Property Market

Mel Stride Excerpts

Tuesday 25th January 2011 Westminster Hall

[Richard Harrington]

I agree to an extent with the hon. Lady, and I hope that my position will become clearer a little later.

Watford, like many constituencies in the south-east, is badly in need of housing supply; there is no dispute over that. Even during this recession, there has not been an overhang of unsold properties. If development does not come to such regions, a whole generation of people may find themselves priced out of the market for years to come.

The Localism Bill fails to address a serious issue with regard to policy and planning. A YouGov survey, commissioned by the New Homes Marketing Board, revealed that more than eight out of 10 people believe that Britain needs more housing for sale and rent, especially for first-time buyers. That is very much like a “hands up all those who are against sin” argument. The survey also showed that far fewer people—just about 50%—welcome the construction of more homes in their immediate neighbourhoods. Such a view is significantly understated, because when I send out surveys to my local residents, stopping nearby developments comes back as an important priority.

[Mel Stride (Central Devon) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate. Like him, I believe that this is an extremely important subject, particularly in the south-west where affordable housing is a real issue. As I understand his argument, he is suggesting that incentives may not always work as a driver of development. Equally, however, does he accept that to go back to the regional spatial strategy scenario that we had under the previous Government, in which top-down diktat told local communities the amount of development that they could have and where it would be, would be a severely retrograde step?

[Richard Harrington]

I agree totally with the Minister with responsibility for planning that we should not return to Stalinist central diktat. My argument will hopefully show that that there are more tools in the box other than just the financial incentives that the Government have bravely introduced as a core of our policy. I am very much against central targets because they have not worked, not to mention the issue of morality or believing in local government, which I do.

[Mr Lee Scott in the Chair]

I agree that the Localism Bill has great potential to free local communities to decide for themselves the housing that they need. However, we must acknowledge the other side of that coin: the Bill will empower those people who are opposed to development in all its forms, so there are two sides to the measure.

--- Later in debate ---

[Oliver Colvile]

Yes. I thank the hon. Lady for her intervention. That investment has continued, and it is impressive how the scheme is progressing. It is developing mixed communities with not only housing but business and commercial opportunities.

Plymouth has about 12,000 people, mainly single, sitting on the city council’s housing waiting list. It has a significant population and a chronic shortage of affordable housing, and we must rebalance our public finances. Registered social landlords and housing associations will not necessarily have as much money available as they do at the moment, so we must consider other ways to develop an affordable housing market.

Many rural communities have decided to go down the route of creating community land trusts, and we should consider that for conurbations. I was elected on a campaign of saying to Ministers that Plymouth is not Portsmouth. We are not 20 minutes away from Bristol, and we should not be ignored. We have a good story to tell. We would welcome a visit by the Minister to Plymouth, which is a happening place, as they say.

[Mel Stride]

Does my hon. Friend agree that in rural settings—particularly villages, where it is important that younger people can afford to stay in their communities in order to keep them vibrant and sustainable—land trusts could perhaps allow covenants to ensure that those who occupy the properties come from the local area and can stay there in perpetuity?

[Oliver Colvile]

I will not pretend that I have a brilliant knowledge of rural development—after all, I represent the largest conurbation west of Bristol—but my hon. Friend is quite right.

We have to look at an imaginative way of doing things, and I have one suggestion, which the Minister might like to take on board. Where we have community land trusts—where the local authority or the local community can own the land, and putting the housing, the bricks and the mortar on it is the least expensive aspect—we might look at returning to an old leasehold arrangement, under which developers could sell the building but hold on to the ownership of the land itself, which would mean that it remained in community use during the course of the leasehold.

I have two final points. If we are to do a significant amount of development and encourage inward investment, can we also make sure that we have good design? One big problem, which we have had in various parts of the country, is that we have not produced the design. Secondly, can we make sure that the local community gets involved? When I did some work in the royal borough of Kensington and Chelsea, I was struck by the fact that the local community was involved in the process of deciding what the master plan would look like. When the planning application was eventually submitted, it went through without touching the sides. My right hon. Friend the Minister has a civil servant in his Department who was very much involved in all that as the borough’s director of planning, and that approach worked in a very big way. In this way, we can begin to undertake decent, sustainable development that combines housing and commercial opportunities that deliver employment.