Radlett Aerodrome (Green Belt)

Nick Boles Excerpts

Tuesday 29th January 2013 Westminster Hall

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Nick Boles)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Williams. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for St Albans (Mrs Main) on securing this debate, and my hon. Friend the Member for Hertsmere (Mr Clappison) on contributing to it. They are both entirely tireless, passionate and committed in fighting for their constituents’ interests, and I completely understand their strength of feeling and that of the constituents whom they are representing about the decision taken just before Christmas.

I hope that you, Mr Williams, and my hon. Friends will understand that, unfortunately, I am not able to comment specifically on this proposal, because it may be subject to judicial review, as my hon. Friends know very well. It is entirely open to the local authority or any other party to ask for that. Unfortunately, that means that I, with my quasi-judicial function, cannot go into the reasons for the Secretary of State’s decision before Christmas about being minded to allow the proposal, which are set out in the decision letter. Although I completely accept that the specific reasons do not satisfy either my hon. Friends or their constituents, I am afraid that that is all I can say about them.

In the short time available, I will try to reassure my hon. Friends that, although they and their constituents profoundly disagree with the decision, that decision flows from existing policy, which is unchanged and was set out in the national planning policy framework. The framework states:

“The Government attaches great importance to Green Belts. The fundamental aim of Green Belt policy is to prevent urban sprawl by keeping land permanently open”.

It explains that the green belt is often highly valued by communities and provides a vital “green lung” around many towns. In its original draft, as approved by Parliament, the framework states that many types of new building are inappropriate development and should not be granted permission

“except in very special circumstances”.

The key test, as set out in the framework, is whether a particular development meets such very special circumstances. I entirely accept and respect the fact that neither of my hon. Friends believes, and nor do their constituents believe, that this proposal meets that test, and I suspect that nothing could be said or any evidence produced that would persuade them, any more than that we will be able to persuade other hon. Friends of the need to grant permission for HS2 to pass through their constituencies, although in the Government’s view the test of very special circumstances may have been met.

[Mrs Main]

I thought that I had made it clear in my speech—through reprising the 2008 and 2010 decisions, as well as the latest one—that the wordings have been almost identical; all that has happened is that the decision has changed. Neither my hon. Friend the Member for Hertsmere (Mr Clappison) and I, nor our constituents, understands what special circumstances have suddenly occurred, given that there has always been the need for the SRFIs, which have been an economic imperative since 2006. We do not know what those circumstances are.

[Nick Boles]

I entirely accept that my hon. Friend does not understand why there has been that shift in the assessment of whether the condition of very special circumstances has been fulfilled. I can only repeat that, although I cannot go into the reasons and the arguments behind them, the proposal is open to further challenge in the courts if necessary.

The policy on the green belt is clear, and I assure my hon. Friends that it genuinely has not changed. It is as it was set out in the national planning policy framework, which is the most important text on the green belt. However, the framework also has important text on the need to support sustainable development, stating that planning should

“proactively drive and support sustainable economic development to deliver the…business and industrial units, infrastructure and thriving local places that the country needs.”

It continues that local councils should

“develop strategies for the provision of viable infrastructure necessary to support sustainable development, including large scale facilities such as rail freight interchanges”.

The framework therefore captures the potential competition between two very important interests—that of preserving the green belt permanently as open space around towns, so preventing sprawl, and that of supporting sustainable development, specifically including—the framework is specific—

“large scale facilities such as rail freight interchanges”.

Of course, it is then up to the decision maker. As both my hon. Friends will be aware, local planning committees sometimes have to make a difficult decision between two competing demands in their local plan, and have to be able to explain to local people why they have come down on one side and not the other. Similarly, when the decision maker is an inspector or, in this case, the Secretary of State, there has to be a process of adjudicating, given the difficult tension between two priorities in the framework.

[Mrs Main]

I completely accept that. The Minister mentions rail freight interchanges. Significantly, this one is a strategic rail freight interchange, which therefore means that there are also regulations about its having a sustainable work force. It has been acknowledged that this site will have no sustainable work force, and that there will be no economic regeneration. Indeed, it is anticipated that the work force will come from Luton, which is the very site area that wants a rail freight interchange. That is why there is incomprehension. That is what we do not understand; it is not that we cannot read the words on the page.

[Nick Boles]

I do understand, and I profoundly regret that the decision letter has been as unsatisfying to my hon. Friends as it clearly has been. I would never have expected them to be persuaded by its contents, but I might at least have hoped that it would explain why a decision with which they disagreed had nevertheless been reached, and I regret that the letter clearly failed to do that.

[Mr Clappison]

Does the Minister agree that any reasonable person who looks at the two letters would regard this decision letter as unsatisfactory?

[Nick Boles]

I am afraid that I will again have to disappoint my hon. Friend. I am not permitted to comment further on the decision letters, either those produced earlier or the current one, but I nevertheless say that I wish such letters had been more satisfying to my hon. Friends, and had at least explained to them why the position seems to have changed in the decision letter about the Secretary of State being minded to allow the proposal.

In the remaining time, I simply say that the planning job is one of the most difficult ones at any level of government. I am not pleading for sympathy; I am simply observing that the job is one in which we have to balance very difficult and important but entirely contradictory or competing demands. Of course, a good planner tries to do whatever they can to resolve those demands, by finding a way as much as possible to meet both of them. However, there are some occasions—when building a new prison, new nuclear power station or, as we are discovering, a new vital high-speed rail infrastructure that will connect our major cities—when decisions unfortunately have to be made that will never be acceptable to local people or win their support, and which will always cause them a level of pain, misery and disappointment that they feel can never be alleviated by any mitigating measures. That is profoundly to be regretted, and is not something that any decision maker, whether a local councillor, an inspector or a Minister, does lightly or with relish.