Committee—and not wait for the consultation. What is set out in the technical consultation document is not very satisfactory. I will explain why in a minute.
My amendment would insert a new subsection into Section 65 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990. It says:
“A development order which makes provision under subsection (1)”,
in setting up the new permission in principle system,
“must also provide that … any requirements relating to applications for outline planning permission also apply to applications for planning in principle”.
The technical document suggests that that is the Government’s view, too, although I can see huge problems with consulting residents over permission in principle, because they will come up with all kinds of comments, objections and concerns that will be ruled out of order as nothing to do with the very limited parameters of permission in principle. There will be problems, but I think that what the Government propose to do is okay as it stands.
Any requirements relating to applications for approval of reserved matters also apply to applications for technical details consent. This is a matter for alarm and I will come to it in a minute. My amendment states:
“when compiling a register under section 14A of the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004”,
—that is, a brownfield register—
“the local planning authority must have regard to the requirements for notices, publicity and the issue of certificates that apply to applications for planning permission and carry out procedures to the same effect”.
If a local authority is setting up a brownfield register, and if at least part of that register is going automatically to grant permission in principle, the requirements for putting a notice on a piece of brownfield land and writing to immediate neighbours—or whatever it is that the local planning authority would do if this were an ordinary planning application—must apply. If they do not know it is happening, by the time it has happened it will be too late. It will not be the same as a local plan, where there are at least general attempts to publicise it and to get people to say what they think about it. In the case of just putting a piece of land on a brownfield register, the systems for telling people what is happening and giving them the chance to have their say must be the same as if this were a planning permission.
My amendment continues:
“a local planning authority that is proposing to make site allocations for use of land in a local development plan that would, if made, result in the granting of permission in principle, must carry out notifications and publicity equivalent to that which is required when an application is made for outline planning permission.””.
Earlier, the Minister said there was evidence that lots of people were getting involved in local plans nowadays and that that was very successful. It is true at neighbourhood plan level, but I do not believe it is true at local development plan level—a process which tends to take place remote from most people. Unless people are told directly that a particular piece of land is going to be allocated for housing in the local plan, they will not get involved and then, by the time they want to be involved, it will be too late.
So what is wrong with the technical consultation? The government document reads:
“Before an application for technical details consent is determined, we do not propose to require by secondary legislation that local planning authorities consult with the community and others before making a decision”.
It goes on to say that local authorities can do so if they wish:
“While we think that it is important for appropriate further engagement to take place at the technical details consent stage, we consider that centrally mandating what should be done risks unnecessarily repeating engagement and takes away an important local flexibility”.
This is very dangerous. It means that a local planning authority simply will not have to do all the usual neighbour notification and public consultation that it has to for a planning application, even if it is a reserved matter. If this happens, it will mean that a lot of people will not know what is being proposed and will not have the opportunity to have their say. It will reduce very substantially the effective involvement in local planning applications that takes place at the moment. I hope that the Government will seriously reconsider this.
Baroness Williams of Trafford
My Lords, I turn first to Amendment 96ZBA. The NPPF and our planning practice guidance stress the importance of early pre-app engagement. Under the current planning application process, applicants often voluntarily engage with local communities when developing their proposals. This can help ensure that development is locally supported and makes for a more positive application process. In the same way, applicants will be able to engage the community, as they often do, in their detailed design at technical details consent stage.
We introduced compulsory pre-app consultation for onshore wind development above an appropriate threshold through provisions in the Localism Act 2011. This was to ensure that early community engagement took place to improve the quality of proposed onshore wind development, helping to ameliorate local community concerns and perceptions towards these types of projects. We have not extended the compulsory pre-app development to any other type of planning permission, and therefore I do not see the case for extending it to technical details consent.
I assure the noble Baroness, Lady Andrews, that we envisage that the technical details consent stage will draw on the existing planning application process, including arrangements for publicity. We are currently consulting on the application process for technical details consent. We welcome the views and expertise of noble Lords to help us to develop arrangements set out in secondary legislation. As regards the consultation on technical details consent, we do not explicitly propose to require that local authorities consult on an application for technical details consent, but we are seeking views on encouraging consultation to take place through statutory guidance to the extent that local authorities consider appropriate views.
Amendment 100ZAZC would add publicity and consultation requirements before a grant of permission in principle. I hope that the noble Lord will be reassured to hear that we intend to set out publicity and consultation requirements before a grant of permission in principle. The Bill already provides for us to set this out in secondary legislation. This will be the case whether permission in principle is granted through a locally prepared plan or on application.
We are also currently consulting on the application process for technical details consent. As I set out in relation to Amendment 96ZB, we envisage that technical details consent will draw from the existing planning application process. However, because the permission in principle followed by the technical details consent is a new route in obtaining planning permission, it would be inappropriate to place a requirement in the Bill that fully duplicated the current outline and reserved matters stage. As I mentioned, we will set out the application process for technical details consent in secondary legislation once our current consultation closes. I would be extremely interested to hear noble Lords’ views on how to strike the balance between the permission in principle and the technical details consent stage.
Amendment 96F is intended to ensure that local communities and others are consulted by local authorities before land is included in their registers. I understand the noble Lord’s concern and agree that an appropriate level of consultation will be important when authorities are preparing and updating their registers. However, local authorities will be expected to assess the suitability of all relevant sites for inclusion in their registers. As part of that process, we will also expect them to identify which of those sites they consider suitable for permission in principle for housing. Where an authority proposes to grant permission in principle for housing on sites in registers, consultation will be mandatory. As I said earlier, regulations will set out the procedures to be followed. Where authorities do not intend to grant permission in principle for a site included in a register, we propose to give them discretion to consult their local communities and interested parties about those sites. This approach recognises that local planning authorities are best placed to determine whether consultation would be helpful, and it provides authorities with flexibility to adapt their approach in particular circumstances. I hope that with those comments, noble Lords will feel free not to press their amendments.
Lord Greaves
My Lords, I tabled this as a sweep-up, in case we had missed something. I am not sure there is anything, but there may be one or two things. I was going to put it in a group, but the Labour Party said they wanted to keep it separate. Perhaps they have got something to say.
A couple of questions have occurred to me during the debate. One of the curiosities of getting planning permission is that anybody can apply for it for any piece of land. Is that also going to apply to permission in principle? That is something for the Minister to think about.
The second question is slightly more substantive. We are told that permission in principle is just for housing, in the Bill or anywhere else. There may be other things associated with housing development, such as shops or local offices, but so long as it is housing led that is okay. In local development plans, allocations of land are usually for housing. In most cases, they do not say “housing with shops”. When it comes to applying for planning permission, if people want a little area in the middle of the housing with two or three shops, everyone says that is wonderful and gives permission for it. How will permission in principle work in terms of categories? Will it have to be in the local plan, or the brownfield site register, that it is housing with associated ancillary things? If so, categories in local plans are going to have to be substantially revised. I just thought of that question and it seems to be a practical thing that needs to be looked at.
Baroness Williams of Trafford
I confirm to the noble Lord that it would have to be categorised as housing-led development. For permission in principle to be granted, it would have to be categorised by size, location and type of development. I hope that reassures the noble Lord.
I hope that, through the course of this evening, I have been able to demonstrate that, rather than removing the role of local authorities and communities, the true aim of the measure is to help them in developing their plans. I have given assurances that the choice of where and to what permission in principle is granted is a local one, taken by local authorities or neighbourhood forums through their existing plan-making process. I hope the noble Lord now feels able to withdraw his opposition to Clause 136.
Lord Greaves
Lord Greaves
My Lords, this clause is effectively about brownfield registers and we have already covered some of the points I will make in moving Amendment 96B and speaking to the other amendments in my name.
Amendment 96B probes whether other registers are being considered and, if so, what they are and whether they will grant permission in principle like brownfield registers.
Amendment 96E probes how a register being in “two or more parts” will work. We have been informed that one part of the register will be of brownfield sites in general and the other of brownfield sites which are suitable for housing and will therefore get permission in principle. However, I am not sure how that will work and whether there are other distinctions or divisions.
Amendment 96G puts on record that nonsense sometimes creeps into legislation, though I do not blame the Minister or her colleagues on the Front Bench for this. Clause 137 says that regulations will,
“confer a discretion on a local planning authority, in prescribed circumstances, not to enter in the register land of a prescribed description that the authority would otherwise be required to enter in it”.
I have not got a clue what that means—perhaps the Minister can tell us in plain English. Indeed, perhaps the Minister can prescribe what it means.
Amendment 97C refers to an even more nonsensical provision in the Bill. Again, I do not blame anybody on the Government Front Bench or in the Chamber, but new Section 14A(6) of the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004 reads:
“The regulations may confer power on the Secretary of State to require a local planning authority … (a) to prepare or publish the register, or to bring the register up to date, by a specified date; … (b) to provide the Secretary of State with specified information, in a specified form and by a specified date, in relation to the register. … In this subsection ‘specified’ means specified by the Secretary of State”.
I really think we ought to do better than that, and this amendment is a protest.
Amendment 98A probes the definition of “brownfield land”. I am not suggesting that my definition is better than the NPPF’s “previously developed land”, but defining it is important. As the Minister said the other day, this is a hobby of mine. Clearly, brownfield land is land that has previously been developed. I am suggesting that it is also land which,
“is not in use or is being used in such a way that the local planning authority considers that a change of use would be appropriate”.
There is an interesting question there as to how far previously used land that is now being used for a less intensive purpose—for example, an old mill that is now being used as a scrapyard—is classified as brownfield land and how far it is just land that is being used for something different.
Amendment 98A also refers to land,
“not of high environmental or amenity value”,
which just parrots what my noble friend Lady Parminter said more eloquently earlier. Importantly, it goes on to say that this,
“does not mean land which has reverted to a condition in which its use and appearance is that of a greenfield site”.
It used to be almost impossible to reclassify brownfield land as greenfield land. The NPPF came along and its wording is actually quite useful in this respect, but when local authorities are going to be put under a duty to provide a register of brownfield land, including brownfield land that might be suitable for housing, is land still brownfield if it is has grown over and been turned into a wood by natural means or if somebody has taken it over and is grazing sheep on it?
The important thing is that, when compiling a brownfield register, local authorities should be able to make their own judgment about this and not be forced to put on a list of potential housing sites land that has reverted to a wild state, a semi-wild state or some greenfield-type of use and which provides a local amenity. For example, in the ward I represent, there is the site of an old chapel where I can remember the chapel still standing, which is now being registered as a little village green, but that is the result of a series of actions on that land in the past 30 to 40 years and it is now being used as an amenity for residents. There needs to be a system where local authorities are not forced to say, “Yes, this used to be brownfield land and therefore it has to have housing on it now”, even if that is not the local view. I beg to move.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees
My Lords, if Amendment 97D in this group is agreed to, I cannot call Amendment 98 for reasons of pre-emption.
Lord Greaves
My Lords, the Government Chief Whip has walked in so he will want me to beg leave to withdraw my amendment. I just want to say two things. First, I thank the Minister for a very comprehensive response to this series of brownfield questions we have all been asking. The only point I will pick up again is this: if the Secretary of State is to give guidance or send out regulations to authorities, will the Government please pay particular attention to the question of brownfield turning to greenfield over a period of time? Local authorities need the discretion to decide when that transition has occurred. Otherwise what is clearly, to everybody’s eyes, now a greenfield site will have to be built on because it used to have development on it 40 or 50 years ago or whenever it was. That is an important issue but I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Greaves
“( ) A register of land under this section is a local development document.”
Lord Greaves
My Lords, these are just two straight questions about the status of the register. Will it be a local development document or will it be a development plan document? I beg to move.
Baroness Evans of Bowes Park
Amendments 96C and 96D seek to define registers as local development documents and development plan documents. I understand that the noble Lord wishes to ensure that the process of preparing and maintaining registers has similar protections to development plan documents and local development documents but I hope I can reassure him that our proposals already include strong protections.
Brownfield registers are not intended to set out policy. By contrast, local development documents and development plan documents set out an authority’s policies relating to the development and use of land in its area. Registers would be a tool to provide consistent, up-to-date information on brownfield sites suitable for housing. It is our intention that registers will complement local plans. Both are designed to promote suitable sites for development. As I noted in my introductory comments, decisions about which sites to include on registers will have to have regard to the NPPF and the relevant local plan. We also propose that strategic housing land availability assessments will be the starting point for identifying suitable sites on brownfield registers.
I emphasise that local authorities will be required to consult the public and other interested parties about sites on their registers for which they intend to grant permission in principle for housing. Where authorities intend to enter a site on their register but are not proposing permission in principle, they will have discretion to consult the public and others before making a final decision. I hope that with those assurances the noble Lord will withdraw the amendment.
Lord Greaves
I am grateful for that reply. I think the answer is no. I have the information I wanted, and I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Greaves
“14B Viability of brownfield sites: gap funding(1) A local planning authority may decide not to include a brownfield site on a register established under section 14A if, after they have assessed the viability of development of the site for housing, they think that it is not viable.(2) Where subsection (1) applies, a local planning authority may make a request to the Secretary of State for sufficient financial support to make viable a housing development on the site.(3) The Secretary of State must consider such a request and either provide the requested support or give reasons for refusal in writing.(4) If the site becomes viable for housing development, by means of a contribution from the Secretary of State or otherwise, the local planning authority may add it to the register.”
Lord Greaves
My Lords, Amendment 98B is about the viability of brownfield sites and what happens to brownfield sites which local people and the local authority wish to see developed for housing but which are not viable. The amendment then goes on in a rather cheeky way to suggest that the Secretary of State should cough up some money to make them viable.
There are a lot of genuine brownfield sites in areas such as Lancashire and Yorkshire. They may still have structures on them, or they may have been removed. In some cases, they may have been remediated, or they may be perfectly good flattened sites ready for development. The problem is that nobody will develop them because there is no profit to be made from building houses on them. There is an old works in the ward I represent on the council in Colne. The outside walls of the mill are still there. We have been trying to get it developed for housing for 10 or 15 years now. We nearly got there before the credit crunch in 2008 and the collapse of house prices. We got the owner to apply for full planning permission, and he got permission for about 20 houses in three blocks. The area is surrounded by terraced houses. It was a nice little development. He was proposing to sell the site on to a local builder who was going to develop it. The local builder is not there any more. The council’s joint venture development company has done a viability assessment of the site and, even with a subsidy from the council, it is not viable. The total cost of developing it is around £130,000 per house, but the sale price for new terraced three-bedroom houses in that area is £100,000. It is simply not viable.
Another site in the same town was cleared under housing market renewal about 10 years ago, but the problem is that it is on quite a steep slope. It is remediated and perfectly ready to develop for perhaps a dozen houses. It is possibly just viable with some help from the council on the basis that the council owns the land and will put the land into the scheme for free. This is the kind of thing we are talking about. There must be dozens of brownfield sites in east Lancashire of this nature which simply cannot or will not be developed—although everybody wants to see them developed for housing. That is the obvious use for those sites and it would benefit the area, help to regenerate it and provide much-needed local housing for people. Nevertheless, because of the local housing market, they are not viable.
I have two questions apart from the question of what the Government or the Secretary of State will do about this to help us fill the gap. It is no good doing what they have been doing so far, saying that they will provide loans. You provide loans to get a scheme going, but if over a period of 30 years of selling the properties or renting them out in the short run the scheme does not add up, the loan is no use because you cannot repay it. It needs gap funding. The council itself has money to help with gap funding of sites like this, and we hope to move ahead with one very soon, but this is typical of a lot of places in the north of England—perhaps in smaller towns, away from the big cities—where brownfield sites like this are simply not viable.
First, therefore, the question is: do such sites go on the brownfield register—the big register, with all the sites on? Do they go on that register to get planning in principle, and what is the point of getting that when any scheme on them will get planning tomorrow? Therefore, what use is the brownfield register to these types of sites? Secondly, we keep reading that the Government have lots of money for brownfield sites: the Chancellor in his Budget announced £1.2 billion or £1.3 billion—I think it was the same £1.2 billion that had been announced some months previously, but that does not matter. This money keeps being announced, but whenever we look at it we find that it is for remediation schemes, and we do not need remediation money; we need pure, simple gap funding.
That is a plea from the heart, from the heart of the Pennines, because we want to develop these sites and we cannot, because they are not viable. Gap funding is needed, and we need some help from central government as well as from local funds. However, my questions were also about the brownfield register and how non-viable sites like that would fit in with the register and its purpose. I beg to move.
Lord Beecham
My Lords, I am slightly puzzled by the tenor of the noble Lord’s argument. I quite understand his point that no profit can be made by building for sale on these sites. However, that raises the question of why he is looking only at building for sale. Why cannot a site like that be used for social housing? That seems to be the obvious answer in many ways. Of course it is slightly subverted by two things, which affect the potential for local authority or housing association housebuilding. One is the right to buy, which will ultimately accrue, and the second is of course the reduction in rents that will be charged by housing authorities, which will reduce their capacity to invest in either their current stock or in new building. To look at such sites as sites for social housing provision is a better way of dealing with them than to seek some sort of subsidy for private sale, which will ultimately result in people making a gain out of what would probably be better as social housing. Therefore the noble Lord might want to reconsider the whole nature of his approach.
Lord Greaves
My Lords, it is very simple. Housing associations are organisations which have to run commercially. They therefore judge the viability of their new-build schemes on the basis of contributions that they get from the Housing and Communities Agency, contributions they put into it themselves, the cost of managing and repairing the properties over 30 years and the rents they will get in during that period.
We are an area which has not only low house prices but low rents, so there is a limit to what we can charge. These sites have been looked at in great detail. Some of them have been developed by the council in co-operation with the main housing association, which is the Stock Transfer Housing Association. The sites I am talking about, however, are simply not viable for social housing, just as they are not viable for anything else. The numbers do not add up, whether you are building for rent, for sale or for partial schemes. In some sites they do. For example, the council has developed some sites in Briarfield, where a majority of the houses have been sold, and in order to make the scheme viable and for other good reasons, some of them have been sold to the housing association. We are working together wherever possible, but the fact is that building new houses on a lot of the brownfield sites in a lot of these places, and certainly in Lancashire and neighbouring parts of Yorkshire, simply is not viable. Therefore, there has to be gap funding and some sort of subsidy—not a huge one, but it has to be there to make it possible.
Lord Beecham
I can see the argument for housing association provision, but I would not have thought it would run to the same extent, or at all, for the local authority itself doing the building because it would have a housing stock and a housing revenue account. It certainly has to balance that housing revenue account, but those costs can be spread, I would have thought, in a way that a housing association might find difficult. I still think there is a difficulty.
Lord Greaves
Some local authorities were sensible enough, or foolish enough, according to your view—I was against what we did in our local authority, but we did it—to get rid of all their council housing. In our case, it was as a result of a quite disgraceful bribe from the previous Labour Government which people felt they simply could not turn down. It really was shocking, the amount of money that was thrown into it—not shocking for the tenants and the houses, because a lot of money went into those houses as a result of the stock transfer, and the local authority had all its debt written off as a result. The whole thing was a public scandal, but very good for the housing estates in Pendle. However, we do not have a housing revenue account, so we cannot do it. What we do is build properties through our development company, a half-owned council development company, highly successful, but, again, it has to be done. We do it on the basis of a 5% or 8% mark-up, profit, compared to the commercial people, who want 15% or even 20% on such sites.
Lord Beecham
I stand corrected on the experience of Pendle, but that is not necessarily typical, one hopes. I look to the Minister to take the point that I made in respect of other authorities, which are perhaps not in quite the vulnerable position that Pendle appears to be. That means, again, looking at local authorities building houses, whether on brownfield sites or elsewhere. There is no incentive in the Bill for that to happen, so I ask the Minister to consider, again, the role of local authorities in providing housing, not just on brownfield sites but more generally.
Baroness Evans of Bowes Park
I thank the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, for his amendment. I reassure him that the Government are fully committed to unlocking new homes on brownfield land, which is why we are creating the £2 billion Home Building Fund to provide the investment in infrastructure and land remediation needed to support major housing developments. The fund will provide long-term loan funding to help unlock or accelerate a pipeline of 160,000 to 200,000 homes. It will support our key manifesto commitment to create a brownfield regeneration fund and to fund housing zones to transform brownfield sites into new housing. The new fund will be available to builders and housing developers across England.
I emphasise that the criteria on which we are consulting to assess the suitability of sites for brownfield registers will include a consideration of site viability. We would expect a site that was not viable to be unlikely to go on the register. I reassure the noble Lord that viability is central to our proposals and ask him to withdraw this amendment.
Lord Greaves
I am grateful for that reply. My only comment is that I want the Minister to say that non-viable sites will go on the register and that, together, we will work to find ways of making them viable and develop them. If the fund is now £2 billion instead of £1.2 billion or £1.3 billion, will somebody please tell me how we can get our hands on some of it, because we will use it well and build lots of new houses on brownfield sites? I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Greaves
Lord Greaves
My Lords, unlike some of the younger people in this Chamber tonight, I have run out of energy, so I will simply move the first amendment in this group. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response to the amendments.
Baroness Williams of Trafford
My Lords, Clause 140 ensures that the likely financial benefits of certain development proposals will be made public when a local planning authority is considering whether to grant planning permission. It applies only to reports, with a recommendation about how a planning application should be decided going to a planning committee or the full authority. It requires local planning authorities to make arrangements for the reports to include a list of certain financial benefits which are likely to be obtained by the authority as a result of the proposed development being completed.
The financial benefits to be listed include local finance considerations, payments under the community infrastructure levy and government grants, or any other benefit set out by the Secretary of State in secondary legislation.
The Secretary of State will also have the power to require a financial benefit to be recorded where it is payable to a person or body other than to the authority making the planning determination. There are powers to set out in regulations any further information about a financial benefit which must be recorded in a planning report—for example, an estimate of the amount.
Not setting out in public the potential financial benefits of planning applications during the decision-making process impacts negatively on local transparency. It prevents local communities understanding the benefits that development can bring to their local area. Therefore, we amended the national planning policy guidance to make it clear that local finance considerations may be cited for information in planning committee reports, even where they are not material to the decision. Despite this change, our concerns remain.
Our intention is not to interfere in the considerations taken into account when planning decisions are made. The effect of this measure, which will not be onerous on local planning authorities, will simply be to make local communities more fully aware of financial benefits which are otherwise non-material to planning decisions and help them understand better the wider impact of development. We are consulting on how we might use the delegated powers included in this clause; for example, on prescribing council tax and business rate revenue, and Section 106 payments, as financial benefits to be listed.
I shall not thank the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, for his amendment because he did not speak to it, but in thinking what he might have said—I struggle to do so at this hour—I should point out that the measure would apply to all planning reports, not just those going to planning committees as set out in Clause 140. Local planning authorities would be required to list any financial benefits or costs received or incurred by not just themselves but any other person. They would also be required to provide any information about the financial costs or benefits without any limits to or guidance about what should be provided. The amendment would introduce substantial ambiguity and huge burdens for local planning authorities. The breadth of information required would be significantly onerous, so the amendment would not result in a proportionate approach.
Amendments 100ZABB and 100ZABL would extend our approach and require all reports, with a recommendation, to set out the financial benefits and not just those going to a planning committee or the full authority for a decision. We chose to apply this measure to committee reports, as these will be published in advance and are the most accessible and transparent to local communities and therefore the most appropriate for the likely benefits to be recorded in. Applications determined at planning committees are also likely to be the larger developments, where we imagine the largest financial benefits to be. While reports for planning applications decided under delegated powers are made publicly available, our understanding is that that is generally only after a decision is taken and only where a member of the public requests the information.
Amendments 100ZABC, 100ZABE, 100ZABG, 100ZABH and 100ZABK would require local planning authorities to list the costs likely to be incurred as a result of development. The noble Lord’s amendments do not include a definition of costs. Therefore local authorities would be required to list any cost that might arise from development. As I am sure the noble Lord is aware, our intention is for minimum burdens to be placed on authorities, which these amendments would not bring. Where, for example, significant infrastructure would be needed to support a proposed new development, this would be a material consideration and therefore already covered in some detail in planning reports.
Amendment 100ZABF would extend the scope of the clause to require local planning authorities to list the financial benefits likely to be obtained by anybody as a result of the grant of a planning permission. It would significantly increase the scope of the clause. We are consulting on how we might use this power, but our intention is for it to be used sparingly.
Amendments 100ZABD, 100ZABJ and 100ZABM—which I am sure are designed to tax me at this hour of the night—would remove the Secretary of State’s power to define in regulations the financial benefits that should be listed in reports. Again, removing this flexibility would require local planning authorities to list all financial benefits, which we do not feel is a proportionate approach. I hope that, with these reassurances, the noble Lord will not press his amendments.
Lord Greaves
My Lords, I am lost in admiration at the vigour and energy that the Minister still has at this time. Having said that, I am grateful for her full response and beg leave to withdraw the first amendment in the group.