Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Lord Lucas Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 9th September 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Teverson (LD)]

My Lords, I want to make two brief points. I was delighted to add my name to the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Gascoigne, because it includes community gardens and allotments.

My first point is that I agree about allotments. Down in Cornwall, I have been involved in growing schemes, in which communities come together on common ground to produce mainly vegetables and sell the surplus to the local community. These are fantastic schemes which are very sociable and bring people together. One of our objectives in the far south-west was to allow every community to have access to a growing scheme, so that is moving on, if you like, one stage further from allotments.

My second brief point is again a reflection from the far south-west. There is somehow often an assumption that people in rural towns have easy access to green and blue spaces. If that is true anywhere, it would be in Cornwall. Believe me, I am never more surprised than when I find out that families in what we might describe as low-income, deprived areas do not get outside major town boundaries, and so areas of green space within all urban areas are incredibly important.

I hope the Minister will take note of both those observations.

[Lord Lucas (Con)]

I very much support the amendments in this group. I am lucky enough to live in Eastbourne, where Mary Ann Gilbert started a branch of the allotment movement in 1830. I think we have more allotments per head than any other town, and there is still a three-year waiting list. These things need planning in, and that is why I support these amendments. You cannot rely on random happenstance or a generous builder to do it; it has to be part of the way we see and develop our towns and cities, particularly if we are going in for new towns.

This is enormously important for nature. People’s experience of nature is what happens around their homes. If there is not much nature there, they do not grow up with a love for or an interest in it. If they do not grow up with a love for or an interest in it, they end up not wanting to pay for it and are happy to trample on it if there is some supposed benefit of that for humans. Building in a real understanding of nature begins with the design of our towns. That is why these amendments are so important.

[Baroness Coffey (Con)]

My Lords, my noble friend Lord Lucas, who has just spoken, is absolutely right that starting with perhaps good intentions but firm foundations is absolutely critical to make sure that we have nature at the heart of every community as we develop the 1.5 million new homes that the Government intend to deliver before the end of this Parliament.

I particularly commend the amendments tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Willis of Summertown. There has rightly been a reference to blue space. I actually came up with the concept in the Environmental Improvement Plan 2023. There are a few factors behind that, relevant to what other noble Lords have mentioned today. Perhaps it is about rivers; it is certainly about sustainable drainage and thinking about how the ponds in new estates can be truly made into environmental oases.

One of the big inspirations was when I visited the Canal & River Trust, where we discussed its activities in Birmingham. As we know, there are more canals in Birmingham than there are in the entirety of Venice, yet the interaction between residents there and their canals was minimal. People would often be living in pretty high blocks, without any exposure to nature. There was an opportunity to think about how we develop what you have, and about the fact that, in certain cities—Birmingham not being the best example—there is a complete desert of parks, while there are plenty of other cities that have designed parks in over the years. Instead of relying on an NPPF that can literally be changed at the stroke of a pen by a Minister from one reshuffle to the next, it is vital to make sure this is set firmly in legislative considerations.

Proposed new subsection (b) in Amendment 121, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Miller of Chilthorne Domer, would make sure that green spaces are maintained. There is nothing worse than such places not being properly looked after. We see it already with areas not being watered, and so things end up dying, which is not inspiring for anybody.

The noble Lord, Lord Crisp, referred to social prescribing. I intended to speak to that in later groups, but what he said was right. As has already been pointed out eloquently, the science is there. The noble Baroness, Lady Willis of Summertown, has set this out comprehensively. I first met the noble Baroness when she was director of science at Kew gardens, and we had some wonderful back and forth exchanges.

There are a couple of things worth considering. My noble friend Lady Fookes is right to talk about regulation, but I am worried we end up overregulating and almost missing the point—literally not seeing the wood for the trees. I intend to speak more on that in group 6.

The noble Baroness, Lady Young of Old Scone, branched out into considering trees. It would be very helpful to have that paper from the Woodland Trust shared. Communities are about setting roots, but we do not want tree roots literally uprooting homes. That is an important factor for councils to consider. I commend the long-standing policy of Liverpool City Council, which plants lots of trees in planters underground. Then, when the trees mature, the council lifts them out of the ground, takes them off to a park and replants them there, so they are not damaging the infrastructure that has been designed to facilitate the rest of the neighbourhood. It is also vital that trees do not block light or interfere with telecommunications and the like.

Having heard this in both Houses, it is really important that the Government proactively consider how this matter comes back on Report. I know that if it does not go through this time, we will come back again when we get to the next local government Bill about community empowerment. We know from all the protests, rightly, that communities value this sort of infrastructure and want it to be developed. It is about the one thing that most communities agree on around development, which is why it is important that we get amendments appropriately tabled by the Government at the next stage.