Neighbourhood Planning Bill (Sixth sitting)

Oliver Colvile Excerpts

Committee Debate: 6th sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 25th October 2016 Public Bill Committees

[Gavin Barwell]

I can give the hon. Lady strong reassurance on that front. First, she has my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport completely wrong; far from wanting to further persecute hedgehogs, he is first to the barricades to protect and defend them.

Let us take the hypothetical example that the hon. Lady gave, where at some point in the future more and more developers are coming to the Secretary of State and saying, “There’s a real problem about the way in which the protection of bats is working and the onerous conditions that are being put on us.” If the Secretary of State was persuaded by those arguments, we would need to look at planning policy and whether we wished to shift it.

Broadly speaking, the test with all these things is one of proportionality. I think all of us would place significant weight on the protection of our wildlife and fauna. The test is always one of reasonableness, in terms of the costs incurred by the developer to do that. If a future Secretary of State decided that in his or her judgment that balance was wrong, that would involve a shift in policy. It would not be possible to outlaw a type of condition that is consistent with what current policy says. I hope that reassures the hon. Lady.

[Oliver Colvile (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Con)]

It is not only a case of trying to talk to politicians at an early stage; it is also about engaging with the local community, so that it feels it has a say and has been involved in the decision-making process.

[Gavin Barwell]

My hon. Friend makes a good point. Clearly, councillors and Members of Parliament are representatives of those communities, and engagement with them is important, but he is quite right that developers should also be talking directly to local people in the relevant area. They should be talking and listening. In my experience of the planning system, that kind of positive engagement is very good for the developer because it avoids problems later on when things come to a planning committee.

The broad point I was making to the hon. Lady is that my approach, were I on a local planning committee, would be to listen to concerns that developers expressed about planning conditions and judge whether the evidence backed up those concerns. If it did, I would adjust my policy, but if it did not, I would stick to my guns and do what I thought was the right thing for my local community.

On amendment 21, the hon. Lady made an important point about providing clarity for the applicant during the process. The amendment seeks to ensure that associated guidance is made accessible to inform parties of the appeals procedure, should an agreement not be reached on the application of conditions. I agree that we need to ensure that applicants are fully aware of the options available to them and how they can pursue that action. However, I would like to assure hon. Members that that information can already be found online as part of our planning guidance, and I believe it provides the right support to those looking to appeal against the imposition of certain conditions. On that basis, I hope the hon. Lady will accept that the necessary protections are there.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Blackman-Woods]

The hon. Gentleman might have had a point had there been a demolition phase. As there is not, it is important that all these things are known up front. A further condition was noise mitigation. The developers were asked for details of proposed foul and surface water drainage; for an archaeological investigation; to refrain from site clearance, preparatory work or development; for a tree-protection strategy; and for a site map.

[Oliver Colvile]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Dr Blackman-Woods]

I shall take the hon. Gentleman’s intervention and then explain why, given the circumstances, those preconditions were necessary.

[Oliver Colvile]

I thank the hon. Lady very much. I should have declared an interest: I have a shareholding in a communications company. Does she agree that we need to ensure that we have hedgehog super-highways so that hedgehogs can get from one garden to another?

[Dr Blackman-Woods]

Absolutely. The hon. Gentleman makes an excellent point. In the development in Durham that I am describing, because it abuts a wooded area in the centre of the city called Flass Vale, several local residents were concerned that there was no particular order in the pre-commencement conditions about the protection of hedgehogs. We are all terribly concerned about hedgehogs and I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for raising their profile in Parliament—it is very much needed.

The point I wanted to make by going through that list—I have not gone through it all, but I have highlighted the most important conditions—is that it is an extremely contentious development in a very sensitive area of the city. Because the developers were made to provide all that information to the local community, the development is going ahead and the community is engaged with the developer in ensuring that the pre-commencement conditions are discharged. That seems to me to be a sensible way forward.

Had the developers been able to not agree, and to hope that six months down the line the Secretary of State would intervene and overrule the local authority, they might not have worked so hard to meet the conditions, and the local community might have been very upset with them indeed. As it is, as the local MP I have been able to ensure that everyone is speaking to each other about the trees and the sparrows, and about the hours during which work will take place on the site, as it abuts residential properties. The conditions have been carefully thought through by the local authority and were applied for a reason. I would like to hear why the Minister thinks—this is the important point—that those conditions do not comply with the requirements set out in the NPPF, because that is what the Government would have to show in order to have a provision in the clause to take away from local government the power to set the conditions, and give it to the Secretary of State.

The LGA and London Councils both made exactly that point to the Committee, so it is not just the Opposition who are saying that there is no evidence. The LGA said:

“The NPPF, and the associated national planning practice guidance, already clearly sets out expectations on use of planning conditions and the new primary legislation is unnecessary…There is little evidence to suggest development is being delayed by planning conditions. Planning conditions provide a vital role by enabling planning permissions to go ahead which would otherwise be refused or delayed while the details are worked out. They can also save developers time and money as they do not need to invest in detailed submissions until after the principle of the development is granted…Joint working between councils and developers is the most effective way of dealing with any concerns about planning conditions and the LGA strongly advocates the use of early, collaborative discussions ahead of planning applications being submitted for consideration.”

I do not think it could be clearer.

To rub the point in, London Councils said that there was little robust evidence to suggest that the current system of planning conditions was the reason for the under-supply of housing generally or for the slow build-out rates of residential developments. It also questioned the need for the Bill to prohibit certain conditions in defined circumstances, where they do not meet the national policy test. It said that adequate tests on conditions were already set out in national policy, and that there is already a system in place that allows applicants to appeal against conditions that they consider fail those tests.

London Councils, the LGA and lots of other people who gave evidence to the Committee appear to back up what the Opposition are saying, which is that there is already a huge amount of information, advice and guidance that local authorities have to apply in setting pre-commencement planning conditions—and, indeed, conditions per se. The provisions in clause 7 are unnecessary and are further evidence that the Government are anti-localist and are taking powers back to the centre.