Planning System: Gypsies and Travellers

Mark Pawsey Excerpts

Wednesday 29th January 2020 Westminster Hall

[Mr Hollobone]

Yes, I would like that to be the case. It seems to me that if someone is intentionally seeking to build an unauthorised development and is subject to a temporary or a permanent stop notice, they should do what that notice says—stop the work and restore the land to its original state. To my constituents, that would seem a sensible way forward.

[Mark Pawsey (Rugby) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is talking about the huge increase in retrospective planning applications. The Times ran an article quite recently showing that there were 39,200 retrospective applications over three years, and only one in eight of those was rejected. If somebody develops land without consent, there is a good chance that they will ultimately get consent. There is a huge incentive for Gypsy and Traveller encampments, because in most circumstances the land is acquired at agricultural value and once consent is achieved, it has a worth as developable land. There is a big incentive for people to try to abuse the system in that way.

[Mr Hollobone]

I totally agree with my hon. Friend. Local planning authorities should have the ability to enforce a requirement that people occupying sites without permission should not be permitted to remain on site while it is going through the planning process. That would stop the problem.

Where intentional unauthorised occupation has occurred, the requirement on the local planning authority in the decision-taking process to consider

“the availability (or lack) of alternative accommodation for the applicants”

should be removed. If a member of the settled community built a dwelling on land in the open countryside without first obtaining planning permission, the local planning authority would not, as part of the retrospective decision-taking process, consider the availability of alternative sites or be obliged to have to hand alternative sites to which the applicant could relocate. All I am asking for is equal treatment for everyone under the planning system, not preferential treatment for Gypsies and Travellers.

Often when Gypsies and Travellers find themselves in that situation, they say, “We’ve got nowhere else to go.” One of the problems for local planning authorities is that it is very difficult for them to check, when they are told that by Traveller families, whether those families own land elsewhere. We need a sensible arrangement with the Land Registry to help local authorities accurately check and verify an applicant’s other land holdings. That is difficult for local planning authorities to do, and it is something I believe the Minister can tackle.

I know that the Minister is here representing the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, and the Home Office will probably have the lead on the trespass issue—I would welcome his confirmation on that. When changing the rules on trespass, can we lower the number of vehicles needed to be involved in an illegal camp before the police can act? At the moment, I think it is six; it needs to be at least two, and I would go lower.

The police need to be given powers to direct Travellers to sites in neighbouring local authorities, not necessarily just in the local authority where the trespass takes place. Officers should be allowed to remove trespassers from camping on or beside a road, not necessarily just on land, and the time in which Travellers are not allowed to return to a site from which they have been removed should be increased from three months to at least a year, and I would go further than that.

There are lots of distinguished Members seeking to contribute to this debate. I thank you, Sir George, for your indulgence. On behalf of my constituents in the borough of Kettering, I press the Minister and the Government to seize the initiative on this issue and get something done.

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[Mark Pawsey (Rugby) (Con)]

I will be mindful of your remark, Sir George. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Kettering (Mr Hollobone) on bringing this important issue before us, and on standing up for the concerns of his constituents, as he has done for many years. He drew attention to the failures of the planning system, which also affect constituents in the north-western part of my constituency, around the larger village of Bulkington in Nuneaton and Bedworth and the nearby villages of Ansty, Shilton and Barnacle, which fall under Rugby Borough Council. The fact that some of the issues occur on a local authority boundary adds to the complexity.

Understanding why the Gypsy and Traveller community find that part of the country a good place to be located is important. It is a little to do with how the Traveller community earn their living. Many of them have businesses that revolve around construction and property maintenance, and the big urban area where many of their customers are is Coventry, which is immediately adjacent to those villages. What adds to the complexity in the choice of location is the fact that it is in the urban edge around Coventry, where there is green belt and therefore a presumption against development. The fact that the Gypsy and Traveller community have been able to secure consents, or have developed without consent, has over time contributed to a feeling in the settled community that in some instances an advantage is being provided to that community.

All the sites in my constituency are in the green belt. The pattern of their development was described by my hon. Friend the Member for Kettering. A development often takes place on a paddock, on agricultural land, frequently starting on the Friday of a bank holiday weekend, which means a delay before local planning authorities can get to the site to start enforcement action, by which time some pretty substantial works have taken place. The procedure then is that the local enforcement officer goes out and invites the applicant to submit a retrospective application—we have spoken about this issue, and I am very supportive of my hon. Friend’s comments on looking at how this ought to be changed.

Eventually, that application reaches the local planning committee, which turns it down because the development is considered to be inappropriate in the green belt. More time passes and the applicant decides to lodge an appeal. The appeal is dealt with by the Planning Inspectorate, whose decision overrides that of the elected members of the planning committee. Often, a planning inspector will grant a consent, perhaps highlighting the issue that has been covered in this debate, which is the lack of authorised pitches and concerns about where else applicant families would go. On occasion, those consents are granted as temporary consents.

I will deal a little more with the issue of retrospective applications, and with the issue of temporary consents within the planning system. I expressed concern about the nature of retrospective applications to my local planning officers, who told me that the issue is often the failure to understand on the part of the Gypsy and Traveller community.

My hon. Friend the Member for South West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous) spoke about the literacy challenges in that community, but they seem on occasion to be able to afford to engage the best planning lawyers, often as a consequence of the substantial increase in value that occurs.

The issue of temporary consents affects Top Road in Barnacle, which has a complex planning history. With each subsequent application, the temporary consent gets closer to being permanent, which is a matter of great concern for residents in Bulkington.

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[Luke Hall]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for raising that point and sharing his local authority’s experience. I am happy to touch on that shortly, but let me turn first to the green belt, which was raised by a number of Members, including my hon. Friends the Members for Mole Valley (Sir Paul Beresford) and for Rugby (Mark Pawsey). Our commitment to protecting the green belt is as strong as it has ever been. Changes to the green belt should happen only in exceptional circumstances, and should be fully evidenced and justified through plan making. The policy is clear that once green belts are defined, local authorities should plan positively to enhance their beneficial use, such as by looking for improvements to access and environmental quality.

We have provided £1.79 million of funding across 37 local authorities to improve their capacity to respond to enforcement issues facing their area, and we are working with the Royal Town Planning Institute to overhaul the national enforcement handbook to provide the latest best practice and expertise on shutting down illegal building while ensuring that developers obtain full planning permission before a shovel hits the ground.

[Mark Pawsey]

My hon. Friend the Member for Kettering (Mr Hollobone) mentioned powers to require an inappropriate development to be taken down and the site restored. Does the Minister agree those powers are used far too rarely and, whether we are talking about a development by the Gypsy and Traveller community or by anybody else, there is a sense that if someone builds something, the chances of their being required to reinstate the site are pretty slender, so it is often a chance worth taking?

[Luke Hall]

I thank my hon. Friend for putting that point on the record. It is something I am very happy to talk about further.

Let me touch a little more on site provision. Last February, the Government reminded local planning authorities of their planning obligations to assess the need for sites and to make transit sites available, and, crucially, about the need for joint working between authorities on the setting of pitch and plot targets. It should be emphasised that enforcement becomes much easier once an alternative authorised site exists. Making adequate site provision in plans should reduce the number of unauthorised developments and encampments, and subsequently reduce the disruption they can cause to the wider community.

As such, we have committed to finalising the 2016 draft guidance on assessing housing need for those residing in caravans. That guidance will help local authorities to assess housing need for caravans, but it is not just about ensuring provision; it is about ensuring appropriate provision. Our policy makes it clear that, when assessing the suitability of sites in rural or semi-rural settings, local planning authorities should ensure that a site’s scale is not such that it dominates the nearest settled community.