Neighbourhood Plans: Planning Decisions

Debate between Luke Evans and John Milne

Wednesday 9th July 2025 Westminster Hall

[Dr Evans]

That was the argument made to me when I solely represented Hinckley and Bosworth, but stepping across and taking in north-west Leicestershire, when they are able to deliver a local plan that has the five-year land supply that brings in the business rates, there is chalk and cheese to be seen. Everyone can see that. So I am not so sure that the targets are the problem. There is the local accountability. The Government need to step in to say that where councils are failing on delivery, they should be held accountable. Unfortunately, what happens is that people come to their MP to say, “What are you going to do to sort it out?”, when of course it is councils that deliver the plan. They just need to be held accountable. Does the hon. Member agree?

[John Milne]

Not entirely, although I thank the hon. Member for his intervention. The standard method was intended as an objective way to calculate local housing targets. It is objective in the sense that it is mathematical. However, the question has to be asked: does it give appropriate targets? I would say it very much does not. The reason for the pressure on the green belt—there could be 1,000 reasons—is that the mathematical calculation does not actually calculate housing need; it is a proxy for housing need, which is completely inaccurate and has been the cause of many problems. So it is very disappointing to see that the standard method has been retained by the current Government, and in fact made even worse by another round of mathematical jiggery-pokery that has very little to do with calculating genuine housing need.

The policy of reducing house prices by sheer number of planning permissions did not work for the last Government, and it will not work for the current one. It will do irreversible damage along the way to local communities before it will inevitably be changed again. An extra layer of difficulty has been added by local government reorganisation. In many areas, such as my constituency of Horsham in West Sussex, the forthcoming abolition of district and borough planning authorities means that the local plan process will be even more remote from the community.

It really is hard to see what role, if any, remains for neighbourhood plans in future. Why would anyone bother with all that work when they do not have any obvious statutory role? Neighbourhood plans can take years to draw up, and most of that is unpaid. The only clear benefit seems to be as a way of securing the higher rate of CIL, or community infrastructure levy payments, but to me it no longer makes sense to incentivise neighbourhood plan making in this way. Perhaps the Government should simply remove that hurdle and make the higher rate automatic.

It is extraordinary to see the complete absence of any mention of neighbourhood plans and their role in the new legislation. We can draw no other conclusion than to assume that the Government’s intention is to let them wither away altogether by a gradual process of neglect. To repeat: at their best, neighbour plans are a remarkable demonstration of people power—but not the people this Government want to listen to, apparently.

The Liberal Democrats believe that the best way to get Britain building the housing infrastructure we need and bring down costs is to give local communities a real voice and a real stake. To do so we want to ensure that strategic planning authorities consult on a statement of community involvement, which guarantees the right to be heard at an examination; that the Secretary of State takes this consultation into account when deciding an application for development consent; and that parliamentary approval is required for the removal of statutory consultees from the planning process. The Liberal Democrats would also like to see planning committees retain their current powers. When we look at this alongside the emasculation of neighbourhood plans and all the measures that take away or compress local consultation, it is clear that this Government believe that local residents are just a nuisance who need to be locked out of the room while the grown-ups make all the decisions.

We are deeply disappointed by the Government’s lack of commitment to boost nature’s recovery and tackle climate change in the planning process, despite promising in their manifesto that changes to the planning system would create places that increased climate resilience and promoted nature recovery. Neighbourhood plans have played a particularly effective role in identifying and protecting existing green spaces, which often have unclear legal status—lost in the mists of time—and are now under threat from the rapacious development industry.

Overall, the sidelining of neighbourhood plans in new legislation fits into a pattern of diminishing local power and representation. The Government believe that it is a sacrifice worth making for the sake of pushing faster house building, but all it will do in practice is to pile on more unbuilt planning permissions to the 1.4 million that we already have. It has been demonstrated plainly that permissions by themselves do not bring down prices. Developers simply stop building any time prices start to fall.

Mandating an ambitious annual delivery of social housing would be a faster and more effective, environmentally friendly and, above all, consensual way to achieve results. That is why the Liberal Democrats are asking for a guaranteed 150,000 new social houses a year. Neighbourhood plans should be retained and strengthened as a key part of the drive to build consensus in development—not compulsion.