Planning

Matt Western Excerpts

Thursday 15th July 2021 Westminster Hall

[Matt Western (Warwick and Leamington) (Lab) [V]]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Cummins. I congratulate the hon. Member for Isle of Wight (Bob Seely) on securing the debate and thank him for his valued contribution to the all-party parliamentary group for council housing, which I have the privilege to chair.

We could do much to address the considerable inequality in our society by tackling the housing crisis. Many of us across the House understand that housing is vital to enabling a decent quality of life. In turn, we appreciate that it hinges on a planning system that is fair. I take that fairness to comprise wide-scale access to affordable housing, strong local democratic controls on housing developers and the prioritisation of local communities. Sadly, that is distinctly absent from the Government’s proposed reforms to the planning system.

Although I accept that there is a severe need for housing in this country, a planning system that does not take into account those markers of fairness will do nothing for local people up and down the country, including those in my constituency. The issue is about what housing is required and where. I have more faith in the old system, which had greater powers for authorities and local development corporations, but the Localism Act 2011 greatly denuded the powers of local authorities and, in particular, muzzled the voices of our communities.

Let me give one example that is going through the system and relates to Warwick District Council’s local plan, which runs to 2029. The application for what is labelled the East Whitnash housing development is currently being considered by the planning inspector. The proposed housing development has no regard for local traffic issues or the wishes of residents. It is far from being a sustainable development; it has everything to do with over-development. Our local plan estimates that 20,000 new homes will be delivered, representing an over-development of 3,500 dwellings.

Forgive me, but the common theme throughout the debate has been over-development coupled with overestimation. The challenge has been great enough under the existing planning legislation, which already stifles local voices. The Government’s plans to stop local opponents blocking developments in designated growth zones mean that the concerns raised by the local community in Whitnash and elsewhere will hold no sway—so much for local accountability.

More specifically, I am deeply concerned by the advent of a new planning system in which affordable housing will be increasingly out of reach. As my hon. Friend the Member for York Central (Rachael Maskell) stated, there is real unaffordability in many areas across the country. With an increasing amount of power centralised in the hands of housing developers, I struggle to see how the Government’s proposals will turn the tide of the declining number of affordable houses.

I suggest some improvements to the Bill: keep prioritising local government so that local officials will not be stripped of their power to assess building applications; establish regional development corporations led by local authorities, as well as community-led proposals; on community-led housing, ensure that senior Government figures actually take on board that, as we have heard, most communities welcome housing provided that it is truly affordable for young people; and prioritise local, affordable homes—for too many areas, the cost of housing as a ratio of local incomes is way too high. We must also ensure that there are enhanced powers for local authorities. We need to proscribe land banking and provide greater powers to local authorities to buy sites at existing land prices. All too often, developers control land, making millions on land options, while landowners ride off into the sunset, pocketing tens of millions of pounds.

The planning Bill needs to ensure that we build communities, not houses. All too often, there are no shops, pubs or community centres, as has been demonstrated south of Warwick and Leamington. Infrastructure needs to be built in advance, and all that is possible. I urge the Government to listen to us and the public, and to stop listening to the developer-donors who are destroying our countryside, denying communities the right housing and leaving generations impoverished as a result.