South Worcestershire Development Plan

Peter Luff Excerpts

Wednesday 20th November 2013 Westminster Hall

[Harriett Baldwin]

I am not familiar with the details of the Hanbury proposals, but I know that there is no stronger champion of the interests of Hanbury residents than my hon. Friend. She seems to be in complete agreement with the gist of my speech.

[Peter Luff (Mid Worcestershire) (Con)]

I join in the accolades to my hon. Friend on this important debate. On the subject of speed and speculative development, which my hon. Friend the Member for Redditch (Karen Lumley) rightly raised, is it not crucial for the plan to be delivered as quickly as possible? It is an ambitious plan for growth, but delay is destroying faith in local democracy because councils appear to find speculative development, in places where it is not appropriate, to be irresistible. Speed is of the essence in getting the plan adopted.

[Harriett Baldwin]

My hon. Friend makes a powerful point about the importance of localism and local democracy, and I completely agree with him. The plan has been locally agreed, not set down from on high. He also makes the point that the protracted appeal period is slowing down growth and construction in our constituencies and that much-needed housing is not being built as a result.

The inspector has effectively rejected all seven of the econometric methodologies presented to him, which surely demonstrates a significant flaw in the process. Across the country, there are disagreements over the amount of development required to meet needs, and such differences of opinion concerning circumstances many years in the future are wasting very scarce resources.

The test should be that the plans and projections are competent, not that they are perfect. We do not possess perfect foresight; if we did, we would all be able to retire as billionaires tomorrow, because we would know exactly what tomorrow’s closing stock prices would be. Particularly when there is opportunity for a revision during the plan period, can we agree that in a time of constrained resources it is inequitable to place such a high evidential and process bar on councils, and that to do so is a disproportionate use of resources?

The plan-making system does not appear to recognise efficiency of process to minimise the impact on the taxpayer. Can the Minister issue clear guidance on the methodology that should be used to calculate housing needs, so that other councils do not suffer the same delay and costs as the south Worcestershire authorities have?

The inspector highlights the difficulties of economic forecasting, particularly beyond 2021. He makes a range of helpful technical points about past under-supply, affordable housing provision, windfall provision, non-delivery allowances, phasing and buffers. He discusses bringing empty housing back into use and whether C2 extra care provision should count towards a council’s housing supply. On that point, the provision of extra care to include C2 accommodation is a key priority in our area, and we are keen to attract such development. If the housing allocation in the plan were x thousand, and y% of the units were for C2 extra care, will the Minister confirm that that would meet housing need and would not be considered as double counting?

On Monday this week, I learned that the three south Worcestershire councils have published a timetable for the additional technical work requested, which will take until the end of January 2014. The inspector has decided “in the interests of natural justice”, as he puts it, that further hearing sessions will be required and that the earliest that they could start would be the week commencing March 10 2014. Only once the inspector has reached his conclusions on stage 1 will he be able to give details of the time scales for stage 2. It sounds as though the process might easily run until the end of 2014. Frankly, world war two took less time than getting through the bureaucracy and red tape that surrounds the local plan.

To make matters worse, all that bureaucracy and red tape is strangling housing growth in the area. Because the plan has not been agreed, developers are submitting speculative planning applications in areas that are not in the plan, and applications are being determined simply on a first come, first served basis, despite the potential of other, more favourable sites to meet local housing need. That leads not to the house building that we want to see, but to a long series of legal disputes between developers and the council. When such appeals occur, it appears to be for each planning inspector to decide how much weight should be given to the emerging plan and how much to the old—we thought defunct—regional spatial strategy.

For example, a planning inspector referring to an appeal about Abberley common in the Malvern hills said on only 18 October:

“The policies within the SWDP carry some weight given its reasonably advanced stage of preparation. Nonetheless, there are a number of outstanding objections to its strategy for the delivery of housing, including the overall housing requirements. These will be considered at the examination which will determine whether the approach in the SWDP is sound, or whether an alternative housing strategy should be adopted. For this reason, having regard to the guidance within the Framework I attribute the housing targets within the SWDP limited weight. I consider this approach to be consistent with the ‘Axminster decision’ referred to by the Council where the Court found that although the emerging plan was a material consideration, the weight to be accorded to it was a matter for the decision-maker.”

Please can the Minister issue guidance that an emerging plan such as ours, where the disagreements are mainly about housing projections in 10 years’ time, should be given almost full weight today? If not, why not?

[Peter Luff]

I strongly endorse what my hon. Friend says. Is she as concerned as I am that developers are building up land banks with planning permission they would never normally get? They are not building, but just land banking and trading among themselves, making a fat profit for developers, without building a single house in Worcestershire.

[Harriett Baldwin]

My hon. Friend speaks passionately of our desire to see home building start according to our democratically agreed local plan, which provides a sound basis for the next few years’ growth and the development of the south Worcestershire area. Clearly, some minor tweaks need to be made—in particular, to the forecasts affecting housing numbers between 2020 and 2030—but our local councils are keen to enable local growth without unnecessary delay. Why can we not proceed on the basis of the emerging plan, while simultaneously making tweaks to distant years, especially as the councils are planning to review progress in 2019?

Turning now to neighbourhood planning, may I ask the Minister for his thoughts on how we as MPs can best support emerging neighbourhood plans? I love neighbourhood planning. It is an excellent way to give power to local people, to bring back an organic approach to planning and to reduce the need for vast swathes of land to be swallowed up by urban extensions.

--- Later in debate ---

[Stephen Williams]

I will shortly be coming on to the weight that should be given to emerging plans. Assessment of objectively assessed need is not an exact science; the regional spatial strategy proved that. It depends on a number of assumptions about future conditions, so the examination of any local plan must test those assumptions. Agreement on housing need involves difficult decisions, but such decisions bring a security that the plan will steer development to where people agree it should go. If need is underestimated, housing shortages will be perpetuated for decades.

Regarding the methodology for calculating housing need, the draft national planning practice guidance suite has expanded on the requirements for assessing objectively assessed housing need, and aims to provide clarity. To answer a specific point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for West Worcestershire, we are currently considering comments on the guidance and will issue the final guidance shortly. [Interruption.] I hear a snigger coming from a former Minister. None the less, those are the words that I have been given.

[Peter Luff]

Will the Minister give way?

--- Later in debate ---

[Harriett Baldwin]

I appreciate the enthusiasm that the Minister shares with me on neighbourhood planning. What would he say to the parishes in my constituency that are in the process of developing neighbourhood plans and are concerned about the timetable and other obstacles in their way? Will we be hearing in the guidance soon about how the process will—

[Peter Luff]

Shortly.

[Harriett Baldwin]

Is shortly longer than soon? I can never remember.

Will we be hearing in the guidance about how the process will be made simpler, easier, quicker and less complex for smaller villages to develop their plans?