Responsibilities of Housing Developers

Luke Charters Excerpts

Wednesday 11th December 2024 Westminster Hall

[Mr Luke Charters (York Outer) (Lab)]

It is an honour to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Pritchard—[Interruption]—in the company of the John Deere air horn orchestra.

This debate is very important to me. I have met Persimmon, Oakgate, Banks Group, Joseph Rowntree, Taylor Wimpey, Barratt, David Wilson, McLaren and countless others. I thank the hon. Member for Keighley and Ilkley (Robbie Moore) for securing the debate. I greatly respect him as a fellow Yorkshire MP, so let me be Yorkshire, direct and bold and say that he forgets an important point: it was the last Government who oversaw the broken planning system.

That brings me to the challenges we face in York. Housing developers have struggled to build good homes over the past 14 years, but it is not for lack of trying. I am afraid to say that some councillors in certain parties have been the blockers for too long. Let me tell hon. Members a story. New Earswick was the brainchild of Joseph Rowntree. For Members familiar with model villages, it is the Bournville or Saltaire of York—a place built on the principle that better housing can be provided for lower-income families.

Recently, there was a proposal to build 14 new affordable houses. It was compliant with the national planning policy framework. No need to worry, right? Unfortunately, that was not the case. If Members want to know why, I will need to refer to one of my son’s favourite films, the 2006 animated comedy “Over the Hedge”. The plot, for those who may not know it, is about a group of woodland animals led by a cautious turtle named Verne. The problem is that Verne’s overly cautious approach has bled into the local authority’s cautious planning approach for too long. I hope Members will forgive that slightly unexpected reference, but the reason why those 14 homes were delayed for three to six months was that planning committee members from a certain party did not want to go ahead over a hedge. Families had been left waiting for months for housing—over a hedge.

Let me move on from that harrowing tale and make a slightly bold suggestion: rather than just focusing on the responsibilities of housing developers, we must focus on the role of local councillors. If committee members are homeowners, they should have to declare it as an interest. It is easy to block the homes of the future when you have one yourself.

[John Lamont]

I find some of the hon. Member’s remarks quite extraordinary. Is he genuinely saying that if concerns about wildlife, the environment or what is proposed are put forward by local residents, and particularly by the Environment Agency, they should simply be ignored in pursuit of this house building agenda?

[Mr Charters]

Absolutely not. The example I gave was—to go back to that 2006 movie—about a hedge. The power that planning committees have must be exercised with restraint. We must consider the opportunity costs. Disabled families and other families, my constituents, have been left waiting six months because of a landscape issue over a hedge.

There are a couple of practical considerations I would like to raise. The future homes standard is great, and developers have a responsibility there, but we cannot just focus on air source heat pumps. We must have battery storage linked to photovoltaics as well—that should be the new home standard. We must also have extra planning committee resource so we can properly hold developers to account. I would really welcome the Minister updating us on when the 200 new planning officers are likely to be in place. They are desperately needed in York.

Let me also touch on pre-application discussions. These are important to let developers get on and consider local need in the right way and at an early stage.

[Nick Timothy]

We are sent here not to consider anecdotes and individual case studies, but to consider legal frameworks and systems. If the hon. Gentleman wants to remove some of the systemic barriers to house building, which regulations—particularly pertaining to the environment and biodiversity—might he be interested in seeing removed?

[Mark Pritchard (in the Chair)]

Order. I remind hon. Members that interventions are part of our regular work, and it is entirely up to the speaker to take them. However, when an intervention is taken, it adds one minute to the speaker’s time slot, which takes time away from others.

[Mr Charters]

Forgive me, Mr Pritchard, but I thought that the intervention was on my point about the pre-application process, which should be welcomed on all sides. It can be really helpful to developers and local authorities, because additional resource—an independent resource that the local authority agrees to—can be brought in to provide support, enabling things to be scrutinised more closely and in due time.

I hear so much from developers about statutory consultees, and orchestrating them—landscaping, drainage, water, highways and so on—is a critical part of the planning process. But so often in the planning process, when one respondent is late, it has a knock-on effect on everyone else. We realistically must ensure that planning authorities are better at orchestrating those statutory consultees.

I would welcome the chance to meet the Minister to discuss some of these ideas further. York Outer is a unique place in terms of the concept of grey belt. I welcome recent NPPF statements. I really believe that we will be turning Tory stumbling blocks into Labour’s building blocks.