Neighbourhood Planning Bill

Lord Taylor of Goss Moor Excerpts

2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 17th January 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Taylor of Goss Moor (LD)]

My Lords, I should first draw attention to the register of interests. I am a director of some development companies. I also run my own consultancy around this area and work in advising government, and have done so for successive Governments. I work with students who are doing planning courses for both the University of Cambridge and the University of Plymouth. For the first part of what I want to say on neighbourhood planning, however, I should perhaps most importantly draw attention to the fact that I am also president of the National Association of Local Councils.

The overwhelming majority of neighbourhood plans that have been brought through the system—some 90%— have been led by parish councils, though they actually represent quite a small proportion of the population because they do not represent the urban communities. This is a fault which past Governments said that they wanted to address and it should be addressed, because that very local form of direct democracy is important. I would like to see many more parished, and I know that the national association believes it would be important to have that. If the Government want to see neighbourhood plans developed in many more areas, they would see it happen by parishing many more communities. They will see it conducted effectively and democratically, and then have bodies that can be guardians of those neighbourhood plans, as well as receiving the benefit in a proportion of CIL payments and having a democratic process for delivering community improvements that can be funded in that way.

I very much welcome the introduction of neighbourhood planning. It reflects ideas I had about empowering communities to deliver affordable housing to meet local needs back at the time of the Living Working Countryside review, which I conducted for the then Government in 2008. It has been immensely valuable and hugely important. Perhaps the thing that is most satisfying from my point of view is that I argued then that, if you empower communities to meet local needs, they will step up to the mark and deliver more, not less, and that has been the experience. It was really brave of the coalition Government to introduce that, and I am very pleased to see the present Government continuing on that path and making the system more effective.

I chair my neighbourhood plan steering group. I am delighted to say that we have now got it through the examination process, so the examiner has given the thumbs up. We are now in the process of the examiner putting through some tweaks in collaboration with the council. I hope that soon we will have a referendum, and I live in a certain degree of fear at night that we might be one of the few—I think there is only one so far—areas that does not get through the referendum. Given the amount of community engagement we have had, I hope we will do it.

The neighbourhood plan in our very small, poor community—it is quite unusual in that respect, as it is not the middle-class community that many are but a very poor, working-class community—will be transformative for the community. It will mean more development, and it will take traffic out of the village if we see all the things enabled by that development. It will be genuinely transformative, and it will enable big increases in local employment as well.

Some people with expertise—officers from the Environment Agency and a former council housing officer, who had done some development in his own right—happened to live locally and were involved. Other members of the community might not have had those kinds of backgrounds but were enormously knowledgeable about the community itself and its needs and were brilliant at the local engagement. Perhaps most importantly, the vicar of the parish was a wonderful deputy to me.

With all that expertise and my input, the process was much longer than I thought I could make it be, even with my experience and background. That is because the stages and processes are, frankly, just very lengthy. I am really sceptical about whether they are all necessary. I am glad to see some speeding up happening through what the Government are doing. To be honest, at the final stages the will to live was slightly lost on the committee as it got into the bureaucracy and the months of waiting for responses. There was a certain degree of lost interest. Admittedly, we got the plan through, so the committee is not having to fight any big battles, but it is a really long process.

The thing that really worried the steering group all the way through, and which certainly would have destroyed its confidence, had it happened, was the risk of developments being brought forward quickly to get them through during the long process when the neighbourhood plan had some, but not much, weight. The proposal in the Bill to give much clearer weight at an earlier stage, particularly once the plan has been examined, is important, but I would like to be clearer about how that weight is gathering. I think that attempts to get larger, poor-quality schemes through the line should be very robustly fended off by councils on the grounds that neighbourhood plans are being developed, particularly where the plan is demonstrably pro-development and going, even in draft form, beyond what is required by the local plan. It is really important that plans are defended and that Ministers are very clear that that should take place. I hope these debates will allow Ministers to put on record some very strong comments in that regard. Of course, neighbourhood plans can also be used as a delaying tactic and as a way of trying to avoid development, but this is for those plans that are robustly being carried forward, that can demonstrate consultation and that are, as they usually are, going beyond what is required by the local plan.

The second problem we had was resources. We are not a rich community. There was not a series of local QCs available to operate for us, although I was able to get one to give some advice to me because of my contacts. They were not living there in the community. We were entirely reliant, in that very poor, small parish, on the locality funding that the Government made available. When we first launched, the money had run out, so for the first few months we had to operate without any such support. At later stages, we needed a strategic environmental appraisal as well as a sustainability appraisal. Those are vastly expensive things to do. We attempted the sustainability appraisal ourselves at first because we were told it could be done without expertise, if you followed the right tick-boxes. Frankly, even following the right tick-boxes was not going to do the job, and it would have been a very poor job anyway. We were able to access funding, but it was incredibly important that that funding was there, as we also relied on that funding for the very extensive community engagement with door-to-door delivery of leaflets. We could deliver the leaflets, but design and publication, particularly publication, is a costly process and needed resource.

This is a brilliant scheme, but there are 10,000 parishes and only 2,000 neighbourhood plans. There are many more communities beyond the parishes that could be bringing them forward. Neighbourhood plans are a bit like care in the community. They are a great proposal, but they are not a saving. Localising things needs resource at the local level, and there is only so much that can be done. Really clear funding support on a long-term basis is critical. I note that neighbourhoods can gain from the CIL, but if there is no CIL, they cannot gain financially from the housing they deliver. It is important that, one way or another, mechanisms are in place to make sure that parishes get that support. I also think that the Government should be looking at the gains they are making in the development process in delivering housing with neighbourhood planning and should be thinking about some of that resource going to funding those neighbourhood plans. A virtuous cycle should be in place, as it would make sense.

I now turn to the other key part of the Bill, which is on the CPO. I am very pleased to see the Government making reforms to the CPO system. It is outdated and complex. The most important thing is that the Bill makes it clear that people cannot expect to gain enormously financially from changes that are made possible through the CPO process. If land is not carrying huge value and development becomes possible, landowners should be able to get proper compensation and in practice— because the CPO is almost always not required and is actually a process of negotiation—they will get more than that.

I did some work for the Government on new towns and villages, and the Government adopted a policy last March. I am delighted with the progress with that policy and to see 14 new garden villages coming forward which, with the new garden towns, will enable some 200,000 homes to be delivered with a degree of real community engagement and support. That will roll forward for more. The key thing about them is that they deliver really high quality.

The core reasons for the process for garden villages and towns is that, first, it enables them to be located in a way that is more sensitive to existing communities—which means that you are not just ringing every town and village with endless bland estates—and, secondly, you are able to use land that does not already carry huge value and you therefore capture much of the uplift of land value, which comes through permission for development, to deliver services, shops, pubs and place-making quality and better, cheaper homes than would otherwise be possible. You therefore reduce a lot of the opposition to development. That opposition is precisely because development is too often so poor. This is about quality, but to deliver that we either rely on landowners and the planning system to deliver high quality or, in some cases, local authorities coming in to acquire land and to take a leadership role—in partnership with the private sector in the modern world, not distanced from it—and hopefully in partnership with the landowners. But that opportunity is needed on occasion, and the CPO powers here make that clear.

Changes in the last Bill enabled local authorities more easily to bring forward new town and village proposals by that route, but I hope that this Bill will be an opportunity to look at whether we might also give them the powers, which are currently very much in the hands of the Secretary of State, to take the decision to set up and appoint the board and then have complete control of every penny of expenditure. If local authorities want to create new, small-scale communities to meet their local needs, and want to set up a development body to manage them, they ought to be able to do that at a local level and take local responsibility. The Secretary of State has a role in the process of setting it up in any event, but I do not think the Secretary of State needs, or would actually wish to have, that kind of day-to-day control. That is the story of the New Towns Act as it was in the 1950s and 1960s; I do not think it is the story of the world of neighbourhood planning and local democracy and engagement, which the Government are, I know, extremely committed to. I may probe that a bit later during the progress of the Bill, and I hope others may as well.

The bottom line is that we have seen enormous progress. The NPPF is not perfect but it is an absolutely huge step in the right direction. I look forward to the Government’s response to the CIL review, the local plan review and the NPPF review, which I hope we will see before too long, along with the White Paper. I hope we will have the opportunity for a bigger, broader debate in due course on the back of that about how we deliver the homes that we need at the scale that we need and with the quality the British people deserve. Frankly, too often at the moment, they are still not getting that.

Neighbourhood Planning Bill

Lord Taylor of Goss Moor Excerpts

Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 31st January 2017 Grand Committee

[Baroness Parminter (LD)]

My Lords, my Amendment 64 is in this group. I think that is because part of it fits with the Government’s amendments, although mine in its entirety is somewhat broader about creating the conditions to encourage more local communities to prepare neighbourhood plans and to shape and build sustainable communities. I think everyone in the Committee can support that, whether we believe in the political ideology of taking decisions at the lowest possible level or, as the Minister rightly reminded us a few moment ago, because of the Secretary of State’s stated desire to build more homes, because we all know that neighbourhood plans deliver more homes.

Of course, this issue was raised in the Housing and Planning Bill, and the Bill before us is the Government’s response to it. I very much welcome Clause 1 and the government amendments that the Minister has just introduced, which are in part a response to the debate on this matter in the other place. But I contend that they still do not go far enough in giving neighbourhood councils and parish councils that are drawing up neighbourhood development plans the reassurance that the time and effort they are putting in are worth while.

Clause 1 says that local authorities “must have regard” to neighbourhood development plans, but there are no sanctions. Furthermore, this applies only to post-examined plans, whereas case law says that draft plans should be taken into account. As I say, I welcome the government amendments made in response to the matter being raised in the House of Commons, which make it a requirement of local authorities to consult with neighbourhood planning bodies, but they are not clear about ensuring meaningful consultation; for example, by specifying how long it should take or, critically, what duty the local authority has to take any comments into account.

My amendment would make clear what the consultation with neighbourhood plans on a planning application would actually mean, as well as the duty placed on a local authority to take those views into account. If a local authority then ignores those views, the decision can be called in. That is a very limited right. It is a right not for individuals, but only for parish councils and neighbourhood forums whose neighbourhood plans have progressed to at least the point of formal submission to the local authority for examination.

To date 268 neighbourhood plans have been made, out of a potential 9,000. If we are going to secure more neighbourhood plans, the Bill has to strengthen the weight of communities’ views, expressed in neighbourhood plans, such that they should not be ignored by local planning authorities or the Planning Inspectorate. In the Housing and Planning Bill, the Minister kept saying that there had not been any examples of this. I am delighted to inform this Minister that after a bit of skimming on my part of some past applications, I found at least one in the space of one afternoon. In August 2014 South Oxfordshire District Council approved the planning application for the development of two new industrial units in Cotmore Wells Farm in Thame, despite the proposed development encompassing 50% more land for employment than had been allocated in the neighbourhood plan. But frankly, whether or not there have been cases is not the point. The point is that neighbourhood plans can be overridden if there is no sanction.

As my noble friend Lord Greaves and others have pointed out, we are asking volunteers to give their time and energy, over years, to pull these plans together. I welcome the commitment in the Bill to improve the level of resources at their disposal but some volunteers are working 20 or 30 hours a week, with extremely limited resources, particularly if they are not a parish council and do not have parish council resources and a parish council secretary to push the matter forward. Why should they do it if there is no redress when a planning application contrary to a neighbourhood plan is approved by a local authority—driving, as I have often said in this Room, a coach and horses through everything that has been agreed?

I ask the Minister: why do the Government feel that they should give a duty to local authorities to have regard to neighbourhood plans, as they have stated quite explicitly in Clause 1, if there is absolutely no sanction if they do not? Do they really feel that that provides sufficient encouragement for more neighbourhood plans to be brought into being, which we all know we need and which will ensure that the houses we want to be built are built?

[Lord Taylor of Goss Moor (LD)]

My Lords, I shall speak briefly in support of my noble friend’s Amendment 64. As this is the first time I have spoken in Committee, I should declare my interests. Probably most relevant is that I am the president of the National Association of Local Councils, representing parish and town councils across the country. I have a number of interests around development, including my own consultancy. I am also a visiting professor of planning at Plymouth University and a visiting lecturer at Cambridge in the school of planning. So I have a range of interests in this area—some commercial, some unpaid. Perhaps even more significant is that I chair a neighbourhood plan process for Roche local council. That neighbourhood plan has now been examined successfully and we await a date for a referendum—yet another frustrating wait to get it addressed. That introduction is probably longer than anything I need to say.

I support the amendment, or at least its principles, because there is an issue where neighbourhoods have taken through a neighbourhood plan process and the local authority then approves something contrary to the wishes of that community. It does not happen with every application—it is only where the parish council itself opposes it. It then asks the Secretary of State to review it in a formal way. Of course, the Secretary of State has the power to intervene in any event, but it formalises a process. This is important for confidence.

I did not support Amendment 1. It did not recognise that there may be many reasons why a district authority might choose to support an application that is outside a neighbourhood plan. There may be wider strategic issues. The two processes of local plan-making and the evolution of the local planning authority’s policies may not align with the neighbourhood plan process. The neighbourhood plan may be out of date for that particular application. It may not have anticipated a particular issue leading to a planning application. Most significantly, a neighbourhood plan is done in the context of that parish’s needs, not in a wider strategic context, so neighbourhood plans do not always need to override these wider issues. This is not the point nor the understanding of neighbourhood planning where communities properly engage in the process. However, they have the right to expect that it is taken seriously. Sometimes there is a sense that the local planning authority does not take the neighbourhood plan seriously in the way that it should—when it suits it to do so, at least.

This formalisation of the process—the sense that there is someone that they can go to and have it looked at again—is a broad principle, although perhaps not quite the right mechanism, that the Government should be willing to accept. It would give some confidence to communities and answer those who feel that they are simply ignored and that there is nothing they can do. Whether or not this is true, a sense of injustice can arise. Lord knows, I have done the process and it is an awful lot of effort to get a neighbourhood plan in place. There is a need for some sense that there is a proper system for review if a neighbourhood plan is not followed.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Taylor of Goss Moor]

It may be helpful to explain the point in time that the noble Baroness has proposed. At the point when you are awaiting examination, the process has already gone through all the community consultation stages. A final draft neighbourhood plan has been written. It has gone through the approval process with the local planning authority, which has to check that it conforms to the local plan and the National Planning Policy Framework. Any necessary amendment would have been made at that stage and it would also have gone through all the statutory consultees to then be submitted for examination. It then awaits examination prior to an examiner being appointed. At that point, all the processes have been completed. The only issue, and the only thing the examiner tests, is whether it complies with the national planning policy and the local plan.

[Lord Horam]

The noble Lord knows far more about these planning details than I do—I concede that. Speaking as a lay man, the amendment’s language does not seem to convey what he said. It conveys something much earlier in the process than what the noble Baroness said. I am to some extent relieved but, none the less, if the language can be interpreted in different ways—I am neither a lawyer nor a planning expert—it would, frankly, worry me. I am therefore concerned about this amendment, although I understand the sensible motivation by which it is put forward.

Neighbourhood Planning Bill

Lord Taylor of Goss Moor Excerpts

Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Thursday 2nd February 2017 Grand Committee

[Lord Greaves]

My Lords, Amendment 16 is about a review of neighbourhood areas and is particularly focused on the importance of existing parish and town councils as a basis for neighbourhood planning. It is a very important amendment and I am grateful, in promoting it, to the National Association of Local Councils for finding a way of getting it onto the agenda of the Neighbourhood Planning Bill. I should declare an interest as vice-chair—I think—of the APPG on Local Democracy.

One-fifth of the population of England is parished, according to the NALC. I was looking for the statistic—I have it somewhere but did not find it—on exactly how many neighbourhood plans are in parished areas. Perhaps the Minister can help me there. It is certainly over four-fifths. The great majority of neighbourhood plans have been promoted by the town or parish council, which is the qualifying authority in those areas. We know that 1,800 neighbourhood plans have been started, are under way or have been finished. In all of them, there is a clear relationship between the neighbourhood planning process and the town or parish council, but only a fifth of the population is covered by parish and town councils. The fundamental question behind the amendment is: what are the Government doing to set up more parish councils? Clearly, that must be with the agreement of local people, not imposed, but a lot of principal local authorities do not want any more town councils around the place and are not being very helpful.

I do not know what proportion of the population of the country is covered by neighbourhood plans, but it might be something like 5%. If that is the case, everything that we are talking about in earnest is very much a minority interest out in the country. If only one in 20 people in England is covered by a neighbourhood planning process of any kind, either neighbourhood planning is not for most people or, as I would suggest, it is not being sufficiently promoted to get more people involved.

Some planning authorities not only do not like parish councils, they are not very enthusiastic about neighbourhood plans. Clearly, if you are working on a local plan, you may not want to devote additional resources to neighbourhood plans. Although the responsibility for drawing them up lies with the neighbourhood planning group—either the forum or the parish council—it requires time and effort from local planning officers to ensure that it fits with the local development plan, planning law generally, and will work.

Most big urban areas have not got on with neighbourhood planning yet. Most neighbourhood plans are in rural villages or suburban villages. Some areas are pioneering—the noble Lord, Lord Clarke, will tell us about his—but there are not many in the big urban areas. However, it is not just the big urban areas that are a problem. If my noble friend Lady Scott of Needham Market were here—I think she is occupied in the Chamber—she would be talking about a town in her area that wants to get on with having a parish council and neighbourhood planning, but is being blocked by the local authority. So it is not just the big urban areas: unparished areas are missing out on neighbourhood planning.

I come back to the reasons why parished areas are taking the lead on this. First, the fact that there is a parish or town council means that there is a focus in that community to discuss and promote such a plan. There is an existing body of local councillors who are used to considering and acting on local issues and problems and giving their view on planning applications. Some of them turn up at planning committees for the principal authority to give oral evidence on behalf of their parishes, but send in their views in writing. Parish councillors are used to considering proposals and schemes by principal councils and government legislation. People ask them whether they want to take part, and they discuss it. In many parts of the country, including mine, they are taking part in community transfers, taking over land, property, facilities and services from district councils at parish council level, so they are used to this kind of thing.

Secondly, as well as being focused, they are a source of resources. They are not huge resources, but they have a clerk, to start off with, and perhaps some other staff who can do the initial things that need doing to get a neighbourhood plan steering group going and are used to dealing with correspondence, reports and all the rest of it in legislation. The other resource that parish councils have is money. They can use some of their precept money to supplement grants from the Government towards the neighbourhood planning process. On our previous day in Committee, we discussed how much the grants are and whether they vary, and I do not have any further information on that. Whether or not they are the same for all parishes, whether big or small, in most cases government grants for a neighbourhood plan will not be enough to carry out that plan. In some cases, the grant will be nowhere near enough. Parish councils are one source of local funding. They are not the only one, but they can do it.

On the other hand, forums are ad hoc and random, and they depend on somebody turning up and taking the initiative or a local group learning about it. There is no one in the community who will automatically consider whether to have a neighbourhood plan. This amendment states that local planning authorities must review their neighbourhood areas and look at how many there are, where they are, what proportion are parished, the progress that is being made and, in particular, the unparished areas that are missing out on neighbourhood planning and must consider how to promote neighbourhood planning better. The amendment puts the onus on planning authorities that are not terribly keen on neighbourhood planning to get keener on promoting it in their area. Finally, if places which are not parished ought to have neighbourhood planning, the amendment requires local authorities to consider undertaking a local government review to consider, with the local population, whether to start the process by setting up a parish council or a town council which would have the ability and resources to produce a neighbourhood plan. It would also be able to do everything else that parishes and towns do. I live in a borough which was mostly not parished when it was formed 40 years ago but is now wholly parished and the process has been almost entirely beneficial. I beg to move.

[Lord Taylor of Goss Moor (LD)]

I apologise for arriving a little late. Trains from the West Country are operating rather badly because of bad weather and the London Tube is operating really badly just because it is the London Tube, but it is a delight to be here now. Before I speak, I should draw attention to one of my interests which I have previously declared. I am the president of the National Association of Local Councils, and I will be speaking on an issue that it has raised. It is reflected in some of my noble friend’s comments.

It is clear that the great majority of neighbourhood plans that have been brought forward are in parished areas. I have represented a local community for many years, and I continue to live in one, and I have chaired a neighbourhood plan process initiated by a parish council. It is very obvious that parish councils, in communities where they exist, are very successful in moving things forward in representing community interests. In the context of neighbourhood planning, they provide an essential vehicle for initiating a plan, ensuring there is proper accountability to the wider community and, in the absence of sufficient funding for some of what happens, providing funding. In the case of our own neighbourhood plan, we initiated at a point where there was no government funding at all for the interregnum because the old fund had run out and the new one had not been established. The parish council, although a very small and poor one, was able to step into that breach.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Judd (Lab)]

I would like to say what a sensible amendment this is. It is impossible to overestimate the amount of cynicism that there is around the whole issue of consultation. There is too widespread a view that it does not make any difference because the planners will do what they want to do anyway, and that switches people off coming forward and participating. A lot of work has to be done to build public confidence in the consultation process. The very specific matter raised in this amendment is important because it is a real issue. I have come across it myself when people have said, “For God’s sake, it’s Christmas. We didn’t know that it was not exempt from the consultation period”. I hope that the Government and my noble friends on this side of the House will take the amendment seriously as a very practical and human suggestion.

[Lord Taylor of Goss Moor]

I shall speak to Amendment 27A standing in my name but, before doing so, I want to say that it must be a relief to the Minister to have what I think are three sensible amendments all thrown at him at once at this late stage in the afternoon.

I do not think that there is anything to object to in the noble Baroness’s amendment. With the neighbourhood planning process that I led locally, we happened to have a consultation period over Christmas and new year, and I was slightly startled to find that I was not under an obligation to extend that period in view of the circumstances. In fact, we extended our consultation period well beyond what was required under the neighbourhood planning rules, and I think it is a common courtesy to do that in holiday periods. As that is not always a courtesy extended by those making applications, perhaps the Government should make sure that it happens.

In relation to Amendment 62, we had a similar need for statutory consultees to respond to what we were doing in a timely way, but they too are notorious for not always doing that. Therefore, I hope that that amendment, as well as mine, will get a positive response.

Turning to my amendment, in the previous planning Bill the Government accepted proposals that I made for modernising the process under the New Towns Act to make the way in which local authorities bring forward proposals for a new settlement—under what is now the garden villages programme that the Government have adopted—easier and more modern. There would still be proper scrutiny, but it would be a process that could work effectively, and the Government accepted that. Since then, they have had a response to the national garden villages and towns programme that I think has exceeded all expectations, as local authorities have seen the opportunity provided by taking low-value land to create really high-class settlements to meet housing needs and which does not involve building around the edges of historic communities in a way that often wrecks those communities. Although people can be very dismissive of nimbyism—the “not in my back yard” attitude—for a long time I have said that that argument is often the right one. The planning system was introduced precisely to stop urban sprawl. As well as protecting the green belt, it was associated with renewing our urban centres with brownfield redevelopment, which is very important, and with the establishment of new settlements. I am delighted that the Government have gone down that route and that there has been such a lot of interest in it right across the country. I know that there are many more schemes still to come forward, and they will mean that we can meet the housing needs of our children, as well as the need for employment facilities, in a way that we too rarely see with most estate housebuilding at the moment.

The New Towns Act was drawn up in a very different era, not an era of localism but one in which national government had huge powers. When a new town development corporation is established, although it is the local authority that brings it forward—we are talking about relatively small communities and garden villages meeting local needs—the current statute says that the board, when established, is appointed entirely by the Secretary of State, not by the local authority that initiated it, and that all expenditure has to be approved in detail, to the last penny, by the Secretary of State. Given that these organisations acquire all the planning powers for the area that is designated and will make a huge investment in the community when that happens, very few local authorities would wish to see the Secretary of State take all those powers. Very few communities would feel comfortable with that either. Most importantly, a Government committed to localism would not feel comfortable with it. To put it bluntly, the Secretary of State probably does not have time to decide the last few pennies of expenditure by a body developing a local garden village.

The amendment is very simple. It says that where a local authority requests the Secretary of State to delegate powers relating to appointing the board and the financial conduct of the organisation, and therefore in practice its work, the Secretary of State should delegate those powers. That opportunity is not currently in the hands of the Secretary of State. I hope the Government will agree that, given the support they have given this policy and given the take up, it would be useful to make that change. I hope we can get a positive response from the Minister on that today.

[Baroness Pinnock]

My Lords, I shall speak again on behalf of my noble friend Lady Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville. Amendment 62 is in her name. As my noble friend Lord Taylor said, it is an eminently sensible amendment.

For the past eight years, my noble friend Lady Bakewell has sat on a committee that considers planning applications. She is therefore painfully aware of the length of time that some statutory consultees take to respond. Whether it is the highways department or rights of way department of a county council, the Environment Agency, the Highways Agency, Historic England or the National Trust, some will be consulted on a regular basis and perhaps all will be consulted on some sensitive applications. Very often, their comments will be of a minor nature, but on larger applications their contributions will be critical to, for instance, traffic flow and pedestrian safety, as well as to ensuring that flooding considerations have been adequately catered for and to the protection of the built environment and flora and fauna.

My noble friend does not wish to name and shame those statutory consultees that are tardy in the extreme with their responses—she is very kind—but their silence, despite frequent reminders, causes planning officers a number of headaches. The applicant becomes irritated at being frustrated in their desire to proceed with their development and unjustly blames the planning authority for not getting on with it. Members of the local community, which may have been consulted by both the developer and the planning authority, wonder what is going on and when they might be able to attend the planning meeting and have their say. The ability to express their view in public is extremely important to neighbours and often to the wider community. It is an integral part of the democratic process. It can help protestors to see that there are viewpoints other than their own, even if they do not agree with them. It is not conducive to community cohesion for residents to have to wait, often for very long periods of time, before applications are considered in public as a result of the local planning department, in turn, having to wait for and chase consultees for their responses. The Government and local planning authorities are keen to speed up the planning process. This amendment would certainly be one step towards achieving that aim. I look forward to the Minister’s response.

Neighbourhood Planning Bill

Lord Taylor of Goss Moor Excerpts

3rd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 15th March 2017 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Taylor of Goss Moor]

2: After Clause 14, insert the following new Clause—
“Development of new towns by local authorities
(1) The New Towns Act 1981 is amended as follows.(2) After section 1 insert—“1A Local authority to oversee development of new town(1) This section applies where the Secretary of State is considering designating an area of land in England as the site of a proposed new town in an order under section 1.(2) The Secretary of State may, in an order under section 1, appoint one or more local authorities to oversee the development of the area as a new town.(3) But a local authority may only be appointed if the area of land mentioned in subsection (1) is wholly or partly within the area of the local authority. (4) The Secretary of State may by regulations make provision about how a local authority is to oversee the development of an area as a new town.(5) Regulations under subsection (4) may, for example—(a) provide that a local authority is to exercise specified functions under this Act which would otherwise be exercisable by the Secretary of State, the appropriate Minister or the Treasury;(b) provide that a local authority is to exercise such functions subject to specified conditions or limitations;(c) provide that specified functions under this Act may be exercised only with the consent of a local authority;(d) make provision about the membership of a corporation established under section 3, including the proportion of the members of the corporation who may be members of or employed by a local authority;(e) modify provisions of this Act;(f) make different provision for different purposes;(g) make incidental, supplementary or consequential provision.(6) In subsection (5)(a) the reference to “functions” does not include a power to make regulations or other instruments of a legislative character.(7) Where two or more local authorities are appointed in an order containing provision by virtue of subsection (2), the Secretary of State may in that order provide—(a) that a specified function is to be exercised by a specified local authority, or(b) that a specified function is to be exercised by two or more specified local authorities jointly.(8) In this section—“local authority” means—(a) a district council,(b) a county council, or(c) a London borough council;“specified” means specified in—(a) an order containing provision by virtue of subsection (2), or(b) regulations under subsection (4).”(3) In section 77 (regulations and orders)—(a) in subsection (2), after “which” insert “, subject to subsection (2A),”, and(b) after subsection (2) insert—“(2A) A statutory instrument containing regulations under section 1A(4) may not be made unless a draft of the instrument has been laid before, and approved by a resolution of, each House of Parliament.””

[Lord Taylor of Goss Moor (LD)]

My Lords, this amendment is tabled in my name and that of the noble Lords, Lord Best and Lord Lucas, who have given great support on this issue during the passage of the Bill, as have noble Lords on all sides of the House. On Report, there was a very welcome commitment from the Minister to return to this issue.

I should draw attention to my interests. I advise many projects, including new settlement projects. I am a visiting professor of planning at Plymouth University, and over the years I have worked with government bringing forward policy changes.

This amendment is aimed at empowering local government communities to bring forward settlements of the highest quality, ensuring that the value that comes from development taking place is captured to create great places and deliver wonderful facilities for those places and is not captured in excessive profits for landowners or developers, and ensuring that the Government’s objectives in bringing forward the garden villages, garden towns and garden cities programme are met in terms of the delivery of what comes forward, with opportunities for small builders, self-builders and contract builders to grow and deliver in new ways better quality, more affordable homes and all the facilities in these places to create sustainable and vibrant 21st century communities.

Why have I tabled this amendment? At the start of the passage of the Bill, I made the point that in the Neighbourhood Planning Bill the Government accepted proposals that I and other noble Lords brought to the House to simplify the process of using the New Towns Act. The New Towns Act is essentially from a period when central government was much more involved in local delivery and when that was accepted. We are now in an era of localism, yet the New Towns Act gives all the power to the Secretary of State who has no capacity to hand over the role of the corporations that will be set up to deliver these new settlements to the local councils that would bring them forward. In the modern world, it is not right that in seeking to deliver a new settlement through a new town corporation to ensure that it is delivered at quality and pace to meet local needs a local council would surrender all the powers to the Secretary of State.

I do not think that the Secretary of State would want to have power over every penny of expenditure, the power of planning, because these bodies would get planning powers, and the power of controlling the assets and, potentially, of future disposals of those assets. It is far more likely that local authorities and communities will be comfortable with this process if they have not simply identified the site and taken the decision that it should be brought forward. When it comes here and the necessary process is gone through in Parliament to approve it, they should be confident that those powers will be exercised locally and that in the long run the assets will be controlled locally for the benefit of the people who live there and the wider community.

When we first debated this, the Minister understandably said that the Government needed to think about this and work it through, but the White Paper made it clear that the Government agree with this process. I have been delighted that the Government have taken forward this policy, which I was very much involved in developing. On the back of the White Paper, we came back. I have to thank the Minister for his positive response on Report and for allowing me to talk to officials in working through something that might now work positively for the Government and that could be incorporated into this Bill.

I shall briefly speak to some of the detail. The principle of the amendment is to give the Secretary of State the power to appoint one or more local authorities in the designated area of the new town to oversee the delivery of the new town and the new development corporation. This is a localising measure. It hands really strong power to communities to ensure that new towns are delivered at quality.

The functions that would be transferred to local authorities for this purpose would be set out in secondary regulations subject to the affirmative procedure, so fully respecting parliamentary process. Since new towns may straddle the boundary of more than one authority, more than one authority could be appointed. This will make it much simpler in those circumstances to bring forward and deliver proposals. The Secretary of State would be able to set out how those powers would be transferred to those local authorities, for joint exercise or divided between them. Changes to the New Towns Act may be needed to allow this to work on subjects such as asset control. The purpose of the power to modify the Act would be to make the principle of local accountability work.

Therefore, this fits with the agenda that Members across the House have outlined, to bring many more homes forward to meet local needs and to capture the value of land in order to create supplements. In that way, we would not look to the taxpayer to fund the school, build the surgery, provide for shops or build a real community. The value of the land would be put into the process of making this work.

At the moment, where projects are approved, the risk is that they are sold on through the chain of speculators, developers and housebuilders. Then, by the time that they are delivered, on grounds of viability because of the price that has been paid for the land or because of the model of the housebuilder, none of the promises made at the start to the local community is delivered. The use of the development corporation as proposed would guarantee that what had been promised to people at the start would be delivered to people at the end.

This approach would open the opportunity to use compulsory purchase powers under the New Towns Act. These could be used where necessary, but normally purchase would be done by treaty in consultation with landowners. The point would be to reach a price that allows the delivery of the quality of place that has been promised. That promised quality would then be locked in through the development corporation process, rather than being at risk of never being delivered. I am afraid that I can take noble Lords to many places where much was promised and far too little of those promises was delivered. There are places where it has been done well, but only where there has been a landowner genuinely committed to it.

That partnership would, therefore, be available. Generally, I imagine that it would be done through joint venture and partnership and agreement but none the less locking in that quality. Where that did not happen, powers would be there to achieve the quality of place that is needed.

Above all, this is about three things. One is keeping it honest and delivering what is promised. That is essential if there is to be any credibility around the delivery, not just of housing but of communities and neighbourhoods, that this approach of garden villages and towns promises.

Secondly, it is critical if we are to move from a supply of new homes inadequate to meet people’s needs that results in ever-accelerating prices beyond what is affordable. If we are to create the 250,000 to 300,000 homes each year that we need, rather than 150,000, those extra homes need to be delivered to a higher quality in places that they do not ruin. Rather than encircling existing historic towns and villages with endless bland housing estates, we need to deliver something better in places where people can accept them and where the public will support the programme. If we try to raise the numbers but deliver inadequate quality, as too often happens currently, there will simply be a public revolt and we will not get the houses delivered.

Finally, it is also critical that we understand that the big housebuilder model does not allow big housebuilders greatly to increase the numbers being delivered. They will not do so even if they wish to because of the way in which they are financed and the way in which publicly assisted companies are priced. The only way to deliver the increased numbers—and the increased quality—is to build up new entrants, whether housing associations, growing SMEs, self-builders or overseas developers of the highest quality. They all need places to build without the current tortuous process of land options and land banking.

These are the mechanisms to deliver it. But it will happen only if we have a very clear understanding that this means delivering great places to go with the plots to build them on, not just handing this over to the people who build houses and expecting them somehow to create great places. We know they deliver housing estates, but they do not deliver the quality of places demanded by people, which is what will give public acceptability to the programme.

This amendment will be the critical factor in creating local empowerment to deliver what will be a genuine game-changer. I am very grateful for the support there has been on all sides of the House for this and to the Government for the positive way in which they have responded to the case. I beg to move.

[Lord Best (CB)]

My Lords, I will speak briefly to the amendment, to which I have attached my name. I commend the noble Lord, Lord Taylor of Goss Moor, for following through on our earlier amendment and indeed for all his good work in promoting new garden villages and garden towns. This amendment is not as definitive as the one we discussed on Report, but it should achieve the same outcome, namely of placing local authorities centre stage in the creation and oversight of the new corporations that will be responsible for these major new settlements. This will greatly improve the prospects of these much-needed new communities getting off the ground.

I was delighted to hear today that the Local Government Association—I declare my interest as an LGA vice-president—is fully supportive of the amendment. If accepted, the amendment will mean it will be much more likely that a number of successful, well-designed, mixed-income new settlements will be developed over the years ahead. That would be of enormous benefit to many thousands of households, which will have great new places to bring up their families and live their lives, as well as to the nation as a whole in reducing acute housing shortages. I have every confidence that the Minister will find the amendment entirely acceptable, and if so, I congratulate the Government. Following the housing White Paper, and a number of the helpful measures in this Bill, I greatly welcome this further step in the Government’s creation of a much-improved set of national housing policies. I strongly support the amendment.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

My Lords, I thank noble Lords who have participated in the debate on Amendment 2. I thank particularly the noble Lord, Lord Taylor of Goss Moor, for moving it, supported by the noble Lord, Lord Best. I thank them both and indeed other noble Lords for their time and commitment on this issue and for the opportunity to discuss this matter. We have discussed it both in Committee and on Report, and I have been heartened to hear the support for the measure from across the Chamber.

This amendment seeks to support the creation of locally led garden towns and villages by enabling the responsibility for any development corporation created under the New Towns Act 1981 to be transferred to a local authority or authorities, covering all or part of the area designated for the new town or village. On the point made by my noble friend Lord Porter, I think the definition is broad enough to include unitary authorities; that is certainly the intention. On a different point about combined authorities that was made by the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, of course we can create mayoral development corporations in relation to the new combined authorities—we did so with Teesside a couple of weeks ago—so that could well be part of the deal with the new authority. However, along with other noble Lords, I would want to think carefully in conjunction with the combined authorities as to whether they wanted to take that power on. I think I am right in saying, although I may be wrong, that the designated garden towns and villages do not come within the purview of what at the moment is projected as a combined authority, but it is a point well made. Therefore, I would like to go away to ponder this and give a fuller response to the noble Lord, if I may, copying it to noble Lords who participated in the debate and putting a copy in the Library.

The aim of the amendment is entirely consistent with those of the Bill. The Government certainly support it and I thank in particular the noble Lord, Lord Best, for his pre-emptive congratulations on the Government’s support. The amendment is very consistent with the approach of the Government, the department and the recently published White Paper in relation to the importance of localism.

I take the point of the noble Lord, Lord Mawson, about the importance of ensuring that all local authorities have the right attitude to these things. We hope that is accomplished through elections but the broad principle of it being done locally must be right. That has been echoed throughout the contributions on this legislation as it has gone through the House: local is better. We know that a number of local authorities—for example, those in north Essex—are interested in taking advantage of the new opportunity that the amendment would provide to support a new generation of locally led garden towns and villages, the 21st-century heirs to Letchworth and Welwyn.

I also welcome the support of the Local Government Association and the kind words of my noble friend Lord Porter for the principle behind the amendment. I am very pleased that it commands wide support throughout the House. This is a simple principle; making it work in practice will require detailed modifications to the New Towns Act, which my department will develop. We will want to keep in close contact with the noble Lords, Lord Taylor and Lord Best, both of whom I thank very much for the impetus and enthusiasm they have given this and the expertise they bring to the table. I pause at this stage to pay tribute to their work as effective champions of this issue throughout discussions on the Bill.

In conclusion, I am very pleased to support the noble Lord’s amendment, which will help to fulfil an important White Paper commitment.

[Lord Taylor of Goss Moor]

My Lords, I shall respond very briefly. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Best, for all his support and encouragement, not only on this Bill but previously. I should also thank my noble friend Lady Parminter, who was in the Chamber but has had to go, for moving an amendment for me on Report that enabled this matter to be brought forward.

We have had a promise from the Minister to come back on the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Beecham. I should make it clear that the intention is absolutely that more than one local authority can be involved. We need to explore the mechanism for that and hear what the Minister has to say, but the ability for more than one authority to come together is here. I therefore imagine that in practice nothing would stand in the way of the point that was raised.

On the point of the noble Lord, Lord Porter, about unitary authorities, the intention is that they should be covered. Indeed, having worked very hard to support the creation of a unitary authority in Cornwall, I would be horrified if I had managed in any way to get the drafting wrong on that point, but I believe it is covered.

I absolutely take the point of the noble Lord, Lord Mawson, and thank him for his support. In my comments, I talked about the fact that although the mechanism is here for local authorities to take a leadership role, the expectation is absolutely for a partnership approach. I thought quite hard about how one might look at the structures of a corporation. It is very important that this is not a 1950s or 1960s view, whereby a local authority chief executive is appointed and gets on with the job. The world has moved on since then. My view has always been that you need, as we see in Europe and in the States, a master developer and a master planner; you need expertise and business experience.

I chair a joint strategic board for the Carclaze garden village, which has been many years in gestation. The key thing has been to bring together the local authority, the private sector-led development body and the landowner in a partnership. That partnership has been incredibly successful. It took the development through the recession after 2008. The developer is Egyptian-owned, so the partnership took it through the storms of the Arab spring in terms of its financing. It is now in front of planning, and I think will be delivered. That has been possible only because we have built a really strong partnership between all parties, including the private sector, so there is a very deep experience of people creating fantastic places for business reasons, as well as the very important experience of the council representing people and understanding the processes of local government. There has been a great partnership with the HCA as well.

I could not agree more with the noble Lord’s comments. That is why, although this provision uses the powers of the New Towns Act, it is very much in a 21st century setting—and that is not just about localism; it is about partnership between all the stakeholders. I also make the point that it is about holding people to promises, because too often people see wonderful designs at the stage when something is proposed, but the moment when it is allocated or an outline is commissioned, it is traded and traded and, somehow, it gets watered down and not delivered. That experience is important for business, too.

[Lord Mawson]

I welcome that, and I absolutely agree with the noble Lord. The Civil Service finds it very hard to understand—and I think that the noble Lord is saying the same thing—that what really matters is having people around the table from different sectors who care about the place and are going to stay on this journey a very long time. It takes a long time to deliver these things and it is very difficult, but it is all about having the right people—people who care.

[Lord Taylor of Goss Moor]

In every case when I have advised on new settlements coming forward, I have advised local authorities, councillors and communities but also those promoting the project to establish the basis of the joint venture and partnership for delivery of the original objectives and to hold people to it. It is only by getting everyone around the table jointly to discuss that—again, that is the case at Carclaze—at every key stage, whether in looking at the master plan and working out how to deliver affordable housing and quality, wherever the ultimate power may lie to take the decision, that we have all been jointly involved in coming to the right conclusion. That is what these bodies achieve; they are, ultimately, about keeping it honest, but they are also about getting it delivered. The noble Lord clearly has that experience in the Olympic context, and we need that experience in each of these initiatives.

The last thing that we want is to create bland housing estates in the countryside, not great communities. If we do the former, the project will die very quickly, and public enthusiasm will disappear; if we get it right, people will clamour for what are actually the intentions of the 1947 planning Act, when people talked about stopping suburban sprawl, rejuvenating cities and towns and building new communities to meet the needs of those who could not be housed. This is about returning to those objectives and putting back under control the suburban sprawl that we see once again too often around our historic towns and cities. It is a new option and a better one.

I thank the Minister very much for his supportive comments. We have worked very closely on getting this right.

Amendment 2 agreed.