Housing and Planning Bill

Oliver Heald Excerpts

Tuesday 5th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[Nick Herbert (Arundel and South Downs) (Con)]

I have tabled two sets of amendments to deal with concerns about the operation of the planning system. Those concerns are shared by a number of my right hon. and hon. Friends, who support the amendments.

New clause 48 addresses the fact that neighbourhood plans can be undermined by speculative developments that are granted planning permission but that run contrary to those plans. Neighbourhood planning has been a great achievement on the part of this Government, who have given communities power. Often neighbourhoods plan for far more houses than they originally intended or were allocated. Responsibility for the plans has been transferred to neighbourhoods and they are popular, but support for them relies on their integrity, and that support is undermined when speculative developers try to get in applications ahead of the completion of neighbourhood plans or even after they have been completed. They bang in their applications, and either they are upheld by the local authority, which is fearful of losing an appeal, or the developer makes an appeal that is upheld by the planning inspector. The development is then allowed to go ahead, which leads people, including groups of volunteers, to ask, “Why have we spent literally years working on this neighbourhood plan for where developments should go—a power that was given to us, the community—only for it to be overturned by a developer?”

[Sir Oliver Heald (North East Hertfordshire) (Con)]

Many people in towns such as Buntingford and the villages in my constituency spend so much time surveying opinion and considering all the aspects of the heritage of their village in order to come up with a neighbourhood plan for their community. Does my right hon. Friend agree that it is wrong that that can then be trashed by an application by a speculative developer? These plans need to have a proper place and proper respect.

[Nick Herbert]

My hon. and learned Friend puts his point extremely well. I happen to know about the situation in Buntingford and how angry people are about speculative developments in his constituency.