Local Plans (Public Consent)

Martin Horwood Excerpts

Wednesday 9th July 2014 Westminster Hall

[Mr Laurence Robertson (Tewkesbury) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Betts. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Wycombe (Steve Baker) for introducing the debate and making many sensible points. The previous speaker, my hon. Friend the Member for Fylde (Mark Menzies), touched on what I want to say right at the end of his speech, when he talked about the Planning Inspectorate perhaps not reflecting the Government’s intention. On 24 October last year, I held a debate in this Chamber that was well attended by a number of Members, each of whom made their own different points. My point then was that planning policy needed to be clarified. On the one hand, the Government were saying that we have to have loads more houses, but on the other, they were saying that we need to protect the green belt and such areas. The Minister, to his great credit, listened carefully to that debate and some while after that called a number of us together to present the clarification of the policy, particularly on unmet need and the impact that that could have on the green belt. He said that the green belt should take precedence. He also clarified the duty to co-operate when he said that it was not necessarily a duty to agree, if that meant that the green belt would be compromised. He made very many other clarifications, which were extremely useful.

My concern is on the extent to which the guidance is being followed by the Planning Inspectorate and the local councils that are putting together plans and joint core strategies in my area. To give an example of the problems in Tewkesbury, we have a great deal of green-belt land, many areas of outstanding natural beauty and an awful lot of flood-risk areas. Tewkesbury’s assessed housing need for the next 20 years is 10,900 houses, yet it is proposed that it will take 18,900. A lot of those houses will be built on the green belt, which I believe to be contrary to Government policy. I have taken that up with the local councils, and they fear that the inspectorate, which will look at the plan and say whether it is sound, will not follow the Minister’s guidance. That is what they genuinely feel. At this stage, it is difficult to say who is right, but the councils, although they do not want to build on the green belt or in flood-risk areas, feel that they might have to do that.

There are various recent inspectors’ reports—there was one just last week in Somerset—where the inspector appeared to disregard consideration for the green belt. I say “appeared”, because it was a rather confusing report, and much confusion surrounds the decision. In my area, there seems to have been a compromise on an area of outstanding natural beauty in an appeal that was allowed on a development of 50 houses in the village of Alderton. That does not sound like a lot, but it is a significant increase on the number of houses it has. Although it is an area of outstanding natural beauty, the inspector seemed to say that where there is unmet housing need, the AONB might have to be compromised. I believe that to be contrary to the Government’s policy. They have clearly said that unmet need should not outweigh any significant harm that might be caused to the green belt or other such areas.

[Martin Horwood (Cheltenham) (LD)]

I strongly support my hon. neighbour’s view that local councillors in all three councils have in effect been bludgeoned into voting for a very unpopular joint core strategy for Gloucestershire, because of the fear of the inspectorate, but it is not just about AONB and green belt. The only request for local green space status in the entire JCS area is at Leckhampton, in my constituency. It is supported by me, the Leckhampton Green Land Action Group and in great detail by Leckhampton and Warden Hill parish council. That request has not been so much refused as completely ignored by the joint core strategy team, thereby defying every consultation on the subject in the local area for the past 10 years, in which development has been universally opposed. I want the Minister to look specifically at that case, but I strongly support the points that my hon. neighbour is making.

[Mr Robertson]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for making that point.

When the Government came to power they got rid of the regional spatial strategy system of planning, and that was welcomed. That was a good move. We introduced the Localism Act 2011, but as my hon. Friend the Member for Romsey and Southampton North (Caroline Nokes) correctly said, people feel let down. They feel that the 2011 Act and the principle of localism have not delivered and do not look like they will deliver what people want.

--- Later in debate ---

[Nick Boles]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising that point, because it was much the most challenging and stimulating of his very challenging and stimulating speech. I hope he will be pleased that there is a pilot of development benefits, which the Chancellor announced in the Budget, and we are working on exactly how it will work. The idea that it is not just the local council that should receive income and revenue streams from development is controversial in our planning system. The council has traditionally always received such income, whether through section 106 agreements or, as happens now, through the community infrastructure levy and the new homes bonus. What has not happened before is that the benefits go directly to householders. That happens in the Netherlands and other parts of continental Europe, and it seems to secure a level of consent that, as hon. Members have eloquently explained, we still do not manage to secure, even with local and neighbourhood plans. That is why the Government are undertaking this pilot, and I would very much welcome my hon. Friend’s thoughts about how it should operate, because we are devising it at the moment.

On that subject, we have decided to allocate to neighbourhoods that put in place a neighbourhood plan—I remind my hon. Friend that 1,000 communities are working on them—25%, uncapped, of all revenues from the community infrastructure levy. That will go to the community—to the parish council—to spend on community assets, community facilities and improvements to community amenities, as the community determines. That will not be decided by the council or a Minister—it will be decided by the community. That is a proper reward for the intense and usually entirely unpaid work people in places such as Kirdford and Bassett put into their neighbourhood plans.

[Martin Horwood]

In my urban constituency, I represent people on the housing waiting list, as well as some of the poorest areas in south-west England. The truth is that, if all the housing planned for the Cheltenham area went ahead, and it was all social housing for rent, people would be able to have three houses each. Massively more housing is being planned for our area than required by natural population growth. The developers have no interest in making it all social housing for rent—that is what Cheltenham borough council is doing in the urban areas, on brownfield sites. However, the developers have said quite explicitly to their investors in the City that they want traditional market housing; they want expensive commuter homes on greenfield sites that are cheap to build. In many areas such as ours, demand is insatiable. House prices are high because we have good jobs and good schools. Our towns have often grown enormously over decades, but that does not bring down house prices.

[Nick Boles]

I am sure we would have been happy to hear a full speech from the hon. Gentleman, because he has a lot to say in representing his constituents. It is, of course, very much open to him to make such points at the examination in public of the local plan, which I know he has some difficulties with.

I want to conclude by, in a sense, warning hon. Members and, indeed, those they represent to be careful what they wish for as they approach the next election; indeed, my hon. Friend the Member for Tewkesbury (Mr Robertson) referred to the simple matter of planning becoming an election issue. I say that because the alternative proposed by the hon. Member for City of Durham (Roberta Blackman-Woods) and the Labour party is dramatically less localist than what we, albeit with problems—one step forward, half a step back—are trying to achieve.

The hon. Lady referred to the review the Labour party has commissioned from Sir Michael Lyons. Let me refer to an article from today’s Guardian—I am sure she will agree that The Guardian is a bible of wisdom—which quotes his speech to the Local Government Association conference in Bournemouth yesterday. The article says:

“Speaking to the LGA in Bournemouth, he said a Labour government would not be abandoning the current national planning policy framework that requires councils to make land available, and if anything it would be turning the screw on councils. He said: ‘We are breaking eggs to make omelettes. The backlog is so serious here that we have to do everything we can.’

His remarks suggest the National Planning Inspectorate will, if anything, have a bigger role in ensuring houses get built.”

The British people have a choice. It is not a choice of whether to meet our housing need and to offer the next generation what I suspect every Member of Parliament in this room enjoys—the ownership of their own home. The choice is whether we try to work with local councils and local communities, giving neighbourhoods incentives to work out what new houses they will build, or whether we allow Ministers in a Labour Government to impose decisions on them. I know which choice I will be making next May.