Housing and Planning Bill

Lord Lansley Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd March 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, I am confused—or perhaps puzzled—because earlier this afternoon the noble Viscount, Lord Younger, said that the Government’s legislation on localism puts local planning at the heart of the system. Yet what we have heard so far this afternoon about permission in principle seems to be very much at odds with that principle of putting local people and local planning at the heart of what happens in communities. Both the previous speakers, with their knowledge and expertise gained over many years, have understood the Bill’s proposals. I decided to seek to understand what might happen in my own locality as a consequence of this proposal.

It seems there are two possibilities. One is that land that has not previously been allocated in a local plan could be appropriated and allocated as a site with permission to build. Therefore, if a developer needed greenfield land on which to build as opposed to a more difficult brownfield site, the relevant land could be appropriated and given permission in principle regardless of the wishes of the local community. It is of huge concern that the democratic process has been totally disregarded. Anyone who has ever served as a local councillor—as I do—will tell you that the issues which engage local people more than any other are developments taking place on their doorstep as they have such a significant impact on their lives in terms of increased traffic on the roads or the number of children trying to access schools which may already be full. All this sort of thing needs to be considered. Having permission in principle is totally contrary to what we regard as a local planning authority, making local decisions based on a democratic principle.

Having thought of that site, which was appropriating new land, I then wondered if they were thinking about brownfield sites—white land, as we sometimes call it—which want to change their use. I know about one in my ward: a former hotel which has closed. A developer has bought it and wants to develop it. There are huge issues about access, because I live in a hilly part of the country; about the height of the houses and their impact on other local residents; about drainage. You name them, those problems are there. Yet, under this proposal, that site could be allocated for housing development without any consideration of the impact it would have on the neighbouring properties. For those reasons, I am very concerned.

My second concern, which I hope the Minister will be able to give some assurances on, is that, since the 1947 planning Act, we have developed a process of engaging with local people about changes and developments in their area. They have their say; their voice is heard even if, at the end of the day, they do not achieve their outcome. If people feel that they have had a chance to put in their objections and contrary suggestions, they are more likely to be satisfied with the outcome than if they are disregarded and a proposal goes on despite them. I am very concerned that that element of local planning will just disappear under this proposal. If this does come to pass, I will be pointing out to people exactly why it has happened.

The last issue I want to raise is why this proposal has suddenly appeared in the Bill. If it is because developers are putting pressure on the Government about an inadequate supply of land for housing then we ought to look at the evidence, which simply does not support that idea. In my own ward, I have planning consents for over 500 units, 300 of which have had consent for over three years. Nothing is happening because the developers are waiting for property prices to rise. All we will get with permission in principle is more land-banking by developers. Who benefits from that? It is the developers. It is not local people, who will lose opportunities to try and shape their community and have a say in what goes on. I hope the Minister will be able to reassure me on some of these points and will listen to the expert comments and concerns raised earlier.

[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.

[Lord Lansley]

I understand the noble Lord’s point, and he is quite right that we have to tease this out. My noble friend will tell me if I am wrong, but, as I understand it, a qualifying document must be based on a suitable process for establishing how the particulars have been arrived at. For example, where a site is allocated under a local plan for housing development, as part of the process, the local planning authority will go through what I hope will be a rigorous process—I think we all know it will be—with time to examine, for example, whether it is in a flood plain and, if so, what the mitigation would be. It might also examine whether the development is environmentally sustainable and whether, from the point of view of the local highways authority, issues arise from development on a large scale.

We have to be clear whether the local plan process enables a suitable site for housing development to be included in a local plan and thereby gives rise to the potential for permission in principle being granted. This does not mean that a subsequent environmental impact assessment will have to be done on the site at that point. It means that when either that assessment or the highway authority’s response to a plan’s technical details takes place, the question will not be whether the site is right in principle but whether the assessments necessitate mitigation measures. I hope that the Government make it so that there are three processes instead of two and that the qualifying documents in the first process giving rise to permission in principle are sufficiently robust.

I have an additional question about the relationship between permission in principle and current local plan processes. A significant number of local and neighbourhood plans were made and adopted following the publication of the National Planning Policy Framework and many local authorities will adopt those plans in the months following Royal Assent. Will they automatically be eligible for permission in principle through a development order? If so, how can we be confident that the necessary and rigorous processes that should be the basis for the granting of such permission have been gone through, such that local authorities are not required to go through the outline planning application processes? That relationship is very important. I hope that we can make local plans rigorous so that permission in principle can, through development orders, be applied to suitable sites.

Why do I say that? In my experience as a Member of Parliament for an area with a great deal of planning activity, I found that local communities often did not give the attention they should to, or were not engaged to the extent that they ought to be in, understanding the importance of the local plan or local development framework. We need that to happen. Permission in principle has the ancillary benefit that it will cause it to happen much more.

How often have those of us involved in these matters found that when a planning proposal with the potential for an outline planning application was brought forward, people affected began to organise on the basis that that was their moment to be heard? But in a plan-led process, that is not the moment. Instead, it is when the local plan is being put together—but that is a big process and people find it difficult to intervene. We need to ensure that people are clear about the overriding importance of local plans. If they know that a site for housing development may be granted permission in principle as a consequence of its incorporation into a neighbourhood or local plan, they are far more likely to get involved in making that happen.

[Lord Stunell]

I absolutely accept the points that the noble Lord is making about the difficulty of engaging local communities and the fact that they arrive at this process far too late. Could he say a little more about how PIP will accelerate that? The concern on these Benches is that it will leapfrog the normal process, however inadequate it is.

[Lord Lansley]

It is probably more for my noble friend the Minister to explain how the processes work. My point is simple: it is said that permission in principle is inimical to a local planning authority’s processes or democratic input, but that is not the case. It should prompt a much greater involvement on the part of local people. It should also focus the local planning authority on engaging with the people they represent, not only to ensure that there is a plan-led system, but so that it is understood that the local plan will in many instances give rise to permission in principle. That will cause people to engage with a local plan more than they have previously. For that and other reasons, I support Clause 136 and permission in principle.

[Baroness Pinnock]

Following on from what the noble Lord said—although perhaps the Minister will put us right—my understanding is that permission in principle has two routes. One is through the local and neighbourhood plan. Giving permission in principle is really what such plans do. It is the second route that I am concerned about. Through this route, an application can be made directly to the local planning authority for a site that may not have already been allocated for development—if it had been, it would be in the local plan. That is my concern with this proposal. If it just said that sites allocated in a local plan have, by the very nature of their being in a local plan, permission in principle, I could probably live with it. I am concerned about the second area, and I hope that I will get answers and reassurances.