Green Belt (England)

Neil Parish Excerpts

Tuesday 18th October 2011 Westminster Hall

[Anna Soubry]

As ever, my hon. Friend makes a brilliant point, and I am grateful to have him as my neighbour, with or without any green belt that may separate us. He makes an important point, which my hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart) may hear, about the value of sustainable development, which is not just about building more homes: it is much more than that. It is about bringing jobs and enhancing the environment. That may mean clearing up sites, as my hon. Friend the Member for Amber Valley (Nigel Mills) said, so that homes may be built, or business be generated or regenerated. There are many sites, such as the Stanton works, with which my hon. Friend and I are familiar, where hundreds if not thousands of people once worked. We need that imaginative approach, which lies at the heart of sustainable development as defined in the framework and identified in the Localism Act 2011.

I suspect that what is happening in my constituency is not unique, and that is something that concerns us all.

[Neil Parish (Tiverton and Honiton) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is making a great case for the green belt, but housing numbers are an issue and people need to live somewhere. In our towns and city centres there is living accommodation above shops. All sorts of accommodation often lies empty. It would do towns and city centres good if those properties were refurbished and lived in. That would take pressure off the green belt and green fields.

[Anna Soubry]

I completely agree with that helpful intervention. We need a revolution, in the best sense of the word, in the way we provide the new homes that so many people want, without damaging the environment: on the contrary, we can enhance it as we provide those homes. However, we must continue to protect the green belt, because of its special features.

--- Later in debate ---

[Bill Esterson]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right. I give credit to the previous Conservative Government—I probably will not do that again in my speech, so make the most of it—because it was they who initiated the brownfield first policy. There has been a continuation of planning policy over the years, and a great deal of consensus. It is important that that consensus be maintained.

I was about to talk about empty homes and their importance in Sefton and elsewhere. I would add the importance of using windfall sites. There are a number of windfall sites in Sefton that can deliver many hundreds of new homes, which would remove some of the pressure on the green belt. Councils are not allowed to use windfall sites or empty homes in their calculations, and that puts additional pressure on greenfield sites and the green belt. I completely agree with the hon. Members who mentioned greenfield sites. Urban green space is as important, if not more so, than the green belt in some cases. However, as we are talking about the green belt today, I shall concentrate on that.

What we need fleshed out is a policy that supports sustainable development. One way of doing that is for the Government to make moves to help develop brownfield sites first and regenerate empty homes. It will not surprise hon. Members to know that I am calling for a reduction in VAT on renovations, because that would level the playing field between refurbishment and renovation on the one hand and new build on the other.

[Neil Parish]

My constituency has a brownfield site, Webster’s garage in Axminster, where all the surrounding development is stopping the plan by having ransom strips and the like. The development, which would be right in the centre of town, has not happened for years. We need to put more pressure on local authorities and others to bring those sites together. Otherwise, they stay festering for years.