Neighbourhood Planning Bill

Lord Mann Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons & Money resolution: House of Commons
Monday 10th October 2016 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

My right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell) has spoken passionately about this issue before. I listened to him then and I have just listened to him again, and I will of course reflect on what he has said. I am sure he will understand that it would not be appropriate for me to talk about a specific planning application, but I will reflect on what he has just shared with the House.

The Housing and Planning Act reforms to speed up and simplify the process came into force just a few days ago, and the Bill will strengthen the process still further. It will make it easier to update a neighbourhood plan as local circumstances change. It will give communities confidence that advanced neighbourhood plans will be given proper consideration in planning decisions, and it will give neighbourhood plans full legal effect at an earlier stage.

Of course, there is no point giving control to communities if they do not know that they have it or lack the skills to use it. So the Bill will also require planning authorities to publish their policies for giving advice or assistance to neighbourhood planning groups. It will also allow the Secretary of State to require planning authorities to keep those policies up to date. These provisions will make the neighbourhood planning process fit for the future. They will make it more accessible for everyone, and they will ensure that neighbourhood plans are fully respected by decision makers.

[John Mann (Bassetlaw) (Lab)]

Should the Bill become an Act, will there be any circumstances in which a local authority can overrule a neighbourhood development plan that has been duly endorsed by said authority?

[Sajid Javid]

The hon. Gentleman may be aware that for a neighbourhood plan to become effective it needs to be adopted. It will be looked at by the inspector and a local referendum will be held. As I mentioned earlier, some 240 plans have gone through that process and, when that happens, they need to be given due weight in the consideration of planning decisions.

[John Mann]

I thank the Secretary of State for giving way again. He will know that Bassetlaw has more local plans in process and agreed than anywhere else, so we do know a little bit about them. If he is saying that a local council or the Secretary of State can decide to overrule a local community that has been through a huge, state-funded consultation, had a referendum and decided where the housing will go, what is the point?

[Sajid Javid]

The hon. Gentleman will know that once a neighbourhood plan is adopted, it becomes statutory and is taken into account when planning decisions are made. It is not a question of a local authority overruling a neighbourhood plan; once it is adopted, it is part of the local plan, so they are part of the same package, when it comes to making those decisions. Local authorities do not have the right to overrule a plan once it has been adopted.

Local and neighbourhood plans are vital tools for delivering new planning permissions. If we are to tackle the housing deficit, it is crucial that shovels hit the ground as soon as possible once permission has been granted for a development. There are a number of reasons why that does not always happen. One is because too many planning authorities impose too many pre-commencement conditions that unreasonably hold up the start of construction.

Of course, conditions can play a vital role. They ensure that important issues such as flood mitigation and archaeological investigation are undertaken at the right time. That is not going to change, but pre-commencement conditions should not be allowed to become unreasonable barriers to building. Not only do they delay the delivery of much-needed houses, but they create cash-flow issues for builders—something that is particularly problematic for smaller builders and new entrants to the market. To tackle this, the Bill reflects best practice by stopping pre-commencement conditions being imposed without the written agreement of the applicant. It will also create a power to restrict the use of certain other types of planning conditions that do not meet the well-established policy tests in the national planning policy framework. We are currently seeking views on both measures in a consultation paper published by my Department last month.

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[John Mann (Bassetlaw) (Lab)]

Before I express my agreement with the right hon. Member for West Dorset (Sir Oliver Letwin) on one important point, let me congratulate the Secretary of State on his brilliant campaign 18 months ago to stop the development of more than 2,000 houses, which was well advertised in his local newspaper. He is truly the king of the nimbys—or, as some would say, he is backing his constituents and his local communities. That contrasts slightly with the message that I understand him to have conveyed somewhere last week when he was attacking the nimbys, because over the past two or three years, following his successful campaign, he has been the greatest of all the nimbys in the House.

I should like to see precisely what the right hon. Member for West Dorset proposed. If a neighbourhood goes through the pain and democracy of agreeing on where more houses should be built in its community, which is part of the requirement of a neighbourhood development plan, and if that is agreed by referendum and endorsed by the local council, it should not be possible to overrule such a level of democracy; but it is.

For example, at the most recent planning committee meeting in the Sturton ward in Bassetlaw, which I know extremely well, the neighbourhood development plan was overruled because the planning officers pointed to the Government’s five-year housing land supply, as identified by the developer. They said, “You can’t have that; you’ve got to have this.” In other words, they said, “You have a plan. You have specified where the housing should be, and what type of housing it should be. A huge number of members of the community participated in the consultation, there was a massive turnout for the ballot, and the plan was unanimously adopted by the district council, but you cannot do it, because Big Brother”—the king of the nimbys—“says that you have to have this, because you have not got enough housing.” However, they had just agreed that they would have more housing. The people who had agreed to have more housing were overruled, which is a total nonsense. The Government could do something about it today, but if they feel that they do not have the necessary power they could stick it in the Bill and then some of us would be happy, because that would be local democracy.

It is not true that the Government are not responsible for the delays in local development plans. On 1 March 2013, 95% of councils in England had to start their development plans again because of a change in the rules that was announced out of the blue, whereby everyone had to consult every adjoining authority. That is why there has been a delay in my area, which, proportionally, has more neighbourhood development plans either agreed or under way than anywhere else in the country. We have adopted this philosophy. I have argued the case in communities throughout my constituency. However, the whole process has to start again because we have not consulted Sheffield, Mansfield and other places that are nowhere near the 500 square miles of Bassetlaw.

That is a nonsense, and the Government could do something about it instantly. Our plan would be speeded up overnight if that happened. The public would be consulted, and would agree where housing should go. The Government would get their numbers, and we would get our housing everywhere. Even Bromsgrove would get the housing that it needs.

Let me give a couple of examples of the beauty of neighbourhood development plans. The Sturton ward provides one of the prime examples in the country of how a development plan should be written: an environmentally green development plan that specifies the kind of energy that we want in the community, the implication being that priority in new housing will go to developers who use green technologies. That is a community which is looking to the future and encouraging the right kind of housing. Such planning will enhance green technologies in this country, unlike the arbitrary wind farms and so forth which communities, strangely, do not like. Let communities have control through their development plans. The Government could announce that today—and that is my second request to the Minister.

When mayors are coming to city regions like the new Sheffield city region of which Bassetlaw will doubtless become a part, we should let those new mayors have the appeals. Let us localise the process more, so that there is more accountability, which will mean more housing rather than less. Let us take the process away from the Minister and the Minister’s officials. Surely that appeals to Tory Back Benchers and their sense of community.

Another big plan of which we in Bassetlaw are pioneers is the urban neighbourhood development plan. Virtually everywhere in the country has villages and parishes with parish precepts. They have a bit of money, and they have a democratic structure—rightly so—and that includes parts of my area. But how can such plans be created in an urban area where there is no such structure? It is necessary to think imaginatively. We had the great historic priory church and the Chesterfield canal, and we said to the community, “This is why the church is here, and this is how houses have developed. The church, as an institution and as a building, formed the centre of the community.” Neighbourhood planning of that kind would transform urban environments through lateral thinking. As for funding, hopefully the Canal & River Trust might lend us a plan or put in a bit of money, because the development of the canal would obviously be in its interests.

We have recreated the old, traditional church community. Imagine how planning in this country would have developed if the same had been done in the case of great cathedrals such as St Paul’s 30 years ago! Perhaps people who would visit the other place rather than here would be happy about what might have happened at St Paul’s.

The ability to define community by what has historically been there—waterways, forests and churches—is fundamental to the possibility of transforming urban planning through neighbourhood development planning. The key barrier will be money. That little impoverished community in my area around the great priory church, which was once the biggest church in the country—the end of the road through the forest, historically—has no funding itself, and has no structures for funding. We could have 30 or 40 urban neighbourhood development plans in my communities, but that would impose a huge burden on a small district council. The Government need to think about how to provide incentives, and get the models going. In Retford, for instance, the church is keen to be not just “church as building” but “church as the heart of the community”. Retford can lead the way in developing the built community around the church. Not just churches, but the many communities that have been built around those churches historically, need that kind of original thinking. That could be allowed, but the Government need to give a bit of flexibility. The powers that are local must be kept local. The Government must not overrule them.

[Mark Pawsey]

The hon. Gentleman is speaking with great eloquence about local powers. Would he care to tell us what happened to local powers between 1997 and 2010?

[John Mann]

The hon. Gentleman ought to know that neighbourhood planning had its origins in the 2003 legislation. That is how Bassetlaw got in first, and I have been around since then promoting it. The concept has been part of the planning arrangements since 2003.

I have endorsed the moves by the Government, except for the absurd one introduced on 1 March 2013 to stop all the development plans and frameworks that were in progress and delay them for three years. That was a chronic error on the part of past Ministers. I hope to hear from the Minister that the Secretary of State and the Government will not overrule neighbourhood development plans on appeal. They must send out the message that if a community takes responsibility for where its new housing and the rest of its developments should be, it will not be overruled by the Government. That could be done today; it would be a huge boost to communities across the country.

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[Dr Blackman-Woods]

The problem is that we do not know why the local authority required that particular condition. It could have been worried that no plan might ever be produced.

[John Mann]

I recall that when I was knocking down and rebuilding a wall, for which I required planning permission, I was expected to provide a sample of brick in advance, from the wall that I had not yet taken down because I did not have planning permission. Is there not the potential for some compromise between the two sides on this?

[Dr Blackman-Woods]

Certainly not is the answer to that question—absolutely not.

In conclusion, we think that it is a real pity that the Bill does not contain more about infrastructure and how to deliver garden cities and new towns, but we look forward to having those discussions with the Minister in Committee. We do not intend to divide the House tonight, but we will see what happens in Committee.