Unauthorised Encampments

Mark Pawsey Excerpts

Wednesday 8th September 2010 Westminster Hall

[Mark Pawsey (Rugby) (Con)]

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds) for raising this issue.

I want to talk about the issue of people illegally developing land, and to focus particularly on the issues caused by multiple temporary consents. The established practice of a community’s moving on to land and putting down infrastructure before the local planning authority can respond has been referred to already. When that happens, the usual procedure is for the local authority to invite the people carrying out the development to apply for permission and, if that permission is granted, for it to apply retrospectively. That is not just in respect of this type of development; it is in respect of all types of development.

However, when somebody goes on to agricultural land and puts down infrastructure, in most cases the application is refused. Of course, that application then goes to appeal and in many cases the appeal process is very lengthy. The matter then becomes one of enforcement, but enforcement cannot take place while an appeal is pending. All these things take time.

During that time, development becomes entrenched, roadways are often made up, hard standings are put in place for mobile homes and fences are erected. While that is happening, the law-abiding settled community sees laws apparently being disregarded, often by another group, and they become frustrated at the lack of progress. So it is clear that the system needs attention and that councils need stronger powers.

The concept of retrospective applications should not be available in certain cases. By way of example, I want to focus on a particular area that has suffered from multiple temporary consents. It is a village or hamlet called Barnacle in the northern part of my constituency and it is in the green belt, where there is a presumption against development.

Barnacle is a small community, with 105 households and a population of 267, according to the 2001 census. It is approached by narrow country lanes and its parish council describes it as an ordinary place where working people enjoy living in a friendly, sociable environment. However, those people now have on their doorstep a site comprising 50 caravans and 10 mobile homes, and it is believed that there are 28 separate households on the site. It is the contention of those who live in Barnacle that the scale of the site is out of all proportion to a village containing 100 households.

I want to set out the sequence of events that has led to this situation, which started as long ago as April 2003. On the Good Friday, unauthorised use of a paddock began and the local authority immediately issued an enforcement notice. An appeal was immediately lodged against it. It took until February 2004 for the Planning Inspectorate to uphold the enforcement notice, but it set the period of compliance at 18 months.

At the end of that period of compliance, in August 2005, a planning application was submitted for a temporary two-year permission to be granted for people to reside on this particular site. That application was heard by Rugby borough council in October 2005. The council refused the temporary consent, but it extended the period of compliance, with the enforcement notice delayed until August 2006.

In April 2006, four months before the new compliance period expired, a planning application was submitted for a permanent dwelling. It took until July 2006 for the local authority to refuse permanent consent, but at that time the authority extended the period of compliance, so that the enforcement notice ran until August 2007. An appeal against the refusal was submitted and in September 2007 consideration of the planning appeal was deferred while the council considered the matter further.

We now move on to January 2008, when the Planning Inspectorate again granted a temporary planning consent at the site for a further two-and-a-half years, to expire in July 2010. At that time, the residents got in touch with me, as I was the new Member of Parliament for the area. The application made in July 2010 has not yet been heard; it is likely to be heard by Rugby borough council in October. The anxiety of the residents of Barnacle is that a further temporary consent may be granted, meaning that there will be no resolution to the issues that they face.

The problem that I want to draw attention to is the number of temporary permissions and extended compliance periods that have been granted. Temporary consents were granted principally on the basis that suitable accommodation would be available at a later point in time at a redeveloped caravan park nearby. That development has not happened, and it is feared that that new site is still not available. The concern of the residents of Barnacle is that there will be a further temporary consent. They have suffered from the “nowhere for them to go” issue; despite continued unauthorised development, that issue has enabled the site to be occupied for seven years already. And as each year passes, the site becomes more established and more permanent in its nature.

The residents of Barnacle find on their doorstep a development that contravenes both national and local planning policy and one for which local elected representatives have consistently refused consent. Yet they have lived with it for the past seven years. This issue needs to be redressed, with a review of the legislation, so that residents of places such as Barnacle can again enjoy their normal quality of life.