Planning Consent Applications (Contracts)

Nigel Evans Excerpts

Wednesday 10th December 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Nigel Evans (Ribble Valley) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That leave be given to bring in a Bill to require applicants for planning consent to enter into a contract with the relevant planning authority setting out certain undertakings relating to the application for planning consent; to provide that failure to meet those undertakings would result in withdrawal of any planning consent granted; and for connected purposes.

Planning is one of the issues that can dominate the lives of Members of Parliament. Passions run high, and rightly so. We have no power over the local authority when a planning application is received, but we can receive many e-mails and letters from constituents who are animated by the application to build. We have the ability to write to the chairman of planning and the other committee members, and to officers, and hopefully the local authority will recognise that we have a legitimate right to express a view on our own behalf and on behalf of our constituents. However, we do not have a vote at planning meetings. On more than one occasion I have expressed opposition to an application which has then been approved, but it has been far worse for me when I have opposed an application—such as the one in Barrow, a small village in my constituency—and the local authority has listened to my representations and those of the local councillor and residents.

In the Barrow case, what was worse was that, as the authority was deliberating, the landowner claimed non-determination after 13 weeks. His planning lawyer stated that the homes in question needed to be built, and that they would start to be built in 2015. We are now at the end of the current year. Approval was given in February 2014, 10 months ago. Reserved matters have not been claimed for any part of the land, which was originally for sale at £23 million. So much for the urgency of building those houses.

Let us consider the specifics of the Barrow case. A resident who came to see me after the inspector had approved the application said, barely restraining his anger, “Mr Evans, you know and I know that with all the building that is going on at the moment in the area, this site is not going to be developed any time soon.” I agreed with him. Building is already going on in the village. Hundreds more houses are actually being built a short distance away, in Whalley. In Calderstones, a bit further away, more houses have been and are being built. A development of well over 100 houses off Mitton road has been allowed on appeal. In Accrington road, Whalley, 87 houses were approved two years ago. You have guessed it: not a single brick has been laid, and no reserved matters have been sought.

Some of these developments have been built, and others have not. The uncertainty is awful, and it does not help local authorities to plan for new schools, roads or other infrastructure improvements. One of the Whalley developments of 80 houses has not been started, although three years have elapsed since permission was given, but a reserved matters application has just been received by the local authority. All those applications have infrastructure implications.

My Barrow resident believed that many years would pass before the development of 504 houses was built, and that, in the meantime, his own house and those of everyone else in the area who wished to sell would be blighted. Uncertainty about when building will start, when it will be completed, and whether changes will be made in the initial outline application—the five-year land supply figures could be altered, so developers might argue that the land supply figure for the area was no longer being met—has caused an enormous headache for local authorities generally.

Small local authorities find it even more difficult to cope, because, during this crazy period between the adoption and full approval of core strategies, developers are trying it on all over the place. Fortunately, Ribble Valley is close to having its core strategy fully approved—it is in its final stages—but developers have worked overtime putting in applications left, right and centre, and appealing against virtually every one that is turned down by the local authority. The cost to the council has been prohibitive, and has led it to question whether it can afford to appeal in the case of some applications. There will be a further problem if some of the approvals simply do not materialise if work starts, and other developers point the finger at the authority and accuse it of falling below its five-year supply. The chairman of planning at Ribble Valley council, Terry Hill, has said that, in this case,

”the Local Authority is not responsible for the under supply”.

The uncertainty has been created by the very industry that could profit from the approval of more applications directly by the council or on appeal by an inspector. It has left residents angry and their properties blighted, and they must reduce the asking prices of their properties dramatically if they need to move quickly.

I am grateful to the House of Commons Library for supplying me with information on the existing powers of local authorities, and on unimplemented permissions and land banking. Conditions may be imposed by a local authority, but the criteria are open to interpretation, which means more uncertainty. One of the conditions may be that the development should be carried out in its entirety, but no mention is made of time scale. Completion notices are therefore seldom used as a local authority power. Indeed, a local authority does not have the power to require a developer to complete the development.

My Bill will rebalance the position, so that, at the outset of an application, far more thought is given by developers to what they are requesting. They will need to bring forward to the inception of the application matters that they normally leave until much later. They will need to make clear the start and completion dates of the development via a contract. Land banking and the blighting of people’s homes will no longer be acceptable.

The Library paper—admittedly, using historic figures—states that at the end of 2011, there were 399,816 unbuilt homes with planning permission, and building work had yet to start on 52% of the uncompleted developments. One development was completed last year, eight and three quarter years after planning permission was granted. The Government should look at fining powers for unstarted permissions or powers of direction to ensure developments are completed, or possibly removing the permissions with no chance of reapplication by that developer or associated developers of that particular land. If the houses are deemed necessary in certain areas—in my patch, I must say, I have strong reservations about that or total opposition to it—I cannot do better than quote the former housing Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Grantham and Stamford (Nick Boles), who, during Committee stage of the Growth and Infrastructure Act 2013, said:

“We want homes built. We want them built now”.––[Official Report, Growth and Infrastructure Public Bill Committee, 27 November 2012; c. 267.]

Let us give local authorities the power they need to ensure land banking and uncertainty is gone and homes and infrastructure improvements are made, and made on time.

Question put and agreed to.

Ordered,

That Mr Nigel Evans, Bob Stewart, Martin Vickers, John Mann, Austin Mitchell, Philip Davies, Chris Heaton-Harris, Crispin Blunt, Mr Brooks Newmark, Steve Rotheram, Mr John Leech and John Pugh present the Bill.

Mr Nigel Evans accordingly presented the Bill.

Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 6 March 2015, and to be printed (Bill 135).