Housing Targets (Pudsey)

Philip Davies Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd February 2015 Westminster Hall

[Stuart Andrew (Pudsey) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Dorries. I am grateful to have secured this debate, which is very important for my constituents. All hon. Members think their constituency is unique and special, as I certainly do. The Pudsey constituency is made up of many individual towns and villages that have a history dating back centuries. All have their own unique identity and are blessed with being close to one of the busiest and most successful cities in the north—Leeds—and being a stone’s throw from the beautiful Yorkshire dales countryside. What makes living in Pudsey, Horsforth and Aireborough enjoyable is the countryside that acts as the natural green lungs between the communities, helping to preserve their real sense of identity.

Every part of the constituency, however, has seen significant change over the past 15 years. Where once stood mills and factories, we now have thousands of new houses. As a consequence, the issue of planning has always been high in the minds of local people. All those extra houses have brought real problems: roads such as the A65 and the ring road have become notoriously congested; schools have such high demand that it is difficult for some parents to get their children into their local school; and doctors’ surgeries have got busier and busier.

[Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)]

My hon. Friend has been a persistent campaigner on this subject for his constituents, for which I commend him. With regard to the A65 and the schools in his constituency, does he agree that the proposed developments in Menston right on the edge of his constituency, which will be a disaster for that village, will also have a massive negative effect on the A65 that his constituents use and on local schools? Children living in those developments would go to Guiseley school.

[Stuart Andrew]

My hon. Friend is right. I am trying to get across that these issues affect not only my constituency; planning applications in his constituency will also have a severe impact.

Just as we thought that things could not get any worse, we are now facing a new onslaught. Like many councils across the country, Leeds city council is currently developing its local plan. The core strategy sets out the council’s housing target. To my amazement and that of my constituents, the council has set the target at a staggering 70,000 houses during the next 16 years. In doing so, the Labour-run council has all but adopted the housing figures from the now-defunct regional spatial strategy, which is an unacceptable prospect for me and my constituents. As a base for that target, the council has used Office for National Statistics population growth projections from 2008. Those data are clearly out of date and inaccurate. More recent data, such as the census, show that growth has been some 43% less than predicted, which presents the first anomaly in the target.

Additionally, the council has based housing numbers on a large explosion of jobs in Leeds, which is good news. However, the council predicts that all the people who fill those jobs will need housing in Leeds, which, in an age of commuting, is clearly nonsense. Currently, only 66% of people who work in Leeds actually live there. Why else would Leeds railway station be one of the nation’s busiest? And why else would trains arriving at stations just within the city’s border, such as Guiseley, Horsforth and New Pudsey, be so crammed if so many people working in Leeds were not from neighbouring areas?

I attended the core strategy examination with Conservative councillors and community groups to argue that the target was too high and was based on outdated and flawed data. Sadly, our case fell on deaf ears and the target was approved. Since then, I have been warning that such a high target will pose a real threat to our green belt, which we will see, now that the council is seeking to identify the sites it needs for housing, but even I could not have foreseen how bad the threat would be.

On 4 January, the council announced a range of sites across the city that it is to consider for development, and there are sites in every part of my constituency. Shockingly, the majority of sites are in the green belt: fields on Ings lane that separate Guiseley and Menston; fields along Coach road that buffer the border with Bradford; and land in Rawdon along the Southlands estate that abuts important woodland. There are also the fields along the A65 from Rawdon crematorium down to the notorious roundabout at Horsforth, and land off Owlcotes road, Gain lane, and Rodley lane.

I recognise the need for house building, and across the city of Leeds there are masses of brownfield sites that need regenerating, particularly in the centre. An ambitious plan was proposed by Leeds sustainable development group for the south side of the city to transform old, derelict sites into good housing, schools and a park—in effect, creating a garden city. That is exactly the sort of development we should surely be encouraging, particularly given the excellent transport links, but again that proposal seems to have fallen on deaf ears.

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[Stuart Andrew]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The last time I looked at the figures on the number of empty homes in Leeds city alone, it added up to around 14,000. If we add the 20,000 or so planning permissions that have been granted, that is more than 30,000 opportunities to create properties for people, so let us get that system right before we start demolishing our green belt.

I have outlined the five criteria in the green belt methodology, but in the Leeds city council site allocation, item 5—the crucial bit about assisting in regeneration by recycling land—seems to have been removed. The reason cited is that it is in the core strategy. Is that right and proper? It seems very convenient.

We have also heard lots from the Government about the need for infrastructure. Improvements are being made to notorious roundabouts in the constituency, and new railway stations are being built, but those are solutions to problems we are facing now as a result of building over the past 15 years. Any further development will make those problems return. What does the Minister consider to be adequate infrastructure, and should that not be in place before we start building new houses?

[Philip Davies]

I am sorry to interrupt my hon. Friend’s flow, but does he agree that we are in a ludicrous situation? His local authority and mine are next door to each other, wanting to build more and more houses in our constituency. At the same time, the west Yorkshire combined authority is putting all the infrastructure spending into the Labour heartlands, starving our areas of the infrastructure that they need to support the housing that it wants to impose on us.