Localism in Planning

Philip Hollobone Excerpts

Wednesday 17th July 2013 Westminster Hall

[Mr Crispin Blunt (Reigate) (Con)]

I apologise to my right hon. Friend for intervening so early, but I am also serving on a Joint Committee, to which I need to return. I just want to say how much I welcome his securing this debate and the fact that so many colleagues wish to take part. I have made it clear to the Prime Minister on the Floor of the House that the national policy planning framework is not working to protect the green belt. There is greenfield development in the green belt designated for my constituency at the behest of a planning inspector, rather than local people, which is evidence that our system is not working. I am delighted that my right hon. Friend is raising these issues today.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (in the Chair)]

Order. Eleven Members have indicated that they wish to speak, and I am absolutely determined to do my best to ensure that those 11 people speak. It would greatly help the chances of those who want to speak if they do not intervene beforehand; otherwise we simply will not be able to get everybody in.

[Nick Herbert]

I understand the concern of my hon. Friend the Member for Reigate (Mr Blunt). Protected landscapes, including the green belt, are specifically singled out in the national framework to ensure that they are not subject to these pressures. My concern is for the wider countryside, which does not have such designation, yet he points out that there is concern in those protected areas, too. That is another reason why we need to reconsider the matter.

We agree that we need more housing. Houses have never been less affordable. The gap between incomes and house prices is very wide, and there is clearly a problem. There is clearly a need for more houses, given the rising population, changing lifestyles and so on. That much is not in dispute.

The new Government agreed to approach those issues by moving away from the top-down approach of setting housing targets, so the coalition agreement was explicit:

“We will rapidly abolish Regional Spatial Strategies and return decision-making powers on housing and planning to local councils… In the longer term, we will radically reform the planning system to give neighbourhoods far more ability to determine the shape of the places in which their inhabitants live”.

The regional spatial strategies have been abolished. The top-down target has nominally gone in the south-east, but a number of problems have arisen, despite what the coalition agreement promised.

First, district councils in my constituency, and I believe elsewhere, do not believe that the targets have really disappeared. There is considerable danger that because of the way the process has been set up—with a requirement to conduct a strategic housing market assessment that may not properly take into account the downturn that we have had—and other pressures, which I will address, what those councils are really being told is that they have little choice but to reimpose the target that we said we were taking away. That damages confidence and removes the freedom that local authorities should have to deliver housing.

The whole theory of the localist approach is that, if we move to a system of incentives and encourage responsibility from councils, they will plan for additional houses in a way that does not set up conflict. Indeed, in my own area, whereas 51,000 houses were allocated to the four district councils that cover my constituency under the south-east plan, the current proposed plans of the four councils suggest that they will build nearly 40,000 houses, which is well over three quarters of the target originally set by the previous Government.

We must reject the false dichotomy that there is either a highest housing number or zero houses, with my constituents or councils rejecting the prospect of any house building. The councils are not doing that; they are actually planning for a very responsible level of housing, but it is important that they do that by consent and can carry their communities with them, which is the principle that we set out. If the emerging plans that they published are overturned by the Planning Inspectorate, or if the councils set a higher number than they want to build because they fear that some plans will be overturned by the inspectorate, that freedom has effectively been taken away. So my first key point is that we must not chase the target that we said we would abolish. If we chase that target, we will undermine confidence in the system that we said we would set up.

Secondly, although planning authorities are required to assess housing needs in their area—it is right that they should be able to do so—it is important that they also weigh up the availability of infrastructure to support those housing needs. We have a serious infrastructure deficit in West Sussex. We have an inadequacy of water and real pressure on unprotected countryside, which is important for agricultural use. We have pressure on school places and rural roads. The system will be failing if district councils are not able to adjust their figure to reflect that and say, “This is what is realistically deliverable in our area.” Again, district councils feel under huge pressure to adhere to the original high housing target with little regard to such infrastructure considerations, which should be material and allow councils to set a reasonable level of housing.

Thirdly—this is the real point that I wish to make—there is now a growing risk that we will return to the bad old days of planning by appeal, under which the plans put together by local authorities are effectively overturned by the inspectorate. More to the point, before plans are fully in place, the inspectorate might be allowed to uphold appeals from speculative developers that are charging into my constituency—I understand that they are all over the countryside—and putting in applications in the hope that, in the climate that has now been set, the inspectorate will uphold them. I believe that those developers are responding to a signal that has been sent to them.

--- Later in debate ---

[Nick Herbert]

That is an interesting suggestion. So far as further policy development is concerned, we should look at what measures can be taken to prevent land banking and at more radical reform of the planning system, which is undoubtedly constraining supply in a way that drives up prices. In the meantime, we need to make the system of localism that we promised work.

In my constituency, one chief executive of a district council, whom I will not name, told a group of parish councillors who were discussing with him their proposed neighbourhood plan, “Localism is dead.” That is the message that people on the ground are beginning to receive. When we explicitly promised localism not only in the Conservative manifesto but in the coalition agreement, when we have just passed a Localism Act, when we have told people that they will be in charge in their local communities and when we have put on them the responsibility for planning sensibly, we must uphold their ability to do so. Allowing a quango, through the back door, to reimpose the top-down housing targets that we said we would abolish is damaging to the process of localism, to public trust and, if we persist, to the Government themselves.

I am a passionate believer in localism. I want to be able to go out and defend the policy. It could be made to work, but that first requires acceptance that it is going wrong.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (in the Chair)]

Before I call the next speaker, John Mann, I thank Nick Herbert for his contribution. Owing to the level of interest in the debate, the Chairman of Ways and Means has given me permission to impose a three-minute time limit. I know that that is short, but it will mean that everyone gets in if there are no interventions. The running order that I propose is as follows: John Mann, Nicholas Soames, Annette Brooke, Caroline Nokes, Stuart Andrew, Bob Neill, Penny Mordaunt, Andrew Bingham, Zac Goldsmith, Chris White, Geoffrey Clifton-Brown and John Howell. All should be able to get in. The Opposition Front-Bench spokesman has kindly agreed to limit her remarks to 10 minutes, which will give the Minister slightly longer—perhaps with interventions at that stage—to respond to any residual concerns. I hope that that is acceptable to everyone.

[John Mann (Bassetlaw) (Lab)]

Thank you, Mr Hollobone. I have cut my speech accordingly. It is safe to say, and let it ring from every single rooftop tonight, “Localism is dead!”, and the Conservative party admits it. We have heard an excellent speech, demonstrating the absolute betrayal of the Conservative party manifesto and of local communities, and a shift to the centre by the Government, the Minister and, in particular, his predecessor, who is now the chairman of the Conservative party. That is in spite of the warnings of people such as myself about the national planning guidelines.

I have a few questions for the Minister—he will need his pen—which I am sure he will want to answer. Will he endorse my early-day motion 428, tabled today, on UK Coal? UK Coal is the largest landowner of brownfield sites throughout the country. I would be happy to have 10,000 houses on the site of Harworth colliery—destroyed by the regional spatial strategy and the inability to have flexibility. Will he endorse that approach?

Is it possible, where the regional spatial strategy has imposed housing targets on a local district council’s core strategy, for a local council now to reduce those targets? Is it possible for a local district council with targets set—even if it kept them—to redistribute those targets between different communities, in order to shift more to the brownfield sites and away from the greenfield and green belt sites?

A wind farm application was defeated unanimously in recent months in the local council, because it was opposed by all local residents—I declare a vested interest, I am one of those residents—but it was resubmitted this week. What will happen when the council turns it down again? Will the developer win on appeal, after a second unanimous decision by a local authority backing its local population?

The community infrastructure levy is a tax on development—will the Minister remove this tax on self-build housing and on tiny developments to allow economic regeneration at the micro-level by small builders, family builders and young couples? The affordable housing levy means a tax in Hertfordshire of £186,000 per property for new properties. Will the Minister remove this new taxation for single developments and, I suggest, small developments of perhaps three to five? The tax was brought in by the national planning guidance and did not exist before—

[Mr Philip Hollobone (in the Chair)]

Order.

--- Later in debate ---

[Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (The Cotswolds) (Con)]

I am very grateful to you, Mr Hollobone, for allowing me to speak, especially as I, too, had only hoped to intervene. I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Arundel and South Downs (Nick Herbert) on securing the debate. I agree wholeheartedly with his comments that the emerging local plans should be given more weight by the inspectorate.

I have a particularly difficult constituency in terms of planning: 80% of it is an area of outstanding natural beauty; I have 10 historic market towns that are absolute gems—if there were a listed town status, all 10 would qualify—and I have the highest number of listed houses as a proportion of the housing stock of anywhere outside London. I therefore want to make three specific points to my hon. Friend the Minister.

First, I did praise the national planning policy framework when it came out, but I had one specific reservation, which has come back to bite our communities. As the Minister knows, one case in my constituency is now to be reviewed in the courts. It concerns the 20% historical under-provision. This is grossly unfair. It is quite reasonable to have a five-year land bank, but my council has a very good record of bringing forward developments. It has a very good new homes bonus rate. To impose an additional 20%, on top of the five-year land supply, is completely unreasonable and unsustainable. If we are not careful, we will lose those 10 historic market towns—we will lose those little gems that we have in this country.

Secondly, we must have a mechanism by which infrastructure is provided before large-scale developments are built. There is a lot of sewage flooding in my constituency. Thames Water’s performance in my constituency is woeful. We had a case in which sewage flooded an existing community, and because the system could not put sufficient weight on Thames Water’s representations, another 150 houses were given permission right next to where there was already sewage flooding.

My third point relates to solar farms. We have been assailed in the Cotswolds by applications for solar farms recently. I do not object to that necessarily, although there is no guidance to say what the impact should be on an area of outstanding natural beauty. Suffice it to say that there is no mechanism in the planning system for the community to benefit from these solar farms. They would be classed as large developments if they were housing developments. They are between 20 and 50 acres and involve many millions of pounds for the developer. If it were a residential development, the local community would get considerable benefit through the infrastructure levy, yet there is no such mechanism in relation to solar farms.

I therefore say this to the Minister. Let localism work. Let the local councils decide where to put these houses. In the Cotswolds, the number of permissions granted is now three times the historical 10-year rate. That is unacceptable and will lead to the loss of those historic communities in the Cotswolds.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (in the Chair)]

Last but certainly not least—John Howell.

--- Later in debate ---

[John Howell]

I understand my hon. Friend’s point, but in some ways it is irrelevant. That is an issue for district councils to take into account.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (in the Chair)]

Thank you all. Everyone has been exceptionally well behaved, and as a result, we can relax the no-interventions rule. The Opposition Front-Bench spokesman has agreed to keep her remarks to 10 minutes, so there will be plenty of time for the Minister to make his remarks and for hon. Members to come back, if they wish.