Growth and Infrastructure Bill

Martin Horwood Excerpts

Monday 17th December 2012 Commons Chamber

[Roberta Blackman-Woods]

In the spirit of localism, I think it is up to local communities to decide what piece of land, no matter its size, is important to local people and not to take the hon. Gentleman’s word for it.

[Martin Horwood (Cheltenham) (LD)]

If the hon. Lady believes in localism, would she not encourage local communities to use the new local green space designation introduced in the national planning policy framework, which can be made use of at the time of plan-making and so is a more reliable route to protecting local valued green spaces than the village green process, which is a bit haphazard at the best of times?

[Roberta Blackman-Woods]

The hon. Gentleman makes an interesting point that was also made by the right hon. Member for Hazel Grove (Andrew Stunell) in Committee, but he ignores the fact that a number of communities have not yet been able to draw up a neighbourhood plan. We are terribly concerned—this is the reason for the amendments—to ensure that simply publishing a draft neighbourhood plan does not mean that a village green cannot be registered. That is really important. We asked the Minister to think about delaying the operation of the triggers to enable all communities to develop neighbourhood plans, but sadly I was disappointed once again by his response.