Nick Boles
Main Page: Nick Boles (Independent - Grantham and Stamford)
Jessica Lee (Erewash) (Con)
3. What steps he is taking to support neighbourhood planning.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Nick Boles)
This year we awarded £3.1 million to four organisations to help communities to make progress with their plans. We fund the new burdens that local authorities may face, and my Department works closely with many neighbourhood planning areas. As a result, communities are making progress, and the first neighbourhood development plan passed an independent examination last week.
Jessica Lee
In Erewash, interest has been expressed in the establishment of a neighbourhood plan forum. What further guidance can my hon. Friend offer to ensure that local communities have the information that they require in order to start their projects?
Nick Boles
We want to encourage as many communities as possible, both urban and rural, to embrace neighbourhood planning. Only this morning I met a dozen neighbourhood planning groups in London, and I shall be visiting more groups throughout the country in the new year. Local authorities are responsible for providing information and support, and my officials are available at any time to answer questions and offer guidance to anyone who is interested in going down this road.
Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)
May I return the Minister to the issue of support for town centres? Does he accept that by including business and commercial projects in the major infrastructure regime, we risk repeating some of the planning mistakes of the 1980s, and allowing a free-for-all for developments on the edges of and outside town centres at the expense of the viability of our town centres?
Nick Boles
I do not accept that at all. As the hon. Gentleman will know, we have specifically said that we will exclude retail developments from the category of business and commercial schemes that might be subject to the major infrastructure regime. Town Centre First means something to this Government, unlike the last one.
Mr Nick Gibb (Bognor Regis and Littlehampton) (Con)
My constituents Andy Faulkner and Deborah Robinson are members of a committee in the village of Yapton, in my constituency, which is putting together a Yapton neighbourhood plan. They are worried about whether the huge effort and time spent by volunteers, and the expense involved in putting the plan together, will prove worth while. When a decision is to be made on a planning application, what weight will be given to the Yapton neighbourhood plan when it is in final draft form but the local plan has not yet been finalised and confirmed?
Nick Boles
I thank my hon. Friend for asking that question, because it is useful to be able to clarify the position for not just Yapton but other communities. It is important for people to understand that the weight given to an emerging neighbourhood plan is in no way contingent on the status of the local plan, and that there is nothing to prevent them from making progress as rapidly as possible.
Roberta Blackman-Woods (City of Durham) (Lab)
As a result of huge cuts in local authority budgets, councils’ spending on planning has fallen by 16% and the reduction is likely to reach 25% in the next few years. How will the Minister ensure that funds are available for neighbourhood planning in all areas—including those that are disadvantaged—from 2013 onwards, so that the Government’s commitment to localism is not watered down further ?
Nick Boles
I am sure the hon. Lady will welcome the fact that the Department is offering local authorities £30,000 for every plan produced in their area. Some £5,000 of that becomes available when a neighbourhood forum is designated, and £25,000 becomes available once a plan has been examined, to pay for the cost of examination and the referendum. There is currently a limit on the number of plans that can receive this funding in any given area, but I hope to be able to adjust that limit to ensure we do not constrain further support for neighbourhood plans.
Stephen Phillips (Sleaford and North Hykeham) (Con)
6. What consideration his Department has given to introducing a minimum separation distance between wind turbines and residential properties.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Nick Boles)
We have been clear that wind turbines should not have unacceptable impacts on local communities, but we have not set minimum separation distances nationally, because to do so would cut across localism.
Stephen Phillips
I am grateful to the Minister for that answer. He will know of the concerns of many in my constituency and across Lincolnshire about inappropriate onshore wind development. It is fair to say that the localism agenda the Government have pursued has done much to involve local people in the planning process, but there is considerable support in Lincolnshire and across the country for minimum separation distances, which do a lot to encourage public support for onshore wind and allay people’s concerns. I hope that his Department will seriously consider the issue, so that he can come back to the House and tell us what he is going to do.
Nick Boles
My hon. and learned Friend and I represent neighbouring constituencies and like him I believe that a minimum separation distance might be appropriate in our flat fenland landscape. That is why, before my appointment as Planning Minister, I supported Lincolnshire county council’s wind energy position statement and urged my planning authority to reflect it in its local plan. However, not all of England is like Lincolnshire—sadly for the rest of England—and a top-down national policy that ignored local variations in topography and local opinion would be wrong.
Alison Seabeck (Plymouth, Moor View) (Lab)
It is interesting to hear of the Minister’s interest in the noise and disruption allegedly caused by wind turbines. Would he therefore apply the same rule to the fans in energy from waste plants such as the one in Plymouth, which is 200 metres from people’s homes? Will he explain why the Department chose to call in two other applications for waste to energy plants but not the one in Plymouth?
Nick Boles
The rule I would apply is that wherever possible it should be left to local authorities to make those decisions. However, there are a few cases where applications have significance beyond local authority boundaries and it is therefore impossible for one local authority to decide. In the case the hon. Lady mentions, I would imagine that that criterion was not fulfilled.
Dame Joan Ruddock (Lewisham, Deptford) (Lab)
7. What recent assessment he has made of progress by his Department in reducing homelessness.
George Hollingbery (Meon Valley) (Con)
13. What guidance the national planning policy framework contains for the consideration of the needs of older people.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Nick Boles)
The national planning policy framework requires councils to use their evidence base to ensure that their local plan meets the full, objectively assessed needs for market and affordable housing in the area, including the housing needs of older people.
George Hollingbery
The broad conclusion of a conference I chaired recently on the national planning policy framework and older citizens was that, with real strategic vision, older people’s lives could be improved and considerable savings could be made in both the NHS and social services. Will the Minister agree to meet me and a delegation of representatives to discuss that further?
Nick Boles
I would be delighted to meet my hon. Friend and others to discuss that. He is right that imaginative housing schemes for older people can save money for the NHS and social services. They can also make it more attractive for older people to move out of their family homes, thereby helping to meet the pressing housing needs of young families.
Mr David Nuttall (Bury North) (Con)
14. What steps he is taking to stop inappropriate development on the green belt.
Tessa Munt (Wells) (LD)
If the Secretary of State decides to designate a local planning authority, under proposed new section 62A to the Town and Country Planning Act 1990, planning applications can be made directly to him. What mechanisms will be in place to ensure that the influence of local people through consultation is not reduced if the voice of local authorities is excluded from the process?
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Nick Boles)
I thank my hon. Friend for her question, because that is an important point. In the very few cases in which planning authorities are designated as poorly performing, it will be possible for major applications to be referred directly to the Planning Inspectorate. After relentless questioning from her Liberal Democrat colleagues in Committee, I came to understand that it is particularly important that the Planning Inspectorate is given clear guidance that it should consider using local hearings, so that people can put their views across, rather more regularly than it does for appeals, when local views have already been taken into account. I have already started discussions with the Planning Inspectorate to ensure that that happens.
Joan Walley (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Lab)
T3. The Secretary of State is leaving the financial settlement for local government until the last minute, and there is great unfairness among the most deprived councils in the country. For example, in Stoke-on-Trent we are having to pay an extra £130.75 per person because of cuts, whereas in the Secretary of State’s own constituency the sum is £29.40. Will he take that into account in the financial settlement before he finalises it, so that there is fairness for local councils?
Harriett Baldwin (West Worcestershire) (Con)
Villagers in Martley in my constituency are keen to develop their own neighbourhood plan, but the district council has told them that their alternative to a greenfield site might mean that both sites end up being developed. Will the Minister please clarify the situation for my constituents?
Nick Boles
It is obviously difficult for me to talk about an individual case, but I would be happy to hear more about it from my hon. Friend. It is important that neighbourhood plans strengthen the powers of local communities to determine where development should and should not happen. If the neighbourhood plan is in general conformity with the local plan, the neighbourhood plan’s policies will take priority and will help protect her constituents from unwanted development on speculative sites.
Tristram Hunt (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab)
T4. In towns and cities across England, local authorities are being forced to close museums, shut care homes and end library provision, but the Government found £250 million to empty the bins more regularly. What kind of abysmal, philistine, reactionary Government put dustbins above library books?
Fiona Bruce (Congleton) (Con)
My constituents in Sandbach are furious that the Hind Heath road planning application, for 269 houses on prime agricultural greenfield land, has been granted on appeal. The pressures on road surfaces and infrastructure will be unsustainable, and the decision flies in the face of localism, as the area was not classed for development under the Sandbach town plan. Will the Minister explain how development on such a wholly unsustainable site can be justified and what can be done to ensure that further, similar applications by developers are not granted across my constituency?
Nick Boles
My hon. Friend has been a tireless advocate for the residents of Sandbach. She will understand that I cannot comment on particular cases, but I think it is fair to say that her local authority has been a bit backwards in coming forwards with a local plan. However, I am glad to say that, under its energetic new leadership, it has recently published a draft plan for public consultation, which will provide her constituents with a defence against speculative development.
Heidi Alexander (Lewisham East) (Lab)
T8. The Secretary of State will know that 17 fire stations in London have been earmarked for closure, including Downham in my constituency. Given those front-line cuts to emergency services, is it right that Boris Johnson’s 10 closest advisers have a combined salary packet of more than £1 million?