House Building Targets: North East Bedfordshire

Richard Fuller Excerpts

Wednesday 9th June 2021 Westminster Hall

[Richard Fuller (North East Bedfordshire) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the effect of housebuilding targets in North East Bedfordshire constituency.

I am delighted to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Graham; it is a particular pleasure. I am grateful to the Speaker for granting this debate at this time, because it enables me to engage directly with the Minister on the existing impact of high levels of house building in my constituency ahead of his finalisation, with the Secretary of State, of the forthcoming planning Bill.

I place on the record my thanks to the Minister for his willingness to meet me on multiple occasions—I have lost count—to discuss the particular effects on my constituency of development from a wide variety of sources: the construction of East West Rail; the creation of development corporations; the 2017 Oxford-Cambridge arc proposals—highly questionable, in my mind— from the National Infrastructure Commission; road improvements, including on the A1 at Black Cat roundabout; and the processes of the local plans for Central Bedfordshire Council and Bedford Borough Council. The Minister has always been open to discussions, and I am grateful for that.

In this short debate, I will cover the Conservative party manifesto commitment to “infrastructure first”; the Department’s view on housing consequences from East West Rail and other transport decisions; environmental impacts of particular concern in areas where local authorities are having to meet housing growth targets that are well above average; and some critical requests for consideration by the Minister in the forthcoming planning Bill.

Let me let me start with some context. My constituency is already recording housing growth at roughly three times the average of the constituencies of all Members of this House. The National House Building Council provides some statistics: in 2018, North East Bedfordshire’s figure for new homes registered was 2.2 times the national average, in 2019 it was 2.9 times the average and last year it was 3.5 times the average. We anticipate that that rate will continue to increase in relative terms. Moreover, the Office for National Statistics states that in terms of absolute population growth, in the decade to 2026 the local authority of Central Bedfordshire, which covers part of my constituency, ranks second only to Leicester of all local authorities outside London. The population of North East Bedfordshire is already growing fast, and that rate of growth is getting faster. The absolute growth in population will be one of the highest in the country.

The effects of this house building are already having an impact on the availability of local services. Difficulties in accessing GP services are already being felt across my constituency: from Arlesey and Stotfold to Biggleswade and Sandy to Harrold and to Sharnbrook, residents have contacted me to say how increasingly difficult it is to access GP services. This is not to do with covid; it is directly to do with population growth. A House of Commons report on changes in the numbers of GPs, trainees and locums for clinical commissioning groups across the country records a 6% decrease in the number of qualified permanent GPs for the Bedfordshire, Luton and Milton Keynes CCG since 2019. In that CCG, which covers my constituency, there were 2,112 patients per full-time equivalent GP as of December 2019, compared with 1,722 in England as a whole. There is already a disparity in access to GP services, which is only likely to grow, given the growth in housing numbers.

The Minister and I—and indeed you, Sir Graham—stood on a manifesto commitment of “infrastructure first”, pledging that we would ensure that new roads and services were in place before people moved into new homes. Does the Minister acknowledge that securing access to GPs and school places is a crucial principle of our “infrastructure first” pledge? Will he commit to an urgent review, with his colleagues in the Department of Health and Social Care and in the Department for Education, to assess the current and projected requirements for my constituency and plans for improvements?

Let me turn to other aspects of infrastructure: roads and railways, of which my constituency has many, in part thanks to a 2017 National Infrastructure Commission report entitled “Partnering for Prosperity,” which was chaired by Lord Adonis. The report stated, with reference to the area between Oxford and Cambridge:

“Without swift and determined action to overcome the area’s housing crisis, it will fall behind its international competitors and fail to attract and retain the talent and skills it needs.”

I will not question that, although I feel that it was a bit tendentious in its expectation. This technocratic report went on to state:

“If the arc is to maximise its economic potential, current rates of house building will need to double—delivering up to one million new homes by 2050.”

However, the target of 1 million homes was wrong. It was wrong then, and it is wrong now. The target included an allocation of overspill of 230,000 or more from London. It was based not on the fulfilment of the projections, but on the over-fulfilment of the highest projection of growth for the area. In short, it was a number plucked out of thin air by Lord Adonis, to get a PR-ready headline, but it bears only a tangential relationship to reality. Yet this “one million new homes” figure remains a potential threat to the already successful plans for housing growth in my local authorities of Central Bedfordshire and Bedford Borough Council. Can the Minister reassure me that this fantasy figure of 1 million new homes in the OxCam arc no longer plays a role in housing targets for the area?

From my discussions with CPRE and local environmental groups in Bedfordshire, I know there are considerable concerns that the rate of growth of housing means that biodiversity and access to green spaces are threatened. Does the Minister recognise that these frequently heard concerns, which I know concern him as well, are even more important in areas of considerable housing growth? Will he commit to requiring developments in Central Bedfordshire and Bedford Borough Council local authority areas to embed environmental considerations from the very start of the planning process, rather than making them considerations somewhat later down the track? I believe we need to prioritise access to our environment for residents where housing development is considerably above the national average. The Minister and the Department need to take action to move forward those considerations right to the start of the planning process.

A key part of the National Infrastructure Commission report was the creation of the east-west railway, linking Oxford to Cambridge and to points beyond them on both sides. This project is well under way, but the process has created concerns and confusion for many of my residents. I do not want to draw the Minister into transport-related matters, but can he advise me on a couple of points?

First, in the discussions with local authorities about the East West Rail project, were any considerations of consequential requirements for additional housing ever made by his Department or by the Department for Transport? If so, what were those additional requirements? Secondly, the Minister may be aware that, in part at the request of the leadership of Bedford Borough Council, the east-west railway is now planned to go via the town centre and then north across my constituency. That was a considerable surprise for many of my residents, partly because Bedford Borough Council’s recommendation was put into the consultation without the Mayor or the leadership letting the councillors know that. They did not even have a vote on whether to put it into the consultation. It was a surprise, because people saw that route and thought it was longer, more costly and hillier than alternatives.

I am agnostic on what the route decision should be, but I am not agnostic on the facts that underpin decisions when they are made. As we know, with very large infrastructure decisions, it is important that local communities understand and see that the process is transparent, and understand and see the data underlying any decision.

Given that surprise, will the Minister advise me—not on transport matters, but specifically on housing ones—whether that particular route decision to go through the town amended any expectation of consequential housing growth over any other route options? He may not have answers to my two questions today, but if he would commit to writing to me about them, I will be very grateful.

As I mentioned, my constituency has multiple changes planned or in progress, yet I am advised by local authorities that the level of co-ordination between Departments—over changes in water routes, railways, roads and other utilities—is extremely poor. That causes greater uncertainty in the preparation of local plans and greater disruption for residents. Will the Minister pay particular regard to improving such co-ordination in his forthcoming planning Bill? Furthermore, I encourage him in his efforts to reform CIL, the community infrastructure levy, as part of the effort to give local authorities the resources they need to fund required infrastructure.

The planning Bill offers a positive vision to enable housing developments to proceed more effectively and with more, not less, local community involvement. Does the Minister agree that any future changes in planning regulations should include, and indeed enhance, the involvement of local people in shaping and protecting their communities? Does he share my desire that the voice of local residents, easier access to proposed developments in their areas, the empowering of neighbourhood plans to have real teeth, promotion of micro-scale developments, encouragement of more smaller local builders and the closing of loopholes for creeping developers to exploit should be clear objectives of his plan and his Bill?

From discussions with town and parish councillors, in Potton, Upper Caldecott, Everton and Harrold in particular, I know that those are aspects of reform that are crucial to them. Reassurance of the power of democratic involvement in the planning of local communities is particularly important to North East Bedfordshire given the scale of change. Will the Minister also advise me what his Department sees as the respective roles of the spatial framework, development corporations and local authorities in setting and meeting housing targets in my constituency?

Finally, I have some further points on the planning Bill. Given the market failure in house building, greater recognition of the social contract is needed in fulfilling the country’s ambitions of making home ownership more accessible. The Local Government Association states that there is already planning permission for more than 1.1 million homes. Currently, there are no real penalties for failure to build when permission is granted. That free ride should end, with existing approvals given a “build by” sunset clause on planning rights and all new permissions issued with a build and council tax schedule.

Without such action, the ability of local authorities to fulfil their part of the social contract—from the national Government’s objective to the local plans for housing, the neighbourhood and parish council’s control over what happens in their communities and builders building what the country demands and requires of them—will be fundamentally undermined. I hope that the Minister will bear those particular concerns of North East Bedfordshire in mind.

The value of the debate for me has been in being able to demonstrate to the Minister that in one of the constituencies in the country that is facing some of the most considerable change—potential and current, of which house building is a crucial part—his Department and his ambitions for the planning Bill can have real impact and real contact. I hope that he will take away some of the points that I have made as he finalises his preparations for the planning Bill.