Neighbourhood Planning Bill

Lord Thurlow Excerpts

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

[Lord Thurlow (CB)]

My Lords, I will address Part 1 of the Bill. Before doing so, I declare my landholdings in the register of interests. The objectives appear to be to build more houses and to streamline the process, and no one could disagree with that—I certainly do not, and I support it in principle—but there are two points that I want to address.

The first concerns resourcing for planning officers—I mean the professional teams of officers, not the councillors involved with planning. I worked on the fringe of planning for many years myself, usually on the side of the big developers, which were well-resourced, and not on the side of the planners. I saw the impact of the work they did, and among many local planning authorities I saw teams that by nature were on the defensive. They were bruised by years of experience of attempted resistance to opportunistic planning applicants and well-funded developers—who frequently, of course, were not housebuilders, but in their environment that does not matter. Those developers were developing large industrial estates, logistics parks and shopping centres. Perhaps developments involving blight, such as very tall or visually intrusive buildings, become a problem for them, sometimes against a local atmosphere of media outcry, with petitions and public objection. These hard workers have no fan club. Their environment is a negative one. It is difficult to be motivated unless you are very well led or very well paid.

The local planning officer’s job is to ensure fairness: that applications fall legitimately within the guidelines and the laws that define their options. The problems for some of the smaller teams are simply that they are underfunded and, critically, short-staffed. They are perhaps particularly short of experienced staff. Churn in that department—the turnover of the staff—is a real problem. The young planner arriving in a new job is given a thick file which records the history of several years of a fight between a developer and the planning office, and is expected to become familiar with it and to prepare to negotiate with them. They are working with their hands tied behind their back. They are trying to do the right thing against the odds, potentially against the background of appeals, and even judicial review. A cash-strapped council would not wish to entertain that lightly.

Developers, particular housebuilders in our case today, are likely to be the opposite. Driven by the profit motive and economies of scale, and dealing in geographies that probably span many different planning areas, they are probably well funded. They are certainly advised—we have heard about some of this today—by experienced professional staff, articulate advocates who are knowledgeable about the loopholes and weaknesses in the planning system and the legislation. This a pretty unequal struggle. Local planning officers need all the help they can get, and that is extremely relevant in the context of the Bill.

Pre-commencement planning conditions are referred to in the Bill, and have already been referred to this afternoon. They are to be effectively removed apart from the appropriate protections, which I heartily support. However, this removes an important layer of protection for our society and the communities they serve. Some of these preconditions are spurious but many are very important, and it is one of the few tools the planner may have.

Why is there no obligation, when we are trying to build all these houses, to first consider building on brownfield land? Why not relax the planning requirements for building houses there? As we drive into lovely green farmland for our new developments, into the green belt, there seems to be no requirement to do this. What a waste, when frequently brownfield land lies on the edge of urban areas, close to hospitals, schools, shopping and the public transport network. The main reason is the cost of development, such as cleaning up the sites, and of course for developers building in urban areas is more expensive than building on green fields. I am not sure that that is a good enough reason. The Government have allocated funds to various housebuilding initiatives, which are growing all the time. Why not start with brownfield land? I liked the suggestion we heard this afternoon that vacant public sector land in other areas could be included in this.

I conclude by asking the Government to consider the impact the Bill will have on the planning departments and local authority planning teams. In many instances they are a demotivated group of people, fighting a losing a battle, and there is a risk that both their hands will be tied behind their backs as a product of the relaxation of planning requirements in the Bill. I ask the Government to explore the resourcing issues I mentioned; give them the staff they need at a time when councils are being forced to cut costs—they need all the support they can get. Further work is required on Part 1 of the Bill.